Open Space and Hyperspace

"If I hated you enough to leave you behind, you would not have made it onto this ship at all."

While Leigh differed from the average droid in many ways, she was similar in that she was not in the habit of mincing her words. Her simulated face turned towards the ship's viewport, the dark circles underneath her eyes drawn sharply against her dome.

"And if Vidalu Na'an intended to merely make use of you, she would not be taking you to Felucia."

The dome flickered again, taking in the girl's withdrawn posture, the stubborn, isolated curl of her spine. 

"Or giving you a choice as to whether to stay there."

"Yeah, me neither."  Na'an forced a smile, backing toward the door. Now free of Adelle's grip, her hand crept up to pull at the loose hair around her face. "But you should at least try. We'll be dropping you off first, and I don't want the Masters thinking I'm responsible for your current state."
The ship rumbled lightly as someone in the cockpit shifted course in hyperspace; Na'an looked up, the sound triggering another train of thought. "I've been leaving Leigh to do all the driving. We should probably debrief...I'll send someone down to check on you soon. If you do get up, don't try to open the secondary quarters, right?"

Before Adelle could respond, the little woman turned on her heel and was gone, leaving only the sound of her jogging to the cockpit, and the crystallized kinrath egg in the doctor's hand.

As Na'an jogged towards the cockpit, she stopped again to push the hair out of her face, breathing deeply, trying to think through the haze of painkillers she had taken.
She hadn't gotten a chance to ask Adelle what she'd been doing on Nar Shaddaa in the first place. Neither she nor Leigh had expected her to be on the criminal planet at all, let alone in the company of a supposedly-dead woman, but whatever had happened must have been beyond nightmarish to cause such reactions...


Her breathing paused.

But those reactions weren't...recent, were they? The reactions she'd felt in that room were long-standing, and ran deeper than she'd ever guessed Doc was capable of. It put things in perspective a bit, yes, but to think of Adelle Bastiel paired with the taste of blood...



"Ain't right."



When her hands came away from her face they were still trembling, but only slightly.

She'd gotten lucky to make it to the ship. Saving Adelle, and even the Shans...she'd cut her timing of Babylon closer than she'd wanted. The haze of drugs blocked out the worst of the headaches, and oddly enough the moment spent comforting Adelle had been...calming. but her head was pounding dully in a way that wouldn't go away without a good few hours of sleep. She had to get up to Leigh in the cockpit before taking the other pills.


Of course, that meant passing where she'd locked up Caoimhin. As she walked, Na'an's pace slowed, and her eye lingered on the dull metal door to her side.

The air around the entrance of the secondary quarters felt...heavy. Not an active bludgeon, but like it had been thickened somehow with a gas denser than oxygen, a gas that made breathing feel like more of an effort. Na'an glared at the panel holding the door shut, forcing herself to exhale and inhale again. The air behind the door must be thicker still, clinging to her friend like a cloud of ash.

"Damn it, Shans," she muttered, aware that the presence behind the door might be able to hear. "Three years. Three years gone and still..."

There was no point to finishing the thought, even if Cao could hear. Na'an pressed on, crossing the short distance to the cockpit.





"Leigh," she said as she palmed her way inside, "I think I've--oh."


Kent was also in the cockpit. The girl had curled herself into the curve of the copilot's seat, her hunched shoulders trembling as if under some vast, unpleasant weight. As Na'an watched, she rose her head, looking at her hands clenched into fists in her lap. The shaking slowed, then stopped, and Na'an caught a whiff of something sharp and sweet, like a breath of perfume chasing out a foul scent she hadn't realized she'd gotten used to smelling.

...So that was why Vilus had been so quiet. Kent had a will in her, then, to hold up against a mental attack without training. But she was still hunched in the chair, her back closed off and miserable, her head all but in her hands. It was a familiar little posture--any kid who'd learned to live alone, dependent on no one, would know it at a glance.

