Mebeth fidgeted with cuffs of the baggy shirt she wore where they itched against her wrists. The person who’d leant her their jacket – who turned out to be a quiet woman in her late twenties – had also scrounged up a change of clothes to replace Mebeth’s tattered wrappings. The shirt was a few sizes too big, so was cinched around her waist with a piece of rope, and the trousers hung off her like curtains. Only the belt that held them up and the sheer number of times they’d rolled the legs stopped her from tripping over them whenever she walked. She kept her own boots – their fur lining may have been falling off with age, but no one else was near her size.

She caught the woman smiling at her every now and then. She was nice enough, but seemed afraid to start a conversation. Her eyes kept drifting up to Mebeth’s face and darting away as she sat guard over her in the room she’d been taken to. Mebeth had wanted to talk to her, but the looks, coupled with the fact she’d never really spoken to anyone outside her family, made her nervous.

They sat opposite each other, and on the table in between them lay Mebeth’s blade – which she remembered ought to be called a lightsabre. She tapped her fingers on her knees, anxious to hold it again, but wary of the looks the soldiers had given her when they saw it and wary of the guards mounted at the doors, rifles ready in their arms.

“Mebeth.” The sergeant from earlier walked through the door, rubbing one hand along his jaw. If he’d been talking to people all that time, it was no wonder he looked so tired. “The ensign and the house have found someone to take care of you,” he said.

Behind him, the stern woman who’d greeted them as they arrived walked through the door. She looked no less stern now, but her eyes had lit up. Was she pleased to be rid or her or had she found an enticing offer in her search for… Mebeth wasn’t entirely sure what they were searching for. It sounded like a new home, but she didn’t even know if she wanted one.

The ensign entered the room, but paused in the doorway, leaving the sergeant to hover awkwardly by the wall. She stared down at Mebeth with unkind eyes and folded her arms behind her back. Mebeth found her eyes drifting to the lightsabre again and hoped that no one noticed.

“I have consulted with members of the house,” the ensign said, “and they have decided that the best course of action is to return you to the Empire, where you belong among the other Sith. I contacted the Empire on their behalf and they expressed a modicum of interest in acquiring you. A representative from the Ministry of Production and Logistics will be arriving in four days’ time to collect you.” She smiled, but the gesture seemed forced. “Do you have any questions?”

Mebeth shook her head, then changed her mind. “Where are they taking me?”

Snorting, the ensign replied, “They want to make sure the Republic don’t intercept their communications. They didn’t say where they were taking you.” She turned to face the sergeant. “Is that all?”

He glanced at Mebeth, concern passing over his face, before replying with a nod.

“Good.” The ensign turned on her heel. “I’ll get back to important matters.”

The sergeant watched her go and breathed a small sigh of relief when she’d passed out of sight. “Private Daws,” he said, turning to the woman who kept Mebeth company. “They’ve tasked you with looking after Mebeth until the representative arrives. Will you be okay with that?”

Mebeth wasn’t too familiar with how soldiers worked, but she’d always thought that you weren’t required to be ‘okay with’ orders, only to carry them out.

In any case, Private Daws said, “Yes, sergeant.”

“Are you sure?”

A look passed between the two of them so quickly that Mebeth could only wonder at its meaning before the private nodded her confirmation again and the sergeant left them alone, bar the guards.

Private Daws glanced about her. Her eyes came to rest on the guards and Mebeth could see her weighing things up in her mind as she watched them. Turning to Mebeth, she said, “I’ve heard that most Sith start on Ziost.”

Mebeth blinked at her. “Start what?”

She frowned. “Training. For…” She inclined her head toward the lightsabre between them.

“Oh.” Mebeth stared at the blade herself, wanting to grab it and hide it in her baggy clothes. Instead, she changed the subject, spurred on by her curiosity. “Why wouldn’t you be okay to look after me?”

Private Daw’s eyebrows shot up and she leant back in her seat, raising her hands above her lap. “Oh! No, no. The sergeant didn’t mean it like that. I…” She rubbed her nose, leant forward again and sighed. “My daughter. She’d have been the same age as you. I think.”

“Your daughter stopped growing?”

The private laughed, but it was a sad laugh. “No, she…” She raised her eyes to the ceiling and wrung her hands together. “She wandered too far away from home. The killiks took her.”

“The bugs?” She’d heard her grandfather – thinking of him sent a pang of anger through her – mention them, but she’d never seen one for herself. “Where did they take her?”

“They… They didn’t take her anywhere. They killed her.”

“Oh.” Mebeth felt like reaching out into the air and swallowing her words after she’d said them. She looked about the room, avoiding the private’s downcast eyes.

Four days was going to seem like a long time.

On the morning the shuttle arrived, the House flew into chaos. It was a quiet chaos – the type that seems calm on the surface but soils itself in panic underneath. Soldiers strode with purpose down the corridors only to reappear some time later and turn to pace back the way they came. Servants scrubbed at anything that stayed still for too long, chasing dust along the skirting boards with such vigour that the metal itself might as well be sterile down to a molecular level.

There were no windows in the area of the estate Mebeth was in, so she couldn’t watch the shuttle arrive, but she heard its engines whine as it landed. To the casual observer, anyone would think it was just another day and the House of Thul had brought in more supplies from off-world. That, of course, was a lie crafted to hide the truth of the matter. Whoever was in that shuttle came from the Empire, and they were here to take Mebeth away.

She stayed still in her seat, picking out snippets of every hushed conversation in the room until they all fell silent. The pacing stopped, the servants slipped away into the shadows and a series of clipped footsteps faded into earshot.

Feeling that she had to, Mebeth stood up, adopting the wary but alert position of some of the people around the room. A man dressed in finery the same purple and red as on the soldiers’ uniforms stepped out from a door behind her. He stepped into the centre of the room, paying her no attention as he watched the entrance in front of them both slide open. With a quick glance to either side of the room, he confirmed what Mebeth had already seen – all unnecessary personnel had been moved elsewhere.

