Heart of stone
Tinker set down her tools. It was hot on the plains of Jakara, and she sipped from her canteen. Thanks to the little impeller that spun as she moved it was deliciously cold.
Her name wasn't Tinker, it was really Karai, But it had been so long since anyone called her by name she had to be called three times or more before she responded to her name. Ever since her parents had died of Ruby fever four years ago she had been raised by the entire village. While it sounded loving, it meant she had a dozen fathers to punish her, a dozen mothers to demand chores, and three dozen siblings who treated her like something the feline had brought in, then brought up on the carpet. Only her gift with repair work kept her from being a literal slave.
She looked at the roller bike, then selected a spanner. The bike was old tech. Instead of an antigrav it had wheels and an engine fueled by vegetable oil of all things. But it took you from place to place, and that was all that mattered. She had put it together a year or so ago, and she had fought to keep it away from the other kids. To them it was something to take away from her, but to her it was the first thing she ever remembered owning that was hers. She had even installed a lock pad off a crashed cruiser so no one could steal it... unless they were willing to push it everywhere.
She heard a chittering sound, and looked down as the Kuruku grabbed the spanner she intended to use. With a chittering giggle it took off across the grass on six short but fast legs. She sighed, locking the case, then gave chase. The damn things liked shiny objects, and a well used spanner was shiny enough to attract their attention. Finding a nest was like looking through history because while they stole everything that attracted their eye, Kuruku never lost anything.
She stopped at the hill, looking for the hole that had to be there. She spied it, kneeling to look in. She was a slim girl of thirteen, and she could squeeze in. There were a lot of dangers on her home world, but Kuruku were merely annoying. She began to slide into the den, and in front of her she could hear the giggling. She flipped on her hand lamp, and crawled on. She could see the eyes of maybe a dozen of them, but they receded as she moved forward.
The tunnel ended, and she looked down. It emptied into a much larger cave, and she looked around. It was large, but she knew nothing that was dangerous lived here; Kuruku would not live here if there was a danger. She turned, reaching up to catch roots that dangled above, and pulled herself out like a cork coming out of a bottle. The floor was flat and she ran the light across it pensively. It was too flat to be natural. She knelt, and dug into the soil. Less than an inch down she found ferroconcrete.
She realized it was an old camouflaged bunker from the war. The Mandalorians had occupied the planet, then the Jedi had used the planet as a staging area, and between them they had built emplacements everywhere. Then the Sith had taken it a few years later. Now both were gone, and as most felt, good riddance. She turned her lamp, seeing the floor, the rooms with doors sealed, the ship-
She looked at it amazed. It was a Mandalorian assault shuttle, the sleek lines broken by gun barrels and missile tubes. It could act as a fighter or a shuttle with room for twenty troops, and had hyperspace capability. It would double the worth of the little village where she lived...
She sighed. Yeah. She would do that and what would she get? Maybe a new second hand tool set at the years end festival. If she owned this ship... Wait, salvage! The government had declared any war materials remaining on the planet salvage, which meant that technically she did own the ship, the bunker and everything else.
Her mind buzzed with the possibilities. She could survey and find everything of value here first. Then she would get on the planetary net and find out what it was worth. She walked over, touching the control pad by the ramp. It hissed down as if ten years had not passed, and she walked aboard. The lights were down, but she worked at the circuit breakers. It wasn't lack of power, a small broadcast power receiver fed the bunker and it's systems. It was just that if not occupied for a period of time, the ship would shut down interior lighting to save power. She touched the control and the interior lights came on.
It was huge inside. Large enough to take about a third of the harvest from the village to the only city on the planet, and fast enough to haul the entire harvest before an other village had even gotten half way. Some liquid had been spilled on the ramp, but it was long dried. She followed the smearing. She stopped when she saw what looked like a bundle of clothes cast off in the corner.
She knelt, looking at it. The bundle was too angular, as if someone had piled up sticks then draped the black cloth over it. It took her a few moments to realize that one of the Sith had never left her world. What remained of that person lay before her.
