"They will be me."

As she pondered those words, the Huntress wondered if there would be any place left for her, when the plan was finally put into motion.

She pulled the lightsaber from her hip and ignited it, staring deeply into the red blade as it viciously snapped and hissed, the mangled hilt growing warmer in her hands.

"I'll carve out a place for myself." Though she was willing to whisper those words, she was careful not to say her next thought out loud. "In fact, once that connection is established, maybe you won't be the one at the controls."

"Ma'am?"

She turned to find yet another tech trying to bother her. "What is it?"

"We're having some problems with the AI. I just wanted to alert you."

The man was brave to be bringing such news to her, but he shrunk behind his clipboard when she approached him. "What problems?"

He led her to a nearby room, where other programmers were hard at work. "We've been trying to do what you said, make it easier for this strange force to control the systems of the ships and fighters."

He hit a switch under his desk and a 2D image came up on the screen at the front of the room, not that it meant much to her. It was just lines and lines of code.

"We're doing everything we can, but this timetable might not be reasonable."

Though her first instinct was to get angry, the Huntress wanted to give him at least one chance to make his case. "Explain why."

"Well, first let me say that we've already had massive success writing the AI to take over small systems, and to learn and grow. Thanks to our work, the glorious leader no longer has to directly influence the smallest minutia involved with running the ship." Though he was trying to make their accomplishments sound grandiose, his discomfort was palpable. "However, things get infinitely more complex when more and more ships are added to the mix. Even the fighters we have out now are stretching it to capacity."

"What do you need to make it happen?"

"We will always do our best, but we need more manpower and more time. The fall of the Empire left plenty of scientists and technicians without funding, but even then…"

"It's too short!" came a sudden voice.

The Huntress looked over to see a woman rise up from behind one of the screens.

"We can't make it happen. It's never going to-"

A blaster bolt struck her between her eyes. Those working to the right and left of her jumped up from their chairs, and the rest of the room became deadly quiet.

"You can have your funding. Hell, you can have all the funding and manpower we can buy," the Huntress told them. "But I will not hear the word 'can't'."

The Huntress looked at the man who had first come to find her.

"I believe you were about to do you best," she said, gesturing over to his work station. "For the sake of you and your team, I hope your best is up to my standards."

He rushed to his seat as if he was being chased. She made a note to send out more recruiters and left the room.

The walls rippled as the Huntress walked down the black hallways and she watched as the plates and wires shifted. The hooded figure remained in the central chamber, but she could still feel its presence in the very air she breathed.

It wanted the Blood Battalion reliant on it. They couldn't destroy whatever was in the central chamber without destroying their greatest weapon. That's why, from the moment they started building, it wanted direct control of the subsystems like oxygen, the fighter bays and the engines. The systems were walled off from view, and in some cases nobody even knew where they had been moved. Even the welded walls separating the crew from the vacuum of space would creak, groan and bend under its influence, just to remind them of who was in control.

However, it had still accepted the idea of assistance from an AI, as the space station grew exponentially. Now, if she could get the AI fully functional, her own force abilities could be enough to control it and make every soldier carry out her will.

"I'm getting too old to hunt. Maybe I should give ruling a try." Again, she was careful not to state anything out loud. "The Empress has a nice ring to it."