Chapter Text
Chester missed leaving Coruscant, because she was in the cramped living area with Barriss looking her over. No big loss there—she’d had her fill of city planets, thank you.
This time she could feel it, Barriss’s presence ghosting carefully around hers. The bacta had helped considerably, in that her side had gone mottled purple and yellow instead of fresh-meat, and she could bend a little at the waist without wanting to yell. Her right eye was opening at least halfway, although the vision on that side was still kind of blurry. Definitely an improvement on this time yesterday, she thought.
Like Master Che, Barriss started with the head. She rested her palm against Chester’s forehead, closed her eyes. Immediately, the ache that had been beating a dull throb behind Chester’s eyes subsided.
“They used electric shocks on you again, didn’t they?” Barriss’ voice went cold with dislike. “I almost prefer the beatings to electrical torture. You had a fractured orbit and intracranial pressure higher than I’d like; I have sutured the orbit and reduced the pressure, but you may still experience neurological symptoms. Nerves are a little temperamental in the healing.”
She moved on, down to the scabby electrical burns on the side of Chester’s neck. “Ah. I thought so.”
“Yeah,” said Chester, luxuriating in the absence of the headache. Much easier to handle the pain elsewhere, now. “Not my favorite sleepover ever.”
Barriss snorted. The sharp ache under her fingertips eased, vanished; the scab flaked off and floated into the empty plastic bowl being used as a makeshift wastebin.
“I almost…” Barriss paused, her hands hovering over Chester’s ribcage. “When I learned you’d been taken, I was… angry. Furious. I think I came very close…”
“To Falling?” Chester asked quietly.
“I was so sick of seeing them hurt other people,” said Barriss, her voice tight. “I wanted to do something about it, especially if it meant I got to hurt them for once. I was ready to do it, too, I would have dragged Ahsoka with me, but then Ventress called and I… wasn’t needed.” She looked down, relief and guilt warring in the tilt of her frown. “And I saw how many people cared, how many people also thought this was evil, and unacceptable, and who’d decided something had to be done. I wasn’t alone. And what I decided to do about it did matter, not only to me but to other people I cared about and who also cared about doing the right thing.” She drew in a long breath, like she was trying to soothe herself. “And that was what let me back away. From the anger. From the… not-caring you get when you’re making hard decisions, or the wrong decisions. And, I guess, from Falling. That I wasn’t alone, and there were other people with me, and we were working on it together.”
“I am so very sorry to have put you through that, Barriss,” said Chester, and meant it. “And I’m so glad you were able to find other people to work with so you didn’t feel like you had to resort to extreme measures to save me. You pulled back from the edge, of your own accord. Not because someone else made you do it, or forced you to reconsider, or because you feared the consequences. That takes a great deal, and I admire you for doing it.”
“It doesn’t feel like something I should be admired for,” said Barriss, but then offered her a hesitant smile. “But it feels like a relief.”
“And a good first step,” said Chester, then drew in too deep a breath and winced. Barriss’s attention snapped back to her work.
“Fractured ribs, but not too badly so, and healing well. Ventress must have quality bacta.” Barriss pressed two fingers gently against a sore spot. Chester’s breath hissed involuntarily through her teeth, and Barriss snatched her hand away. “I’m sorry. That rib is a little worse. I’d like to heal it, with your permission?”
“Yes please,” Chester said, grateful.
This time she paid attention to the way Barriss’ gentle evergreen Force presence sank into her, through skin, sinew, into the bone. It soothed like cool water; she drew a sharp involuntary breath as something deep in her side went crunch! and abruptly stopped hurting so fiercely—an eye watering moment of ache, and then nothing.
Chester drew in a longer, deeper breath and sighed with relief. “I always forget how awful cracked ribs are,” she said. “And yet, I crack them an awful lot.”
“Yes, I can tell,” said Barriss. Then she frowned, a hand hovering over Chester’s bruise-mottled arms. “Among other things?”
Now she sounded outright disturbed.
“Anything I should be worried about?” asked Chester.
“What happened to your arms?” She’d moved both hands over Chester’s forearms now, her blue eyes wide and appalled. “They’re just—”
“It’s an old injury,” said Chester, realizing she was lying a little as she said it; it was about six months old, and a good part of the reason for T’Volis dropping their relationship like a poisonous snake. “Is it doing something? It should be fully healed, and it certainly doesn’t bother me.”