Hesitantly she touched the body. It had the feel of aged leather over sticks, and she could see the head turned a bit toward her as if the person was watching her. The hair was really long and a brown like fur, so she figured it had to have been a woman. Her hands were curled up to a massive wound in her chest, and now she recognized the black splotches that dotted from the ramp to here. She had been shot, and had been bleeding until she fell here, and the dark patch below her meant she had bled out here, alone.
One hand had a tube, and she gently pried the fingers from it. The tube was 30 centimeters long, with what looked like glass set in the ends, and a series of switches set in it. She touched one treadle switch. Some kind of comm-
With a snap hiss two blades of light leaped out, and she almost dropped it in surprise. Was this a lightsaber? She didn't like that sharp red color, though. It seemed... angry somehow.
She put it to the side, then began exploring the ship. There were survival rations in one of the small storage compartments, and a rack with half a dozen guns still locked into it. Papers and holocrons littered the small table in what had to be the mess hall, and she picked one up idly as she chewed one of the rat bars. She'd heard of holocrons as well, lumps of crystal that somehow allowed you to record on them like discs. She set it down again, At the moment, the only thing worth taking was the light saber and maybe a few of the bars. As the 'last' child as they were always calling her, she was also the last to get fed, and it would be good to have food no one knew about, even if it did taste like refined sludge.
She found a backpack, and stuffed a dozen of the bars and the lightsaber into it. All right, now the rooms. She walked down the ramp, closed the hatch on her (on her!) ship. Then started at the starboard nose. There was little to find there. Scattered magazines that went to weapons, some discs with boring data on them, and a silvery tube the length of her palm. She looked at it, puzzling out the markings. Having had both Sith and Republic troops on the planet meant the local language; especially the written component, was eclectic. The marks were simple when you knew that. It was a summoner. It was used to call a ship down from orbit to a specific location, acting as a homing beacon and with the com unit attached, a method of controlling systems on the ship even if there wasn't a crew aboard.
She flicked the com on. “Landing lights.” Then yelped as suddenly the bunker was more brightly lit than daylight. She could barely see the nose of the shuttle, but with the light on, it looked like a vulpine predator crouched there. “Lights off.” The space was suddenly plunged into darkness. She stood, eyes closed, letting the headache that suddenly light had caused subsided. She slowly opened her eyes, and that was when she noticed the pale glow in the corner far to the rear of the shuttle. She walked that way, hands out. There was nothing between her and- She struck her head, falling on her butt, then looked up. -nothing but the wing of the blasted shuttle that is. She stood crouching, hand up as she lifted her head. She found the wing with her hand this time, and half crouched below it toward that soft glow. She heard a Kuruku chittering angrily at her, then heard it scuttling away as she stood over that gentle light. The glow was several small lumps about the size of her thumb, and she knelt, heart in her mouth to pick one up.
It was a mud stone as the locals called them. A long time ago, this area had been under water, and a kind of slug thing was the dominant life form. They grazed on whatever they happened to eat until an earth quake had shoved it into the air. The slugs had burrowed into the wet mud, but as slow as they were, they died there before they could reach the ocean. The mud they lay in was covered with dirt, then more dirt until the mud became a smooth stone highly prized for building. The remains of the slugs had become smooth ovals of a different stone.
But some of those slugs ate something different from the others. While called mud stones by most people, they were also called Star stones by traders. If exposed to bright light they would glow for hours. If left in the sun all day they would glow all night. Depending on what the slug had eaten they would glow with a different color. They were very valuable, drawing a good price if a trader saw them. Why old man Rantan had bought a brand new planter machine with just two of them. Holding the six lumps in her hand as if she had swept part of the sky into her palm, she looked at doubling the village's worth yet again.
Beside the stones was her spanner and she slid it into her pocket absently. She had found so much today, she decided to wait until later to finish surveying. It was getting late. She started to put the stones in her pocket, but stopped at the largest of them. It was a pale rose like you saw at sunset. So delicate you aren't sure it's there even when you see it. When she was younger, she had drawn and colored a sunset once. People had told her it wasn't real. Others had seen the same view, and none had detected all the colors she had seen, just like how she could feel and almost see people hiding when they played hide and seek. She never got to be it because it took her only a few minutes to find everyone. If she was hiding they would even avoid finding her.
She considered the color of the lightsaber blade. The rose stone was a much better red.
