A series of short stories set during Acier's childhood on Bonadan.
Ace
Location: Bonadan - Vergeworks - Sector 9G
891 ABY
"Easy." Mira said, not looking at him at first. Her voice was calm, unhurried. She trusted machines more than people, and she spoke to both the same way. "Let it settle before you torque it. You rush it, you strip the threading."
Acier nodded and adjusted, tongue pressed lightly against his teeth in concentration. The workbench was cluttered with parts scavenged from a dozen ships that no longer flew. Burned couplings. Melted servos. Power cells with just enough life left in them to be useful.
Mira finally leaned in, resting one arm across his shoulders, a steadying presence. Her other hand guided his, correcting the angle by a few degrees.
"There." She murmured. "Feel that? That's it lining up."
He felt it. A faint give, like the machine was agreeing with him. Acier liked machines because they didn't lie. They either worked or they didn't. If something failed, it was because of a reason you could trace, retrace, fix. People were messier. People disappeared. Machines stayed where you left them.
Around them, Sector 9G hummed. The distant roar of starship engines bled through the bulkheads. Somewhere deeper in the scrapyard, metal screamed as something big was cut free. The sound never bothered him. It was constant. Grounding.
He had met Mira by accident. Stripping a nav console from a dead courier ship when she caught him. She didn't shout. Didn't grab. Just crouched beside him and watched long enough to see he knew what he was doing.
"You're going to short that if you pull it like that." she'd said.
He'd frozen, waiting for punishment that didn't come. Instead, she'd shown him a better way.
Now, months later, she corrected him without condescension. She explained systems like stories.. Power flowed here. Information traveled there. Slice the wrong node, and everything went dark. Slice the right one, and doors opened.
Acier tightened the last coupling and pulled his hands back slowly. Mira inspected the work, nodding once. Approval was subtle with her. It didn't need to be loud.
"Not bad." She said. "You're learning."
He glanced up at her, eyes bright but guarded. Praise was something you accepted carefully. Too much of it made you soft. On the bench beside them, partially hidden under a rag, was the lightsaber.
He hadn't meant to bring it today. It usually stayed hidden. But the dorms had been crowded that morning. Someone older, someone meaner, had been asking questions. So he brought it.
Mira noticed, of course. She noticed everything. But she didn't touch it or ask where it came from. Just acknowledged its presence with a look that said she saw it, and it was safe.
"Where'd you learn to be so careful?" She asked casually, wiping grease from her hands.
Acier shrugged. "You break things, you don't get replacements."
Mira nodded, like he'd confirmed something she already suspected. She reached out and ruffled his hair once, quick, affectionate, gone before it could linger.
"You're not broken." She said, almost absentmindedly. "Just… unfinished."
He didn't fully understand what she meant. Not then. But the words stayed with him. He climbed down from the crate and packed the tools away exactly where they belonged. As he headed back toward the scrapyard paths, Mira's voice followed him.
"Same time tomorrow, Ace."
He paused at the nickname. She was the only one who used it. He didn't correct her, because some things... even on Bonadan, were worth keeping.
The Second Great Hyperspace War
Location: Bonadan - Vergeworks - Sector 9G
894 ABY
Red, half-way through one of his stories, leaned back beside him, grin easy and practiced. His jacket was scuffed, his hair a little too neat for Sector 9G. He looked like someone passing through... which meant he was dangerous in a different way.
"--It wasn't just one war." He said. "That's the thing people forget. It was everybody."
Ace leaned in a little, elbows on the table now. Red ticked things off without naming specific details. No one like him ever did really.
"'Bout twenty years back. You had the Galactic Alliance." He said. "Big, loud, talking about unity. Jedi with them. Not all robed monks, either... real ones. Generals. Commanders."
His hand swept to the other side of the invisible board.
"Then the Maw. Sith-backed. Dark fleets. Nobody ever agreed what they actually wanted, just that they were dangerous and very sure of themselves."
He swept again.
"New Imperial Order popped up too. Different banners, same discipline. And there was more, too many to name. Mercs, systems picking sides, planets trying to stay quiet." Red snorted softly. "Didn't matter where you were. You were in it. If you were lucky enough not to be? You still felt it."
Ace frowned. "You fight?"
Red shook his head. "Nah. I was too young. Old enough to know what was going on. Roughly."
"Holos everywhere." Red went on. "Recruitment pitches. Victory speeches before anyone'd actually won. Cantinas like this one arguing over who the 'good guys' even were." He shrugged. "In the end, yeah. Alliance came out on top. But nobody walked away untouched."
Ace stared at the tabletop, tracing an old burn mark with his finger. Jedi. Sith. They weren't stories or ancient relics, they were real. People who could shape the galaxy and did. The explanation slid into place with unsettling ease. The things he felt, the way the world sometimes moved a half-second early for him. The weapon that was left with him, the one he'd kept hidden.
One of his parents must have been Jedi, then. Or both. When Red left, the cantina noise rushed back in to fill the space. Ace stayed put a moment longer, letting the story settle. Not as history, but as a warning.
Wars ended... Things didn't. And if the Force was real... if it tied people to sides whether they asked for it or not... then knowing was dangerous. So he kept the knowledge where he kept everything that mattered.
Hidden. Quiet. Waiting until he understood what it was really for.
