Disclaimer: I own nothing. This is purely for recreational purposes.

XXX

Hiding under my hood, I peered out at the world from where I stood. Turns out, getting into contact with the local black market was a lot easier than one would expect, especially on Coruscant, the fact that I had the equivalent of a dozen degrees in criminal psychology, forensics and anything else that you could care to name just made it all the easier. I had literally walked out of the apartment that I had... Acquired and then walked right into the Black Market after searching for it for the better part of two hours.

Paying for the items was rather easy when one can use Biotics to help pick the pockets, not to mention my own use of subtle Mind-Melds to... Convince a few of the other people wondering around the market to give me a few Credits here and there. However, I wasn't just in the Market for items like Power Cells and Droid Protocols, I was looking for skills, talents and information that I quickly absorbed with the use of further Mind-Melds before disappearing back into a crowd as I stockpiled the knowledge and skills of veteran Smugglers, Bounty Hunters, Slicers and even a few Slavers that were here for one reason or another. Honestly, one could easily consider what I was doing as Mind-Rape given that I was basically violating these people on some fundamental level, but, even with that realisation, I found myself failing to care one bit. The rather bluntly expressed message about my situation and suddenly having to question just what the hell I was, meant that any care about Mind-raping people who wouldn't even notice me doing it was minimal to non-existent, at best.

Honestly, most wouldn't even notice a Mind-meld unless I was being rather overt with it, since all it required was close proximity, but physical contact worked even better. After a bit of practice, I managed to get it to the point that I could simply brush against someone in a crowd and pick through their mind before moving on, leaving them none-the-wiser while giving me a full accounting of all their skills and tricks. It was very useful, I made a mental note to go around more Black Markets in the future and see what else I could get through that, as I had no doubt that I could pick up more than a few good tricks. Then again, I already had a fair number of skills up my sleeve after five hours of walking around, having brushed into at least a few hundred Smugglers and Bounty Hunters, even a few Mandalorians that were going around the place.

Still, things like that were of little importance as I glanced around myself, smiling as I took in the sight of the ship before me, a small freighter that was acting as an illegal passenger ship that was taking me to Nar Shaddaa for a reasonable price. I had already paid half in advance, now I just needed to get there.

"Hey lady! You coming or what?!" I heard the voice of the ship's Captain and pilot, a male Devaronian if I wasn't mistaken, then again, those horns were a bit of a dead giveaway. I simply nodded before walking up the ramp, my body still hidden under my coat along with the armor as I walked up the ramp leading to the ship.

"Ok then, the sooner we leave, the sooner we get to Nar Shaddaa... And the sooner I get paid..." I heard the Devaronian mutter that last part under his breath, I made no indication that I heard him as I walked by, heading for the cargo bay of the ship as I recognised the ship type, a HT-2200 Medium Transport by the look of it with the rather blocky appearance. Honestly, I was rather surprised by just how old some ship designs actually are, then again, I remembered how slowly tech could progress in Star Wars, I wouldn't be holding my breath for anything to advance in any major leaps.

XXX

The trip itself was short, taking less than a few days to get from Coruscant to Nar Shaddaa, throughout which, I had to hit the Captain more than once to get the idiot to focus on his job as he kept trying to catch without my armor on, usually while I was taking a shower. I was more than capable enough to take out the hidden cameras that the bastard had snuck into my room for the journey, but that didn't mean that I liked having to deal with it.

I made my displeasure rather well known when the Devaronian found himself with an arm broken in six places and the shoulder of the same arm having been dislocated. For me, that was a win-win, as it got the Devaronian to mind his own fucking business, and allowed me to see the extent of what kind of knowledge I had in my head about combat. Short answer was enough to qualify for, and probably pass, any kind of test for becoming a soldier that one could think of, useful, but I questioned why I needed so much information jammed into my skull. Then again, it hardly mattered to me in the long term, I just had the information and I knew it was going to come in handy at some point in the future. One never knew what kinds of things that you could need until you needed the information for one thing or another. I fully agreed with that kind of belief and spent my time looking for anything that I believed could aid me in the centuries to come, information, parts and other things like that being chief among them.