Na'an closed the distance between herself and the controls without a word. Her hand on Kent's shoulder was slow and gentle, a squeeze of encouragement rather than a brusque tap.

"There's caf downstairs," she said, bending to speak gently in Kent's ear. The teenager jumped at the sudden sound but she continued. "If you want it. But you really should eat something today."

There was a quiet clink as she placed the dropped bottle on the arm of the chair, next to Kent's hand.

If Kent had started at the sudden voice in her ear, it was Na’an that started at the sudden embrace, going very still as the teen’s arms wrapped around her, then Leigh. Kent’s voice seemed to barely register before she turned on her heel and left the cockpit Unusually, Leigh was the first to respond to the gesture. Turning on the autopilot, she turned the pilot’s seat to regard her partner with an unlit dome.

“You really need to stop freezing up like that,” she said sharply.

Na’an flushed. “Oh, stoppit,” she said, pointing an accusatory finger at the droid’s impassive dome. “She’s been so closed off, I wasn’t expecting it. Besides, I think she needed it.” She rounded the copilot’s chair, pouring herself into it with a groan. “Sort of hurt her feelings earlier. Told her to check out the Masters where we’re going before assuming I was going to train her.” Absently, she checked the navigator, nodding when she saw the name Felucia at the far end of their flight path.

Leigh nodded as well, and turned back towards the controls. “The odds are in favor of her requesting you anyway, you know.”

“Then we’ll discuss it then.”

“She is manipulative and unnecessarily provocative. And I have doubts about her capacity for patience--”

“I said we’ll discuss it then, Leigh.”
This time it was Na’an’s voice that took on the sharper tone. She turned suddenly, resting her elbows on her knees and ignoring the copilot’s controls to focus on the droid with a probing look. “There’s other things we need to talk about first.”

Leigh did not turn to match her. “I assume this means that Caoimhin and Eliana Shan are confined and separate, and that Eliana’s wounds have been attended to. Otherwise you are wasting my time and attention to our flight plan--”

“Of course they’re confined and separate. I may not be as smart as you, Miss Metal, but I’m not stupid, and just because you’re angry doesn’t mean you can take it out on me--”

“I am not angry--”

“Leigh!”

Before the droid could react Na’an almost launched out of her seat. Her hands clapped onto either side of Leigh’s dome and wrenched her sideways and back so that the projector was facing her, half crouching so that the next time it was used the artificial face would be eye-to-eye with her own. Leigh’s gears squealed in protest, but the little woman did not let go, although her arms shook slightly with the effort. “Look at me. I mean, really.”

For once, Leigh obeyed. Her empty dome brightened, filled with the pretty blonde, freckled face Leigh had favored over the last threeyears--scowling, for once, at Na'an. But there was no deterring Na'an from continuing this little chat with a scowl alone.
“I’ve never seen you like this. You only ever get mad at me, but it’s never…” Na'an trailed off for a moment, searching for the right words.

“I can’t read your mind,” she finally continued. “And I wouldn’t understand it even if I could. You have to talk to me.”




Leigh did not respond immediately. When she did, the tones being synthesized were unwilling, almost sulky.

“....Eliana Shan is alive.”

So she decided to just state the obvious. “...Um, yeah. I know.”

Na’an finally let go of Leigh’s head, and dropped her hands to her sides. They gripped onto the fabric on her pants in tight little fists, whiting the knuckles. “It was all I could do not to snatch her by the hair and force that video right down her throat right then and there,” she continued, bitterly.

Leigh shook her head, matching her holographic gesture to the rea one. “No, Na’an,” she said, her projected mouth a thin, unpleasant line. “We’ve talked about this. I killed your loved ones, along with KR-04.”

“But Elly programmed you! You didn’t know what you were doing, you didn’t understand the order you were given--”

“No, Na’an.”

