# In reply to VN Ysadora's:

"Alek, buir," Vanya repeated in a suspiciously docile tone. Standing, she kissed Doc on the cheek. "Can I take these miscreants with me?"

# In reply to VN Ysadora's:

Dinner: 17:15 to 18:20

 

The food available at the free canteen varied wildly between a pirate clan's idea of top-notch luxury entrees and the poorest escaped slave's tolerable rations. Vanya flatly rejected two options on behalf of her entire party, giving the indignant Toydarian server only a firm, "Noghri might adore it, but I'm not that kind of monk!" as she shoved the rolling access hatch back to its locked position.

Half the seats at the canteen were occupied when they walked into the dining area. Jenkins spotted a clear spot off to one side, big enough for him and Rico to tuck their helmets underneath but not endanger anyone's knees. He and Rico started progress on their trays of food while the clergy took a few minutes to meditate before eating.

"All right," Vanya said to Rico as she picked up her spork, "I'm still behind on my report reading. You've been in system, what, fifteen days now? Twenty? Are you having a good time?"

"Training!" Rico complained. He stabbed the remains of his salad in emphasis. "We're doing sooooo much training. I never once applied to be a drill sergeant, and there's a reason for that."

"Giving," Jenkins said. "Not receiving. We're 'advisors' loaning out the Tapani Imperium's 'wealth of practical experience'. So of course our pod's Most Likely To Skip All Middle Steps over here," he pointed his own eating utensil at his brother, "faces the curse of trainees who treat instructions exactly as he did."

"I have the authority to give brevet promotions, you know," Rico said mildly. "You could be 'Commander Vorysadora' tomorrow."

"I'd sign as witness," Davish offered. "By the time they figure out if my name makes it valid or invalid, it'll be too late!"

 

Twilight Shift: 18:30 to 20:00

 

"Thanks for the downtime," Rico said as he pushed away from the table, "but I've got a half-shift still to work. Starting with a visit to BoSS."

Davish piled his tray atop Vanya's. "I need to go register our ship. And her weapons. I'll walk with you."

Vanya waved them off with one hand as she grabbed for Jenkins' empty plate with the other. "Are you back on duty, too?"

"Officially? No. I want to check the incoming transmissions log once more for my own piece of mind. But then I've got free hours until sack time."

"I can be 'Girl Distraction' if you'd like?"

Jenkins appreciated having an easy way to turn down the company. He considered releasing Vanya to her own devices. No, there would be thicker concentrations of tired, distracted people on the walkways of the city, strangers who had their own ideas about personal space or impersonal collisions. Jenkins had not yet hit his overstimulation threshold but having someone comfortable around who knew to run interfence would be a smart idea.

Commander Vanya had always been well aware that a minority of clone troopers were uncomfortable with casual physical contact. She walked alongside him in companionable silence, looking at the city as it drifted by. Her stride did not match his cadence. But she kept pace, neither surging ahead nor trailing behind, while making it seem effortless. Somehow, seemingly by coincidence, she was always between him and any knot in the crowd.

"Okay, seriously," Jenkins said as they entered a repurposed storage shed, "Madine spends a lot of marks on lessons for how to guard in a crowd situation. Nearly none of it works for us. Have you thought about charging him a painful amount of money for running your own eight-week course every couple of years?"

He startled a snicker out of Vanya. "Oh, man! That's a mission for my instructor, not me. Too bad. You and Tess Belden would get along like oxygen and carbon. I think she would have enjoyed tutoring Rico, too, though it would not have been such a good time from his point of view. Brutto, on the other hand," Vanya paused to vividly picture that first encounter. "Brutto would've got shot. She'd be so mad. He can bake, he's good looking, he gives off subtle miscreant vibes, he defaults to 'mad' when out of his depth. Tess would look him down and up again -- decide he's her type, which he is not -- feed him a straight line and get furious when he did not catch the reference."

"Who is Tess Belden?" Jenkins set his helmet on the shelf above a communications array.