Once I arrived on Nar Shaddaa, my first order of business was finding somewhere that I could purchase a ship both cheaply and without difficulty, a number of dealerships were located across the cityscape of the moon, some of which were rather good in that they didn't even bother checking for any kind of identification. Then again, that was even better for me since I had none to show, meaning that any vendor that 'asked no questions' was a good thing to me since I doubted that a single Asari appearing in the middle of nowhere was going to be looked at well.

Halfway to a motel I had picked out for my stay, I stopped at that thought. A single Asari...

I smiled as one thing trailed along turning into another. Asari reproduced entirely through a merging of their nervous system with another, allowing for reproduction via that method, technically meaning that physical contact wasn't even needed beyond getting enough genetic material to randomise the DNA of the offspring. Not only that, but birth was rarely painful for an Asari due to the pelvis bone being hinged, making things even easier than that, but that still could be easily obtained and injected through a variety of different methods that soon flooded my mind. The only real stopping point was the fact that the ability to become Pregnant wouldn't be valid until an Asari reached the Matron stage of life, at roughly two hundred years of age. I'd need to check just how old I was with some kind of medical equipment that I'd probably be able to get from the Black Market, but, assuming that I was the right age, then that means that I could easily start spawning, for lack of a better word. The really annoying part, however, would be carrying the child for eleven months and making sure said child gets enough Eezo-laced foods, or a slurry of the stuff mixed with the various things needed for growth.

Still, that left the question of where I'd get the needed genetic information, and if I couldn't get that to carry out the methods that I could think of, then where would I get what amounted to a rape victim. Slave markets were obvious answers to those questions, then again, I could always force a deeper merging with a random stranger and get a bit of blood that way. I'd need to think about methods, but I would try the one that didn't leave me feeling like a rapist first. If only because I preferred not to think about it as such, then again, my morality was already fucked up after the shit that I'd already experienced as were my emotions since I knew that my response to that Devaronian's attempt to catch an eyeful was rather over cocked, to say the least.

I actually saw the fucker sag in relief after I had gotten off his ship, leaving just as quickly as he landed, probably to put as many light-years between the two of us, not that I minded that much.

Still, moving on, I needed time to think, plan and plot my next moves if I was, in effect, spawn an entirely new race into Star Wars.

XXX

Well, turns out, I was in luck. After three weeks of working to gather all the needed medical equipment, I had finally figured out that, yes, my current body was just over three hundred years old. Yippee.

Which, in and of itself, meant that I might be capable of having children in one fashion or another, if I so chose. Truthfully, my gender identity was all over the place since, while Asari looked like they were female based on the figures of both Humans, Near-Human races and Non-Humans, they really weren't. Asari were a mono-gender race that happened to look female but didn't have anything like that in their DNA, a mate just needed to have a functioning nervous system and some form of DNA that the Asari could use as a pattern and the end result would be the same as reproduction for any other race. Still, the problem was that I, frankly, was used to being a guy and I had no idea how I really felt about this beyond the fact that I still cried myself to sleep whenever I even so much as thought about my old family. I figured that having a family of my own, no matter how fucking weird that seemed, would do me some good.

Which, in the process of studying and looking over the information for a Bonding, I had found out, rather by accident, that I didn't need to effectively mind-rape someone. The truth was that, as I mentioned, all that was needed was a nervous system and DNA, brain-dead animals were perfectly capable substitutes, not to mention having less morally and ethically ambiguity in the whole scheme of things. Yes, it could still be called animal cruelty, but I'd been around Nar Shaddaa and seen some of the animals that they sold at the Black Market and regular Market, most, if not all of them, were nasty little bastards that I really couldn't feel any sympathy for, if only because a lot of them seemed to be of the 'Big game predator' category. Though, I will happily admit that the three Vornskr that I did see were pretty damn impressive, especially given how they were watching a particular pair of brown-cloak wearing individuals that walked past the cages.

How the current owner of those things didn't notice that was something of a mystery to me, one that I really didn't want to think about all that much since I preferred to stick with facts rather than degenerate into a philosophical debate about what the Force was and was not.

Regardless, I had what I wanted out of the whole thing, especially when I figured out how to force the reaction using a number of drugs that I could easily find lying around some of the stalls in the markets of Nar Shaddaa, which I found funny since most of them were downright illegal to sell in Republic space.

I made sure to buy them in bulk.

XXX

Welp... I can honestly say that I have found a new appreciation for what my mum went through when she was carrying me for nine months.