Before Na’an could argue, Leigh put her hand gently over her mouth. Na’an made an annoyed sound at the intrusion, but Leigh spoke over her. “I don’t think you understand, even after all this time, the brilliance of the company you kept. Eliana Shan is--was--a genius. You don’t even know what she has accomplished on Nar Shaddaa in the just last three years--between her resources and notoriety she all but runs the planet. And before her, no one had even tried coding a droid’s operating system by hard-copying a living mind.” Her projected eyes looked down at her hand as she pulled it from her partner’s face, the articulated fingers flexing as easily as organic ones would have done. Na’an’s eyes lingered there as well, still confused.
“My functions are as complex as they are, are able to evolve as they do, because of her innovations. For all her sloppiness in the rest of the programming process, for everything she could have done but didn’t...she still made me with a certain level of autonomy. I extrapolated. I chose. And I chose badly.”


This was a conversation they had had before. Leigh was never going to change her position--there was no point in trying to force her now. “...Fine. Whatever. You’re not mad for the reasons I am.” Na'an let that hang in the air for a beat, then continued.

“So tell me why you are.”

Leigh almost did not respond at all. But that was not their way--if Na'an was needling her, was pushing this point so hard, it was because the point needed pushing, either for her own sake or for what she perceived was Leigh's. She didn't want to talk about this.  But then, what living being would?

“Eliana Shan is a genius. And she is also my Mother.” Leigh did not need to breathe, but she simulated one anyway. Perhaps, in an oddly human way, she needed to compose her thoughts too. 

“Before she...left...me and my sisters, she instilled a protocol in us based around that fact. She has even used it once--on Kamino.”

Na’an blinked. It was true that the only time she and Leigh had been on Kamino together was when she was half mad, trying to rewrite time in the middle of a rainstorm, but she was sure that Elly hadn’t executed any sort of protocol during that fight. There hadn’t been any time, unless…she had said something. Only a few words...Mother needs you, was it?

“...Wait. That was a program?”

Leigh nodded. “A very simple one. A temporary wipe of my system’s higher functions, replaced with a sole directive.”

“What directive?”

This time, it was Leigh the sounded oddly bitter. “Protect the Shans. Whatever the cost.”




At whatever cost. “...I don’t understand.”

Leigh sighed. She would have to say it plainly, then. Turning her dome back, she locked her eyes to Na’an’s, her voice so clear and sharp there was no mistaking it for anything but artificial.
“If Eliana Shan activates the Mother protocol, I will become a mindless automaton dedicated to her until the moment she deactivates it or it is overridden. I can be told to do anything. To anyone. And I will do it without feeling or hesitation.”

“...Oh, gods.”  

Na'an stepped away, her eye locked on Leigh's face in a kind of numb disbelief. “Not even she could go that far. What kind of mother would…”

But Leigh wouldn't lie to her. It was one of the rules--one of their rules. If she was saying this, it was true.

 And the worst thing was that if she accepted the existence of the Mother protocol, it made everything else about this conversation make more sense.  Her partner’s insistence on taking the blame, bringing it up now of all times; her reticence to even start this conversation, having to force her; her harshness towards Kent, with all that emphasis on being manipulative...

...it was about her autonomy. She'd said so herself. 

Leigh wasn’t just angry; she was afraid. Eliana Shan--her ‘Mother’--had given her partner life, and now that she was back she could take what made her alive with only a few words, for any reason at all. The very prospect made Elly the most terrifying being an unflappable droid like Leigh could imagine...and now she was here, on their ship, only a few yards away.

Well, that explained things very easily. It also made Na’an’s choices very clear.

“Fine, then. I just won’t let her say that.”

As a droid, Leigh did not start with surprise as a general rule; the look on her face was enough, though, to approximate the reaction. “You can’t possibly--”

Before Leigh could finish Na’an poked her projection with a finger, causing it to flicker.

The time the image took to reconfigure was enough; she held up the finger again as a warning for the droid to keep quiet. “I was already planning to have Cao detained by the Masters as soon as we land,” she said. “With what he just did, he can’t be trusted to leave on his own. It’ll be simple enough to have Eliana put on watch too--as you said, she’s already a criminal mastermind. I'll gag her myself, if that's what it takes.”

