Prompt 214 - Splice - Making an End - Cass (wordwhacker) - Star Wars post-original trilogy AU

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Title: Making an End
Fandom: Star Wars (post-original trilogy AU)
Prompt: 214 - Splice AND the August Monthly Challenge (Space)
Word Count: 3,478
Rating: PG for some swears





The young human slid into the seat across from Greysun with a drink in her hand and her eyes still wayward, drinking in the scene of the sprawling outpost bar. It was supposed to look non-challant, like she belonged there across from Greysun, like an old friend or a lover; the surety in her posture told her that. But the look was alarmed, fitful beneath the surface, obviously thinking in a world that was new, unpredictable, dangerous; hopeful.

Greysun suddenly felt very old indeed.

"You're wasting your time," she said, and the young woman - yes, she hadn't been mistaken, though for a moment she had questioned her instincts in light of the girl's short cropped hair and male-cut tunic - turned to look at her for the first time. Grey suppressed a smirk when her eyes went wide. Some women in her trade could hide their scars in the low light of seedier places. She wasn't as fortunate. "I'm not looking for work at the moment."

"That's not what I'm here for," she said, regaining her composure just a little too much, slouching now as though the whole scenario was boring her.

"So you're here for pleasure, not business?"

She laughed. "Maybe."

"There are better places for it - and better partners." For the briefest moment Greysun felt a tug on her attention - an unconscious check, the kind she used to make herself as a little girl, before she learned to push that instinct down hard. She locked eyes with the girl. "And some things are better kept to yourself."

"I'm not here for... pleasure," she said, missing Grey's meaning. "I'm here to make connections."

"Try another table."

"Are you Greysun?"

"Not if I don't know you."

"Lena." She offered her hand across the table. Grey met the girl's eyes as she proffered her own hand - a weighty, mechanical thing, bottom of the line technology. She made the grip just a little more firm than she thought would be comfortable. Lena didn't flinch. "That's quite the piece."

"The other one's a little better. I like to make my first impressions with this one."

"How far up do they go? Or do they ever stop," Lena said with a smirk.

"You can find out if you ever get my shirt off," Greysun shot back. She was enjoying this whim more than she'd thought she would. It had been a while.

"I bet there's an interesting story behind those."

"Interesting... I wish I could say it was funny in hindsight, but it isn't exactly one of my favourite topics."

The girl leaned in on her elbows. "All I have is time," she said.

"I still don't know you, Lena from Coruscant." The brassy accent had given her away. The girl tried to act nonplussed. "And I don't know why I should get to. Particularly when I don't know how you've heard of this 'Greysun'."

"I'd rather not discuss that in public," she said. "I know; isn't that enough?"

"It depends on what you know. A name isn't much to go on, kid."

"I know it's your family name," she said.

"And?"

"And from the sounds of things you had a really interesting family."

"Then you know more than I do - I don't see how I'm going to be of any use to you."

"I'm starting to wonder that myself," Lena said under her breath. Her face was a little flush even in the low light of the bar. Grey smiled. She was hot-headed, cocksure, and so much younger. It was ridiculous, but she couldn't help but wonder what she could do with her, if she had the time. "I dunno, I could think of a few things," she said. "A woman of my years has a certain amount of experience."

"Sorry?"

"Tell me you're not that young."

"That isn't the point."

"It is if I say it is."

Lena's eyes went a little wide, though her face was twisted into a frustrated scowl. "Look. I know this crazy race starts tomorrow at twelve hundred hours. All I'm asking is that you give me an hour. Privately."

"Can it wait?"

"I've done my homework," she said. "I know how many people make it out alive."

"You should put your bets in, then; I might be of use to you yet."

"I'm talking about more than money here."

So young. "Can't you respect an old woman with a death wish?"

"No."

"Do you think that whatever you have to say is going to change my mind?"

"I hope it does."

Greysun had been sure this time; it had felt so right, knowing that this would be the end, one way or another. She looked out to the throngs in the bar, searching for his face. It had been older when she'd caught his profile three days ago in the corner of her eye, but it was him - it had felt like him. There was only one reason that he could be at a crazy event like this. It was going to be a tragedy, the end of a long life of misdirection. It was only fitting that he should be the one to end it.