Through the door strode an incredibly short man dressed in unassuming but well-made clothes and two tall soldiers, each wearing a haphazard ensemble of armour that clashed with the colour of the other. They continued at a fast walk set by the man’s exaggerated paces before stopping about two metres from Mebeth’s spokesman.

As they did, he opened his arms to them and inclined his head to the man in the middle. “House Thul extends its heartfelt greetings to you, Overseer. I trust-“

“Assistant overseer. Have the payments been handled?” he interrupted. His discomfort was obvious, one hand constantly fidgeting with his collar, narrow eyes flitting about the room. “I was called away from far more interesting matters than this and I refuse to let some whelp you’ve picked up distract me from important events.” He tutted. “If you have the payment, we’ll take her and leave.”

The spokesman blinked, his mouth hanging agape at the curt reply, before coming back to his senses. “Of course. Everything is in order. Child?” He turned to Mebeth and beckoned her forward with a sharp flick of his wrist.

Without pause, Mebeth lurched forward and followed the man as he turned with a foul look and led her back to the shuttle, but her mind hesitated. As she wondered what had been exchanged for the transfer of her life, she caught the gaze of Private Daws. Her eyes sparkled with concern, not leaving her face until the walls came between them.

Turning her gaze to the ground, Mebeth continued in silence until she’d been buckled into a seat far to the back of the shuttle. The mismatched soldiers retreated to the other end and the assistant overseer came over to address her.

“I’ll make this short,” he began. “My orders are to take you to Ziost, where presumably you will begin your training and, should you prove to be true to your heritage, be inducted into the ways of the Sith. Don’t ask me any questions because I have no ans…”

Mebeth had opened her mouth, ready to ask a question but silenced by the last remark.

The man sighed. “Make it quick.”

“How long will the flight be?” she asked, pushing aside questions about what she was meant to do about being in a spaceship.

“About ten days, if we’re lucky,” he said, but didn’t seem convinced at the luck of the situation.

Ten days sounded like forever on a ship as small as this. “Is… Is there anything to read? To learn before I get there?”

This turned his frown into a scowl, but he turned to the soldiers nonetheless. “One of you set her up with access to the holonet. Limited, I imagine. We need to get going.”

Mebeth frowned. “What’s the holonet?”

The man paused on his way to the front and let out a growl of frustration instead of answering her before carrying on.

As the soldiers rummaged in a cargo container, probably looking for whatever the holonet was, Mebeth gazed out of the tiny window opposite her. How long would it be before the snow-tipped trees and bitter sky were lost to the empty blackness of space? There were a lot of planets out there and a whole galaxy’s worth of things to learn. It looked like the last she was going to see of Alderaan was through a slit no wider than her forearm.

Then they were in the sky, heading away from Alderaan. Toward home.

Dim lights sparked at the edge of Mebeth's vision as she rested in her seat, groggy eyes struggling to focus on the small strip of movement opposite her. It took several moments for the motes to resolve into individual squares of light. She jolted up, mind wide awake, and peered into the gloom.

Everything outside the window was grey – a fogged grey sky occupied by great grey slabs of buildings, each reaching up into the falling snow. Flurries buffeted the shuttle until they passed into a dimmer area and the weather was cut off.

She felt eyes on her and glanced to her left to see the two soldiers, rocking in tandem with the movement of the shuttle.

One of them nodded to her. "Welcome to Ziost, ma'am. Everything the Empire wants comes through here. That includes you."

Mebeth frowned. "Ma'am?"

The other soldier jabbed an elbow into the side of his companion and they both averted their eyes. Mebeth glanced between them for a while before she realised she wouldn't get any more information out of them and returned to looking out of the window. The fog was thicker now, and the windows appeared veiled beneath the gloom.

Sith was a species and an occupation, or so she had learned on the journey. The species was rare, red-skinned and revered – if her skin marked her out as one of them, was that why the soldiers had referred to her as 'ma'am'? But why had they silenced themselves? Perhaps they'd made a mistake and her skin was just the result of some other heritage, but she'd fixated on the idea now and couldn't bring her mind to bear on any alternative.

Outside, the view rotated. A shadowed building slid into view, its dimly lit landing pad extended out toward them, rising in the window as they settled down. A hiss announced the moment they touched down, then the door unsealed with a deep clunk. As the ramp lowered, smog rushed around its edges, billowing into the shuttle in twisted whispers.

Having come straight from the snow-blanketed slopes and sweeping skies of Alderaan, this place seemed unnatural. There was no sky, only a crushing wall of rock that pressed down on everything beneath it. Mebeth wondered about it before remembering the galaxy had been at war, and realised this place must have been built with defense in mind. She wondered what it would take for the cave they were in to collapse and how many people it would crush beneath it when it fell.

"Move, girl," the overseer (assistant overseer, Mebeth reminded herself) said. He pulled himself toward her from the front of the shuttle, using chairs and struts as handholds.

Not wanting to anger him, Mebeth nodded and unstrapped her harness. The two soldiers took up position to either side of her as she got to the door and walked with her down the ramp, which faced out over the edge of the landing pad.

She paused at the edge, curiosity demanding that she lean over in an attempt to see the floor, sense holding her back from the un-fenced drop. The soldiers decided for her, nudging her to the side and around the shuttle.

They stepped along the walkway together in silence, only the constant sound of traffic and its cave echoes deadened by the smog around them. Gazing at the tall buildings surrounding them, Mebeth didn't notice anything else until she caught a glint of fear and the two soldiers tensed up, drawing their weapons closer to their chests.

She followed their gaze. A man stood at the other end of the walkway, hands clasped behind his back. His sharp suit stood out against the mist-smoothed landscape around him, short blonde hair standing still atop his head in defiance at the slight breeze. Mebeth felt a dread hand grasp her gut as he stared at her with a face that looked as if it were carved out of the same rock the city were built into. She didn't want to admit to fear, but she couldn't deny its presence. Even the smog parted around him.