She paused for a minute, letting her announcement linger in the air. When she spoke again, it was firm. Decided.

“I won’t let her hurt you. Ever.”

She should have known that would be her response. Leigh whirred slightly as the sound of it recorded into memory. 

“...Thank you.”


“Don’t.”

The pause after that was not an uncomfortable one--rather, it was the rich and satisfied silence of an understanding that didn't need any more words than those already said.  It was a silence the two experience often, and were used to, and could in it find some small measure of comfort. 

...


Unfortunately, it was also temporary.


“….But that’s not all we have to talk about, is it.”


“No. It is not.”

There was yet another...unpleasant...topic that needed airing before that comfortable quiet could last. This time, Leigh took the lead, deciding to lump all the relevant information into one shot.  

“We have recently received intelligence that Aherk Formidonis is confirmed alive and possibly active. In addition, while you were securing our passengers I received contact from a signal identical to those used by KR-04 units. It requested that I provide the whereabouts of Formidonis, seemingly under the assumption that I had them.”

As she spoke, the droid  could literally calculate the tension building in Na'an's shoulders. The human almost stumbled back, falling into the copilot's chair and curling up into it. With her heels on her seat and her arms wrapped around her knees, she seemed so small...like when they'd first met. 
“....oh,” she said, and it was more a breath than a word. "The robot's a part of it too, then."

“..I cannot read your mind, either. And I would not understand it if I could. Na’an. You have to tell me what you’re feeling.”



“I…” The words seemed to stick in Na'an's throat. She paused, swallowed, started again.

“It’s...it’s harder to describe than I thought it’d be. But I guess the first thing I feel is scared. Or maybe terrified is a better word. Leigh, just look at me.” Na’an held up her hand for Leigh; traced against a background of stars, the trembling in her fingers was distinct.
“That’s the effects of Babylon, yeah, but I was shaking like that before I even used it. I had to go into full-crisis mode the minute the possibility that he was alive crossed my mind. No thought, just fight my way out like an animal, and now I’m not fighting. I’m thinking about it and I keep wondering when he's coming this time. I keep thinking, thinking it’s going to happen again and…”

She shrugged and curled more tightly into herself, an oddly helpless little gesture.
“But he’s just a man, isn’t he? He’s not some god,” she continued, speaking practically into her knees. “He’s not some vengeful spirit, not the Force himself, not my punishment. He’s leagues smarter than I am, and for all I know he’s stronger than I’ll ever be, but he’s just one man.”

Leigh waited for Na’an to keep speaking. “You also have to consider that we have not been hiding our location for the last three years,” she said when she did not. “If he were looking for you still, he would have found us easily.”

“Yeah, I suppose so.” Na’an shrugged again. “But that was always his way, you know? He’d drive you mad just wondering, before coming out of the blue with something you couldn’t possibly expect...”

Something about Na’an’s expression shifted again. Leigh noted it with bemusement, and perhaps no small amount of alarm. “Your vocal tones indicate a certain...lack of negativity,” she said immediately. “Are you...pleased that Aherk Formidonis is alive?”

At that, Na’an sat up. A flash of surprise crossed her eye, lapsing into a strange, abstract thoughtfulness.

“...Maybe?” she said hesitantly. “Or, rather, it might...I’m...”

Leigh waited. When Na’an looked like that--which was less often, now, than it used to be--Doc had always recommended that the droid let her work through whatever she was trying to process on her own.

“I keep thinking back to that day on Nal Hutta,” Na’an continued then, in a faraway voice. “I pleaded with him so hard...all I wanted was for him to come home, to come back to me. But he kept pushing...the look on his face when I…” she shuddered, burying her face in her knees again. “It was like he’d finally gotten the one thing he wanted from me. That look--it ruined me.

“And to find that after all these years I didn’t actually do it!” In
Inexplicably, Na’an chuckled at the thought, the inappropriate sound muted against her legs.




Leigh did not respond with similar humor.