Surprisingly, my idea to use a non-sentient, brain-dead creature had actually worked better than I thought, causing an egg to be fertilized and forming into a developing child, something I was rather happy and confused about. Happy, well, because I was going to have a child, and confused because I was still having trouble with my own fucking gender identity even though I had managed to force it down to simply going with 'Asari' as an option, beyond that, I still have a very male mindset of things, even with information about Asari culture literally slammed into my skull.

Five months in and I was looking at a very well developing child as my stomach swelled as the child grew. By this point, I had already rapidly gathered and spent a large amount of Credits to get a ship, not to mention any materials that I believed would be of use. I had even gone so far as purchasing a pair of Chroon-Tan B-machines, Midwife Droids, along with a group of three 2-1B Surgical Droids and another group of four GH-7 Medical Droids, I was actually rather surprised that these Droids were even around, given how I knew that all three were around during the time of the Clone Wars. I had shrugged at them even existing, merely thinking of it as little more than them being both popular and having been upgraded as time went on to ensure they stayed in service, something I could see happening, however slowly it did happen. Along with that, I had also spent some time and bought a few other things.

My ship was a rather nice, a fully equipped and well maintained D-5 Mantis, rather surprising considering that they were more than two thousand years old, having fallen out of favor, but were still in service in some parts of the Galaxy. Not that I minded since it meant that I got a well armed ship with a decent Hyperdrive and good shields, though, I will admit that I felt that the damned thing could use a bit more ECM and ECCM. ECM and ECCM in Star Wars basically amounted to sensor and targeting jammers and relying on either visual scanners, the Mark one eyeball or detecting where a jamming field was coming from and firing roughly in the middle of that. Mostly passive stuff that you could get around if you closed distance and attacked with enough guns. Still, I had read up a bit on history and found that space battles rarely took place outside of a few million kilometres simply due to the fact that anything outside that range wasn't going to be hit accurately and would be able to dodge with arrogant ease. Most ship battles took place at 550 thousand kilometres so as to allow easier targeting and ensure that the enemy couldn't just move out of the way. I'd admit that engines on some warships were actually powerful enough to pull that off at what was considered as knife-fight ranges, usually measured in the tens of thousands of kilometres.

Anyway! Getting back on topic, I also had a few dozen Battle Droids with me, some old HK-51 Droids that were apparently still floating around, even if they were apparently a dying bread, what with most people just dismantling them for spare parts for other, equally old, Droids or just melting them and selling the raw materials. I managed to save the poor things from such a fate, giving me at least thirty of the brilliant machines to use for my own purposes, namely, guarding my ship as I had a child.

... God, that sounded weird as all hell...

XXX

Ten months and counting.

One thing I was rather glad about, if for no other reason than for my sanity, was that Asari apparently didn't get hormone imbalance due to being pregnant, thus preventing them from suffering from mood swings like a pendulum. This, also, had the fun effect of making it so that I didn't accidentally crush one of the HK Droids that I had on the ship if it was being a pain in the ass, Goddess knows that I was rather doubtful of being able to find any more of them.

Also, as of two months ago, I decided to start looking into what amounted to my new/adopted culture and had started taking phrases from the Asari knowledge in my head, mostly because I was now an Asari and found it rather fitting, if nothing else. Along the way, I had also found information about Eezo, along with how to synthesize the stuff, which was very useful since I needed had needed to drink a slurry of the stuff along with various vitamins and minerals to allow the child to grow properly.

The Eezo itself was a right bitch to make, mostly because it required me to have a particle accelerator built into my ship, a miniature one that accelerated matter and smashed it together in a steady stream until you could get it to form degenerate matter before shifting the phase of the degenerate matter to the point that it actually formed Eezo. The hows and whys were well above anything I knew, though I was tempted to try and figure it out later on once I had time to spare. Honestly, the process was working fine, even if the damned thing was both slow as hell and inefficient as all hell since I was running the system off of a miniature generator that I acquired on Corellia. Still, it was better than nothing in terms of generating the stuff in usable amounts, if slowly. After a few weeks, I had fifty kilograms of the stuff, which was a lot, let me tell you, since I, for some reason known only to ROB, knew what the price of Eezo was pure gram, usually being in the several thousand Credits range, if nothing else.

And that was for the low-purity stuff that I was getting out of this piece of shit.