Of course, she didn't know yet whether this young thing had the same intent. Maybe her end would be a little different after all. "All right, kid. Let's hear what you've got to say."



She had Lena meet her on her own ship, her own territory, at oh-two-hundred hours, the time when respectable people were asleep and people in her trade were awake and alive. When she'd been younger she had used this time to exercise and keep fit; in the decade since she'd lost her arms it had become her time to drink. Her droid showed Lena into her common room where she'd poured them each a drink. She had poured several for herself prior, of course.

"Thanks," Lena said, and sniffed the amber liquid. "Alderaanian ale?"

"Imitation stuff," Grey said, having a seat. "Not like they can't distil it anywhere they want. Purists are fools with too much money to spend."

"Or sentimentalists," she said, sitting down across from her. "Hard to blame them."

"That's rich coming from someone who wasn't even alive when the planet went up."

"I was alive," Lena said, though she didn't elaborate. Her eyes met Grey's. "I imagine you... felt it."

"I felt pretty bad when I heard about it, yeah," she said, levelly.

"You know what I mean."

"And what do you mean?"

"You... felt it. When it happened. They say that... some people did."

Her hackles were raised, though there was no reason for her to fear that the girl knew; it wouldn't exactly matter soon. If her knowing was dangerous, one of them would be dead before the day was out. "And what does this matter to you?"

"That's why I'm here."

Grey unholstered the blaster at her hip and laid it casually across her lap. "This might be news to you," she said, quietly, "but that hasn't exactly been the most wonderful experience for me in the past. Nothing personal."

"I'm not a hunter," she said, and Greysun felt a twinge of both irritation and fear in her.

"It would probably be a good idea for you to convince me of that. Very shortly."

Lena sighed. "There isn't a lot I can say about me."

"Kid, I'm a smuggler. Your file on me probably said that much. I don't deal in information. I prefer stuff that's a little more tangible. Besides, you told me yourself that you know the odds of this race. I haven't looked it up in a few years - what are they again? Something like a one in a hundred chance of getting through the thing in one piece? And let me fill you in on something: the deaths aren't usually accidental. I don't care what they say in the legal prints to keep the Empire off their backs, it's a free-for-all out there."

"What are you running from?"

Grey laughed and finished her drink, pouring another. "I'm not running from anything, kid. I'm running straight toward something. It's the greatest challenge the galaxy has to offer: a reason to try and survive. If I make it out, I'm made. If I don't, retirement is cheap."

"So you're running from life," Lena said.

"That's what I had been doing. I think I'll stop and face it now."

"Bullshit."

"You can call it whatever you want. The real question is: do you still think you can talk me out of it?"

Lena let out a short breath, downed the rest of her drink. "Fine. Listen. I know you're a curmudgeonly bitch and that I'm probably wasting my time, but I have a mission and I'm going to give it a blasted shot anyway. I know about your family, even if you don’t. We don’t have a lot of information about them, but we know that at least one of them was a Force user.”

“Who’s ‘we’?”

She set her jaw. “Not the Empire,” she said.

Grey raised an eyebrow. “The Rebellion, huh? And they’re looking for scraps from half a century ago. Sounds about right. Who’s heading up this little endeavour?”

“That’s... above my clearance,” she lied. “We’re looking for anyone we can get. There aren’t a lot of leads.”

“So how they’d get you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Greysun opened herself up a little and nudged at the girl, who started. She smirked. “I told you that there were some things that you should keep to yourself. Why they sent a fragile young thing like you into the big bad galaxy, I don’t know.”

“They had their reasons. The point is: you’re needed.”

“Being needed isn’t going to keep fuel in my ship.”

“You wouldn’t have to worry about fuel. And... I’m authorized to pay you half again what you’d paid for your entrance fee into this damn race, if you’ll come with me instead.”

“Oh really. So what kind of benefits is the Rebellion offering these days? Full medical plan? Retirement on some pleasure planet in Hutt space?”

“They could probably do something about your arms.”