“No, it’s not that.” Barriss shook her head, looking increasingly discombobulated. “It’s… Oh, how can I explain this—did Master Che tell you that traces of old injuries can remain in the Force long after the physical damage has been healed?”
“I might have been a little distracted at the time.” Chester stayed still, letting Barriss continue examining her arms. “I was still coming to terms with the higher probability I wasn’t going to end up Jem’Hadar target practice. And uh, I was deeply sleep-deprived.”
“The body keeps a record, even without visible scars. And these go all the way down to the bone. Into the bone.” Barriss’ voice shaded both horrified and wondering. “I’m not sure how you still have arms. What happened?”
Chester made a face. It wasn’t one of her fonder memories. “The Bedivere almost suffered a warp core breach a few months back,” she said. Not that that was going to mean anything to Barriss. “A catastrophic engine failure,” she clarified. “I was one of the first people to make it to Engineering. Three people were trapped in a high-radiation pocket. If I’d waited to fully suit up, they would have died. So I shielded myself as best I could and pulled them out, and then had a very painful few hours in Sickbay while they repaired the tissue and dosed me up to the eyeballs with radiation meds. My lifetime risk for a whole bunch of cancers has skyrocketed, but we’re extremely good at treating those, and frankly I don’t know a single officer who isn’t in the high risk category after their first five years.”
Barriss was shaking her head. “I’d say I didn’t believe you if I couldn’t feel the evidence for myself,” she said. “Bacta is most effective on surface wounds; it takes long-term suspension to heal internal injury. Bonemenders can be used to renew bone mass, but we don’t have anything like that for soft tissues.” She narrowed her eyes. “A team of powerful healers, working around the clock for likely more than a week—that might yield similar results. We typically don’t even try, because prosthetic technology is so advanced these days and nobody wants to risk killing a good healer out of Force exhaustion.”
“I suspected your medical technologies differed from ours,” said Chester dryly. She looked down a moment, thinking. “There’s a lot of things I wasn’t mentioning about the Federation,” she said. “A lot about our technologies. I was worried Tarkin would make a grab at me, especially if the Federation seemed like it had useful resources. And if things do go very badly… the Federation will need every advantage it can get.” She gave Barriss a crooked smile. “But I’d better catch you up to speed, because otherwise you’re going to get very surprised by some things.”
Barriss sat back in the chair and folded her hands into her sleeves. She offered Chester a small, but hopeful smile. “Then I’d like to hear more about it, whatever you can tell me.”
Chester stayed sitting in the little living area long after Barriss had left, pleading exhaustion from the healing. After a fairly respectful pause, Ventress padded out and slid onto the little couch next to her, eying her with an evaluating light. “You’ve been keeping a lot to yourself.”
“You met Tarkin,” said Chester. “Would you want him to know about half of that?”
“I don’t think he’d believe you about half of it,” said Ventress, then sighed heavily and leaned back, still eying her. “I’ve been assuming you’re a very lucky idiot,” she said. “I think I liked that better.”
“Well, that’s a pity,” said Chester. “I like you being dangerous.”
Ventress gave her another one of those once-overs, both appreciative and borderline rude. “ That’s apparent, trust me.”
Chester leaned forward. “Honestly, I’m surprised you’re surprised,” she said. “Come on, Ventress. You’re no fool, and we both know better than to count on luck. Seeming like an idiot is pretty good cover, because as soon as people think you’re dangerous, they start paying a little too much attention.”
Ventress’s eyes slid sideways, her mouth narrowing into a grim line that suggested personal experience with this. “Yes.”
“So am I too dangerous for you now?” She put a light, teasing note into it, but meant it, and let Ventress see that she meant it when they made eye contact again.
“I did just rescue you.” Ventress’s tone was similarly light, and Chester let out an internal breath of relief.
“Good,” said Chester, and hazarded to lean against her.
“This isn’t a serious thing,” Ventress said, a defensive note in her voice, like she was embarrassed by having emotions. Chester could sympathize. If she’d spent years around Dooku and his bullshit manipulations, she’d probably have issues with having emotions as well. “I’m not following you to your galaxy, no matter how very fearsome you think it is.”
“I’m not looking for a serious thing,” said Chester. “I just got out of a serious thing, and I’ve had far too much serious of late.”