"Was," Vanya corrected. "She passed away about thirteen years ago. I got a nice little note about it from one of her neighbors. Tess taught me all the skills and tricks for the fieldwork of being a private investigator -- a significant minority of which is bodyguard work. She was a wiry, persistent, ethically vague social chameleon who tutored a scrawny, persistent, frequently indignant teenaged meddler. I don't know how many of those tricks would work with your build. We're close to the same height, that helps some, I suppose."

Vanya let the topic drift away as she surveyed the Beskar Aran's planetary headquarters. "You guys have a whole Command Center worth of gear in here! Surely you didn't cart this along from home?"

Jenkins gave Vanya the casual version of the tour. He vaguely summarized technical specifications while dwelling on clever moments of repurposing or retrofitting random components. The critical pieces of the office equipment did travel as part of the Beskar Aran payload. Most of what she could see, from seismic sensors to cooling system to generators to additional Holonet signal processors, had been lifted from various downed starships or hastily abandoned pirate hideouts. Even the furniture, the fixtures, came from partial hulks of freighters left ownerless after the Gate Incident.

"I love how your minds work," Vanya said. "This is mostly you and Goss, right? Except the extra generator and the shock absorption pads on the walls and ceiling. That's got to be Rico. He hates getting jostled when he is trying to concentrate. He deftly avoided drop marine training, too. I see you have an additional memory array in case the primary gets too many signals at once, that's signature Jenkins plotting for contingencies. Smart thinking! I bet that's already proven critical."

Jenkins smiled. It was nice to be recognized.

"Our quarters are two blocks away," he said. "Far enough for a real rest, close enough to run if there's an alarm. I try not to work from my bunk these days."

Vanya said nothing but beamed silent approval at him.

Jenkins settled into his chair to sort the chatter of the past few hours. He was dimly aware of Vanya continuing to stroll around the former storage shed. Her attention paused on various security measures and the placement of emergency safety equipment. Jenkins did not get a sense of a command inspection so much as of an interested exploration.

He was almost done when it occurred to him that Vanya had been looking out the polarized window for several minutes, unmoving. Meditating? Watching for trouble? He glanced up barely in time to spot the raddled expression of a natborn citizen well beyond her young adulthood years. She looked so ... careworn. And annoyed at herself for it.

Before his gaze could dart away, Vanya's facial expression and body language shifted toward a more familiar resolve. She detached her comms earpiece from its habitual resting spot. Shutting it off, she folded it to fit in one of her belt pouches.

Jenkins decided to expedite the remainder of his evening message sort. The last thing he processed was on the most private text channel: a shorthand code that meant both be elsewhere until "clear" signal and no cause for concern. His brothers should easily guess that the Commander had decided to do her daily meditation in their office space -- what Sparks persisted in calling "the mystic woo version of a daily defrag".

Vanya shrugged out of her cloak as she wandered over to an empty stool. She settled complacently, cloak twisted to drape across her lap.

When Jenkins swiveled in his chair, he intended to offer to vacate so Vanya could have a little more space. To his mild surprise, he found Vanya watching him affectionately. She tilted her head toward his screens in silent query.

"I'm done until morning shift," Jenkins reported.

Vanya met his eyes. "Straighten me out, vod," she invited. "I'm ready."

"Ehhm...."

Vanya waited out his vacuous stalling noises. Finally he managed to swap his mental tracks onto something that might produce meaningful content: "Commander, I, uh, not sure what--" He felt more than saw the mental retreat begin as she registered his use of a title instead of her name. Jenkins started again. "Vanya. I think you went left when I was still heading right. Could you throw me some context?"

On that almost imperceptible layer, Vanya unclenched again. "You've been giving me the Eye of Concern tonight," she said. "Three times in Doc's medbay, more at dinner, I'm sure I missed some on the walk over here. Lay it out for me."

"For real?"

Vanya nodded, her eyes never leaving his. "I pinky-swear that i am in earnest."

Jenkins leaned back in the chair a little. "This is different." He turned the idea over in his mind a few times, trying to fit it into words. "You don't often ... I dunno how to say this ." He stopped to think again. "I think I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times who we get inside those robes has not had at least half of its basis in what was going on with us."