“And that is what pleases you?” she asked flatly.

“If that makes sense.”

“..No, it does not.”

The droid’s responses had never been quite so...instinctual, as her human partner’s. Being robotic, her instincts were to calculate all probabilities, all possible modes of action, before selecting the one with the most-desired outcome. However, her response time now was easy to calculate. Leigh’s desired outcome would be achieved with only one course of action.

“I do not think that there is any need to do anything about Aherk Formidonis at this point,” she said slowly, turning to look out the ship’s main viewport. “Considering the current trends It is unlikely that he has any concerns involving either of us at this point in time. An encounter with a KR unit is more likely, but still improbable given our lack of proximity.”

Na’an nodded and opened her mouth to respond, but Leigh raised a hand to stop her. “But if in the future we encounter him or a KR unit,” she continued, “I would ask you to step back and let me handle the situation.”

“Leigh, that’s not--”

“No.” Leigh’s voice came across a little too loud; she modulated immediately, intent rather than angry. Her next words were not original, but even as an echo they were her own.

“I will not let him hurt you, either.”




This time, Na’an did not speak at all. If anything, the words did not seem to register immediately. She turned back towards her curled-in knees, opened her mouth, closed it again, rubbed feverishly at her still-itching prosthetic. She opened her mouth again, almost spoke, then closed her lips a second time, covering them with a hand.

When she finally did respond, it was with motion rather than words.

Uncurling her body, Na’an stood again from the copilot’s seat and again took the step between her and the back of Leigh’s chair. She reached for the droid, but this time not sharply or with vehemence. Rather, her arms rested limp against the bulky metallic shoulders, the hands twining together at her chest like small birds. She was just tall enough to rest her cheek against the top of Leigh’s dome, and so she did, letting the warmth seep into her cheekbones, the vibration muting the low pounding still in her head.

They rested there together, woman and droid, both of their eyes turned forwards, and the quiet that had fled at first settled peacefully between them at last. The starscape before them was moving so swiftly as to seem immobile, an infinite tunnel of stars connecting them to a world still too distant to see. That world, as it said on their navigation system, was not their own adopted world, but a thick jungle planet no closer to home that Nar Shaddaa had been.

It was a familiar place--a place they knew, a place where they were known--but it was not their place.




Na’an broke the silence first.

“I want to go home.”

Leigh turned her face upward, a small smile on her face at last. “We will be returning home shortly,” she replied. “However, shortly will also be later than initially projected, considering the circumstances.”

Na’an groaned, the sound muffled as she turned even further into the metallic surface. “We should probably call Noba, then. She’ll be shuffed if we don’t get the fuel there on time.”

“Our contingency plan is still available.”

“..Oh. Right. Sounds good.”

At that, Na’an detached herself from the droid, sliding back into the copilot’s seat and reaching for the comm. “You post the ad, and I’ll call Felucia?”

Leigh’s response was crisp. “Only if you promise to sleep afterwards. You need to recover fully.”

“You know I’m not leaving this chair.”

“Then sleep in the chair. Take the pills if you have to.”

Na’an snorted, and picked up the mouthpiece. “Yes’m.”



***********

A few minutes later, two communications left the Hawk-class transport shuttle nearly simultaneously. The first communication was a broad-wave signal, targeted to the public holonet boards of the galaxy’s more notorious worlds.

Requested: A ship and crew capable of the legitimate and safe transport of starship fuel. Licensure and half payment guaranteed upon contract, remainder upon completion. Job is above-table but requires discretion concerning employer. Contract location and details will be transmitted upon acceptance of this communication. First come, first served.

The second communication went ahead of them, to the Jedi Enclave nestled deep in the Felucian jungle.

Um, hello? This is Vidalu Na’an on the Hawk, arriving from Nar Shaddaa. I know Leigh and I aren’t expected for another month, but we have some passengers and...um, we need expedited clearance for landing at the Enclave. Two requiring medical attention and two...well, two should be considered hostile and rather dangerous. I’ll explain the details when we arrive, but we need additional assistance with detainment upon landing, preferably from some of the Masters on hand. Please respond, we need to know what we’ve got to work with.

