Whoever had needed this environmental suit had been almost a foot taller than she was. It bunched around her ankles and made maneuvering a whole world of difficult. She waddled over to the airlock control with the poison canister in one hand and fumbled with the activation sequence through the oversized gloves. Her fingers didn't reach the gloves' tips, but at least the material was stiff enough that she could poke the buttons with a little effort.
The air hissed out of the chamber and the water began to rise around her. The extra material pressed against Vasha's skin, resisting the pressure of the water above just enough. It constricted her chest, her range of motion, and even her sight. Even though the helmet didn't fog up from her breath, this far down, she relied more on the Force than on the little light there was.
This has to be some people's nightmare, Vasha thought calmly, as the airlock door retracted. She awkwardly hop-skipped to it. Trapped at the bottom of the ocean, only a few thin layers and a respirator unit away from cold, dark, solitary death.
She didn't pay the thought much mind. It was a possibility, but not a probability, so panicking over it would not help her. Besides, it wasn't as though being on a space ship was much different than this. It was just something to consider in the trek to the outside console.
The firaxa weaving through the pipes and the metal that controlled the arms hanging over the sides of the rift, on the other hand, were definitely worthy of her attention. The emitter affixed to her back had done the trick on the other side of the facility, but she didn't-
prey, prey, easy awkward prey, quick dive, victory- painpainagony can't move can't breathe painpain-
Vasha shuddered.
She didn't want to use the damned thing any more than she had to. She didn't want to sense the agonizing deaths of the creatures unless absolutely necessary. On top of that, it might draw the attention of the giant firaxa the scientists had alluded to.
The faster she released the poison, the faster the Republic's station would be saved, the faster the sharks would be out of her way, and the faster she could find the Star Map and be back on the surface. She hefted the canister and got moving.
The ocean here was cold and dense, ill-inclined to stir. The rift had made a shelter of sorts and the kolto no doubt flourished without any strong currents to disturb its growth. Among the complex's machinery and the sparse sea-floor vegetation, the only things skulking about were the firaxa and Vasha herself.
The firaxa could feel her movement. They were blind, but with every click in the dense water, they built a picture of her path. She could feel their interest in the curious creature that scuttled like a crab through their territory, but she shoved them away much like she would shove an enemy with the Force- not prey, not prey, not interesting, not useful, not prey, not interesting.
If she could keep up the ruse and avoid the little ones, she wouldn't have to worry about the big one.
The sharks nosed around her in wide, lazy circles. Whatever was making them attack, it was centered on the harvesting complex and the deeper rift at its center. As she grew closer, it got harder to keep their interest away. Even the smallest was as long as she was tall.
Her breath began to shudder in the freezing cold. Her progress grew slower. The effort of moving was sapping her strength more quickly than she liked. She might not have a choice about using the emitter, after all, but she was far too close to the rift to rethink her strategy.
By the time she got to the console, her mind was a haze. She could barely move. It was freezing. She dropped the canister by her boots without thinking and curled in on herself- small, small, not interesting, not-
One of the firaxa dove near enough to her that its fin clipped her arm. Vasha's wail was more of a squeak. Her concentration was scrambled. She scrambled for the emitter control on her chest. The jig was up.
prey? the sharks thought in unison. prey after all, prey-
They moved in unison to attack, to defend. Vasha fought with the clumsy gloves to find the activation button.
She didn't have the breath to swear, but even if she did, it would have been knocked out of her by the current that knocked her onto her back. The firaxa scattered back into the machinery in panic and forgot all about her.
Vasha wheezed. She was trapped by the bulky suit and the weight of the ocean and her own limbs.
A giant... something swam over her. As long as a submersible, but with a tail that flicked back and forth in slow, powerful strokes. It crossed out of her range of vision, but she felt it turn.
It had only scared away its children so that it could have the right of judgement.
INTERLOPER, it thought. THEIF. INVADER. The thoughts pressed down on her as surely as the ocean itself. Vasha gasped for breath, but it paid her no mind. It had no concern for prey, only for the predator threatening her brood.
The beast beat itself along the machinery descending into the rift. Its great bulk made the metal groan, but it was built to withstand. As mighty as the giant firaxa was, she would batter herself to death before it managed to dislodge it all. INVADERS!
Vasha withdrew in fright to her own mind and trapped her awareness back inside her own limited, fragile body. Her blood battered its way through her head. She stumbled towards the console. Outside, in the murk, the giant firaxa shrieked.
Her boot collided with the canister of poison. Vasha skipped over it.
She couldn't do it. The Republic could string her up if they found out, or she would claim it was a complete accident. She could pressure Nolan into keeping his mouth shut about the poison option. But she couldn't- she couldn't-
Vasha clung to the sides of the console and shook her head. At last, she recognized what was happening to her. The Jedi had trained her to recognize the symptoms of mind-altering Force powers, but she hadn't expected to find them here.
She could poison the shark. She could absolutely poison the shark, poison its offspring, poison the whole ocean, poison this world-
She shook her head again and groaned. The compulsion squeezed her mind, brought to the surface Sami's protests about the poison, brought back the sensation of the dying Firaxa- But she had a duty to the Republic, but it was more distant with every breath she squeezed in. She had a duty to the soldiers who would need the kolto mined here.