“Well… good,” said Ventress, and then looked a little at a loss for what to do from there, so Chester kissed her. Ventress kissed back after a moment. Kisses were easier, apparently.
Two and a half days after leaving Coruscant, they dropped out of hyperspace into the Imdaar system. Ventress dealt with air traffic and planetary Customs, giving a false name━she winked over her shoulder at Chester━and then bringing them down into atmosphere. Chester leaned forward, peering over her shoulder as the new planet came into view. A swamp, was her first impression, and a lot of it, water glinting in between a verdant canopy of trees that stretched from horizon to horizon.
“Does it have bugs?” she asked Ventress.
“Oh yes,” said Ventress, in tones of pure schadenfreude. “It has bugs.”
“Great,” said Chester. She stared out at the swamp surrounding them, and decided to hell with it, she wanted her uniform. Particularly, its varied thermal comfort technologies to dissipate heat and ensure the local fauna couldn’t chew through it.
And if they had to run for it, she wanted to make sure she had it even if she dropped the rest of her baggage. Even if it made her more distinctive. “I’ll go get packed and changed, then,” she said.
“I’ll have a cloak for you,” said Ventress. “Too many people want your head as it is.”
Chester paused, partway down the hatch. “Think the Republic will look for me out here?”
Ventress snorted. “You’d be lucky if it was the Republic. Dooku’s still got that bounty out on you, and every bounty hunter from here to the Core wants to collect. The Hutts will have an eye out as well. You haven’t made personal enemies of them yet, but that bounty makes you good business.” And then you’ll make personal enemies of them , went unspoken.
“Surprised Dooku hasn’t just hired someone to put a knife between my ribs yet,” said Chester. “If he’s that bent out of shape about being turned down.”
“He’s not that nice,” said Ventress, with all humor stripped out of her voice. Chester blinked up at her. “You betrayed and humiliated him and made it public. He will have you as his apprentice, even if all that is left of you is an empty shell.”
There was a horrible familiarity she seemed to have with this, and Chester looked into her eyes for a few moments, seeing nothing but pain being sternly forced into anger. “Ventress…” she started.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You should come with us,” she said, instead. “I rather doubt he’s going to hop galaxies looking for you. I don’t want to leave you here, because I doubt he’s going to take you helping me particularly well, either.”
“No,” said Ventress, absolute finality in her voice. “There is no more he can take from me.”
“He can still take you from the rest of us,” said Chester quietly, still on the ladder, looking up at her like a petitioner in a temple, “and I think that would be a very great pity.”
For a moment, it was clear Ventress had no idea what to say to that. She just stared. Then the anger came back, and she turned around. “Enough.”
It was better not to push, Chester decided. There was simply too much raw pain there. She nodded, and climbed down the rest of the ladder.
Putting the uniform back on felt strange and like coming home at the same time. She’d worn it a few other times, of course, but not like this. Not with the imminent hope of home pulling her forward.
Chester slid on the trousers, finding them far more comfortable than anything she’d worn in weeks━replicators made your uniform to your exact measurements━fastened the undershirt, pulled on her jacket, the familiar weight settling over her shoulders. Then she sat down, and pulled on the standard-issue boots, which were also much more comfortable. Then she opened up the little case in her bag.
Her pips gleamed there. It was a minor miracle she still had all three of them, but there they were, like they’d been waiting━the three full pips of a Commander. The first officer of a starship. She ran a finger over them, found herself smiling, and then stopped. There was a lot of responsibility there, and for all the terror of the last two months, all of her need to get home, it had been a welcome break from being so constantly on the back foot, so certain her people were dying or would die because of her decisions. She’d spent two months with people trying to hunt her down, for curiosity or to use like a tool or to simply kill her, but it had been mostly her own neck on the line. It hadn’t been 750 other people.
She drew in a deep breath. It was a lot to shoulder. But it was still where she belonged, and there’d be an empty place in her heart instead of that responsibility if she didn’t shoulder it. It was the thing she knew best how to do.
Still, she felt it as she worked each of them into place, small and gleaming at her throat, and then she picked up her commbadge from where it was fastened to the loose wraparound shirt the Jedi had given her, and she put that into its accustomed place, too. It didn’t chirp as her fingers brushed it, and for the first time in weeks that felt strange; wearing the Jedi robes, she’d almost forgot to expect it, the little vibration under her fingers as it connected to the ship’s computer.