Clumsy phrasing, maybe, but Vanya nodded in easy agreement. "And the others were all on Dendarii. Twilight happened. I quit being selfish."

Jenkins waved one hand toward her, palm toward the ceiling. "And now?"

Vanya's shoulders rolled back in a noncommittal almost-shrug. "You don't need a chaplain right now." She smiled, briefly, a little crookedly. "Who knows? Maybe I do. What do you think?"

A disbelieving snort burst out of Jenkins. "Where are you going to find a chaplain on this chaotic rock?"

"Oh," Vanya glanced toward the narrow skylight in the shed's original roof. "It wouldn't be the right kind of thing to ask of my partner, not either one of us for the other. Babulya Belshanna, maybe. At least I'd get a deeper understanding of the Bendu ideas. And snacks. Satina might find it a fun exercise. If I'm really wanting an adventurous life, I could try for an appointment on Lady Ventress's calendar."

"I'm not shuffling you off to any of them, Vanya," Jenkins said hastily. "Ventress. Wow, that's a disaster in script form!"

"Force will provide," Vanya said.

Jenkins thought he detected a hint of self-declared "ori'vod" letting vod'ika off the hook. Wrong idea, wrong idea; he should not have let her break eye contact enough to turn the whole thing into a lighthearted joke. "This will be an interesting new experience," he said, "giving the sage advice for a change. Okay. Let's see what happens."

# In reply to VN Ysadora's:

Dinner: 17:15 to 18:20

 

The food available at the free canteen varied wildly between a pirate clan's idea of top-notch luxury entrees and the poorest escaped slave's tolerable rations. Vanya flatly rejected two options on behalf of her entire party, giving the indignant Toydarian server only a firm, "Noghri might adore it, but I'm not that kind of monk!" as she shoved the rolling access hatch back to its locked position.

Half the seats at the canteen were occupied when they walked into the dining area. Jenkins spotted a clear spot off to one side, big enough for him and Rico to tuck their helmets underneath but not endanger anyone's knees. He and Rico started progress on their trays of food while the clergy took a few minutes to meditate before eating.

"All right," Vanya said to Rico as she picked up her spork, "I'm still behind on my report reading. You've been in system, what, fifteen days now? Twenty? Are you having a good time?"

"Training!" Rico complained. He stabbed the remains of his salad in emphasis. "We're doing sooooo much training. I never once applied to be a drill sergeant, and there's a reason for that."

"Giving," Jenkins said. "Not receiving. We're 'advisors' loaning out the Tapani Imperium's 'wealth of practical experience'. So of course our pod's Most Likely To Skip All Middle Steps over here," he pointed his own eating utensil at his brother, "faces the curse of trainees who treat instructions exactly as he did."

"I have the authority to give brevet promotions, you know," Rico said mildly. "You could be 'Commander Vorysadora' tomorrow."

"I'd sign as witness," Davish offered. "By the time they figure out if my name makes it valid or invalid, it'll be too late!"

 

Twilight Shift: 18:30 to 20:00

 

"Thanks for the downtime," Rico said as he pushed away from the table, "but I've got a half-shift still to work. Starting with a visit to BoSS."

Davish piled his tray atop Vanya's. "I need to go register our ship. And her weapons. I'll walk with you."

Vanya waved them off with one hand as she grabbed for Jenkins' empty plate with the other. "Are you back on duty, too?"

"Officially? No. I want to check the incoming transmissions log once more for my own piece of mind. But then I've got free hours until sack time."

"I can be 'Girl Distraction' if you'd like?"

Jenkins appreciated having an easy way to turn down the company. He considered releasing Vanya to her own devices. No, there would be thicker concentrations of tired, distracted people on the walkways of the city, strangers who had their own ideas about personal space or impersonal collisions. Jenkins had not yet hit his overstimulation threshold but having someone comfortable around who knew to run interfence would be a smart idea.

