Horizon the Transient presents,
BROKEN CHAIN
Book 2: Ashes And Stardust
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"...I recognize you," I said, as the new arrival at the Sith Academy approached and began to pass by. "Karasuba."
The new arrival halted in her tracks, before turning to face me.
"How," she drawled quietly, "do you know that name?"
"I'm Rose," I said simply.
More specifically, I was Doctor Rose Khar'cair, Ph.D. of Genetics, and now, an acolyte of the Sith Academy- where I had to sit through a lot of classes I'd already taken the first time I was in college. Granted, I also frequently had to crawl through dangerous ruins infested with traps, Sithspawn, kill-droids, and other Sith, but at least that unpleasantness was over quickly enough.
I was a Twilek, and more specifically a Lethan- my red skin meant that, so long as I wore a hood, I frequently got mistaken for a Sith Pureblood instead, but in all honesty, I just couldn't be bothered most of the time. Let the little Sithlings grumble about the alien in their midst; ever since I awakened to the Force and a second set of memories, I'd found myself amazingly strong and fast, able to best just about anyone I'd ever fought. Of course, I also found myself, shortly thereafter, conscripted into the Sith Academy and taken away from my research, but... well, I'd get out of here soon enough.
"...I see," Karasuba said, nodding.
That second set of memories I had recalled Karasuba quite clearly, and unlike me, she had not gone to a body so dissimilar as mine was to Old Rose's. I appreciated that; Karasuba, New and Old, was fucking hot, and I appreciated the eye candy.
"Here," I said, pulling out my communicator. "Let's exchange numbers. When you settle in and have a minute, I'll show you around."
"I have time now," Karasuba said. "What do you have that's worth my time?"
"Well..."
---
"-and this is what I made with Sith Alchemy," I explained, opening up a wooden box full of crystals. "These, right here? These are kyber crystals. The key ingredient to lightsabers, and I know how to just make them. And these ones will regrow!"
"Huh," Karasuba said, nodding.
"Now, usually," I continued, "an acolyte won't get a real lightsaber until they get a Master who gives them one. Buuuut, that's not a rule or anything. If you can get a lightsaber before then?" I grinned. "What're they gonna do, take it away? Let them try- you have a lightsaber."
"So, what's your price?" Karasuba asked, folding her arms. "For some reason, I don't believe that you're going to just give me a kyber crystal."
"Fair enough," I said, shrugging. "Well, here's the rub. See, a lightsaber also needs a power source. They've got batteries that you have to charge. Unfortunately, conventional lightsaber batteries aren't terribly common on Korriban, and so I had to alter the design to use something more... readily-available." I shrugged. "Of course, more readily-available doesn't mean 'you can ask nicely and get as many as you want.' So, this is my price for a kyber crystal: go fetch me a pair of blaster battery chargers, and six blaster batteries. Half of those will be yours to keep, once I've walked you through constructing a lightsaber, but..." I shrugged. "Which half is up to me; take care to get the best components you can."
Karasuba nodded. "That's a fair price. Your lightsaber isn't done yet, either, eh?"
"Oh, it is," I said, drawing my lightsaber and clicking it on, relishing in the red glow of the blade. "However." I clicked it off. "One can always do with more spares."
Karasuba rolled her eyes. "Alright. I'll get your goddamn batteries. Where the hell would those be, anyhow?"
"Korriban is overflowing with the corpses of the overconfident," I said. "You're likely to find them in just about every ruin your proctors send you into. Failing that, though, those do come onto the planet with every fresh shipment of soldiers. A Sith can get quite a lot just by asking nicely."
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Karasuba nodded. "Alright. Well... Someone is expecting me. Don't think I can keep them waiting much longer. See you around, I suppose."
"Take care," I said, as she showed herself out of my dormitory.
Karasuba was likely to be a good ally to have, and I'm glad I was able to get her on-side now. It'll be tricky to keep thinking of trades, though; I had a year's head-start on her, and she'd definitely appreciate me sharing my wisdom, but at the same time, she'd made it clear to me that she did not trust the idea that my help came for free.
So.
Fetch quests.