She washed her face, brushed her hair and tied it simply back the way she always did, straightened cuffs and collar and looked at herself in the mirror.
She didn’t look all that different. At least, not all that different to who she’d been before; it was Commander Diane Chester, first officer of the starship Bedivere there, the way she’d always thought of herself. Grave and calm, an anchor for her crew, the point of quiet determination in a storm. But it was almost like she’d gotten used to seeing a different Commander Chester there, one with Jedi robes and mischief in her face.
She reached out, touching fingers with herself. She almost felt like apologizing, wasn’t sure why. But she felt sorry, felt a sort of regret. She wondered if that other version of herself━the one she'd seen out of the corner of her eye over the last weeks━was more the way Song Tulin was. “This isn’t my place,” she said aloud, not sure if she meant Tulin or herself, decided that, for her own sake, it had to be Tulin, “but I hope I’ve made it a better one for you to come home to.”
She hoped she got to meet her.
After a hesitation, she lifted the lightsaber. Normally it would clip to a belt. Her uniform didn’t have one, but what it did have was the selectively adhesive patch where a phaser would normally go at her hip, and the lightsaber was much the same weight. She pressed it into place, where for the first time it felt right.
Then she drew in a breath, looked herself over, picked up her bag and went out to the little social area in the ship, where to her surprise she found Ventress waiting, arms folded and glaring at the bulkhead. She straightened up as Chester came in, swept an appraising glance over her. Her mouth went tight and unhappy for a moment before she lifted her eyebrows and favored Chester and uniform equally with a sneer. “You look like a rejected Senatorial aide,” she said. “Or a used spaceship dealer.”
“Unfortunately, they don’t design the uniform to cater to your tastes, Asajj,” she said, trying a smile that felt crooked on her face.
“I’d thought Starfleet officers were supposed to cut a swathe through the eligible beings,” said Ventress. “Seeing that on you, I can’t imagine why.”
“For a while there, it was a jumpsuit.”
Ventress shuddered delicately.
“Hey,” said Chester, knowing damn well this wasn’t about the uniform, “I’m going to miss you.”
Ventress snorted.
Chester hesitated. She didn’t want to anger Asajj further, but she couldn’t forgive herself if she didn’t try one more time. “I have to try again,” she said quietly. “You don’t have to stay here, you know. It’d be dangerous, you’d be plenty entertained.”
To her relief, Ventress laughed, sharp. “And what would I do in your civilized galaxy, Chester? Wear a stupid suit like you and talk my way out of trouble? Or end up hunted down by your colleagues? Maybe you’d like me to get old and lazy on some soft little planet with all my desires catered to, while you go out and risk your idiot neck to save loth-kittens.”
She moved in close, brushed imaginary lint off Chester’s shoulder, looking at her commbadge and not at her face. “No, I don’t belong there. No more than you do here━but the things that mark you out here are things you can learn not to be stupid about. I don’t think I’d get the same latitude in your galaxy. Besides…” she hesitated, prodded the commbadge with a finger, “this thing means a lot more to you than any single being ever will. I don’t do second place.”
She looked up to meet Chester’s eyes. Then she reached up and dragged Chester into a bruising kiss. Stepped back quickly, after. “Don’t die, you big idiot,” she said.
“Don’t die yourself,” said Chester gently. “It’s a big galaxy.”
Behind them, there was a quiet cough. “Uh,” said Barriss, the green of her cheeks a little darker than usual, “should I come back later?”
“No,” said Ventress. “We were just settling some final logistics. Put this on.” She tossed a cloak and face covering at the younger woman, her frown deepening as Barriss caught it one handed. “You too,” she told Chester. “Your face is all over every wanted poster in the sector. Cover that up and your hair too, and that damned stupid uniform.”
Chester meekly did as she was told, letting Ventress tweak everything to her satisfaction. She fussed less over Barriss, but was that really a surprise?
Barriss’s eyes flashed amusement at Chester, watching them. “She cares about you,” she said, once Ventress had gone on ahead to open the hatch. “More than she wants to admit.”
“I know,” said Chester.
Ventress gave them a contemptuous look over her shoulder, and opened the shuttle door.
The air outside was hot and so humid it clung like a wet blanket. A remarkably enormous swamp indeed, she decided, as the smell of mud and stagnant water crawled up the back of her nose. Hopefully the flies that swarmed around them weren’t bloodsuckers.