Grey laughed to hide her surprise at the offer. “And who said that’s what I wanted?”

Lena shrugged. “They’re models without one-to-one touch feedback, right? Must feel like they’re made of ice.”

“I didn’t know the Rebels were so invested in my personal wellbeing.”

“More so than you are, from the sounds of it.”

“So what’s their plan? Are they trying to start a new Jedi order? They found some old relic to train any derelict Force user they can find floating around the galaxy, and then what? How the blazes are they going to keep something like that under wraps? Skywalker will find them before a standard year’s out – and then they’ll be killed, or turned like he was.”

“So you’d rather just get yourself killed and let them rot.”

“I already told you, kid – I’m tired of running. I’ve been running since before I can remember. It’s time to stop.”

“Fine.” She slammed the cup down and stood up, pacing quickly to the other side of the room, though she didn’t leave. Grey watched her; she felt so tired next to that kind of energy and youthfulness. If she’d been younger; if the girl had come to her twenty years ago, or ten, things might have been different. Her whole life had been about shutting down those impulses, deflecting the tendrils of wider knowledge that had threatened to snake into her thoughts. To learn about them, how to use them...

Grey stood up and slowly crossed to Lena, placing a heavy hand on her shoulder, which she immediately shrugged off. “What are you running from?” she persisted.

Lena let out a short laugh. “Coruscant? I don’t know.”

“Are you a pilot? You have a ship here?”

“Yeah.”

“You know, with the money the Rebellion forwarded you to pay me off, you could make a few bets. Make a bit of a return. Or if you had a death wish you could probably scalp a late entry in the race.”

“No thanks. I haven’t quite given up on everything yet.”

“Well, when you do,” Grey said, “you’ll know where to go.”




Greysun did see him again, a fleeting glance in the hangar that morning as she was making a few last minute adjustments to her ship. He must have meant for her to see him – it was the only explanation. He was smarter than that. She didn’t blame him, really, for not seeking her out directly, though if she’d been hunting down a mark on him she would’ve have had the nerve to meet his eyes first. It wouldn’t have resolved anything between them; it wouldn’t have been anything more than an acknowledgement that their relationship, once as close as lovers, had dissolved past friends or even acquaintances. Now it was just the danger of knowing a stranger as well as he knew himself.

A thousand ships were stationed at the outpost, ready to launch in groups of fifty. As the seventh group, her group, gathered at the starting point at the rim of the solar system, she offered her call sign and listened to the rest of them as they came in. Then she heard his voice.

“This is Captain Bre’tan Rodimat of the Poolimat - starting position 0743 confirmed.”

It had been ten years since she heard his voice. Ten years since he had left her on that hell hole of a planet with one arm infected and dying and the other ripped to shreds. She hadn’t expected much from him, she had told herself; she couldn’t have expected much more. She’d spent a lot of years repeating that to herself like a mantra.

When the call signs had stopped she jammed her comm and narrowed in on his frequency. “Like hell you’re going to make a profit on me, Bre.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, his voice more nasal and piercing than usual over the reedy signal. “I’m just here to race, like everyone else.”

“I came here to die, not to become your next pay load.”

His voice was irritated. “I really don’t know what – “

She snapped the comm off. He was exactly the kind of liar that she remembered: dry, witless, but with as much tenacity as she’d ever known in a Twi’lek. The idea of letting him have the final say suddenly sickened her.

A message went out warning all pilots to go on radio silence. Channels would be strictly monitored over the next twenty four hours as the ships made their way from the outer rim of the solar system, through the rings of Xeena IV and the derelict shipyard from a race long extinct, ending with a strafing run through the canyons of Xeena prime. She had flown the course at her leisure a few months ago when she’d been in this sector running spice to her contact with the Hutts. It was not designed for the break-neck speeds they would be attempting – which was, of course, entirely the point.

A countdown came through on the comm. – sixty seconds until the start of the race. For a moment Grey opened herself up and tried to sense the young woman that had visited her the night before. She wasn’t skilled enough to get any more than a flicker of an acknowledgement; she was still at the outpost. Maybe she had decided to wait it out, in case Greysun made it out alive but wasn’t flush with winnings. Some part of her was glad to know that she was there. Death was a way out, and so was winning; surviving was something that she hadn’t had a contingency plan for.