But kolto could be found another way. And what loyalty did she feel to the Republic, really? Why was she so loyal to it, when the firaxa couldn't even conceive of what a Republic was?
The display lit up at last, displaying the large touch-buttons that were all the clumsy gloves of the enviro-suits could manipulate easily. Vasha carefully filled the injector pod with fuel.
She had a duty. She was going to protect. And the vulnerable creatures here were not the politicians on the surface. They were the blind creatures here in the deep. They were the dead scientists torn apart by their own coworkers without knowing why. They were the Selkath in the facility, driven out of their minds by the pounding command to destroy the interlopers, even if they were the interlopers themselves.
Vasha let the fuel level rise, rise, until the pressure hit the tipping point. The console and the facility were far enough away that the explosion was barely a ripple to Vasha, but the giant firaxa shrieked in triumph as the reaching pipes and arms clinging to the walls of the rift dropped into the depths. The small ones, her children, flocked out of the facility and back into the rift. They were eager to inspect their home for damage.
Dragging herself through the ruins and into the flooded chamber that held the Star Map barely felt like a victory. She didn't even remember unlocking the airlock closest to the docking bay- one moment she was recording the data, and the next, someone was frantically pulling her out of the suit.
Vasha heard Bastila calling the shape of her name.
"I couldn't do it," Vasha mumbled.
"She's freezing," Bastila said. "And delirious. I knew something happened out there. Vasha? Vasha, do you hear me?"
Vasha squinted up at the younger woman. The emergency lights in the airlock were not flattering. The warm hand she pressed to Vasha's cheek, however, was bliss.
"If I say yes, are you going to stop touching me?" Vasha asked. Jolee barked a laugh.
Surprisingly, Bastila did, too. Her thumb traced Vasha's cheek. "I never thought I would be thankful to hear your... your inane jokes."
Vasha smiled and shut her eyes. "One day, you're going to realize how serious I am."
"Don't go to sleep, kiddo," Jolee said.
"I just got my head scrambled by an ancient firaxa the size of the Hawk-"
"Believe me, it shows."
"- so I think I earned a nap."
Bastila pulled Vasha up into a sitting position. "You can rest on the submersible. Come, Vasha."
Vasha trailed Bastila and Jolee back to the sub. True to their word, they let Vasha doze on the way back to the surface. "If what I think happened to her is correct, the only thing for it is some peace and quiet," Jolee said. Bastila was worried enough that she let Vasha lean her head on her shoulder in the cramped sub.
Then there was the debriefing. Vasha told Wann not to rebuild the facility, because the same thing would just happen again. After that, the trial. The Selkath assured her that the remaining staff in the facility would be recovered and the facility itself destroyed.
Apparently, she'd done well to not kill the Progenitor.
Bastila waited until they were back on the ship and alone before she asked, "What happened down there?"
Vasha tugged off her boots and let them drop on the deck beside her bunk. (Across from her, the ever-tidy Bastila crinkled her nose.) "I... I'm not sure, actually. One minute I was using the Force to keep the firaxa from eating me, and then..." She shrugged. "I think the Progenitor was... Force Sensitive, or something like that. It wanted the machinery gone, so I destroyed it."
Bastila's eyebrows rose. "Are you saying it took control of you?"
Vasha flopped back on the bunk. "I don't know. I don't think that's what happened, but I'm... I don't think I had a choice." She covered her face with one gloved hand- then, struck with the realization that she was still wearing her gloves, tugged them off. "It's difficult to say. My head was so cloudy..."
Part of it had been from exhaustion, yes. Resisting the Progenitor had taken a lot out of her. But there was something nagging at her, something had been changed, or gone missing...
"Well, I'm certain you'll feel better after you've rested. Shall I wake you for dinner?"
Vasha nodded. "No fish, please. I'd rather eat a plate of unseasoned tubers at this point."
"I'll see what I can do." Bastila squeezed Vasha's knee briefly before she straightened to leave. She shut the blast door behind her.
Vasha wanted to reach out, feel where the others were gathered, ready to question Bastila and Jolee, but just thinking about it made her wince. Instead, she half-heartedly pulled the covers over herself. The Progenitor's joyous shriek as the machinery crashed into the depths echoed in her dreams.
AN: One minute I was realizing that Vasha would probably actually poison the shark rather than destroy the machinery to save it... and the next, I was writing a fic about how the shark changed her mind. Oops.
The Progenitor also knocked loose some of Vasha's programming. It's at this point that she starts to question exactly why she wants to be a Jedi and protect the Republic, when her programmed identity actually has very little reason to like it... And doing things like saving Sunry for its sake really doesn't help, there.
This is also the turning point for Vasha's relationship with Bastila. Bastila sent Vasha out to the ocean floor to get the star map on her own (one functional enviro-suit, because that merc slashed up the others on his way out) and was really surprised by how worried she got about her. She could feel something strange happening to her, but she couldn't help...