Weeks passed, and she went to the bunker only once. The survey had turned up little more of any value, though the cases of uniforms and guns would draw a good price. By ripping off any insignia and dying the gray cloth they just became clothing. Depressingly, she discovered that being under age, any claim to the ship and bunker would have to be filed by Makos, the man who had taken her in. So he would get the money and goods. If he had treated her better over the years, she would have been willing to allow that. But always being served last because his 'real' children were more important soured her.
When she was alone she took a stick and pretended it was the lightsaber. She pictured two blades, but the red still bothered her. She had few clothes that were red, and the color had never appealed to her. It was hard; she knew the blade would cut anything but the Beskar iron of the Mandalorians, and she worried about cutting herself. She rigged to lights, using some old photo reactive cloth strips on her clothes. She found where she didn't move correctly, changing her stance, her swings. Soon she could go an hour or more without touching her skin with the light even once.
*****
The next day was cool when she got up. Her Da as he called himself was sipping tea at the table, watching her with an odd expression. She made a cup for herself, and joined him. “You turn fourteen next week, Tinker.” She nodded. It was merely a statement after all. Like saying the sun was up, or your hair is a certain color. “Old man Koros wants a third wife, and he wants you.
Tea sprayed as she stared at him in shock. “That fat old pile of blubber wants a third wife? What does he do with the other two beyond overwork and beat them?”
“Keep a civil tongue in your head, girl. He's willing to deed 100 hectares of land to us if you assent, and I agreed.”
“You agreed?” She was on her feet, furious. “Then you marry him!”
“You live in my house, eat my food, and as long as you're under age you have no say.” Makos snarled. “And you come of age in a week. You will do as I say!”
“Then I don't want the food or house. You're not my father!” She spun avoiding his grab, running from the house. Part of her wanted to run to her wheel bike, but she knew better than to slow when one of the older people was in this kind of mood. She had not asked for them to feed her; handing her the last of the stew, the cast off clothes from their sons and daughters. She had been expected to pull her weight and half the machinery in the village only ran because of her work. Yet still they thought of her as property.
She stopped only when she felt the steep hill dragging the breath from her. Down below she saw the village. Most weren't up yet; lucky for her because having a bride tied up and dragged to her own wedding happened often enough that it wasn't a joke on this world. The unmarried girls, a lot of them older than her would have been binding her in an instant rather than replace her.
Makos was standing in the street, sagging. She had run these hills all of her life, while he sat in a chair at a console on the harvester. He couldn't keep up and knew it. He signaled angrily for her to return. Her gesture was not only negative, but obscene.
She had best run. Once the other kids were up, they'd be sent to catch her. She ran toward the next set of hills, breaking her trail as often as she could to make it more difficult. There was a stream that ran between her and them, and she plunged in, running upstream as far as the frigid water allowed, only climbing out when the soil gave way to a rocky slope.
By staying on stone and wiping the few tracks she did leave, she was able to reach the bunker, going in the same way she had before down the Kuruku hole. She had found it could be closed off, and she did so once in. That meant the Kuruku couldn't leave, but they were better neighbors then she expected to find at home. There were enough rations to last her a couple of weeks. Long enough that she would be of age and no longer subject to her guardian's whim.
She spent days working on the ship. Even with the manual in one had and a spanner in the other she had never felt so alive. She wished she knew how to fly it. Of course, she touched the summoner, she didn't need to the manual on how to control the ship using it was simple, as were the commands. She pictured taking off, heading out, telling the nav-computer to head for Coruscant or Corellia or a hundred or more other worlds she had heard of. To be free, to be more than a little unwanted girl on a farming planet.
She had rigged up a small sonic generator, and it kept the Kuruku from coming aboard. After a while she would break one of the ration bars into chunks ans toss them to the Kuruku, who seemed to like the idea of the food. They obviously didn't know better. This allowed her to take paints from the bunker's stores and mark her shuttle to suit her.
At night when she slept in the bunk more comfortable than she had been given back in the village she examined the inner workings of the lightsaber. It disassembled without tools, and she marveled at the way it worked. It was like it had been made by a gunsmith, because any gun you needed a tool to disassemble was more trouble than it was worth. Press these two studs with your fingers, rotate each in opposite directions, and the ends popped off. The high discharge batteries in the center with a series of delicate lattices between them and the emitter coils. There were two lumps of red stone, and she took them out, snorting.
