3.04

The wind howled over the ravine, currents that would have been called hurricane-force back on Earth carrying glittering trigonal crystals at such speeds that they scoured every inch of exposed skin like a sandblast. Millennia of such bombardment had smoothed and polished the permafrost into a glass-like texture, making them slippery... but there was a solution to that. The narrow duralloy edge of the pick-ax bit into the sheer, gem-like surface deeply, as if the solid block of frozen water and carbon dioxide were butter. Not from the force of the blow itself, but from the minute vibrations in the tool's head; they liquefied the ice as easily as they'd have done to plastics, common metals, flesh, and bone. Material toughness was largely irrelevant if the speed of sound in it was exceeded... as long as the tool you used had a higher liquefaction speed of course. Then the pick-ax stilled, fusing with the ice, and I strained against Arkania's gravity to bring the second pick to bear on the glacier's face a few feet up.

However rewarding the endless training sessions with Aurra or various droids might be, they were also painfully boring after the thousandth time I'd been knocked on my ass. A ceaseless drive to improve physically... it wasn't something I'd felt strongly before becoming Astra Andrim, and now there was this struggle between endless teenage energy and the more sedentary mentality of a thirty-something woman going on in my mind. The Arkanians had ways to deal with lack of motivation chemically in ways far more effective than anything back on Earth, but the desire to do something new and awesome for a change had turned me towards other options.

Climbing Everest or visiting Antarctica would never have been within my means in my old life, but now? With a younger, far stronger body and the Force as my ally, climbing up a sheer five-mile cliff at minus eighty degrees was absolutely exhilarating. More sharp, sizzling sounds as the vibro-pick-ax bit into the permafrost... reaching into my surroundings with more than my eyes for the path up while knowing a single mistake might send me tumbling down... the actinic radiance of Olin's light both dim in the visible spectrum and painfully harsh indirect exposure due to the thin air... raging winds trying to tear me down and failing as I clung to the cliff by will and physical effort. Though this little adventure would remain unmentioned to meddling protocol droids and bitchy bodyguards, I hadn't been entirely stupid about it. My lightly armored suit was self-heating. The breathing mask - a must to avoid my lungs freezing every time I breathed - had an oxygen supply in case the air became too thin for me, and the goggles that kept my eyes from solidifying in their sockets were equipped with a radio beacon in case something went wrong. A second beacon had been added to the repulsorlift harness that would provide a couple of minutes of emergency lift in case of a fall, and my boots had miniature tractors to help with too-slippery surfaces. That Arkanian survival kit though was only there as a safety net; so far, I'd managed to refrain from 'cheating' in my climb, for the first time a sense of pride spreading through me in this reality.

Half an hour later I'd finally reached the crystal-covered peak, affording me a view over a sea of gem-coated mountains that left me far more breathless than the climbing had. Rainbow-hued gleams of refracted light playing over millennia-old ice as far as the eye could see and silver and iron clouds danced in the skies overhead. As the sun touched the horizon, I closed my eyes and fell into the whispering background of ethereal voices that had followed me since my decision to leave the facility. The awesome vistas all around the mountaintop faded away, only to be replaced by a web of light. A single beacon of radiance lay beneath my feet, simultaneously vaster than human senses could grasp and tinier than a dust mote; Arkania. This beacon however was not uniform, millions upon millions of individual sparks clustering together in the vast web, forming cities, towns, ships... for what were all the works of civilization without the living people they'd been built by and for? I wondered if other Force-Sensitives saw life in the same way, insignificant in its simplicity and brevity yet simultaneously awesome in its complexity and magnitude as I'd beheld it for the first time after my accident.

I also wondered why the Force had brought me here, because what else could be responsible? If there were no coincidences in this Galaxy, then there could be no impulsive decisions either, nor flights of fancy. Yet the expected existential horror of a Cosmos where freedom was an illusion did not come. For one thing, we're not all living beings part of the Force, their desires shaping it as it guided them? If not, the strongest force-sensitives should have been the least capable to have goals of their own, and the Sith had proven this was not so long ago. For another, I wasn't a cynical blind nihilist like Kreia. Since the Force existed and I was part of it, this happened because, at some level, I chose it to happen. So I concentrated more in the web of lights, trying to find a connection between what had happened and either my needs or desires, known or otherwise.

Almost immediately, a part of my very first vision repeated itself. The silvery-white light of life was not alone on the planet. Here and there pale sparks of red and even more faded motes of blue danced in Brownian motion, far fewer than the whites yet standing out in their difference. They were not the source though but the cause, orbiting two places on Arkania far from the crowds of cities, one glowing a faded blue, the other a fainter but far more expansive red. Something was slowly influencing the denizens of this world one way or another. Two somethings, and if the reference points and landmarks in my Force-awareness corresponded to locations directly, a map could lead me to those places. That realization led to another, the discovery of a pull I'd been feeling for some time without realizing, a subtle pressure towards those two distant locations.