The assistant overseer overtook them in the last few metres, drawing to a halt a short distance from the man. "My-"

The man cut him off with an abrupt flash of his steel-grey eyes. "You have completed your assignment, overseer. You may go."

He rocked back on his heels, not bothering to correct his rank before turning to head back to the shuttle. The soldiers needed no further instruction and both retreated, leaving Mebeth alone on the narrow bridge.

Mebeth wanted to watch them go, but she couldn't draw her head away.

The man returned his attention to her, eyes slicing through her as they focussed on her face.

"Your name is Mebeth, is that correct?"

Nodding, she found her tongue too dry to reply.

"Surname?"

"...Sorry?" she said, finding her voice again.

"Your surname. Your family name. What is it?"

"I don't have a family," she replied, thinking back to the bodies of her grandparents and feeling the same emotions rising to the surface.

The man sighed and closed his eyes before continuing, "I don't care what happened to them. What was their name?"

Mebeth wished all her senses would stop screaming at her, but she had no control over them. It felt like something else did, crushing them all together. "Eleni. My surname's Eleni."

He nodded. "I'll make sure that gets recorded in the paperwork. Come with me," he said, swiveling on his heels to walk away.

Mebeth's feet moved of their own accord, dragging her along after him. "Who are you?" she asked. Every sentence was preceded by a struggle to open her mouth.

"I am to be your tutor. You will address me as sir, but you may refer to me as Code Consus should you need to ask after me at any point in your stay here."

"But what are you teaching me? Are you teaching me about the Force?"

Consus came to a standstill in moments. "Don't be preposterous." He glanced back at her over his shoulder, pausing when he caught sight of the lightsabre which had been returned to its place on her belt. "Where did you get that?" he asked.

A thrill of excitement zipped through her and she instinctively bared her teeth, feeling the need to impress with proof of power. "I found it. I killed with it." Saying it out loud somehow made their deaths feel even more surreal.

A pale hand moved to hover in the air before her. "Give it here."

Mebeth's newfound passion faltered at the command that emanated from Consus' eyes. She felt as if they stripped her bare, seeing through to every past action and misdemeanour, to the truth of the family she killed. She handed over the blade.

Never dropping his gaze, Consus took the lightsabre, said, "Any fool may strike down a defenceless opponent," and flung it over the edge.

Mebeth lurched after it, drawing herself back at the last moment as she remembered the drop. She watched it sail into the gloom below, a last glimmer reflecting off it from the windows of the buildings beneath. It felt as though her stomach had dropped through the floor with it. Her mouth hung open, eyes still fixed to the depths even after it fell from sight.

"Come," Consus said, turning again on his heel. "I believe you have an inadequate education to make up for."

Heart hammering in her chest, Mebeth looked after him.

She had no choice but to follow.

Consus stood motionless in his chambers, waiting for the hololink to establish. His face was a picture of composure, stock-still and devoid of emotion.

"-ting in." The display flickered into life to reveal a soldier standing to attention in Imperial uniform.

The barest hint of movement passed across Consus' face. "Report, Corporal. You found the blade?"

The corporal nodded. "Yes, sir. As far as we can tell, no one noticed its descent. What do you want us to do with it?"

"The technician I sent with you has instructions on how to proceed. You will allow him to do so. Do not interfere. Do not ask questions. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir," the corporal replied before to link went dark.

New Adasta never darkened. For a start, it already sat in perpetual gloom, so only the complete extinguishment of light in the city would cast it into further blackness. Second, its inhabitants never slept. Scheduled flights followed the harsh lines of designated paths one after the other all through the night that felt like day, lights remained on in regimented windows and miniscule figures moved with purpose in the distance.

It felt like another world, and after the initial shock of seeing a place so different to the planet she was born on, Mebeth found it hard to draw herself away from the window in her room. Her mind picked out patterns in the traffic, wondered at the destinations of the marching figures and above all, wondered what the new day would bring. Dark as this place may be, its muted sights and sounds excited her.

She stepped away from the window and picked up her glass of milk from the table, sweeping her eyes around the room yet again as she sipped at the last dregs. It was a definite step up from before; she had two whole rooms to herself, with a wide, soft bed in one and a table and chair in the other. She even had a door connecting them to her own bathroom, a fact that she still couldn’t quite get her head around. Surely such a ratio was inefficient, but perhaps space was less of a limitation in the Empire.

A knock came at her door once, twice in quick succession.

“Come in,” she said. She placed the empty glass back on the table and brushed down her new clothes as she waited for the person to enter.

An aide stepped through the door and came to a halt, eyes focussed on a point above Mebeth’s head.

“Code Consus will see you now,” he said.

After a pause, Mebeth replied, “Okay,” and started walking toward him on the assumption that he’d take her where she needed to be.

He nodded and swivelled on his heels before setting off ahead of her along the corridor. Relieved, she followed, noting the sound of the door as it slid closed and locked behind them. The noise reminded her a little of the vicious hiss her blade made when she activated it and she found the tell-tale stirrings of anger rising in her gut again as she remembered it falling through the smog. Whatever she went through in this place, it had better be worth it.

She tried peering down the other corridors as they walked, but no one else patrolled the corridors and every door was closed, although she could hear voices coming from behind some of them. The occasional droid scuttled past, but that was all.

They came to a nondescript door marked by a string of numbers and letters, whereupon the aide tapped a code into a panel on the wall and stepped to one side as the door opened. With a last glance at the aide to see if he was going to say another word to her, Mebeth took a few hesitant steps into the room, almost jumping when the door closed behind her.

Code Consus stood with his back to her at the other end of the room, staring out over the city through a window which took up the entire wall. He wore the same suit as he had the day before and commanded the same presence over the room, his hands clasped behind his back. The sight of his immobile form sent a knot of fear and anger twisting through Mebeth. A solitary chair stood between them.

Perhaps he hadn’t noticed her arrival, as he remained that way in silence.