There were spaces for half a dozen stones, and she considered this. She knew from what she had read on the planetary net that a combination of crystals altered the color and capabilities of a light saber's blade. The ones used by the Jedi were usually natural stones from a number of worlds. The Sith on the other hand made their own artificial stones. She could tell the ones that had been in the saber she held must be man made. They looked like someone had made a crystalline form in wax then left it in the summer sun. The blades hadn't been angry, they were embarrassed.
She took the Star stones she had found, and placed the smooth ovals in the lattice. The ones she had made a delicate pastel rainbow, and she put them in sequence, a rose red, orange, amber yellow, lime green, sky blue, and a purple as deep as ligoberries. She tightened down the tiny clamps, then slid the lattice home. The emitters settled back into place with a click.
She touched the control on the water dispenser, making herself some tea then heard a beeping from the cockpit and walked forward, expecting to see a vehicle near the bunker again. The passive sensors routed through the grid of the bunker had picked up skimmers and wheeled vehicles several times in the last ten days. She was more valuable to the village then they were willing to admit, obviously. He must have raised the dowry to 200 hectares.
But it wasn't ground traffic. She didn't recognize the energy signatures, but they were several hundred meters in the air. She touched the weapons station panel, and it came up, flickering through the data base of ship sizes and signatures. FRELORO CLASS: REPUBLIC ASSAULT LANDING CRAFT. She almost shrugged. Big deal, Republic issue landing craft. But something made her touch another control. Last used by the Republic... thirty years ago. Another query; the weapons systems were hot.
Her blood ran cold. Most shuttles that arrived here were that old. Salvage or sold off as newer models came out. But Assault shuttles were used where you expected combat. Coming in with weapons hot suggested you expected an attack. Or, as she let her mind ran on, if you were a pirate, resistance.
There had been reports in the planetary nets of pirates, raiders coming down on the smaller communities to raid. They took food, any Star stones that had been gathered, and any girls that caught their eye; but those had all been other villages. Maybe it was her own village's turn, she thought. So what they had never liked her, or really cared-
She stopped the thought. Maybe they had never liked her but they had never been cruel except for the normal cruelty of children. When she had been sick two of the women had spent time caring for her, and that was more than someone who didn't care would have done. She fingered the summoner.
*****
“Is there a reason we have to do this, Atton?” Mira grumped. They were laying in the dirt of the hill overlooking the small village. “We could have just paid for the repairs to the ship.”
For a long moment, the man laying beside her said nothing. His macrobinoculars scanned the village. “We could have paid.” He agreed. “But the Government council wanted proof that the Jedi were back as they should be. Stopping some pirate raids would do that.”
“Sure it would.” She agreed sarcastically. “If they paid us minimum standard as bounty hunters it would have cost them ten times as much.” She snorted. “Instead we spend a week working out the attacks, figuring which village would be next then paying some mud grubber to drop us off here so we can catch them as they land.” She shook her head. “Next time you decide to pretend you know bounty hunting, why not ask a professional?”
“Silence, children.” Brianna said. “Our quarry arrives.” She pointed up, and the other two aimed their macrobinoculars upward. There were three of them, antique Freloro class assault shuttles. She stood, her brown clothes would have been invisible against the hill but the pure arctic white of her duster. “Let's be about it.”
They split up, each headed toward where an assault team would set up to surround the village. They moved with a mixture of stealth and speed. Atton's location was almost exactly across the village and he tried to move faster, but that shuttle came down long before he could reach the village. Men poured out, and Atton put on a burst of speed to hurry toward it.
Twenty men, if he didn't move faster- The shuttle they had landed in exploded, and the men from it dived for cover as metal slashed through where they had been standing. Behind it a gray shape rose into the air, turning as it searched out it's next prey. As he dived for cover he recognized the shape as a Mandalorian Viper class, though no Mandalorian would have painted flames around the engine nozzles, and eyes around the cannon muzzles. It centered, cannon raving, and the second shuttle was blasted off it's skids. The shuttle dropped it's nose, then spun as the surviving pirate shuttle rose. Shells smashed into the new shuttle, and it reared, then spun.
