A/N: Sorry guys, took longer than expected. (this chapter is orignal version of previous chapter, moved up the sequence to not confuse anyone. the previous one is the canon version, this would be deleted by tomorrow)
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The warehouse door groaned open, slicing a sharp rectangle of daylight into the cavernous dark. Dust motes, ancient and undisturbed, danced in the sudden beam. Vasha Syndri hesitated on the threshold, the humid Luminara air at her back and a wall of cool, stale air in front of her.
"Here we are," Tevan said, his voice a little too bright. He gestured expansively into the gloom. "Home of the future of automated freight loading. Sorry about the lighting, the motion sensors are on the fritz again. Management's been promising a tech for weeks."
Vasha stepped inside, her boots scuffing on the smooth permacrete floor. Her eyes, adjusting slowly, took in the scale of the place. It was vast, silent, and overwhelmingly empty. A few stacks of sealed, anonymous crates were pushed against the far wall, but they looked more like forgotten stage props than active inventory.
"Your 'entire fleet' must be packed in tight," she observed, her voice flat. She'd come here against her better judgment, worn down by Tevan's persistent comms about needing an in-person quote for his superiors. Now, standing in the silence, her professional annoyance was curdling into a familiar, low-grade suspicion.
"Top-of-the-line models. Very compact," Tevan chirped, walking past her. "The manual light switch is just over here. You'll see, it's quite the operation."
She followed, but her steps were slower now. Her gaze swept the floor. No oil stains. No tire tracks from loaders. No scuff marks from droid chassis being moved around. The place wasn't just tidy; it felt sterile, unused. She ran a hand along the wall as she walked, her fingertips coming away clean.
Tevan kept talking, filling the dead air with chatter about shipping manifests and power requirements, but Vasha had stopped listening. She was counting the support pillars, noting the lack of fire-suppression nozzles, mapping the distance back to the door—the bright, beautiful rectangle of escape.
She was about five meters in when the sound came. A heavy, definitive thump-hiss from behind her.
The rectangle of daylight vanished, plunging the warehouse into near-total blackness.
Vasha froze, every muscle in her body going rigid. She didn't turn. She didn't have to.
A cold, perfect circle of metal pressed against the base of her skull.
"I wouldn't," Tevan said. His voice was different now. The cheerful salesman was gone, replaced by something flat and empty. "Not if you want to keep that pretty head in one piece."
From the far end of the warehouse, a new voice cut through the darkness. It was calm, cultured, and carried an unmistakable chill of authority.
"Lights."
A bank of overhead fluorescents buzzed to life, flooding the space in a harsh, sterile white. The illusion of a functioning warehouse evaporated completely. It was just a big, empty box.
And they were not alone.
Standing by the now-sealed main door were two soldiers in the olive-green jumpsuits of the Planetary Garrison. Two more stood near the opposite wall. They held their rifles loosely, professionally.
In front of her, about ten meters away, stood an Imperial officer. His gray uniform was immaculate, his posture relaxed. He watched her not with malice, but with the detached interest of a biologist studying a new specimen.
Vasha didn't look at him. Her eyes were locked on the reflection in a grimy puddle on the floor, watching Tevan's shape behind her, the blaster held steady. She slowly raised her hands to shoulder height.
"Vasha Syndri," the officer said. It wasn't a question. "A pleasure to finally make your acquaintance."
Her gaze flicked from the reflection to the officer. She kept her breathing even, pushing down the spike of adrenaline. "You've got a funny way of asking for a quote," she said, her voice tight. "This isn't standard procedure for the Planetary Garrison, is it? Or did I miss a memo?"
The officer gave a thin, dismissive smile. He took a slow step forward, the clicks of his polished boots echoing in the silence. "The Garrison are merely an auxiliary force for this occasion. And my associate"—he gestured vaguely toward Tevan without looking at him—"can be a bit overzealous & direct. I assure you, it was unsanctioned."
"You call a blaster to the back of the head 'direct'?" Vasha's voice was pure ice.
"A regrettable necessity. He was worried you might bolt." The officer finally flicked a look of disdain at Tevan. "A failure of imagination, really. There were less… crude options." He turned back to Vasha, clasping his hands behind his back as if they were discussing docking fees. "But, we're past that. Ms. Syndri. Your reputation is quite something."
