A/N: Loyal readers, I thank thee for waiting for more than 2 weeks. I wouldn't say I have totally beaten the writer's block but I am surely fighting it. Its a vicious loop to be honest, 'you take a break from writing because of writer's block, the break makes you not write even more, and despite that, if you muster courage and try to write again but writer's block strikes again and loop repeats'.
Well, this is kinda an eternal struggle in writing so I can just brace up and keep writing and hope the readers love the story and keep supporting. Now, off you go, hope you enjoy the chapter!
___
I looked at the medical droid hovering in front of me with the kind of expression usually reserved for someone claiming the Earth is flat or that NFTs were a sound investment.
"Are you saying that I'm twelve years old?"
The droid's optical sensors refocused with a soft, rhythmic whir. "Hm? Oh yes, quite correct. You possess a remarkably healthy physiology for a twelve-year-old human male. Your dietary intake must have been quite rigorous to avoid any significant nutrient deficiencies. I must commend your commitment to caloric balance."
I blinked. Then I blinked again, slowly, as if that would somehow reset the reality of the situation.
"Wait, hold on." I held up both hands, palms out. "Are you really sure? Because last I checked, I was ten. Like, firmly ten. I've based my entire internal timeline on being ten."
The droid tilted its head in that peculiar, bird-like way droids did when processing unexpected input. Its photoreceptors dimmed slightly, mimicking a look of mild pity.
"Oh. That is... regrettable. Perhaps your guardians provided you with incorrect birth records? Such clerical errors are surprisingly common in the less-regulated sectors of the galaxy."
I stared. The droid stared back—as much as a collection of servos and lenses could stare.
"Give me that," I snapped.
I reached out and plucked the medical scanner from the droid's manipulator arm before it could lodge a formal protest.
The display lit up under my thumb, scrolling through diagnostic data in neat, clinical rows. Bone density analysis. Dental development markers. Hormonal profiles. Metabolic rate. Now, I didn't have a degree in—whatever the hell the equivalent of a medical degree is in this galaxy—but months of self-experimentation and poking around in biological systems had given me enough knowledge to parse medical readouts at a graduate level. I was basically the House M.D. of my own body, minus the Vicodin and the antisocial personality disorder.
Every single marker pointed the same way.
Bone density: consistent with twelve years of age, margin of error plus or minus six months. Dental development: tracking along the same curve. Hormonal markers: indicating early-stage puberty, right on schedule for a twelve-year-old boy.
What the hell.
"This has to be wrong," I muttered. "Run it again."
"I assure you, young sir, my scanners are properly calibrated and updated to the most current software version. I perform maintenance twice daily and—"
"Just scan me again, you overpriced toaster."
The droid made a sound that might have been a sigh if droids had lungs. "Very well."
It extended the scanner again, running another full-spectrum pass from head to toe. The same hum, the same sequence of lights. I watched the data populate in real-time, praying for a glitch, a software bug, a sudden cosmic shift in the laws of biology.
Identical results.
I looked at the droid. "Do you have a backup scanner?"
"I do possess a secondary unit," the droid admitted, sounding almost defensive. "Though I must clarify it is not as sophisticated as my primary scanner. It functions adequately, but lacks several of the finer diagnostic features that—"
"Great! I would love a second opinion then."
The droid retrieved a smaller, slightly older-model scanner from a nearby storage compartment and performed another scan with what I could only describe as wounded professional pride.
I checked the readout.
Same values. Same age estimate.
One scanner could be a fluke. Two scanners with identical readings across multiple independent parameters? That wasn't a malfunction. That was data. And the data was telling me I was a liar.
A dozen thoughts crashed through my head at once, none of them making any sense.
I was born in 19 BBY. Empire Day. The day Palpatine declared his shiny new dictatorship and the galaxy went to hell in a handbasket. It was currently 9 BBY, which meant I should be ten years old, not twelve.
Math doesn't lie. Except apparently my bones did.
"You know what," I said slowly, handing the primary scanner back. "You're probably right. I must've just... remembered the wrong birth year. Memory is a fickle thing, right?"
The droid accepted the scanner with a satisfied, smug chirp. "An understandable error, particularly for children from less administratively rigorous regions of the Outer Rim. Cognitive development at your age can be quite haphazard."
"Yeah. Sure. Keep telling yourself that."
I reached for the backup scanner, figuring I could use it for some side-projects.