After that, the ship, streaking through hyperspace, went silent for a long time.

Kent downs the cup of liquid without flinching. Thanks for the warning, but i have gotten use to worse. She takes the protein bar and mixes it with her cheesy slop of a snack. Thanks for that too. i don't mind things that are good for me, but i do try to take advantage when i get something that tastes good.

I wasn't planning on it, eavesdropping. However, when the opportunity arises, and gives you a chance for information, it is best to seize it.

I am Kent, i am guessing you are Adelle? Some kind of doctor or something? Na'an didn't elaborate.

She wasn't coming off like a smart mouth, just a teenager with way to much life experience.
Kent looks at her reflection in a polished cooling unit. She sees why everyone was so concerned with her eating and getting vitamins. It had been nearly a month since she had any real nutrition, it was showing. Hair, pretty still but not as shiny and full as it should be, fingernails weak, eyes not glistening. She had been better, also had been worse. Believe it or not, I normally look better than this... Normally you can't tell I am a street r...She had never really admitted that she was a street rat to anyone, even her self. She stumbles unable to get it out.

Adelle caught the break in words, the slight choking as Kent tripped over her words. It spoke of shame, embarrassment of how she'd grown up, who she was. Perhaps it would be best to steer clear of that part of the situation until Kent was more comfortable with the idea of opening up. Certainly she was comfortable with talking.

"I am indeed Adelle. But I'm more of a healer than a doctor . . . 'or something.'" She smiled a little, knowing well the limitations of her own abilities. Images of torn melon pulp flashed through her mind. "I would caution you not to seize every opportunity. You're in a safe place here. Na'an would never hurt you. And you're essentially telling her you don't trust her when you eavesdrop on her. You're telling her that her privacy doesn't matter. That only you and what you want matters. You probably don't mean it that way. But that's what it says. Trust Na'an. She'll take care of you."

A twinge came from the medbay and the reluctant light tugged on her mind. Adelle looked past the walls, feeling the heart rate and pulse of Elly. The sedative would be wearing off soon. She needed to get to work before that happened. Adelle stood and refilled her cup, all but shoving half of one protein bar in her mouth. "Shtay here or insha bunksh. An' eat!" She briskly walked out the door and palmed it closed behind her. Elly still lay on the table, deep in sedation still. Adelle set her caf and food aside, checked Elly's pulse then washed her hands thoroughly. Last thing she wanted to do was add to the infection. Carefully, she peeled back the gauze and set it aside. Rust colored blood crusted the edges of amber glass shards embedded inside torn flesh. The bloody socket felt all too familiar. Adelle closed her eyes, shutting out the world except for the hum of the hyperspace drive. She felt Elly's pulse at her eardrums, the throb of her heart in her veins, the ebb and flow of the blood and the searing nerves around the eye. Matching her breathing, she focused on a shard and began to ease it out. This would be a long trip.

*****

Something was happening. Adelle snapped awake, looking around for what woke her. From her chair in a corner of the medbay, she could see everything exactly where she'd left it. Her wrappers and empty mug on a counter by the hand-washing sink; a small silver tray of tools near the examination table; empty bacta patch packets on the floor next to the trash can. Adelle winced, seeing she had actually missed the trash can in her rush. But none of that would have woken her. The engine hummed a little differently. The room smelled a little more like caf and blood than bacta and rubbing alcohol. But there was an urgency, a sense of panic to it all that she couldn't place, and it didn't help that Elly's breathing had quickened. Adelle frowned and checked Elly's pulse. Yes, definitely breathing faster and her heart rate had spiked. That was it then. Adelle rested her other hand against Elly's forehead and closed her eyes, trying to smother the panic with a blanket of calm.

Listen. You are safe. You were injured. You are healed. Rest. Breathe when I do. In. And out.