Commander Vanya had always been well aware that a minority of clone troopers were uncomfortable with casual physical contact. She walked alongside him in companionable silence, looking at the city as it drifted by. Her stride did not match his cadence. But she kept pace, neither surging ahead nor trailing behind, while making it seem effortless. Somehow, seemingly by coincidence, she was always between him and any knot in the crowd.

"Okay, seriously," Jenkins said as they entered a repurposed storage shed, "Madine spends a lot of marks on lessons for how to guard in a crowd situation. Nearly none of it works for us. Have you thought about charging him a painful amount of money for running your own eight-week course every couple of years?"

He startled a snicker out of Vanya. "Oh, man! That's a mission for my instructor, not me. Too bad. You and Tess Belden would get along like oxygen and carbon. I think she would have enjoyed tutoring Rico, too, though it would not have been such a good time from his point of view. Brutto, on the other hand," Vanya paused to vividly picture that first encounter. "Brutto would've got shot. She'd be so mad. He can bake, he's good looking, he gives off subtle miscreant vibes, he defaults to 'mad' when out of his depth. Tess would look him down and up again -- decide he's her type, which he is not -- feed him a straight line and get furious when he did not catch the reference."

"Who is Tess Belden?" Jenkins set his helmet on the shelf above a communications array.

"Was," Vanya corrected. "She passed away about thirteen years ago. I got a nice little note about it from one of her neighbors. Tess taught me all the skills and tricks for the fieldwork of being a private investigator -- a significant minority of which is bodyguard work. She was a wiry, persistent, ethically vague social chameleon who tutored a scrawny, persistent, frequently indignant teenaged meddler. I don't know how many of those tricks would work with your build. We're close to the same height, that helps some, I suppose."

Vanya let the topic drift away as she surveyed the Beskar Aran's planetary headquarters. "You guys have a whole Command Center worth of gear in here! Surely you didn't cart this along from home?"

Jenkins gave Vanya the casual version of the tour. He vaguely summarized technical specifications while dwelling on clever moments of repurposing or retrofitting random components. The critical pieces of the office equipment did travel as part of the Beskar Aran payload. Most of what she could see, from seismic sensors to cooling system to generators to additional Holonet signal processors, had been lifted from various downed starships or hastily abandoned pirate hideouts. Even the furniture, the fixtures, came from partial hulks of freighters left ownerless after the Gate Incident.

"I love how your minds work," Vanya said. "This is mostly you and Goss, right? Except the extra generator and the shock absorption pads on the walls and ceiling. That's got to be Rico. He hates getting jostled when he is trying to concentrate. He deftly avoided drop marine training, too. I see you have an additional memory array in case the primary gets too many signals at once, that's signature Jenkins plotting for contingencies. Smart thinking! I bet that's already proven critical."

Jenkins smiled. It was nice to be recognized.

"Our quarters are two blocks away," he said. "Far enough for a real rest, close enough to run if there's an alarm. I try not to work from my bunk these days."

Vanya said nothing but beamed silent approval at him.

Jenkins settled into his chair to sort the chatter of the past few hours. He was dimly aware of Vanya continuing to stroll around the former storage shed. Her attention paused on various security measures and the placement of emergency safety equipment. Jenkins did not get a sense of a command inspection so much as of an interested exploration.

He was almost done when it occurred to him that Vanya had been looking out the polarized window for several minutes, unmoving. Meditating? Watching for trouble? He glanced up barely in time to spot the raddled expression of a natborn citizen well beyond her young adulthood years. She looked so ... careworn. And annoyed at herself for it.

Before his gaze could dart away, Vanya's facial expression and body language shifted toward a more familiar resolve. She detached her comms earpiece from its habitual resting spot. Shutting it off, she folded it to fit in one of her belt pouches.

Jenkins decided to expedite the remainder of his evening message sort. The last thing he processed was on the most private text channel: a shorthand code that meant both be elsewhere until "clear" signal and no cause for concern. His brothers should easily guess that the Commander had decided to do her daily meditation in their office space -- what Sparks persisted in calling "the mystic woo version of a daily defrag".

Vanya shrugged out of her cloak as she wandered over to an empty stool. She settled complacently, cloak twisted to drape across her lap.