The droid's manipulator arm twitched. "Ah—young sir, that unit is the property of House Organa medical inventory. I will need to file requisition paperwork if it goes missing, and the process to acquire a replacement involves several forms and at least two weeks of processing time—"
"Just tell Senator Organa I borrowed it indefinitely."
"But the forms—"
"Senator Bail will handle it."
"The administrative protocols—"
"Protocols are just the chains of bureaucracy that a true revolutionist aspires to defy," I said, sounding way more like a political manifesto than a preteen.
The droid sagged slightly, its optical sensors dimming in what I assumed was total resignation.
"Very well. I shall... inform the Senator."
"Great. Thanks for the checkup. Five stars on Yelp."
I turned and walked out of the medical suite before the droid could lodge any further protests about inventory management or the sanctity of requisition channels.
The hallway outside was mercifully empty.
Twelve years old.
What the actual hell was going on?
--
[A Few Moments Later]
The grass crunched under my boots as I put distance between myself and the villa, heading toward the open landing area where we'd parked the Scythe. My brain was still stuck on an endless loop of twelve, twelve, what the fuck do you mean twelve.
I had thought of a couple of possible reasons for this age mismatch. The most obvious one was simply that I had always been smudging my age by 2 year since the very start. Like think about it, this universe was already a goddamn soup of canon and Legends material. A'Sharad Hett had been running around Tatooine like he owned the place, which he definitely shouldn't have been if we were strictly following Disney's homework. When you start mixing timelines like that, minor details were bound to get smudged. Maybe Ezra's birth year had shifted to accommodate some Legends event that rippled forward. Butterfly effect and all, but make it galactic.
Verifying this would have been simple if I hadn't left that Ezra's parent's datapad on my workshop back in Lothal. It had a lot of photos, videos and stuff from Ezra's childhood, timestamped too. I mean, there has to be one or more recordings of my 'parents' mentioning my age right?
I kicked a loose stone and watched it skitter across the field. Even if I was twelve instead of ten, what difference did it actually make? I was still trapped in a body that needed a booster seat to see over a steering column. Still legally a child by every standard in the galaxy. Still couldn't walk into a cantina without getting the "where are your parents?" look.
Though twelve did put me right at the starting line for puberty.
I groaned out loud, startling a nearby bird-thing into flight. Puberty. The word alone was a curse. I was already dealing with enough hormonal chaos from sharing headspace with a preteen body; the last thing I needed was random erections and voice cracks added to the pile. My adult mind had better be able to override that garbage, because I absolutely refused to go through the "middle school awkwardness" phase a second time. I've already survived the era of bad haircuts and acne; I'm not doing it again for the plot.
The Scythe came into view ahead, sitting on its landing struts like a black metal bird of prey. I'd gotten so used to seeing it that I'd almost stopped noticing how aggressively sinister it looked compared to Bail's polished civilian ships. It was like parking a stealth bomber at a garden party.
I reached the access panel near the ramp and pressed the button.
A soft beep. Then a prompt flashed on the small screen: ACCESS KEY REQUIRED.
I stared at it. "Oh, come on."
I stared at it.
"Oh, come on."
I hadn't actually gotten around to hacking the ramp's access port yet. Half because it had never been necessary—if anyone was inside, we just opened it from within. The other half because we'd mostly left the ramp down anyway, since who the hell was going to steal a ship parked in middle of Tatooine's Desert or at a senator's private estate? Well, a lot of people in the first case but I never left it unoccupied for long there.
It was honestly wild how few ships in this galaxy bothered with actual locks. Most freighters and starfighters relied entirely on the security of whatever spaceport or hangar they were docked in. The idea of someone hotwiring your YT-1300 never seemed to cross anyone's mind. Personal vessels sometimes had ignition keys or ramp codes, but it was rare. Then again, this was a stealth operations ship meant to park in shady alleys across the galaxy while its owner went murder-hunting. An access key made slightly more sense here, not that it helped them when I borrowed it indefinitely.
Not that it mattered much. Locks are basically just puzzles for people who can feel the tumblers moving with their mind. I think one of the many reason the Jedi ever had the legal power to take Force-sensitive children from their families was because of this.
I mean, imagine being a Senator and knowing a Jedi could just think your bedroom and safe open. The 'taking the kids' thing was probably just a bribe. 'Here, have some legal perks and a fancy temple, just please stop breaking into our bedrooms.' It's a weird way to run a civilization, but hey, that's politics."