They were, and they liked human a hell of a lot more than Mirialan or Dathomirian. Chester was very, very glad Ventress had insisted on the Nightsister cowls and masks over her uniform.
They headed across the tarmac, toward a low squat building that looked like it had seen better days. Chester turned her head from side to side, keeping an eye out for a ship matching Dex’s unflattering description. This would have been much easier if she knew anything at all about non-military ships in this galaxy━there was a dizzying array of designs scattered across the landing docks. Sure, some were visibly more flash than others, but there were far too many rusty old hulks to pick out one genuine antique specifically.
“Don’t bother,” said Ventress as they reached the terminal, turning to smirk over her shoulder. “Our ride is parked elsewhere.”
“Not in the swamp, I hope.”
“Hmm. Possibly.” Ventress entered the landing key into the automated customs portal just inside the terminal doors. There wasn’t a single droid in sight, let alone a living person. Imdaar clearly didn’t care much about spaceport security. “Perhaps he’s skimping on the landing fee.”
Dex, apparently, had arranged for them to meet their pilot at the single scungiest bar Chester had ever seen in her life. The dive at Chenowei was a four-star hotel compared to this. It smelled like smoke with an undertone of sour vomit. It looked like there’d been a barfight and no-one had bothered to do more than turn the furniture the right way up again. There were scorched blaster-holes in the door, and a missing window. A single electric light flickered in a bare hanging fitting. Chester felt the prickle of eyes on her as soon as she ducked in through the grimy door after Ventress. Her shoes stuck slightly to the floor with each step.
At least their target stood out like a sore thumb. He sat perched on a rickety three-legged stool at the bar, chatting animatedly at a human bartender who kept giving him wary looks. Humanoid, skeletal under a thick wool poncho, red-gold hair cascading down over his shoulders with a distinctly unwashed vibe. There was a wide semi-circle around him where no-one else sat.
Ventress weaved her way through the thicket of wonky tables and damaged plastic chairs. She paused for a moment at the edge of that empty circle, then forged on, Chester following close behind. “Rustam, is it? Dexter Jettster sent me.”
The man at the bar turned to look at her. Ventress stopped dead, a few steps short of the bar.
“Oh, good,” the man said, and grinned, deep reddish markings on his face distorting around the expression. His teeth were pointed. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
His eyes slid over to Chester, and some heavy, prickling feeling settled in around her shoulders like a blanket full of fleas. He tilted his head, curious; lank red hair slipped across the bridge of his hooked nose. “Wasn’t expecting Nightsisters. Passage through the wormfield, wasn’t it?”
Ventress recovered smoothly. “For two, yes.”
Rustam turned back to the bartender, pushing a faded green credit chip across the counter. Then he stood. Even stooped at the shoulders, he must have been over seven feet tall.
“Lemme show you to my ship,” he said, ushering them toward the door. “No point hangin’ around longer’n necessary in this shithole!”
Chester glanced at the bartender, expecting offense; the human instead gave a wide toothy grin, like they thought it was a compliment. Probably noting down their looks and garb, ready to sell the information to the first six people who asked.
Time to go. Chester slapped away a biting fly that had landed on her neck, and followed.
Rustam’s ship was indeed parked in the swamp. Chester nearly balked when he led them out of the gravel streets of the spaceport and down onto what was barely a path between suspicious patches of pondweed—but she wasn’t going to give up now, so close to home.
At least their guide knew the path. Rustam took point, clearing away obstacles and chattering away like a particularly enthusiastic tour guide. It reminded Chester of field classes at the Academy, somewhat, except academic classes used words like ‘bioturbation’ and ‘commensalism’ where Rustam got a lot of use out of ‘thingy’ and ‘whatchacallit’. She followed the gist of the lecture nevertheless. Imdaar, apparently, had one of the most extensive subtropical swamp systems in the known galaxy. And the insect population to go with it.
At one point, they reached a lazily-flowing stream, separated from the mud and puddles on either side by a natural levee. Rustam pulled a dead branch from a nearby moss-covered tree and waded into the water, poking at the muddy riverbed. Something very large and reptilian surged up out of the water, hissing and splashing. Rustam gave it a hard whack on the snout, grabbed it by the narrow shoulders and bodily tossed it downstream.
“What was that?” Chester asked.