When Jenkins swiveled in his chair, he intended to offer to vacate so Vanya could have a little more space. To his mild surprise, he found Vanya watching him affectionately. She tilted her head toward his screens in silent query.

"I'm done until morning shift," Jenkins reported.

Vanya met his eyes. "Straighten me out, vod," she invited. "I'm ready."

"Ehhm...."

Vanya waited out his vacuous stalling noises. Finally he managed to swap his mental tracks onto something that might produce meaningful content: "Commander, I, uh, not sure what--" He felt more than saw the mental retreat begin as she registered his use of a title instead of her name. Jenkins started again. "Vanya. I think you went left when I was still heading right. Could you throw me some context?"

On that almost imperceptible layer, Vanya unclenched again. "You've been giving me the Eye of Concern tonight," she said. "Three times in Doc's medbay, more at dinner, I'm sure I missed some on the walk over here. Lay it out for me."

"For real?"

Vanya nodded, her eyes never leaving his. "I pinky-swear that i am in earnest."

Jenkins leaned back in the chair a little. "This is different." He turned the idea over in his mind a few times, trying to fit it into words. "You don't often ... I dunno how to say this ." He stopped to think again. "I think I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times who we get inside those robes has not had at least half of its basis in what was going on with us."

Clumsy phrasing, maybe, but Vanya nodded in easy agreement. "And the others were all on Dendarii. Twilight happened. I quit being selfish."

Jenkins waved one hand toward her, palm toward the ceiling. "And now?"

Vanya's shoulders rolled back in a noncommittal almost-shrug. "You don't need a chaplain right now." She smiled, briefly, a little crookedly. "Who knows? Maybe I do. What do you think?"

A disbelieving snort burst out of Jenkins. "Where are you going to find a chaplain on this chaotic rock?"

"Oh," Vanya glanced toward the narrow skylight in the shed's original roof. "It wouldn't be the right kind of thing to ask of my partner, not either one of us for the other. Babulya Belshanna, maybe. At least I'd get a deeper understanding of the Bendu ideas. And snacks. Satina might find it a fun exercise. If I'm really wanting an adventurous life, I could try for an appointment on Lady Ventress's calendar."

"I'm not shuffling you off to any of them, Vanya," Jenkins said hastily. "Ventress. Wow, that's a disaster in script form!"

"Force will provide," Vanya said.

Jenkins thought he detected a hint of self-declared "ori'vod" letting vod'ika off the hook. Wrong idea, wrong idea; he should not have let her break eye contact enough to turn the whole thing into a lighthearted joke. "This will be an interesting new experience," he said, "giving the sage advice for a change. Okay. Let's see what happens."

# In reply to 's:

He looked at the deck, or floor as he reminded himself, with hands on his knees to gather his thoughts. When he looked back up, Vanya was still watching him. But he could see, rather than feel, that her thoughts had brought up their usual armor. Jenkins had seen it before, but never realized it.

 

Now? He recognized it now after talking with Hicks and hearing about what happened on Nar Shaddaa. The fighting arena. It was harsh stuff for anyone. He could only imagine what it would be like for a Jedi.

 

Then again, on thinking back to the Jedi he knew during the Clone Wars, maybe he could.

 

“Force will provide…” he repeated the phrase. “You know, before getting frozen, I heard that a lot during the Clone Wars. Most meant it.” Jenkins shrugged. “None of them really always paid attention to it. Especially when they needed to.”

 

Jenkins pushed on before Vanya could reply with another joke or quick, pleasant reply.

 

“When they should have,” he added. “Sometimes, we’d have other Jedi or padawans pitch in to help the Jedi assigned to us. As the war ground on, at least before we were frozen, most went out of their way to make sure we were all right. At least as best as they could. Sure, a handful thought of us as ‘tools’ or ‘weapons’. But I’m talking about the ones that didn’t. The ones that saw us, everything around, as unique and important.”

 

He let some silent hang in the air.

 

“But they all grew to have a similar look in their eyes. Tired. Seeing things out farther than maybe they should. Like they were looking at ghosts walking beside them.” Jenkins nodded at Vanya, adding a half gesture in her direction for emphasis.