I closed my eyes and stretched out with my senses. The locking mechanism bloomed into focus behind the panel—a series of bolts and magnetic seals, all of them perfectly visible to my perception. I reached into the mechanism with a gentle, mental push, sliding the internal release.
The ramp hissed and began to lower.
I opened my eyes, ready to step inside, and froze.
Two creatures were standing in the corridor.
They looked like someone had described a rabbit to a taxidermist while drunk, then crossed it with a rat for good measure. Long ears, twitching noses, fluffy tails, but with these weird scaly patches along their backs and beady red eyes that caught the Alderaanian sunlight. They'd clearly been mid-scamper when the ramp opened, because both of them were frozen in place, staring directly at me.
We made eye contact.
I looked at them. They looked at me.
"What," I said slowly, "the hell are you two supposed to be? Some kind of rejected Pokémon?"
The two things let out high pitched squeaks that sounded like a rat getting stepped on, then turned and bolted in opposite directions.
"Oh no, you are not."
The Scythe had more holes, maintenance panels, and exposed wiring than a junkyard puzzle box. If those little bastards got into the walls, I'd be fishing them out for the next three days while they chewed through something expensive and probably explosive. Bail's crew had been kind enough to let the ship sit untouched, but I doubted that courtesy extended to "please, let the local wildlife redecorate the hyperdrive."
I raised a hand and the Force snapped out like a lasso. Both creatures' feet left the floor as I yanked them backward through the air, their little legs scrambling at nothing. "I am not spending the next three hours fishing you assholes out of the ventilation system. Do you know how many credits this ship is worth? More than your entire extended family tree, you furry little shits."
"Gotcha."
I gestured, reeling them in like the world's ugliest catch of the day.
They hung there in front of me, spinning slowly, squeaking in panic. Up close they looked even worse, like someone had described a chinchilla to a blind sculptor who hated beauty. The scaly patches on their backs had this oily sheen that caught the light, and their teeth were way too big for their mouths.
"For a planet that's basically a postcard for natural splendor, you two are a serious design flaw," I said, leaning in. "Did Alderaan's ecosystem just give up when it got to you? Like, alright, we've done the beautiful swans and the majestic grasslands, let's just mash together whatever's left in the biowaste bin and call it a day?"
The one on the right squeaked indignantly. Or maybe it was begging for mercy. Hard to tell with nightmare fuel.
Then I heard it.
A wet, slurpy noise that no living creature should ever make in polite company.
My eyes tracked down to the creature's rear end just in time to see it release a puff of purplish gas that looked less like a fart and more like a chemical weapons test. It hung in the air for a split second, shimmering in the sunlight like some twisted special effect, and I realized with absolute horror that it was drifting directly toward my face.
I tried to hold my breath. I really did.
I was too late.
The smell crashed into my nostrils and suddenly I was having a religious experience. I could see God. I could see the Force. I could see every bad decision I had ever made in two lifetimes flashing before my eyes in high definition, and at the end of the tunnel there was just this purple cloud of pure cosmic judgment waiting to tell me that nothing I ever did would matter because entropy always wins and the universe is just a fart in the void. My entire existence condensed into a single point of suffering and that point was my nose.
Vasha. Think of Vasha. Her scent, that faint mix of engine grease and whatever floral soap she used, the way she smelled after a shower when she walked past me in the apartment. Anything but this.
I clung to the memory like a lifeline and felt my grip on reality slowly return. Unfortunately, my grip on the Force did not. The telekinetic hold I'd maintained on the two creatures slipped as my concentration fractured, and they dropped like stones.
They hit the ramp with a pair of meaty thuds. The one on the left scrambled up immediately and shot off into the tall grass like a fuzzy bullet, disappearing in seconds. The other one, the purple assed war criminal, bolted back up the ramp and vanished into the dark corridor of the Scythe.
I stumbled backward, gagging, waving my hand in front of my face like that was going to help. It didn't. The smell had already bonded with my soul. I was going to need a full decontamination shower. Maybe two. Maybe just burn my nose off and start over.
"What the hell do they feed you?" I wheezed at the empty ship. "Hutt shit combined with nuclear waste?"
From somewhere inside the Scythe, a distant squeak echoed back.
I stared into the dark entryway.
"Hanz," I muttered. "Get ze flammenwerfer."