Still, aside from that, I had also been spending some time going over any and all information that I could, upgrading some tech, and even looking through the Holonet with a terminal. I had already upgraded my Omni-tool to allow me to access the local Holonet while also upgrading the systems to allow me to hack into Droids within a certain range. I'd spent a month making an Omni-forge system to allow me to rapidly make things I needed from raw materials, and I had even gone so far as to upgrade my weapons. Honestly, the only real change I had made to them was the inclusion of a few broken down Power cells that I had stripped from some local Blasters, resulting in more power being available to accelerate the projectiles as well as dampen the recoil since SW power cells were a lot more energy dense than the equivalent in ME tech. Same thing went for my armor, upgraded Shield capacitors to increase both my Shield Capacity and regeneration to higher levels after reconfiguring the materials in the Power cells in my Omni-forge.

Added to this was the fact that I now had both a Kinetic Barrier and a Mag-Shield, the former to block hits from kinetic weapons, melee weapons and the shockwaves from explosives while the later protected me against Plasma and Particle weapons, Lasers would still burn a hole in me, but I could use Biotic Barriers to induce a gravitational lensing effect to cause them to miss. Then again, my armor was made of a heat resistant ceramic that was interwoven with an energy dispersing material, back stopped with a layer of Omni-gel that hardened on impact to disperse the energy behind hits momentarily while also hardening to provide a quick seal if the outer layers were damaged. Medigel dispensers were also present, but I hadn't used them yet, hadn't needed to, thankfully.

Then again, I had a feeling that I might need to in the future.

XXX

"Master! Keep pushing, the baby is almost there, Master!" I heard the voice of the currently active Midwife Droid speaking as I felt like glaring at the damned thing as I lay on a cleared workbench, my trousers currently half on the floor with the other half dangling from my right ankle, my pants had gone a similar way as they were on the floor. Still, I ground my teeth together, knowing that the destruction of a Droid I had paid top Credit for was not something I wanted to do, especially since I wasn't going to be able to leave this ship for quite a while to ensure that the child grew up and developed properly.

Off to the side I could see a few of the other Medical Droids I had bought working through dozens of bioscans to ensure everything was going as it was supposed to, a result of having spent long enough programming them with the particulars of Asari Biology and even longer letting them learn from copies of medical primers I had rewritten from memory. It had been useful to say the least, and I didn't doubt that it would have good effects in the future.

"Almost there, Master! Almost there! Keep pushing!" The Chooran-Tan in front of me encouraged, making me grit my teeth in my frustration as I kept forcing the child out of my gut.

"WAAAAH! WAAAH! WAAAH!" I heard as I caught a glimpse of the baby finally coming out of my gut, blue feet quickly followed by legs, a body, arms and a head as the air was filled with the sound of a baby crying out as I smiled slightly, sitting up as one of the Medical Droids quickly came over, severing the umbilical cord before clamping it shut and wrapping the baby in a spare towel that I had on hand. I smiled as I looked at the baby, happy as I was no longer alone. I had a family of my own that I could look forwards to living with. Of course, that left me with one question still left to answer.

"What shall you call her, Master?" One of the Droids said as I took the baby from the Midwife Droid, a smile still glowing on my face as I gently rocked the baby back and forth until it stopped crying and gurgled slightly. I felt something in the back of my mind twitch as I made contact with the child, but didn't pay it any mind for the time being even as I continued to rock the baby in my arms.

"... Jan'sha... Jan'sha Arteis, Daughter of Nyiss Arteis..." I offered gently as I kept rocking the baby back and forth, I smiled as I saw the little, pale blue being in my arms slowly look up at me through crinkled eyes before gurgling happily at me, reaching up with one hand as I felt it's legs move. I smiled as I offered a hand, feeling the little baby grasping a finger and using what meager strength it had to try and drag my hand closer to her, it was, quick possibly, one of the cutest things I had ever seen.

... Dear Goddess... I was a fucking mother...

Goddess help me.

XXX

"MAMA!" I heard the sound of a young voice reverberating through the room as I looked up from my workbench, mainly because I had been working on clearing up a few things, maintaining my weapons and armor while I waited for one of the HK Droids to come back to the ship. I had landed the ship, my D-5 Mantis which I had named as the Sheathed Dagger, on the planet of Naboo, right now though, it wasn't for anything beyond some foods and supplies, seeds, dirt and some other things since I planned to build a small hydroponics bay within the rather small hold of my ship. Then again, I was already finding a few good ways to improve that by maximizing the space available by building up, attaching things to the ceiling and welding it in place before attaching a ladder to allow me to go up and down the steps easily enough. Either that, or I just used my Biotics to move up and down the various levels.

