Nine! Nine! Hip-hip-hooray!

Or whatever. We'll be off Taris soon enough.

Disclaimer: Last time I checked, I wasn't George Lucas.

"Carth, Mission, Zaalbar, I want you to find the security center. Erase any and all footage of us. Short out the cameras and cut them down—I don't care. But I don't want a shred of video evidence left on this base."

"We can't leave you." Mission said stubbornly.

"I can take care of myself." Zara spun the dual vibroblade in her right hand. "You go. Carth's in charge."

Mission looked like she wanted to protest—Zaalbar as well—but Carth sighed. "She can take better care of herself alone than all three of us together. And this way we spend less time here."

Mission's shoulders slumped. "Fine." She grumbled.

Zaalbar opened his mouth, but Zara cut him off. "I want you with Mission and Carth, alright? They need a blade fighter should it come to close quarters." The Wookiee had a massive blade to go with his bowcaster.

"As you wish." He finally rumbled.

"Thank you."

They left and Zara breathed a sigh of relief. She freed her single vibroblade from the magnetic clip that kept it at her belt and waited for their presences to fade.

It only took a moment and she closed her eyes to walk forward. She could sense the approaching danger, danger that she was sure meant Gadon's prototype accelerator. The door she finally settled on looked innocuous enough, but the sense of danger behind it was pushing at her brain.

She swept her hand at the door imperiously and it opened, revealing two Twi'leks of obvious rank and a few guards.

"Well, well, well… who do we have here?" The male Twi'lek asked, his lekku twitching a little.

Zara held her single-sided blade braced in front of her horizontally, the double gripped lightly, angled at her side, held a little lower. "Me, of course." Her lips were curled in a deadly smile. "I've come for the accelerator you stole."

"Can I kill her, Kadon?" The female purred, batting her eyes flirtatiously at the male.

"Not yet, darling." He purred back before addressing me. "Are you sure you wouldn't prefer the Black Vulkars? The Beks are on the losing side."

"Pretty sure."

The male shrugged. "Your loss, human. You can kill her."

His girlfriend whipped out her blaster pistols. Zara just smirked. Twisting her wrists, she brought up her vibroblades to block the blaster bolts. She'd spent a little time imbuing them with the Force, enough to ward off a few blaster bolts.

Then she threw her vibroblade, guiding it with her insticts. The Twi'lek woman was impaled through the throat, the force of the flying sword sending her back into the wall and pinning her. "You still have a chance to run." Zara said softly. She was pure deadly. The blood spurting from the Twi'lek woman's vital arteries—granting a quick death—was proof of that.

Kadon bared his teeth—filed to sharp points—and started shooting.

Zara sighed.

Gadon smiled. "Excellent!" his silvered eyes moved aimlessly. "And I've decided to let you race with the prototype."

"Gadon!" Zaerdra cried.

Zara chuckled. "Can't have one of your best riders exploding, I suppose? You weren't able to reach the testing phase, were you?"

He shrugged. "You've only got a few runs at most."

"I'll manage." She looked at her hands, covered in sewer grime, blood, and rahkghoul brain. "You got a problem with us sticking around in your base tonight?"

"Rooms have been prepared. I imagine you'll want to use the refresher."

"Definitely." Zara murmured.

"Mission knows where the guest suite is."

Zara didn't sleep. She meditated, moving silently through Matukai katas. The meditation was more restful than it appeared, each flowing dip of her hands or spun on her toe smooth and graceful. It was almost like sleep, her supreme control over her body allowing her well-trained mind to fall into a sleep-like state.

"Zara?"

She automatically stopped, forcing her eyes open at Mission's groggy voice. "Is something wrong, Mish?"

The girl yawned, sitting up. "Why aren't you sleeping?"

"I am. Matukai meditation is as good as sleep." Zara pressed a gentle hand to the girl's temple. "You need sleep, child." The minute application of the Force sent the girl into the deepest sleep. Zara smiled at the teen, resuming her meditations.

"What did you do?"

Tried to resume. This time she kept her eyes shut and continued flowing through the katas. "She needs sleep, Carth. Girl like her gets precious little of it."

"Girl like her?"

"An orphan." A sharp movement of her hand. "While living on Yanibar isn't easy, no child is an orphan. No child is an orphan. We are raised by whatever parents we have and the community." Her lips curved into a soft smile. "We go hungry together, we get fat together. We all learn the same survival skills. The children with the Force are trained." Her smile turned into a smirk. "The Zeison Sha have unmatched telekinesis skills. And the Matukai masters have incredible control of their bodies."

"I noticed. Your hand wasn't even bruised."

"Rahkghouls have soft skulls." She shrugged. "And I learned quickly. Matukai training takes many years, sometimes even decades, but I did it in four years. Mastery is a subjective thing in the Matukai and unheard of in the way of the Zeison Sha. There were only the initiates and the warriors."

"Sounds nice."

"It is." Zara said softly. "And we of the Zeison Sha are the toughest bunch anywhere. We care about each other." Her eyes were proud. "We are independent, self-reliant. We are beholden to none."

"Very proud, your people."

"Yes. We have to be. We survived on Yanibar. But we are also kind to the honorable. Generosity is never wasted."

"The Mandalorians come to Yanibar?"

Zara chuckled. "They did. But they left." Her smile was shark-like, just a glimmer of white teeth.

"The Mandalorians left." He sounded skeptical.

"The Mandorians are tough." Her hand flashed out, her leg sweeping through the air. "But they don't know Yanibar very well. They'd never encountered telekinetics like us. Even those who the Jedi," she spat the word, "would have deemed weak had the ability to lift boulders, they were trouble. Even the babies were trouble. On Yanibar, babies know when to not cry. Toddlers can hide. Children can make boulders move. Teenagers, the initiates, know how to throw discblades that can cut through armor and are impervious to blasters." Powered punch. "And then there were the warriors, who could bend the landscape to their will."

"So they didn't stay long."

"No. They didn't stay long at all."

"Where do you know Canderous from?"

"He was fifteen on Yanibar. Handsome, I suppose." Zara snorted. "A cocky young boy, but I had a vision of him. I saw his face older." She chuckled. "After I chucked a rock at him, slightly before the other kids sent him off."

"That makes no sense."

She shrugged. "I was a tricker. I was part of the gang that angered them into separating, made them easy prey for us. Canderous was a smart one, though, and quick. He pinned me before I got him herded all the way. I saw him in a vision. Then I smirked and threw him a few meters. Startled him like nothing else. I met him again, years later, on Dxun. He didn't remember me, but I remembered him."

"He was the Mandalorian you escaped from."

Zara shrugged. "He was." Purple eyes flashed in her mind, next to green ones. "But he wasn't too bad. Kind, in a Mandalorian way." She shook her head, shaking away something niggling at one corner of her mind. "Now go to sleep, Carth. You'll need your rest too."

"And you don't?"

"I'll be plenty rested." Zara said. "Do I have to put you to sleep too? Haven't I earned just a little trust?"

Carth grunted, but didn't make another sound.