 

“The Force provided times to rest. Most of us took it, but they didn’t. You know, Force powers and awareness is amazing, but it can sure make you blind to… well… just taking time to be you. To let down your hair and just let the galaxy waddle along on its own.”

 

Jenkins shrugged.

 

“One thing that clones learn quick is to talk it out. It’s part of why we have private channels. So we can talk it out when ghosts show up. You went through a small Clone War on Nar Shaddaa. You have that look in your eyes, those Jedi I knew back then did. Maybe right now, isn’t me ‘straightening you out’. Maybe this is just the Force providing… a moment. A private channel to just talk it out. So you and the ghosts will come to a middle.”

 

He tilted his head to one side for a second.

 

“So, it doesn’t really seem like meditating has done the trick, if you don’t mind me saying so. You need some ‘safe rest time’. Instead of meditating, why not trying to talk about it? What’s the ghosts eating at you? The galaxy won’t flush itself down the refresher while you’re sitting here with me just talking it out.”

# In reply to VN Ysadora's:

"Mmm." Head tilted slightly, Vanya thought Jenkins' words over in the same way she would examine an incongruous bill of lading in a city records archive. "Here's another 'Jedi-ism" for the unofficial cheat sheet: when we say, 'the Force will provide', mostly you can read that to mean, 'when I am on the spot, I will pick a nice coincidence to convert into a resource'." She smiled faintly. "Kind of how when we advise somebody, 'the path ahead of you is clouded', you all take it the same as if I'd said, 'good luck, di'kut!' instead. I don't always intend that emotional sense of I disagree that this is in any way my problem but trying to control the galaxy around us is a recipe for bad things."

There was no point in protesting the rumor of such a cheat sheet. Somewhere over the past decade, Vanya had probably gotten one of the troops to loan her their copy of the heirloom regulations manual and read it from end to end, including all unofficial annotations.

"If I'm receiving you clearly," Vanya continued, "your Eye of Concern incidences today have all spawned from similarity to past examples of burnout that you witnessed in other clergy? And you advise me to put into words whatever murky stuff is going on in my head so that I can do something concrete with it. Before it, you know, knocks my knees out from under me or something."

# In reply to 's:

Jenkins shrugged.

 

“Sort of. I guess it’s my turn to babble.” He shifted position in his chair. “What happened on Nar Shaddaa and elsewhere was bad. Hicks gave over what he saw and knew. Maybe this is a ‘clone-ism’ but all of us clones know that everyone has a breaking point. Everyone. When one of us breaks, we all break a little. But together we support each other. Together we are stronger.”

 

He leaned back a little in his chair and gave Vanya a serious look.

 

“So, yeah. Talk it out. It may not get solved. But something or someone dark is trying to live and make a mess in your head that has no place being there.”

 

Jenkins waited a moment before he spoke again.

 

“Vanya, you say ‘vod’ to us. That carries a deep meaning. This isn’t about being Jedi, clergy or not. This is that deeper meaning of ‘vod’. One that includes you.”

 

He clasped his hands together in a tight grip.

 

“Vode an, Vanya. So, yeah. What is that dark thing that is haunting you? Tell me. Because it's hurting you. We can’t stand by while cuun vode is being eaten away.”

# In reply to VN Ysadora's:

Vanya leaned forward just barely enough to pat Jenkins' chair arm affectionately. Not touching him, but imparting fondness all the same. "You're a good soul, Jenkins," she said. "One of the first things I liked about you is your talent for aiming a scope at camouflaged problems." She straightened again on the stool while she searched her thoughts for the best starting point.

"I keep having this dream."

The tropishness of that sentence bothered Vanya. She made a face. She hurried to wave away the weight of seriousness that ought to flow behind such a pronouncement. "Not every night! Not even on a steady schedule. Maybe a couple of times a week. Sometimes it's three times in a single sleep cycle and then not again for eight days. Sometimes it's every three nights or so." Her hands folded together on the hem of her tabard. "And it's not a prediction, either. Those feel, well, it's empty content to just say 'they feel different', isn't it? Let's just say that it still does not say Skywalker across my forehead. My dreams may be weird sometimes, persistent, but they aren't mythical."