Mebeth cleared her throat.

Consus didn’t turn from the window, only replied: “A kath hound wounds a young nerf on the hunt at midnight and begins to track it. If a nerf loses consciousness when twenty percent of its original blood content of forty litres has been lost and the wound seeps one-point-six millilitres of blood per hour, will the kath hound retrieve its prey before dawn at five-thirty am?”

Frowning, Mebeth tried to process the words for a few moments before saying, “What?”

“Answer the question.”

Mebeth’s frown deepened as she tried to recall the question and run through all the numbers in her head. “Yes?” she said eventually.

“Why do you give me an uncertain answer?” Consus snapped. “Does the kath hound eat or not?”

“Yes,” she blurted out, “It does.”

A nod was Consus’ only reply, but he turned and motioned to the chair. “Sit.”

Mebeth did as she was told, but the sudden question had riled her instincts. “What is-?”

Consus cut her off. “I ask the questions.”

Inwardly, Mebeth sank back in her chair, but she commanded her body to remain still.

“What do you know of taxes?” he asked, gaze resting on her with uncomfortable intensity.

I’m never going to learn about the Force, she thought.

There was no aide to take her back to her chambers that night, but she remembered the way and the cameras mounted on the walls dissuaded her from wandering off-piste. She dragged her feet along the ground, exhausted by a barrage of questions that leapt from one topic to another with no reason or warning, an endless cacophony spanning the whole day. Where are the others? she thought. The other children, the other learners? I can’t be the only one, so why am I alone?

They’re testing you, a part of her said, but if so, it was a test devoid of any meaning.

When she reached her rooms, she sank into her chair and sulked at the food that been left for her. As much as her stomach rumbled, she almost wanted to throw it across the room out of spite. Instead, she glared at the glass of milk, willing it to fly against the wall just as she made snow fly around her once.

It wobbled once and was still.

A scream of frustration echoed in her mind and the glass shattered, pieces of it rushing across the room. She ducked beneath the table, but some pieces struck her face and hands, leaving thin blood trails across her skin. Milk dripped off the surface with a steady drip, drip, drip. All else became still.

With cautious movements, Mebeth raised herself back above the table. Her attention focussed on a small shard of glass which had caught against the side of her plate. As she looked, it rose up into the air, shimmying from side to side. Light from the ceiling lamp glittered off its sharp angles as it moved, catching her eye. It held her in a strange kind of inner silence, drawing her thoughts to a focal point with it as the lens.

A cleaner droid barged through the door and broke her concentration, sending the shard back to the table with a high-pitched tinkle. It crossed over to her, removed the glass and milk with a vacuum attachment and left the same way it had come.

Staring after it, Mebeth felt a swelling surge of achievement, but tempered it with caution. She would be careful not to break anything, in future.

Finally submitting to the will of her stomach, she sat down and began to eat.

“Are you listening to me?”

Mebeth drew her eyelids open, feeling the weight of her crash education pressing down upon them. It was… she didn’t know what time it was. Teaching began when the aide knocked and ended when Consus fell silent. The timing of those two events was as variable as the view outside was not and all sense of minute or hour or day had gone.

“Child!”

Consus’ voice never rose in volume, but it cracked like a whip across Mebeth’s mind. She sat bolt upright, making her chair rock backward on its legs and hit the table behind. The room had been filled with desks recently, as if to flaunt the lack of other students.

Code Consus glared at her, back straight with his ever-present poise and stiffness. It was a rigid frame for his eyes, from which the full intensity of any emotion flowed forth. They burned into her, repositories of anger and displeasure in a face of the still-unknown.

“I apologise,” he said in a dry voice. “Is my patronage not good enough for you? Do you grow bored of the gifts I offer?”

On the defensive in an instant, Mebeth was quick to reply, “No, I just thought-“

Consus turned away, interrupting her as he paced across to the window. “I must say, I am unimpressed at your progress. I was bold enough to hope for a proficient student, but I appear to have been burdened with something decidedly lacklustre.” At the final word he turned again, once more regarding Mebeth.

She felt her eyes begin to water and the anger she felt at herself for allowing the reaction twisted alongside the gnawing hurt his words evoked.

“I don’t even know what I’m meant to be learning!” she cried, and thought, what does he expect from me?

Consus made a grasping motion, drawing his hand close to his chest to emphasis his point. It was the strongest movement she’d seen him make. “I expect your attention,” he said. “I expect alertness. I expect a basic level of knowledge to be applied in an instant.”

With every expectation he gesticulated again and with every expectation Mebeth grew angrier. How dare this man expect so much of her but explain so little. How dare he make her feel ashamed of things far beyond her control.

“I taught myself,” she tried to say, but couldn’t raise her voice above a whisper.

Consus heard her anyway and waved a hand in dismissal. He said, “I’ve seen more intelligent farm hands,” and turned away.

Mebeth jumped up from her seat and slammed the chair back under her desk. “I am a farm hand!” she yelled, halfway between fighting and crying. “I wasn’t taught anything! No one told me about the Force. I thought you-“

Taking a single step towards her, Consus roared, “And why should I grant someone as pathetic as you the knowledge of the Sith?”

Terror shot through her from the power of his eyes and the force of his voice, beating at the corners of the room and making the furniture shudder. But Mebeth’s fury was too great to let it grip her. She felt it pass through her and leave rage in its wake, rising up as a tide in her mind and spirit. With a primal scream, she thrust her arms out in front of her.

Stillness shattered. Tables and chairs rushed past, flying through the room to the far wall and smashing against the glass. She felt it as a release of anger and the rise of triumph, but Consus stood still amidst the tempest. Everything Mebeth threw curved past him.

Then he levelled an arm at her chest.

There was a second of calm before the room filled with light. A split second later, Mebeth felt her back impact something hard and her head cracked against the wall behind her, eyes closing instinctively. A crackling roar sounded alongside the ringing in her ears and an ozone smell accompanied the blinding pain which shot through every inch of her body. She screamed without hearing and clawed at the air without commanding her muscles to move. Every nerve was a contortion of agony, every millisecond a lifetime of torture.