"Yes, Little One, I'm here." I said as I turned and smiled, seeing the crawling form of the ten month old Asari child crawling along the ground before me. Jan'sha was an active baby, constantly moving around and energetic to say the least. Her face seemed to brighten as she saw I was paying attention to her, speeding up as well as she crawled closer.

"Mama! Mama!" She called out again, her first words being 'Mama' as she had termed me, I bend down and picked her up easily as I placed the young, nappy-clad baby on my lap as I did so, honestly, it was a sheer joy to have her around, something I was happy for as, for one thing, I could focus on what I gained rather than what I lost when I came to this universe. I had moved on from that, for the most part, but it was still there, the pain having been dulled, but I doubted that it would ever leave me be. Glancing down, I saw little Jan'sha giggle as my fingers held her under her arms, tickling her as she squirmed around and leaned against my bloated gut, the signs that another child was on the way being ever present as I smiled at that. I watched as, after I stopped ticking, Jan'sha started patting my stomach in quiet curiosity, I smiled at that as I picked the little baby up and rocked her in my arms.

"Careful now, Little One, that's your sister. You don't want to hit your sister." I spoke soothingly into her 'ear' as I smiled, getting a look from her as she spoke back to me.

"S'sta?" She spoke quietly as I nodded, still smiling at the cuteness of it as the little blue baby tilted her head to one side.

"Yes. Your sister, another little girl, like you, that came from Mama." I spoke calmly, a smile still on my face as I couldn't be anything but happy about having a family. The response I got was little more than a squeal of joy and happiness from the baby in my arms. It was wonderful.

XXX

"Jan'sha? Can you keep an eye on your sisters? Mama is going out to get some supplies." I shouted back into the Mantis, having kept it for the better part of twenty years, where it was still in working condition and worked just as well as when I got it, mostly in no small part due to my own ability to maintain and upgrade it with any number of technologies I could think of. A moment later and I saw an Asari turn the corner, my first daughter, wearing a simply pair of dark blue jeans, boots and a white vest top. Her hands and brow were covered with oil, without a doubt having come from the jobs I had given her to check the Sublight engines and Hyperdrive to make sure they were working properly.

"No problem, Mother. When can we expect you to come back?" She questioned with a smile, her face lacking any of the tattoo-like markings that I had, except for the eyebrow-like markings that highlighted the ridges above her eyes in the same deep purple, but looking more like detailed tribal bands rather than splotches of colour. Honestly, out of all twenty of the daughters I've had, Jan'sha is both the oldest and most capable of them all, not to mention the most mature. They were all mature to one degree or another, having raised them on the Mantis where everything needed to be taken care of and kept working, all of my daughters were more than willing to put in their fair share of work, at least, after I told them about the Asari and how I was planning to 'rebuild' the our race with their help.

Not to mention that I had been teaching them a combination of Asari and Human values, more of the former than the latter, but that meant that they would listen to me as well as think of the communal whole over the individual. Of course, with the Asari cultural influence, none of my children really understood the idea of 'fair play', always wanting to stack the deck in their favor. I, naturally, approved whole heartedly.

This, naturally, meant that I taught them how to play any of the various games of chance that I knew of, thanks to my Mind-melds, along with how to cheat at them, both for a bit of fun as well as profit. Of course, this meant that any 'game night' usually revolved around who was the better cheater rather than who had the best luck. Currently, my third daughter, Larahin, was in the lead for that, having won the last six nights through various means. I was rather proud of that. Aside from that, however, I had taught my children everything I knew from as soon as they were able to understand, and retain, that information, the nature of Asari being able to link with one another often helping since it meant that information could be transferred both easily and rapidly, and I had spent about ten years with each daughter implanting as much of the more general information as I could into them. If they wanted to learn more about a given subject, I'd let them learn on their own through various methods such as the Holonet or just download the info from my own skull into their own. It came in useful, without a doubt.