Rustam said something; the universal translator jammed for a split second and then spat out “Alliganaconda.”
“Predators,” Rustam continued, “they lurk in the bottom waitin’ for dinner to go past. Not bad eating themselves, either.” He gestured to a clear patch of bank on the other side of the stream, cheerfully dripping swamp. “Safe to ford now, ladies.”
The experience of stepping into the water was exactly as unpleasant as expected. Chester reminded herself that she’d spent no small amount of time changing filters on a variety of aquatic worlds as an ensign, but that didn’t help with the memory of just how much she’d hated it, even with the promise of a sonic shower at the end of the day.
Twenty minutes or so later, the trail led up onto an outcrop of solid rock. The vegetation thickened into a near-impenetrable barrier, and then all of a sudden died out nearly at once. Chester spent a moment appreciating a few lungfuls of air she didn’t have to strain with her teeth.
She resisted the urge to ask are we there yet.
The gravel hillside crunched under their feet as they climbed further. There was soil here, but it was reddish and thin. The trail steepened, and soon they were scrambling up over a tumble of boulders, red dust coming off on their fingers.
“Here we are,” said Rustam, as they crested the hill at last.
Chester’s first impression of the ship that stood parked on the flat-ish peak of the hill was not positive. It looked, to her inexpert eye for ships of this galaxy, like three different ships cobbled together. There was a glassy bubbly structure off to one side, a slightly boxy undercarriage that put her in mind of twenty-first century freighters, and two stubby swept-back wings set high in the rear with about five visible engines attached to each. It had been painted once, clearly, but whatever color had faded out to an uneven dusty grey.
“Huh,” she said aloud.
“Meet my grand old dame,” said Rustam, cheerfully sweeping his hand in the direction of the hulk. “Still going strong after four hundred-odd years.”
“Impressive,” said Chester, very politely. Four hundred!? she thought, internally. It looked older.
Starfleet had some much older ships—the service life of the Excelsior class was supposed to be in the multiple centuries—in service, but that was after continuous careful maintenance and meticulous attention. This looked like it had received neither.
He gave her a knowing grin, then turned and strode toward the ship, an unfair bounce in his step. “Come stow your stuff. I assume one of you’s staying here?”
“That would be me,” said Ventress. “I have no interest in traversing an unexplored wormhole in a ship that belongs in an antique museum.”
Chester wished she could say the same.
Rustam laughed—clearly he was used to that sort of reaction—and keyed down the boarding ramp. This too had a definite industrial look to it.
Chester paused. “Asajj…”
“I don’t do goodbyes,” Ventress informed her. “Just don’t get yourself killed. We’ll see each other again or we won’t.” And she waved an imperious hand at the boarding ramp. “Now go home.”
“Thank you,” said Chester, with as much affection as if Ventress hadn’t said that, and then followed Barriss up the ramp. She glanced back once, at the top of it. Ventress was already gone.
The inside of his ship was a total fucking mess, fit to make a Starfleet engineer cry. Chester picked her way between a skeletal bulkhead and some exposed wiring, increasingly second-guessing her life choices. Barriss followed closely behind, and her regret was written clearly on her face, in her wide eyes and the tense thinness of her lips.
“Bunks that way,” said Rustam, pointing right down a short corridor, “and the bridge is up this way.” He pointed left, unnecessarily. This end of the corridor had no door, and Chester could see right out through the bubble-shaped cockpit window she’d noticed outside, across the verdant canopy of the mangroves. “There’s a kitchen in the bunkroom if you get hungry—canned crap, mostly. Fresher’s the next door down, and it runs on real water, but lemme give it a quick clean before we take off.”
He went right, skipping over a sealed plastic tub in the middle of the hallway, and disappeared into the second door down. Chester deduced that the bunks were therefore the first door, and went to investigate. Just in case there were vermin.
The bunkroom was actually relatively tidy. There were lockers under each of the bunks, which were empty and free of dirt on inspection. Chester stowed her few belongings, and stripped off her wet boots and socks with a sigh of relief. The beds above were bare mattresses, but she found a pair of folded sheets and a handful of knitted blankets in a drawer built into the bedframe. She made her bed up, throwing one of the (obviously, inexpertly handmade) blankets on the top.