And then there was nothing.

She fell to the ground gasping, a tangled mess of numbed limbs upon the floor. She wondered if she was blind, but realised her eyes were closed and she just couldn’t force them open. The events of the past few seconds had jumbled in her mind and she felt a murk pulling them apart even as she reached out to collect them.

With no concept nor feeling of time, Mebeth didn’t know how long it took to regain control and open her eyes, but when she did the room was much the same as she had left it. Fear pulsing through her body, she risked movement. She drew herself up on one elbow and glanced up to the centre of the room.

Consus was still there. His lips were straight as ever, but his eyes smiled.

“That was your second test,” he said.

It was hard to respond as she was trembling so much, but she said, “You wanted me to attack you?” Then, “What was the first?”

“There was no harm in anticipating an attack. I was never at risk.” At this, his lips did raise a small margin. “As you found out. The first test was seeing that you didn’t throw yourself off the landing pad after your lightsabre. I think you would have found the moral of that lesson somewhat more final.”

A shiver of fear ran through her again in remembrance of the lightning. “Why did you-?”

“As much as I wanted you to show your potential and embrace your anger, the lesson would be flawed if I did not also use it to teach you your place.” His eyes flashed. “I am Lord Constantia. I am Sith. And you,” he said, “are my apprentice.”

Mebeth drew herself upright using the wall for support. “So you can… That was the Force as well?”

He nodded. “A skill I hope you will also learn, one day.”

“But…” Mebeth frowned, mind still reeling. “What is the Force?”

Consus- Lord Constantia sighed and paced to the window in spite of the pile of broken furniture. He took up his usual stance, hands clasped behind his back. “None of what I am about to say shall leave this room.”

Mindful of more lightning, Mebeth made a noise of approval, although she couldn’t see why the Force shouldn’t be discussed with other Sith – she knew there was more than one.

“The Force,” he said, “is an ocean. Most spend their existence floating on its surface, unaware of the wonders beneath them or the currents that control their movements. Some, like you, are able to dive beneath its surface and see the water for what it is. They see the power it contains and try to navigate the currents in an attempt to capture it.”

He paused, thumb tapping against the palm of his hand, before carrying on. “The deeper you travel, the more truly you see the Force. And when you stand at the bottom, looking up, you know that the Force is death. From the bottom, you can see all its deepest terrors, witness all its movements and understand how to manipulate it for yourself. But the longer you stand there, the more the weight of it crushes you.

“The Force is our gift, our burden and our destruction.” He finished, “This is the case for Sith and Jedi alike.”

Mebeth spent a few moments absorbing his words before deigning to reply. “Then why would anyone use it?” she asked, hesitant.

Lord Constantia glanced back at her over his shoulder. “Because power,” he said, “is victory.”

“At what cost?”

“Any animal beneath the waves will fall prey to its cruelty. The Sith seek to avoid this by denying it, commanding it to retreat. The Jedi seek to surrender to it, in the hope that they are mistaken for water and may flow with the oceans as they please.”

She frowned, and again she took a while to reply. “Neither of those sound like a solution.”

“None of them are,” he said, and there was a sad note in his voice that Mebeth would have missed had her senses not been on alert.

He stood for a while, presence marking him almost as a silhouette in the room, before turning to face Mebeth entirely. “Your training begins at dawn.”

Did someone say 'heresy'?

3646 BBY, Ziost

“You are panicking, mistress. Again.”

Mebeth took a step back from her sparring partner and wiped sweat out of her eyes with one aching wrist.

The droid eyed her as she did, optical sensors passive, the hum of its outdated servomotors quiet in the background. “Such panic forms bad habits, mistress. I would hate to see you lose an arm to your own ineptitude.”

“I’m not panicking,” she panted, glaring at the droid. “I’m just trying to react fast enough. It’s alright for you – you can calculate everything in your head just like that, without even thinking about it.”

Its sensors flickered in imitation of a blink. “Computation is my method of thinking, mistress. I am unable to think any other way.”

Crossing to the side of the room, Mebeth placed her two training blades on a table and reached for a glass of water. “You know what I mean, Four-Three,” she said with a dismissive gesture. The droid was really called BP-43 and shortened to the first letters, but she refused to call it ‘Bee Pee’ out loud.

“I do,” said Four-Three, “and you are incorrect. All my computations are reactions to outside stimulus. The difference between your reactions and mine is that I do not allow secondary processes to interfere.”

“Secondary processes?”

“Thoughts,” it said. “In combat, my responses are direct, pre-programmed reactions to incoming data. When you fight, you spend half your processing power trying to second-guess your opponent. While such prediction is admirable in certain situations, it more often becomes a problem. The time you spend thinking of your next move, of your next reaction, delays any movement you make. Your enemy takes advantage of the delay and you have even less time to think. Your actions become wilder, less controlled and more open. Your arms flail. Your mind panics. And then,” Four-Three made a slicing motion across its neck, “it becomes probable that thinking is no longer a concern.”

Crossing her arms over her chest, Mebeth frowned at the droid. “What, so entirely muscle memory?”

“Muscle memory and instinct. We have been through this before, mistress.”

Mebeth sighed and scraped a loose strand of hair back over her ear. They had been over it before, many times, but she could never get those two components – muscle and instinct – working together as they should, or as her training taught they should. Her footwork was perfect, but even after these six years, her skill with the blade itself let her down. She knew the theory, had every movement and its uses memorised in formulaic detail, but still hadn’t managed to turn it to practise.

Four-Three took her silence as saying she gave up. “We could always return to my Djem So programme tomorrow, mistress.”

She shook her head. “No,” she said. “I want to get this right.”

“As you wish.”

Four-Three set about the room, packing the blades and other training materials back into their containers.

“Do you think I’ll get to leave, soon?” Mebeth asked, eyes following the droid around the room.