It climbed, chasing the pirate shuttle. The guns roared, then a single missile detached, chasing it. The pirate shuttle exploded, the Mando'a shuttle flashing through the debris as it climbed like a hawk attacking prey.
Atton didn't care who they were. The crew of that shuttle had stranded the raiding parties, and confused them badly enough that three Jedi were more than their match. The three Jedi all by themselves raced through the sixty odd warriors like a harvester gathering grain. Perhaps ten survived, and they were chivvied down to the village they were raiding before they even knew the tables had been turned.
Mira looked up, then pointed. “Score!” She shouted. Brianna and Atton looked up at the star that had suddenly blossomed in the sky. The raiders cringed as the villagers gathered. Above them there was a cracking sound, and the Mandalorian shuttle came down like a vengeful meteor. It slowed, drifting past above the raiders, and then stopped, hovering less than ten meters up. The ramp dropped, and a small figure dropped to run toward the raiders. A lightsaber blossomed as she ran toward them. The blade was odd in that one edge shifted from rose to orange to yellow, the other from green to blue to purple.
“You attack my family?” The miniature harpy screeched. The raiders screamed as she charged toward them, but as a tricolor blade came down, a tawny yellow blocked it. The girl glared at Brianna. “They threaten my family. Stand aside!”
“No little sister.” Brianna blocked that blade up, instinctively blocking the other darker blade. “Will you kill someone who cannot threaten?”
The girl stepped back, blade horizontal in position one, protect from both sides. She was furious. “They threaten-”
“Yes, my sister.” Brianna's double blade vanished. “They raised you, and now enemies attack. They did not care for you but they gave to you. You feel that they deserve protection, but will killing those who cannot fight ease that?”
The girl stared at her. Then the blades of her saber died. “You have taken them captive?”
“Yes, little sister.” Brianna told her. “Of sixty that attacked, these survive. Let the people who would be harmed deal with them.”
The girl stood there, eyes locked with Brianna. She turned. Lifting the summoner in her hand. “Kuruku. Land.”
The shuttle slowed, dropping to the ground. A man ran toward the shuttle and the girl snapped, “Kuruku, protect!” The man skidded to a stop as the shuttle lifted only enough to turn it's guns of the encroacher. Brianna looked at the girl, eyebrow lifted in question.
“Local salvage law.” The girl replied shrugging. “If more than one person finds it, the first to touch the salvage owns it.” She faced the villagers who came toward the Jedi. “Stop there.” She ordered. “This is my ship.” As she said the words, it boomed from the loudspeakers aboard the shuttle. Someone spoke from the crowd and the girl lifted the summoner. “I am of age, Man who raised me. Any who deny me salvage deserves what he gets!”
The shuttle turned slightly, scanning the crowd with weapons that would have ripped a ship apart at it's command. No one was foolish enough to challenge that even by voice command.
“Who's the squirt?” Mira asked. Brianna's hand landed on the girl's shoulder as she turned to snarl at the woman.
“Calm, my little sister.” Brianna said soothingly. “Mira, she is the one who commands our support.” She motioned toward the silent but deadly shuttle.
Tinker glared at the people she loathed and loved in equal portion. She had revealed herself to save them, and one of them had tried to use law to claim her ship! The woman had stopped her and she had met those blue eyes. Eyes that asked and didn't judge. Now her shuttle was settling down as the others of her own kind moved toward it.
Her own kind. Tinker rolled the phrase across her tongue. They had gone out of their way to protect others. People who were different, but worthy of protection. She had lived among them her entire life, but these three were her kind. The man who felt he had to redeem himself, the girl who considered it all a game or hunt for sport; and the one who looked upon all life and judged it not only fairly but with compassion.
The shuttle ramp opened, and the two Jedi chivvied the prisoners aboard. Brianna assured they were bound as the youngest looked around woebegone.
“Little sister?” Brianna knelt, her eyes even with the girl. “That is so cumbersome. You do have a name I assume?”
“I'm Tin-” The girl paused. “My name is Karai.”
“And from your weapon, a Jedi in heart rather than truth.” Brianna commented. “Would you wish that we teach you all such a title means?”
The girl looked up, eyes bright. “Please.”