The kitchen was also clean enough to satisfy Chester’s sense of hygiene. There was a big bag of rice in a cupboard, and a machine on the counter that might have been a rice cooker. Elsewhere, she found a toaster, a tabletop gas burner, and the promised hoard of canned food, with labels that the universal translator really struggled with. Some of them had pictures on the labels, which only sort of helped.
It had been a long time since she’d been able to cook something from scratch, instead of simply replicating it. The Jedi had not been particularly eager to let her near knives, flames, or the variety of toxins that other species found to be tasty flavorings. The spare little kitchen was the most promising thing she’d seen in months. She dove in, tasting spices until Barriss pointed out the possibility that human and Mirialan physiologies might differ from their host’s, and that perhaps Chester should let her use the medical scanner on the foods before she put them in her mouth?
She had a point. Chester let Barriss sort through the cans and bottles and spices, one pile for edible and another for ‘physiologically unfortunate’, Barriss’s proposed delicate term. Chester made sure to select from the edible pile, and a lot of taste-testing produced ingredients with a flavor profile that reminded her of home. (Unfortunately, the things that reminded her of water chestnuts turned out to be some sort of fungus that apparently grew inside the gills of a giant semi-aquatic creature, but they tasted fine despite the alarming blue-cheese color.) The resulting stir fry wasn’t her best work, but it was certainly edible. It was hissing on the burner when their pilot poked his head in the door.
“Fresher’s fixed,” he announced, and sniffed the air like a dog. “Something smells good. You got enough to share?”
“Probably,” said Chester. “What time do we depart?”
Rustam eyeballed the spitting pan. “Soon as you’re done here. You’re gonna want to be strapped down for takeoff.”
Chester shared a wary look with Barriss. “We were told this ship could be… temperamental?” she asked, delicately.
He grinned wide, showing teeth a little pointier than human-standard. “Sounds about right. She complains, is what she does. Got a hell of a voice, too. I got some earplugs if either of you need it.”
“You would know her best,” said Chester, trying not to think about the engine room. “I think I’ll take you up on the earplugs.”
“Remind me when we strap in,” said Rustam, lifting the lid on the rice cooker and earning himself a face full of steam. Moments later, the cooker made a concerningly loud clunk and began beeping in the hoarse semi-hiss of a beeper that badly needed replaced. “Perfect,” said Rustam, a little red in the face.
“Glad you like it,” said Chester, getting out the weird collection of bowls and utensils she’d found in the bottom of the pantry. She handed him what was evidently the most-used one.
“Cheers,” he said, and began helping himself to the rice.
“I take it you’re an explorer,” she said, handing Barriss the next-best bowl and taking the seriously chipped one for herself.
“Mhm,” Rustam said, and chewed, and swallowed. “I like poking around looking for new stuff. Keeps me from getting bored, and there’s always something interesting to find if you look hard enough.”
“Believe me,” she said with a grin, serving herself after Barriss finished, “I know the feeling.”
“Got some souvenirs hanging around if you’re interested in exoplanets,” he offered, picking through his bowl. He’d wolfed down the canned greens that looked sort of like broccoli florets, and the next treat on his list appeared to be the water-chestnut fungus. “Mostly holos and weird rocks, if I can remember where I put them. Found some awesome fossils last trip. An abandoned colony of some sort too, on a planet with some funky atmospheric acoustics—what do they call it in Basic? Barisal cannons?”
Skyquakes, said the universal translator. Chester looked at Barriss—who shook her head—and made a note to look that up when she got home, because it sounded incredibly made-up. But what didn’t, in this terrifying galaxy?
“Well, we’ll be a while in transit,” she said. “Might as well make a start on my usual line of work before I get home.”
“Twenty-one hours to Entralla, eleven to Abbaji, and then… I think it was about a standard day in short jumps to the wormhole, last time. Heard there’s been a new local route mapped through since then, so we’ll see what the nav says when we get there.” Rustam lifted a chunk of the water-chestnut fungus out of the bowl and crunched happily on it. “What’s your usual work? Dex didn’t say.”
“Two days and a bit,” said Chester with satisfaction. The other side of the wormhole, the Gamma Quadrant, would still be a problem. But if all had gone well, there’d be a Federation listening post on Gamma Hyperion IV. “Have your travels brought you into contact with the United Federation of Planets?”
He waved his hand vaguely. “Sort of? I try to avoid people, mostly, and especially official-looking ones, but sometimes it can’t be helped.” He glanced down at her uniform, squinted, and after a moment his expression cleared. “Starfleet?”