Vanya steered herself back toward her topic. "These dreams," she said. "Remember that multiple day hiking trail on the original Dendarii, other side of the plateau, where the flora canopy got thick enough that the ground level vegetation got sparse? Rainforests are as drippy as jungle, but at least we have room to walk. Which we're doing. I have no idea where we are headed or what we expect to do once we get there, all of which is future-me's problem.

"Something attacks us."

Vanya brushed her left hand upward near her forehead as if shoving a dangling curtain away from her face, or maybe ducking an overhanging tree branch. "Sometimes I can see what the threat is. It's Reavers armed with wide-bore blasters, or tinnies shooting bouncy balls, or the trees ahead of us firing mini-grenades. Something chaotic, something overwhelming. Sometimes I never really get a clear idea as to the shape of the attack at all. Anyway, I have enough time to yell for helmets on and don't get separated. Then it's just," she shrugged, "split second images of turmoil. Right around the time I start to suspect I'm dreaming, the incoming threat components start to be both excessive and ludicrous: rocket-boosted bedframes, ballistic rock spires, balls of plasma fire, that sort of thing. Everyone is hunkered down tight. I spot an incoming," Vanya huffed. "Nearly always, it's a starfighter. Varies which model. No pilot. Whoever is directing this attack is doing it from far ahead of us. It's impersonal, this determination to wipe everyone out. No passion. Not even indignation. There is no tiny fact, no research outlier, no reason connecting any of it to implicate a motive."

She sucked in a breath, let it out in a controlled fashion. "This is where I know for sure I am dreaming. If a computer was doing it, then someone would have programmed that computer; someone had a reason for setting up this attack, this place, this much expenditure of energy and materials. No motive at all means that a scenario this complicated cannot occur. Once I question that, I know there is a lot of nonsense in every part of the experience. It has to be a dream. And if I know I am dreaming, then I remember having had this dream before. I know that massive pointy thing is a puzzle I have to solve completely, accurately, before it smashes us into component atoms. I know every individual there faces a problem they have got to solve for everyone's sake. Every soul is doing his utmost to handle this mess. Me? I have got to derail the oncoming starship. Only, so far, every time, every option I try is a bad fit."

Vanya took a second to mentally shake off the frustration she felt. "Maybe this is my subconscious's way of griping about the past five months? We are all doing as much as we realistically can do. But there's something barrelling toward us that I am not detecting ... and I have got to do my job. Or everyone will get splattered. D'Joy is wrong, I am absolutely clear on that: He can set me up to not only appear incompetent but perform so in public view. So what? Who I am is not delineated by a measurement of what functions I perform."

She opened her empty hands, letting them drift apart. In a tone of mild afterthought, she added, "Last time I had this rerun of a dream was last night. We were still in hyperspace in real life. For a moment, I thought I might be on to something: I yanked the hull panel off the recess for the front turret. Hauled it close enough to myself that I could brace it at an angle, make a ramp that would force the starfighter to angle upward into the canopy. It cannot be tougher than itself, right?" Vanya saw something else in her memory of the dream that she did not care to describe. "I think the impact kills me. I kind of fade out of the dream as I hear one of your brothers yelling that the dinii jetii is down, and hey, looney Jedi, that's usually either Ani or me. So, using the bit of the problem I do see as a means to disrupt the whole problem, that's no good. I have got to do my job, darn it. Which is not to present myself as ablative armor. "

Vanya sighed, visibly deflating as her tale wound down. She ran her fingers through the hair above her ears. "I'm not seeing something. Possibly something obvious. Definitely something mission-critical. i think if I'm going to know that it's a dream, I durned well ought to be able to decide how that dream is going to go. I don't have all the pieces but I have enough fragments to outline a framework, anyhow. So. Why can't I relax back into my usual 'problems exist to be solved; here is how we are gonna start' mode?"

 

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