"Probably won't be any longer than a few hours. Anything aside from the usual that you or the others want me to pick up?" I asked as I finished putting on my trench coat, the old coat having served me well, now having been upgraded with strips of Durasteel having been inserted between the stitches along with a lining made from Aero gel to make Blasters less than effective. As the ramp lowered, I had already grabbed one of the Swoop and Speeder bikes that I kept by the ramp, a rather nice Swoop bike that looked something like the Zephyr-G from Star Wars Episode Two. It must have been an ancient equivalent, but it was nice, fast and very stable, not to mention very capable of carrying a lot of stuff on it, mostly because I tended to bring back a lot of goods for long term.

"Nothing comes to mind, mother, though, I'll be sure to send a message if anything springs up." Jan'sha mentioned with a nod before disappearing back around a corner. I didn't doubt it, though I knew that that was only in the case of needing items. I had trained all of my girls in how to use a Blaster along with some basic self-defence techniques. Their Biotics were coming along as well, but I dared not rushing them since they would develop in their own time. For the time being, I mostly gave them the knowledge to work things out and left them to it, seeing how they developed and offering advice when needed.

I mentally smirked at that, some of the girls had already mentioned about wanting to learn more about fighting. I was half tempted to try and train them up to be Asari Commandos, if only because I could use a hand on some hunts.

XXX

Du Bec, a Weequay Smuggler, was currently regretting his decisions in life as he ran for his life through the twisting streets and ever shifting crowds of Anchorhead as he glanced over his shoulder once more, panting for breath even as every instinct in his body screamed at him to keep on going. Recently, Du Bec had been hauling a load of Spice for Gardulla the Hutt, having been sent to sell it to an associate on Kessel for the Hutt before coming back with the profits to get his cut. Now, normally, the cut was more than generous and a good source of income for a Smuggler, but he was feeling rather greedy that day and felt that he could skim a little off the top and no one would notice if he did.

Unfortunately for him, someone did notice. A few days later and he suddenly found himself under the threat of Bounty Hunters looking to collect. Three million republic Credits alive, only one and a half million for his dead head on a platter, but it was enough to get the attention of every scumbag on this Maker forsaken dust-ball. Hell, he had already run into some in a local cantina that he favored, where they had shot the place up had he not had his trusty Blaster at the ready as he always did. One could never trust when things would go to hell and back, usually because of drunken idiots that didn't know their limits and seemed to think that it was a good idea to start blasting up the place when they lost one too many games of Sabacc or Pazaak. Still, as the Weequay turned a corner and sprinted down an alley way, he had his doubts that his Blaster would do him much good against the... Thing that he had seen chasing after him after he left the cantina.

The Huntress.

No one knew anything about her, not her face, race or even her real name, Huntress was just a nickname that people had given her for being very good at hunting down targets that made it on to her hit list. Very few people had ever seen her work, and those that had had already passed along rumors that she was like the Jedi in one way or another. Of course, if that was the case, then he was fucked no matter how you looked at it, especially against a Bounty Hunter with at least two decades of experience under her belt.

This turned out to be far more true than the Weequay could have imagined as, after coming to a stop at the corner of one alley, he hunched over to catch his breath before looking back up into the crowd of people that were milling around. He was about to take a single step back into the crowd, to hopefully disappear into the faceless sea of beings, when he heard the sound of something shooting through the air. Du wasn't even given time to react as he felt a cold chain rapping around his torso, the back, square-shaped links pressing into his body as they pinned his arms to his side before he was tugged back into the alley, the air being forced from his lungs by the sudden acceleration.

Tumbling over himself as he hit the ground, skidding to a stop before he felt something, a boot, press against his chest, he looked up only to gulp as he saw the form of the Huntress, hidden under the iconic coat and hood that had been present since she had shown up some twenty years ago, becoming a part of her reputation even if it was not a very well known one.

"I... Uh, I don't suppose we can tal-ARGH!?" Du Bec tried to speak as to stammer out an offer to hopefully save his own skin, only for the end of the chain that bound him to wrap around his neck, tightly, and nearly crushing his windpipe. Though, if that wasn't enough of an answer, he got a solid 'No' in the form of the Huntress' boot slamming into his face before he lost all consciousness, becoming dead to the world.

He didn't doubt that he would wake up to see the fanged jaws of a Canyon Krayt Dragon right before he became it's lunch.