Abruptly, there was a blinding flash and new sources of light appeared in my vision, disrupting the entire web with their sudden arrival. Far fewer in number than the millions of Arkania and yet their presence tilted the whole network towards them, connections forming between the newcomers and the rest of the planet in a way that their influence was obvious. Then a single massive connection reached out from them to me, so that indirectly I was linked not only to the entire planet but distant beacons in the vast reaches of space and time. The magnitude of the vision increased enormously, a tremendous pressure building in my mind until the vision shattered. I stumbled and very nearly fell off the mountaintop. Looking up at where the new cluster of lights had appeared in my immaterial senses I saw a distant grey speck seemingly no larger than a pea yet still recognizable. An open ring, a sphere at its center, a bridge connecting the two; a Lucrehulk-class ship that felt like home in the Force.

The Doughnut had just arrived.

xxxx xxxx xxxx

​

Lucrehulks cannot land on planets under normal circumstances, and even the core ship needed a hell of a lot of space to do so. Thus, Father sent a small craft to ferry us. Instead of the standard sublight shuttle though, a YT-1000 small freighter was carrying Aurra, Ratty and I. Considered outdated, it was of the same family of spaceships like the Millennium Falcon. And just like the Falcon, this particular ship sported several illegal combat upgrades. Dorsal and ventral AG-2G quad laser cannons same as the Falcon, two more quad cannons on the bow mandibles, and a five-ton W-34t turbolaser turret each port and starboard, where the Falcon normally had additional boarding ramps. Inside the small freighter, space was at a premium; the three cargo holds were occupied by additional power cores while the main hold was taken up by a shield generator that would fit a frigate, all with their dedicated astromech droids.

"Interesting loadout," my bodyguard commented, looking at everything with a bounty hunter's experienced eye. "No missiles, turrets instead of fixed guns, power budget for full impulse without cutting shields or weapons. This is a very nice freighter. Think the Old Man will get me one?"

"This is a damn pocket cruiser as you well know," I shot back as the Doughnut's bulk grew larger on the cockpit's canopy. "Illegal as Hell - all nine Corellian ones. I wonder where Father had it modified."

"Not up to date on your law lessons, young miss?" Ratty asked with a scandalized tone. "On 3550 ATC, Corellian interests convinced the Senate that anti-star-fighter emplacements on trade vessels should be legalized to combat the increasing pirate problems in the Outer Rim. It was after those laws were passed that the Trade Federation started arming the Lucrehulk-class cargo haulers."

"Let me guess; every weapon on this ship is technically an anti-star-fighter emplacement, and Corellian Engineering marks the whole YT series as freighters." Aurra snorted and didn't even bother to reply, and I rolled my eyes at the kind of legal loopholes the Senate would allow with the right bribes. The Corellians had started producing quad laser cannons about the same time as they introduced the YT series, after all.

As we entered our final approach for the Doughnut, we were finally close enough to see the other reason Father had decided to remain in high orbit and not use a civilian taxi service. On the inner surface of the Doughnut's ring a half-dozen smaller ships had been limited straight to the hull and were in various stages of disassembly. Countless repair and maintenance drones swarmed over them like an army of ants, but no repairs were taking place. As we looked, a heavy turbolaser emplacement was cut out of the hull of a Dreadnought-class cruiser and slowly carried off towards the cargo hold, along with hundreds of other bits and pieces. Another Dreadnought cruiser had been reduced to a metal skeleton with its main reactor exposed, while three cargo ships were being unloaded, containers of ore and fuel transferred to the Doughnut's interior. More partially decommissioned ships appeared as we flew towards the central sphere, some of the remains unrecognizable, others painfully obvious from their shape alone - such as that Nebulon-B escort frigate.

It took me only seconds to realize the only non-Kuati-made limited ships were the several other YT-1000 freighters attached to docking points all over the Doughnut's core. At the same time, we'd come close enough for the gun emplacements on the Doughnut to be clearly visible, and there were quite a few more of them than I remembered. The forty-two quad turbolaser emplacements on its equatorial belt had been joined by over a dozen DBY-827 heavy turbolaser turrets positioned dorsally and ventrally on the thicker portions of the inner ring, and dozens upon dozens of smaller emplacements all over the ship's exterior in overlapping fields of fire.

Apparently, Father had been busy over the past fourteen months...