Chapter Seven (Patreon)

Ali’ya’s class schedule was full to say the least. She couldn’t take every class (regardless of how much she wanted to) so she’d been forced to limit herself to eight, two more than she was supposed to but her exam results gave her some leeway.

Oh, and she’d leveled up! She was now level three. She’d put her two new Vital Statistics points into Luck. It wasn’t the most immediately useful statistic, but it would come in handy in any inevitable life-or-death situations she faced as a Jedi. The system owners wanted entertainment, and that would be hard to find if she was dead. Her skill points she was holding in reserve for now. While currently she could level up most of her skills simply by reading textbooks, she was certain there would come a time when that was no longer an option, and skill points would come in handy then.

Ali’ya went to class. She studied. She trained. She read. She slept. She woke up and went to class. On and on it went, her skills slowly but steadily improving. She hit the limit of what reading could tell her in astronavigation, piloting, smithing, six different languages, and four types of combat. She--

Quest: Get a Friend

Find a friend. Your life is getting sad.

Reward: 100 experience points, and a friend

Penalty: -1,000 experience points, and stand out as anti-social.

Damn it, Ali’ya thought. I knew I’d forgotten something.

*

Mace Windu wasn’t sure what to make of the new girl. She was certainly odd. He supposed she wasn’t that new any more either, but she was still odd. All she did was read and train. Which, yes the older initiates had more classes but even that nerf-herder Qui-Gon had free time, and Master Dooku was known for how strict he was! He made Padawan Bondara cry, and Padawan Bondara laughed when he broke his ankle!

She was also a mess of shatterpoints. Like a wrong drop could break her, or the right strike could turn her into an invincible weapon. Mace wasn’t sure he liked that. He wasn’t sure what it meant. Master Yoda said to focus on the present, which is what he was doing when his abilities started acting up!

Ali’ya gave better advice. Told him to rest when the pain in his head got too bad. Gave him something she called chicken noodle soup that tasted like nuna soup but with better spicing and noodles. It didn’t cure his pain, which she called migraines since they happened on one side at a time (usually) or make the weird vision things go away or make his balance any better, but it was something he could eat when his stomach went topsy-turvey and it was better than the creche masters who kept saying he should trust in the Force.

“The Force helps those who help themselves,” Ali’ya said once. She was only three years older than him, but sounded wiser than Qui-Gon. Not that that was hard. “It has provided us with this galaxy, with this life, with these abilities. It is up to us to ensure that they are used properly. In other words, take some painkillers and drink your soup.”

Mace decided he liked Ali’ya. It was fine that she was strange. They were Jedi. They were supposed to be strange space wizards or something.

*

Much to her own surprise, Mace BAMF Windu was the first friend Ali’ya made. Though he was far from the Master of the Order that he’d become. He was a child, and having someone to listen to his complaints, who gave him food and comfort instead of cold advice about the Force was something he sorely needed. Had she actually been six it would’ve been beyond her capabilities. Fortunately Ali’ya was mentally much older, even if the hormones and childish energy of being six overtook her at times. Or maybe it was just that she, having the hindsight of adulthood, now knew how precious youth could be.

Even more surprising than Mace being her first friend was that Ali’ya made more friends. She’d never been popular, not until high school at best, but Jedi seemed to gravitate towards the strange and their younglings were no different. And Ali’ya was strange. She’d made peace with that in her old life, though she’d had to do it all over again now that strange meant ‘is Force-sensitive and a literal cat biped’ rather than ‘likes to infodump.’  Though she still did infodump, it was just that her rants were seen as entertaining and intriguing rather than an attempt to make herself seem to be smarter. Most of the time at least. It helped that she was always willing to listen to others’ rants and complaints and uncertainty about how to act when they knew someone was feeling something because of the Force but they were supposed to act a different way but the societal norms made no sense . . .

Ah, Ali’ya realized as Kirana wept into her clothes, lekku wrapped around the back of her neck. I’ve collected a posse of autistic children. Maybe we’ll all be weird together. That’s how my friendships usually work.

*

They were, in fact, all weird together. They listened to each other. Ali’ya was free to talk about her newest passion project (use of exotic materials in Force-enhanced smithing). Mace was able to talk about the last play he saw on the holonet without losing any of his reputation as an excessively-skilled lightsaber fighter (honestly, the boy was just scary. Only five and he was already able to overwhelm her defenses with his flurries of rapid-fire attacks, though he had yet to figure out a way to defend against her superior strength. But that wouldn’t last long). Kirana could talk about whichever galactic culture struck her fancy (currently it was Nubian culture, not Nabooian, which she was swift to correct at every opportunity) and Kazdan could talk about the latest developments in droid technology for however long he wanted, including their possible upgrades.

It was, in a word, wonderful.

“So, while it’s more useful than the P2-series for most ships, it simply lacks their brainpower,” Kazdan said. “Too simple, too small. Maybe they’ll figure it out later, there’s rumors about them trying to miniaturize astronavigation calculators, but for the moment they’re little better than small labor droids.”

“And this is . . .”

“Industrial Automation,” Kazdan sighed. “They have such promise, and if they can ever deliver I’d be delighted to get my hands on one of their droids--and so would many others, I can promise you that--but for now . . .” the eleven-year-old Aleen sighed. “And the old design was so much better. I like a rounded top.”

The last bit sounded familiar to Ali’ya. She frowned. “Do you have an image we could see?”

“Of course!” Kazdan delighted, hopping up off his chair. He ran his fingers through his many, many pockets before coming up with a holo emitter. “Here!” A strange looking droid appeared in blue light. A cone placed atop a boot--or perhaps a vacuum cleaner--with a few antennae poking up out of it.

“Ugh,” Kirana groaned. “That’s ugly.” Mace scrunched his nose in agreement.

“I know, right?” Kazdan sighed. “They used to be so pretty. Here’s the old P2.”

Ali’ya barely held in a gasp as the new image took over the screen. It was larger--more than twice the size of the R2 units she remembered seeing--but the design was unmistakable.

“Pretty,” Mace agreed. “But tall. Too tall.”

“Very much too tall,” Kazdan agreed. “Two-point-two meters in height. There’s a reason they’re not used much anymore. Anything smaller than a decent corvette can’t accommodate them, and those ships usually have their own navi computers. The P2 can do a lot of engineering stuff though, but so can the new ones.”

Ali’ya nodded along, though she was increasingly lost in thought. R-units where everywhere in the world she remembered seeing and based on what Kazdan said they would be soon as well. If a single company made them (which seemed to be the case) that company would be ridiculously wealthy. And with wealth came certain privileges, and abilities, as well as a secure path should the Order decide to kick her out. I have a couple million credits in my account right now, Ali’ya thought. I was going to use that for an ad campaign--I suppose I still can, I’ll just be low on cash. Advertising was mostly done by videos, outright ads, pop-up ads, and other boring things. Ali’ya was interested in something more novel--to this world at least--and had contacted the CFO of the Holonet on Coruscant. For a million credits, he would ensure that her book was the first result whenever someone searched ‘Sandstorm’ or ‘Novel’ for the next year. She wasn’t entirely sure it was legal, but she was sure it wasn’t illegal, and that was close enough. Besides, government warnings about sandstorms would still take precedence over her novel in the search results.