I wonder how long it'll take her to find out that I lied, and she could in fact ask the local quartermaster nicely and get as many spare blaster batteries and chargers as she wanted? Probably at least as long as it takes her to try that, and if she's as boneheadedly bloody-minded as every other Sith, aspiring or otherwise, that I've met so far, then I didn't have anything to worry about.
---
"Excellent," I said, a week later, as Karasuba returned to my quarters with a bag full of batteries. "How much time do you have?"
"The whole day," Karasuba said. "I don't officially have a class schedule; I'm a special case, and so I get to do whatever I want."
"Ah, lucky you," I said. "I'm stuck with some jackass called Harkun, who keeps trying to get us killed so he doesn't have to actually teach us anything. But, you're here for a lightsaber, not my whining, so..." I took the bag from her, and ushered her in. "Sit down at that bench; I have all the other parts in a box."
I was an educated woman, but all the same, Old Rose's memories did have a few useful skills I lacked. Electrical engineering was one of them, and it was only because of that that I was able to understand and alter the power circuitry of the conventional lightsaber design. See, the conventional lightsaber was powered by a 24 volt battery. Blasters, at least those used by the Imperial Military, used 60 volt batteries.
There needed to be a voltage step-down stage, or else we'd get what Old Rose would call a 'magic smoke decompression event,' and what anyone else would call a 'violent explosion.'
"Now," I continued, opening up the box of lightsaber parts, and then the box of kyber crystals. "The Force will guide your hand for this next step. Grab a crystal."
Karasuba reached into the box, and broke off a spire of black crystal. Interesting; I'd anticipated red, but hey, I've been wrong before.
"Now what?" Karasuba asked.
"Well, now, you pick a handle design you like," I said. "You can make a custom handle, of course, but that'd take a while, and skills you might not have."
Karasuba grunted.
"This'll work," she muttered, pulling out what looked like, to Old Rose, the hilt of a katana, obviously modified to add in a slot for a blaster battery. I'd made that one as a joke, but then, it wouldn't be nearly so funny a joke if it didn't still work as a lightsaber handle. "Now what?"
"You open the handle, solder all those parts together according to the diagram, and then you try to fit them all inside the handle. Swearing is optional but recommended."
"Fun."
She examined my electronics workbench carefully... and then sighed.
"Alright," she said. "How the fuck do I solder?"
"That right there is my soldering iron," I said. "It's a piece of metal that gets hot enough to melt tin. So, don't touch the business end. What you do want to do is put the business end to the wire you want to attach to something else, and then also touch that wire with this tin wire- the solder. Now, for good soldering, you want solder and flux, but this is flux-core tin solder, so you don't have to worry about flux."
"Alright," Karasuba said. "Then what?"
"Well, then you'll have a pre-tinned wire," I said. "Press the end of that to where you want it to be, and touch it with the soldering iron for a few seconds, then take the soldering iron away."
I picked up a small clamp, attached to which were four highly-articulated arms made of black polymer, tipped in soft-jawed alligator clips.
"And this will help hold stuff in place for you, since you're going to have your hands full with the iron and the solder," I continued. "Good luck, and don't hesitate to ask for help before you break any of these parts."
They weren't that hard to get, really. Korriban was a fairly remote planet, but I could get stuff delivered here, especially if it was just small shit that a ship's onboard fabricator could easily spit out in seconds. There was one such ship in orbit, in fact. But, well, Karasuba didn't need to know that.
Still, Karasuba did manage to get all the way through the assembly process without any further help. There was some swearing and wire-wrangling to be done with a polymer spudger near the end, but at long last, Karasuba held, in her hands, a functional lightsaber.
She clicked it on, and I blinked a few times. Where an ordinary lightsaber blade was, basically, a long cylinder tipped with a hemisphere, this one was shaped much more like the blade of... well, a katana. How it'd come out like that, I wasn't sure...
...ah, wait, no. It was coming back to me. I had, in fact, built a special focusing array for that lightsaber handle. It had been very, very hard to work out, but I'd managed it, and now, Karasuba held a lightsaber shaped like a katana.
Or, rather, a darksaber shaped like a katana. Because, much like the crystal producing it, the blade was also jet black.
"Finally," Karasuba said, grinning.
"Go forth and conquer, friend," I said. "They won't know what hit 'em."