She grinned. “Starfleet,” she confirmed.
“You guys were all right,” Rustam said, thoughtfully, and took another mouthful of unidentifiable vegetables. “Uniforms were a bit more colorful back then. The other ones I ran into was, let’s see, a ship full of large maniacs who kept trying to attack me—that was on the other side of the first wormhole—and then I had to drop after the second wormhole for repairs, and that system was full of assholes too. Was a relief to run into Starfleet after that,” he finished, chuckling. “I enjoy not being shot at.”
“That first encounter was the Dominion,” Chester said. “The second—I’m guessing you dropped into the middle of the Cardassian occupation of Bajor. The Bajorans have won their freedom, and they’re in the process of joining the Federation, so it’s a much friendlier system. Unfortunately,” her voice shaded wry, “the Federation is now at war with the Dominion. We need to get to the other side of that second wormhole, but I understand if you’re not willing to risk that. The first wormhole should drop us in the Gamma Hyperion system, where I very much hope my people have a listening outpost. I should be able to use that to call for a pickup.” And hope the Jem’Hadar hadn’t cracked the codes yet.
Rustam shook his head, unconcerned. “I’m not dropping you in the middle of a warzone. If the system on the other side of the second wormhole is friendly now—Bajor, you said?—then I’ll take you through there. Nobody on your side had hyperspace sixty-odd years ago—that still true?”
“It’s still true,” she said. “It’s all warp engines.” Barriss gave her a curious look, but Chester didn’t elaborate further. Either Rustam knew what they were, or he didn’t.
He did, apparently. “Someday I’m gonna get my hands on one of those. That and a replicator.” He gave her a mischievous grin. “I mapped the route between wormholes last time I came through, so it shouldn’t take long.”
“Define not long?”
“Took me… eh, four days? In short jumps last time, and to be honest the wormhole was a surprise find. I’m pretty sure I can crunch it down to an hour or so once I dig the bearings out of my nav. We’ll need to hang out in that system for a while to let my dame do her diagnostics after we pass through, but with a class-1 hyperdrive it ain’t hard to outrun hostiles.”
She exhaled, relieved. “That’s great news. The less time we’re in Dominion space, the better. The last thing I want is those bastards figuring out Force sensitivity, and I’d very much less like them figuring it out from us. ”
“Is that a potential outcome?” Barriss paused, a fork full of stirfried veges halfway to her mouth.
“Potential,” said Chester. “Low probability, but the lower we can keep it, the better.”
Rustam nodded, agreeing. “Seriously unlikely to happen without someone actively teaching them, if they haven’t already got their own traditions. Some species just don’t seem to have a lot of Force-sensitives to start with.”
“If the Dominion grabbed us, they’d probably try to use our biology to figure out a way to grow their own.” Chester’s mouth twisted. “I’d prefer to avoid the experience altogether.”
Barriss eyed her, unsettled. “What do you mean?”
“Force-sensitivity isn’t well known in my galaxy,” said Chester, mentally kicking herself. “Not in the Federation, and not in the Dominion. You’d be the first actual practitioner they’ve run across.” Then she stopped. A thought had occurred to her, and it wasn’t a good one. “...unless they’d already met Song Tulin.”
Rustam shook his head. “Don’t know how much you could get from one lone Force-sensitive. People’ve been trying to manufacture Force-sensitivity in this galaxy for ages and so far as I know nobody’s had it work out yet. Not consistently, at least.”
Chester looked away, feeling grim about that. “Their genetic technologies are so advanced that I wouldn’t bet on it. They’ve certainly been interested in other officers—mostly telepaths. There’s been a distinct lack of them in rescued prisoners of war.” Chester sighed, shook her head. “We’ll have to do our best not to get caught.”
“Sounds like a plan to me.” Rustam flashed her a sharp-toothed grin, and stood, ferrying his empty bowl to the counter. There was a stainless steel section of countertop; this retracted, revealing a hidden sink with a foldout dishrack. Rustam stowed his dishes and left the rack folded out.
“Dishes go here when you’re done. Fold the rack down, close the lid—simple. Meet me in the cockpit once you’re done.”
Chester and Barriss nodded acknowledgement. They finished their meals in a somber mood, cleaned up the leftover mess, and followed him out.