“Lord Constantia said he would send you on when you were ready.”

“What does he define as ‘ready’?”

“He did not say,” Four-Three admitted as it came to a stop in the middle of the room.

With a shrug, Mebeth made her way toward the exit, ears registering the ringing footsteps of Four-Three’s metal feet as it followed behind her. They walked, as they did every day, to the landing strip and clambered into the nondescript shuttle Lord Constantia had assigned for their use. Lessons would soon commence in her master’s study near the top of the tower block – the old classroom they used to use had been commandeered for a class of naval preparatory students.

As Four-Three brought the shuttle into the air, Mebeth reached out with her mind, as she always did. Through the movement of air and materials, the physical presence of high densities and the characteristic ambient sounds of machinery, she could map out the internal components of the vehicle. She couldn’t hold all of it in her mind at once, but she could trace the circuitry to find areas of interest.

One part in particular had been her object of focus for the past few weeks and ever since she had worked out its position she’d been itching to try it. She found it now and, with eyes closed, her hands drifted to the secondary piloting controls to her right-hand side.

Four-Three noticed the movement. “I will remind you that speeder training is not permitted within your syllabus until you reach fourteen years of age.”

“I don’t know when my birthday is.”

“Then that is regrettable.”

Somewhat more regrettable for the droid was the instant transition of control from its controls to Mebeth’s, initiated by the simple movement of a circuit from one state to another — simple only because she had spent so long familiarising herself with this particular vehicle.

Mebeth opened her eyes, grinned, and pushed the control column forward, pitching the shuttle downward in a steep race to the bottom of New Adasta’s cavern. She hadn’t piloted before, true, but she had watched the droid and the movement of the controls was none too different to holding the reigns of a thranta.

The shuttle’s speakers blared into life in an instant. “Capital Echo One Three, Adasta Control. Return to designated flight path.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of Four-Three tapping at the dashboard. As she levelled out the dive and brought them curving round in a circle, she asked, “What are you doing?”

Four-Three returned its hands to the controls and Mebeth found that hers no longer had an effect on the vehicle’s movements. Oh well. Fun while it lasted – and it showed I could do it.

“Capital Echo One Three, proceed.”

Four-Three replied, “Proceeding, Capital Echo One Three.”

The droid made an approximation of a sigh and said, “It says something of the nature of the Sith that the Empire has a transponder code for this exact situation.”

Mebeth smiled to herself and feigned innocence. “What situation?”

“Joy-riding apprentices.”

Instead of flying back up to the tower, Four-Three pulled over to the nearest landing strip and hovered above the pad. It turned and gestured to Mebeth.

“What?” she said.

“I’m telling you to get out and walk, mistress.”

She shrugged. “Fine. I could do with the exercise.”

As soon as she stepped out of the shuttle, it re-entered the flow of traffic and disappeared into the gloomy sky. In truth, her legs and body still ached from training, but it wasn’t often that she got free reign to walk through the city. Of course, she’d be expected to take the most direct route to the study, but that was better than nothing.

She started making her way over to the bridge that connected the two buildings and for the first time that journey, her thoughts turned to what Lord Constantia’s reaction might be.

By the time she reached the lift, worry had gnawed its way to the forefront of her mind. As much as her stunt proved – to herself more than anyone – that she could make good use of the Force, she imagined Lord Constantia would not be impressed with the number of regulations her brief flight had broken. All he ever seemed to do was teach her and fill out paperwork, so she doubted he wanted more of the same.

She stood and waited for the lift to arrive. Individual thoughts of concern trickled through her neural pathways like drops of ice water, chilling her where they touched, but she forced herself to keep a brave face, at least on the outside.

A hydraulic thrumming signalled the arrival of the lift and there was a pause before it opened, revealing a group of naval students. Mebeth winked at the foremost of them – a boy not much older than her with a close-cropped shock of red hair – and grinned as she watched the colour drain from his face.

The group parted and shuffled away to either side of her, each granting her a wide-eyed nod as they passed by.

With a quiet chuckle, she stepped into the space they had departed before her nerves cut through the temporary humour. She stared after the group as the lift doors closed, running a finger along one of her chin bones, and wished for a moment that she could trade places with one of them. They were allowed friends and company. They had a defined syllabus. They knew the criteria for success.

But none of them had the Force. None of them had killed their family. None of them were Sith.

The journey didn’t take as long as she hoped it would, and soon enough the doors were sliding open again. An empty corridor stretched out before her. Its bare walls converged onto the door to Lord Constantia’s study and ominous flames licked around the sconces nearby.

Mebeth used the time that it took to walk down there to turn her fear into something useful. Her inkling stream of terror became a tributary to the undercurrent of anger that had been a permanent feature of her mind since her arrival on Ziost. The fear remained, but where it passed, only the engines of hatred stirred.

She paused by the door and let out a deep, hissing breath before she knocked.

The door slid open to reveal Lord Constantia, book chip in hand, resting against the edge of his desk. His eyes never left the book, but the physical presence of his attention swept over her. She felt her anger fade under its quenching effect, but fought back, redoubling her claim on her emotions.

“Sit,” he commanded.

Mebeth’s legs buckled underneath her and she collapsed into a chair with a heavy thump. Fear sparked anew, but she pushed it back. It was an odd change to see Lord Constantia in any state other than standing, hands clasped. It was a concerning change. It perhaps troubled her more than it should.

Lord Constantia flicked his fingers across the chip display, eyes scanning over its surface. “I understand you went for a little aerial wander this morning.”

“I did. I was testing my-”

“-ability to be a nuisance?” he said, finishing her sentence for her. “Indeed, you caused traffic control something of a headache. Do you think that out of all the many people in this city, you are beyond all Imperial jurisdiction?”

“No, but I found-“

“-that you could do something? Why,” he closed the chip, placed it on the desk behind him and folded his arms across his chest, “just because you can do something does not mean that you you should.”