"I fix things. It's not that complicated."
"You do more than that," he corrected smoothly. "You fix things that are supposed to stay broken. Things that have been officially decommissioned. You have a knack for reviving ghosts, and that has made certain people curious."
Vasha's jaw tightened. She shifted her weight, a subtle movement, but the troopers' rifles shifted with her, a quiet, synchronized adjustment. They were good. Not standard garrison grunts.
"The Empire has use for a talent like yours," the officer continued, his tone dripping with false magnanimity. "Official contracts. Unlimited resources. A chance to work on project that would make your current jobs look like tinkering with toys."
"And all I have to do is sign up after being frog-marched into a dusty box at gunpoint? Great sales pitch."
"You walked in willingly"
"Willingly my ass!."
A muscle in the officer's jaw jumped. The pleasantries were starting to cost him. "You're a citizen of the Empire. We all have responsibilities. Some are simply requested more forcefully than others."
Vasha just stared at him, her silence a more potent answer than any argument.
"Not interested," she said finally, her voice flat.
The silence that followed was heavy. The officer's smile faded, replaced by a look of profound irritation, like a man dealing with a malfunctioning droid. He began to pace slowly, circling her.
"You don't seem the type," he mused, more to himself than to her. "Not a true dissident. Just… stubborn. Misguided. With the current troubles on Ryloth, it would be a shame if your allegiances were misinterpreted."
"Go to hell fucker."
His expression soured completely. The mask of civility was gone. "I'd heard Twi'leks were more diplomatic. Clearly, that's an exaggeration." He stopped pacing and faced her, a cruel little spark in his eyes. "It's not just you we've looked into, of course. Diligence is key."
He let that hang in the air. Vasha said nothing, her posture becoming rigid.
"You have a boy," the officer said, savoring each word. "An unregistered stray you keep. Name's Ezra, isn't it? No family name. No official records. He doesn't legally exist."
A cold stillness fell over Vasha.
"An unregistered minor is a serious offense," the officer went on, his voice taking on a gleeful, condescending tone. He was enjoying this. This was the part of the job he liked. "He could be anything. A refugee. A spy's child. Who knows? We'd have to take him in, of course. For his own safety. Imperial youth centers are very… thorough." He smiled. "It's tragic what happens to undocumented children in the system. They tend to get lost."
Vasha's hand drifted slowly, almost casually, toward her toolbelt.
The officer's grin widened. He thought it was a gesture of defeat. "There now. You see the logic of the situation. Your cooperation ensures the boy's… continued well-being."
He leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial, venomous whisper. "We wouldn't want him to end up like your brother, would we? What was he, fourteen when he learned what happens when you defy the Empire? It would be a shame to see history repeat itself with your new pet."
He was still smiling when Vasha moved.
It wasn't a lunge. It was an explosion of motion, too fast to track. One moment her hand was at her belt, the next the modified multi-tool was in her fist, its twin prongs sparking with blue energy.
There was a wet, percussive thump as she jammed it into his side, right under the ribs.
The officer's eyes went wide with shock. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. A violent, full-body shudder passed through him, his back arching as four thousand volts cooked him from the inside out. Then, he simply folded. His head hit the permacrete floor with a sickening, final crack.
A wisp of smoke curled up from the scorched hole in his uniform. The air filled with the sharp, metallic stench of ozone and burned flesh.
For a full second, nobody moved. The troopers stared. Tevan stared.
Even Vasha seemed frozen, her breath catching in her throat as she looked down at the body, then at the smoking tool still humming in her hand.
"Shit," she breathed, the word a small, hollow sound in the sudden, ringing silence.
After a moment, she moved by instict.
One of the troopers flinched. Tevan's hand went to his blaster, but he was a fraction too late. Vasha was already moving, kicking a heavy crate of rusted parts into the two nearest soldiers.
It slammed into their legs with a clang of metal and a grunt of pain, and in that moment of chaos, she bolted for a side exit half-hidden in shadow.
She almost made it.
The other two troopers, rattled, finally brought their rifles up. One shouted something useless and panicked.
Tevan didn't shout. He raised his pistol, tracked her fluid movement, and fired a single, deliberate shot.