XXX

"Come on! Stupid Goddess-damned piece of Bantha Shit!" Jan'sha screamed as she rolled out from under the sublight assembly of the Dagger where she had been working to fix a bug in one of the power conduits attached to a modified capacitor. The system was rigged up by her mother as a way of quick charging the Hyperdrive with a capactor or two that would be able to dump their charge into them quickly, mostly as a way to move around fast and with as little difficulty. However, the problem with that was that the damned things often had linkage problems, usually frying the conduits after a few uses and requiring replacing. Out of the three dump capacitors that were installed in the Dagger, two of them were still in working order, but the last one, which should have been working, had most of the connections either fried to a crisp from accidentally releasing its charge, or they just weren't connected at all, the connections having been broken somehow.

And, if that wasn't bad enough, the computer system linked to this capacitor refused to show her the cause of the problem, and even refused to believe that anything was wrong, thinking that the damned thing was still in working order.

Jan'sha was seriously tempted to give the damned thing a Biotic kick to throw it off the ship, if only because it would have been easier to replace one capacitor than to repair this piece of shit. Then again, Jan'sha was pretty Goddess-damned sure that her mother would do just that once she got back from her trip to Anchorhead for supplies and funds, one quickly learned that Nyiss Arteis was not one to fuck with, and regularly turned anything, and anyone, that fucked with her into paste. Her sisters, and herself, were similar, having grown up for the last twenty years with her mother, being taught by her, and learning a rather general, yet highly potent, education that, by the time she had reached her fifteenth year of life, already meant that she could have gotten degrees in some subjects. Then again, her mother took advantage of the Asari ability to Meld, mostly to rapidly ensure they learned things quickly while she also spent her time training them in everything else, ranging from Biotics to hand to hand combat, Slug throwers to Mass Accelerators, Starship maintenance to Blaster maintenance. It was all covered and it was all part of what was planned.

The rebirth of the Asari.

Thinking about that, Jan'sha, even as she ground her teeth trying to adjust another bolt to take one of the dumping capacitors out of the engine assembly, couldn't help but wince slightly. Her mother had never told her and her sisters much of what happened to cause the downfall of the Asari, usually skimming over it, but they got the impressions that their mother didn't want to talk about it. Given the fact that their education included things like psychology, they knew better than to pry into sore spots, especially for family.

"Hey Jan'sha!" Said girl in question suddenly heard the overly cheerful voice of her sister calling her, surprising her greatly as her first reaction was to jump at the sound of her nineteen year old sister, Malany, calling out to her. Of course, that would have been easier, and far less painful, if she hadn't been underneath the Hyperdrive assembly, resulting in her smacking her forehead against the heavy metal plating and over thirty kilos of Capacitors before lower herself back down and wheeling out, glaring at the grinning form of her younger sister.

"Malany. I'm pretty sure you're supposed to be clearing up the Hydroponics. Why are you here?" Jan'sha asked with as much forced calm as she could, doing a very good job of not letting her want to throttle the grinning bitch show through.

"Well... I already finished all that, cleared out any dead plants, put down the new soil and watered them to ensure they grew properly. I've set up the rotations so that we should be good for food for the next few months, plus what Mum gets, that should keep us going for the better part of six, maybe seven, months. All depends on how much we eat and how quickly." Malany offered with a shrug as Jan'sha felt a vein throb in her forehead.

"That still doesn't answer my question, sister. Why. Are. You. Here?" She asked, each word getting spat out through gritted teeth.

"Oh, well, Mum always said that I needed to work on my Biotics more while she also said you needed to work on your CQC and CQB, I figured that, once your finished taking off that fucked up Capacitor, we can do some practice." Malany stated, explaining her want for practice, but still looking like she was expecting it to happen the very next moment. Jan'sha forced herself not to sigh as she pinched the bridge of her nose in much the same way their mother had done when she was frustrated by the antics of her daughters.

"Ok, fine, I'll help you, but I need to take this damn thing out first." The Older sister offered, getting frown from the younger of the too before the sound of metal tearing was heard, Malany glowing with Biotics power before looking down to see the form of a semi-intact Capacitor lying between them, coolant leaking through a number of hoses that had been violently ripped free. Glaring at her little sister, Malany didn't even bother looking even slightly guilt as she smiled.

"Does this mean you can help me now?"

It was all Jan'sha had to prevent herself from slamming her hand into her face, either that or bashing her face against the cold, soothing metal walls of the Dagger, if only to stave off a headache for another few moments.

XXX