“But I was testing my…”

At this point Lord Constantia turned to face her, cold eyes freezing her words in their tracks.

“Tell me, child – why are you here?”

Mebeth felt herself getting frustrated. “To learn.”

“And why do I teach you?”

She shrugged. “So that I learn.”

“No.” Lord Constantia stood up, shaking his head. “No, I teach you so that the Empire has another pawn in play, so that the Sith have more fodder to continue their legacy. I teach you because you can be taught and because once taught, you can be used.”

“You’re no pawn,” she said, jabbing a finger toward him.

“I am. We all are. What you may see as freedom for myself is an illusion. At some level there is always an ulterior plan, always a subtle manipulation. As much as I may go about my own business, complete my own tasks, the eye of the council is ever upon me and my eye is in turn upon you. Learn this,” he said, “if you seek to advance. Learn this or perish.”

Mebeth stared at him, bile rising in her throat. He dictates these things to me with neither proof nor context. He speaks of the Empire and the Sith and then holds me back from both like some dog held from its food.

Lord Constantia paced the short distance toward her and came to a halt two feet away, eyes gazing down upon her. “From now on you are restricted to this building. Your education will be limited to the rooms on this floor and you will be escorted at all times when moving to and from your quarters.”

She held his gaze for as long as she dared before whirling on her heels and marching straight-backed out of the room. Her mind seethed. Bad enough that she couldn’t leave the planet and never had time to talk to anyone, but this? This was something else.

As soon as she got back to her room she locked the door behind her and called out for Four-Three. It unfolded itself from the corner, light receptors flickering active.

“Mistress?”

Mebeth’s lips curled up around her teeth as she snarled, “Get your processors up and running, Four-Three. We’re getting out of here.”

They set off a short time after midnight the next week, slipping out of her room with quiet movements. It worried Mebeth that the lights were still on, but trying to turn them off would have drawn more attention than a couple of people walking along a corridor at night.

In hindsight, she was surprised that Four-Three was going along with this. She could hear its muffled footsteps behind her as they moved. It had been more than willing to betray Lord Constantia, who she assumed was its ultimate master, though somewhat less willing to wear novelty slippers to quieten its metal feet.

Their first stop was the communication and security hub on the seventeenth floor of the building. They had about an hour to get there before a droid went to her room to check on her — Mebeth had spent a few sleepless nights working out their schedule — and retract the orders that sent them to her room to make sure no alarms were raised at their escape until the morning. She had it all planned out, but there were so many unknowns that she couldn’t help worrying about the big picture. One step at a time was well enough, but she needed to think ten steps ahead to outwit Lord Constantia; she was sure of it.

As they approached the hub, her knees wanted to buckle into a crouch, but she resisted the temptation. People would know where she’d been if they saw her like this, but they’d only think something suspicious was going on if she acted the part. So far they’d been lucky not to come across anyone.

She leaned over to Four-Three as they neared the door. “You managed to disable all the cameras, right?”

Four-Three’s voice sounded odd with the volume turned down low. “I have looped the footage, yes.”

Doubt caught hold of her again as she examined the droid’s carapace. How could you tell if a machine was lying? She shook the thought from her head. No time for that. “Okay, well who’s in there?”

“One very junior member of intelligence.”

Mebeth blinked. “Sorry, what? I thought there’s usually six people in here?” she hissed.

“There were,” Four-Three explained, “but I logged a false security alarm into the system while we were making our way here. They are currently several floors above us, on the opposite side of the building, trying to unlock a room with nothing in it.”

Frowning at her companion, she couldn’t find any reason not to appreciate the help, so she gave it a reluctant nod. “Thank you.”

“I said I would help you, mistress. I am.”

Mebeth motioned for it to stay still as she crept to the side of the door, pressing an ear to the wall to listen for any movement inside. There was none, so she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and swirled around the doorframe through the opening door.

A gangly young man in uniform whipped round, wide-eyed, and just managed to get out, “Who-?” before the words were choked out of him.

Mebeth held her arm out in front of her, fingers clawed in the air. Her mind came into focus as she called on the Force, a sense of calm anger settling over her. The man’s eyes bulged. He gasped for air, arms scrabbling to release the invisible hands that held him by the throat. After a while, his eyes rolled up into his head and his body became slack.

She released him and watched his body slump to the floor. She’d never done this before. She’d never gone up against a live opponent in anything outside a training environment, never fought with anyone other than Lord Constantia. Her eyes traced the results of her handiwork, calculating the effects of her power.

It made her feel strong.

“If your intention was to stand here and observe humans lying down all day,” Four-Three interrupted her thoughts, “I am sure there were easier ways to arrange it.”

Mebeth rolled her eyes. “You’re the one who can slice.” She gestured at a console. “Go on.”

If she’d been in the mood for imagining things, she would have sworn that Four-Three grumbled as it made its way to the console. But she had already become distracted by the security feeds across the other side of the room. She could just about make out what appeared to be Lord Constantia, back to the tiny screen, in conversation with a robed hologram.

Wandering over, she unhooked the console headset and switched over to the feed’s audio.

“…is aware of the proposed benefits of the scheme, Constantia,” she heard from the hologram, its voice dripping with disdain, “but that doesn’t alter the fact that we have yet to see any marked results.”

“My Lord, the rate of progress you are looking for is unattainable. The average student starts younger than this and trains far longer.” Lord Constantia’s voice, while still cold, was more reserved when talking to this person. This was the first she’d seen of anyone who might be his superior.

“You did not promise the Ministry average, my Lord, you promised us results. And generally when someone promises us results we expect them to improve on those that came before. Your little experiment can come to Korriban with all the others and be tested. If she fails, you fail, and I will ensure that you are punished for the pathetic manner in which you taught her.”

Lord Constantia inclined his head, but she could tell from the set of his shoulders that he wasn’t pleased. “When she is ready, my Lord, she will be sent.”

The person in the hologram snorted before disconnecting and the console went dark. Lord Constantia remained where he stood for a few seconds before turning on his heel. He paused, arching his head to look straight into the camera.