Bre had been dogging her for half an hour as she swerved and span through the debris field, reaching out without thinking for the controls, for a broader grasp of the universe around her. It was a valid strategy, following another ship’s wake and locking on to their course – as long as they weren’t destroyed, themselves, whereupon they would become a field of obstacles themselves. She tried to throw him off, but he stuck to her close. He knew her, knew her patterns.

He couldn’t simply try to shoot her down – the race was monitored closely for laser and ion emissions and he would be taken down by the sentry ships. But there was more than one way to take someone down. She hit a bit of clear space and he used the opportunity to close the distance, bearing down above her even as she dove and corkscrewed to lose him, getting ready to plunge back into the field. She saw it in the back of her mind, the route she needed to take.

At the last second his tractor beam dragged a section of hull into her path. She spat and pulled up hard –

The control panel exploding in her face was the last thing she saw.




Grey woke up in darkness, the thrum of an unfamiliar engine loud in her ears. She sat up quickly and her head swam; she braced herself against the cool wall for a moment. She was in a bed, the covers bunched around her bare legs. Slowly she opened her eyes and they adjusted to the dim room. It wasn’t Bre’s ship, she knew that much. It was a small ship, she could tell from the sound, probably designed for short inter-system flights. Her face was bandaged, she realized, and her chest felt burned; it was bandaged as well, and a sticky salve was warm against her skin.

Her clothes were folded on a chair; she slid them on, slowly, and ventured out into the corridor.

“What the hell are you doing up?” Lena came around the corner, her face smeared with grease and hydrospanner in hand.

“What happened?”

“I got you out, that’s what happened.”

“What about Bre?”

“Who?”

Grey leaned back heavily against the wall. It must have been night, the corridor lights were dimmed, but the intensity of them still hurt. “The guy who disabled my ship. He was trying to cash in on a bounty.”

“I don’t know. I chased him off long enough to evac you from your ship before it lost atmosphere, but that’s all I could manage. Lucky I managed that. Gravity was gone, and I’ve never been great with zero G stuff.”

“Where’s my ship?”

“I left it.”

“Why the blazes did you leave it?” Greysun felt both enraged and suddenly weak. Her ship – everything she had –

“Woah, woah,” Lena moved forward and helped to ease Grey down the wall into a sitting position. “You all right?”

“That’s a hell of a question.” She frowned. “How the hell did you chase him off, kid? Not in this thing.”

“Hit him with an ion blast,” she said, settling down to sit next to Grey. “He was adrift for a good quarter of an hour.”

She narrowed her eyes. “How’d you use an ion blast and get past the sentry ships?”

Lena smiled. “Let’s just say that they might have had cause to think that I was one of their own.”

“You’re a splicer.”

“Among other things.”

Grey let out a long breath and allowed herself the luxury of closing her eyes. This was an option she hadn’t considered. “I need to get my ship back.”

Lena was silent for a minute. “Have you ever thought that you might have the chance to change the way your life is headed? You know what I’m offering. Aren’t you at least curious? Isn’t there some part of you that’s afraid of stopping?”

She was right. But Grey wasn’t ready to give her life over to a cause just yet. She needed time to think, and time to learn more of the backstory – and more about this young splicer.

“If you help me get my ship back, I’ll go back with you.”

“I can’t do that. I’ve got – ”

“A mission. To get me on board. I’m not a fresh nerfling – I know there’s more to this than you’re letting on. I think you need me. And I need my ship. You can either help me get it, or let me out at the next jump point outpost. Or shoot me out the airlock. It’s your choice.”

Lena watched her, obviously frustrated. Grey tried to keep from smiling. The girl was awfully cute when she was angry.

“Fine,” she said, standing up with a huff. “If you need me, I’ll be in the back.” She turned to go.

“Kid?”

Lena glanced over her shoulder.

“Thanks.”

“I’ll accept that when you stop calling me kid,” she said, and left.

“I think I can live with that.”