A bolt of blue-white energy hit her square between the shoulder blades. It wasn't the searing red of a lethal blast, but a contained, crackling web of light that enveloped her for a split second. Her sprint collapsed instantly. She dropped, utterly limp, like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
The thud of her body hitting the permacrete floor was unnervingly loud in the sudden silence.
"Gods," one of the younger troopers stammered, his rifle shaking. "Is she… is she dead? You killed her!"
"We're done for," the other whispered, his helmet swiveling frantically between Vasha's still form and the officer's cooling corpse. "Command will have our heads for this."
Tevan let out a long, weary sigh and holstered his blaster. He walked calmly over to them, his boots scuffing on the dusty floor. "Dead?" he asked, his voice dripping with contempt. "It was a stun shot, you idiots. A blaster bolt would've left a smoking hole in her back. Did they teach you anything at the academy, or did you just trace the pictures?"
He knelt beside Vasha, pressing two fingers to her neck. He grunted, satisfied, then smoothly plucked the multi-tool from her limp grasp, weighing it in his hand. "Clever," he muttered to himself before pocketing it.
"Clean this up," Tevan ordered, standing and gesturing vaguely at the mess. "Cuff her, get her to the transport. You two know the detention site."
"Y-yes, sir," one of the troopers stammered, hurrying to snap a pair of reinforced plasti-cuffs onto Vasha's wrists.
"And the… the Commander?" the other asked, nudging the body with his boot as if expecting it to get up.
Tevan didn't even look back. "Dump him. Refinery overflow, lower market gutters, I don't care. Make it look messy. Command is too busy to investigate one incompetent officer getting himself killed during a recruitment pitch."
The troopers exchanged an uncertain look. Tevan turned on them slowly, his expression one of profound boredom.
"Let me rephrase. Do you want to be the ones to write the report explaining how a civilian mechanic with a souped-up multi-tool killed our commanding officer while four armed soldiers stood here and watched?"
"…No, sir."
"Exactly. Erase the local cam logs. File a report about insurgent ambush. Add a casualty. Say they took his body. You know the drill. Now kriffing get to it."
The troopers scrambled into motion, suddenly efficient. One started yanking cables from a nearby security panel while the other began the grim task of dragging the officer's body toward a service exit.
Tevan walked back over to the corpse, staring down at the officer's wide-eyed, surprised expression. A quiet, dry chuckle escaped him.
"Honestly," he muttered, shaking his head. "Should've happened years ago."
He turned and walked toward the main door, pulling out a commlink. As the fabric of reality around them began to flicker, his voice drifted back, laced with cynical satisfaction. "…died with his kriffing quota still incomplete. Here's hoping the next one they send isn't such a preening shit-head…"
The warehouse dissolved. The sounds of the troopers and Tevan's muttering faded into a dull roar, the colors bleeding away until there was only the cold, hard reality of the floor beneath my palms.
SNAP
The warehouse snapped back.
I was on my knees, my bare palms pressed so hard against the floor that my knuckles were white. The metal was freezing, the cold a distant, numb fact. My head throbbed. I couldn't get a full breath. My chest was a locked box.
Then a sound pushed its way out of my throat.
It wasn't a word. It was a choked, wet hitch, like I'd just been punched in the gut. And then another. A laugh tried to follow it, but it broke apart on the way out, turning into this ugly, shuddering noise. I squeezed my eyes shut, and my face was wet. Didn't even feel myself start crying.
My arms gave out. I slumped forward, my head thumping against the floor. I just stayed there, forehead on the cold metal, laughing and sobbing into the grime, this raw, ragged sound echoing in the empty space. It was the sound of a spring coiling too tight for too long and then just… snapping.
She was alive.
The two words looped in my head, over and over, the only thought I could form.
She was alive.
They took her. They cuffed her. Bad. All bad. But not the worst. Not the silence. Not the heavy, dead feeling that had been suffocating me. That feeling wasn't for her. It was for him. The officer.
The relief didn't feel good. It was violent. It hollowed me out, left me shaking and sick and empty on the floor of a warehouse that stank of old oil and death.
I pushed myself up, my arms trembling. My hands felt like they wouldn't hold me. I didn't care.
She was alive. That was all there was. That was enough.
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