Mebeth gasped and lurched backward. The headphones got tugged off her head and clattered to the side of the console.

“Is there a problem, mistress?” Four-Three asked, suddenly beside her.

Mebeth shook her head. “No,” she said and half believed it. Maybe he’d just been annoyed that a camera even existed in his room. Maybe he liked to scare security. He couldn’t possibly know she was watching. Could he?

Four-Three’s servos whirred as it held its leg out, contemplating a slipper. “If you are ready, mistress?”

Nodding, she asked, “It’s definitely safe?”

“That and more,” the droid announced. “I have uncovered reports.”

Mebeth frowned, narrowing her eyes at Four-Three. “What kind of reports?”

“Reports of a lightsabre, fallen into the depths of the city.”

She stared, words caught in her throat. The events of Alderaan seemed so far away now, and that blade was the only part of it she'd brought with her.

Her voice hoarse, she whispered, “Show me the way.”

Four-Three took them the long way round to reach its coordinates, refusing to use their usual shuttle in case it was tracked. Instead they had to make their way through the belly of New Adasta, scurrying across walkways and tunnels in a spiderweb path that took them lower and lower the further they went.

Every step they took was a step that made Mebeth more impatient, more wary of the shadows at every corner. “Where exactly are your coordinates taking us?” she hissed.

“I will let you know as soon as you let me take off these slippers, mistress,” it said. The droid had grown into more of a sulk as the early morning wore on.

Mebeth sighed. “Fine,” she said. “Take them off.”

Four-Three stopped in its tracks and reached down to take the slippers off, tucking them into the side of the walkway when it was done.

“Come on, then,” she said, impatient. “Where are we going?”

With a few measured steps to the edge of the walkway, Four-Three peered down into the bowels of the city and pointed. “We need to get down there,” it explained, “but the only access to those levels comes in the form of maintenance pathways, which we do not have access to. Given an hour or so and access to a security terminal, I could-“

Mebeth strode to the side of the droid and took its arm in a strong grip.

“Mistress?” Its eyes tilted in confusion.

She managed to give the droid a small smile before she said, “We don’t have a couple of hours,” and pulled them both over the edge.

The world dropped out of her stomach. Both of them plummeted through the air, which whipped past them with vicious compromise for the stillness it usually embodied.

“Whyyyyy?” Four-Three’s tinny voice cried beside her.

Panic lanced through her body, tinged with excitement. Her legs felt leaden and heavy, muscles jelly-like and numb, and the air felt like it was snatched away from her throat before she could breathe it in.

But she needed to concentrate, so she did. As the ground rushed up to meet them she pushed back at it with the Force, slowing their descent. Her arm ached from the strain of it, but they landed safely. Mebeth let go of the droid and stumbled a few paces to the right before falling to her knees. The sudden absence of pressure on her arm felt strange, so she sat there rotating it in its socket.

Four-Three’s servos whined, but the droid said nothing.

Mebeth closed her eyes to gather her thoughts and felt her body slow its trembling. Looking up, she made a proud mental note of how far they had fallen and survived.

She stood up. “Where’s my sabre, Four-Three?”

“This way, mistress,” it replied, sloping away dejected.

She picked her way along the cavern floor after it, taking in the area around them. She could see the bottom of the towers now, and noticed that where the metal that formed them ended, great slabs of stonework jutted up to meet them. She hadn’t seen architecture like it before and wondered how long ago it must have been put there for it to be hewn out of rock instead of durasteel.

The crunching of Four-Three’s footsteps on the ground turned into sharp clicks as it crossed over onto a stone road. It turned to follow it, staring at the floor as it followed its coordinates. “These roads come from the old capital,” it explained.

“The citadel?”

It nodded.

“I thought that was further away?” she asked.

“It is. That is why there is a road.” It ignored the glare that Mebeth shot its way. “There was an outpost here before New Adasta was built. It served as a foundation of parts of the city.”

Glancing around at the stone again, she said, “It seems a bit fancy to just be an outpost.”

“As capital of the Empire, even defences were built with the display of power in mind and the use of stone was standard for this purpose, being both durable and impressive. It is no more fancy than it is practical, mistress.”

Mebeth nodded at its words, finding herself caught up in imaginings of the Sith who walked here before her. How powerful were they compared to those who lived in this age? Where was Lord Constantia on the scale of the Sith? She had read about the histories and achievements of many, but such heights of power had to be truly experienced and witnessed to be believed. Sith who devoured planets, machines that pulled stars across the sky — such things were so distant that they felt intangible, sounded impossible.

After some time they came to a ruined stone entrance set back into the cave wall. Rubble was piled up to her own height in front of it and glyphs — she recognised them as Kittât, but didn’t know their translations — were carved into its frame.

“So,” Mebeth said, folding her arms across her chest, “would you like to tell me how my blade managed to fall a good way sideways from its original position and end up inside a cave?”

Four-Three began moving rubble off the pile, piece by piece. “The reports indicated that smugglers had taken the blade.”

“Smugglers,” she said, unamused. “On Ziost.”

“It is not unheard of.” The droid was unfazed by her sarcasm. “Anyway, mistress, security services were tracking the smugglers when I read their report, so I extracted the coordinates.”

Eyes widening, she took a step toward Four-Three. “You mean security could have been on their way here this whole time?”

The droid stared back at her, hands clutching a piece of rubble to its chest. “Yes. We ought to be quick.”

Suppressing an angry growl, Mebeth barged past it and clambered over the rest of the rubble. She felt the air press on her throat as it became staler and her eyes strain to adjust to the dark. Her blade was in there somewhere and come darkness, come security, come her master, she would get it back.

By the time I realised I'd misread the Wookieepedia page for New Adasta/Ziost, it was too late to correct the fact that New Adasta just replaced the old capital rather than being built directly on top of it. So I fudged it a bit and invented a random outpost, which hopefully doesn't seem too outlandish