CT-312 blinked. What appeared before her for a split moment vanished.
The darkness behind her eyelids was broken apart by the glow of the visor’s HUD. BARCA’s alerts
chimed sharply. Slowly the Scout’s vision focused as her own breathing thundered loudly trapped inside the helmet. A warning, followed by another. Beneath the sounds came a whisper of static and fractured words that blended together.
“—Three-One-Two—” The broken voice pulled CT-312 back into the present, back into the empty quarter she was in.
“Yeah…” Her answer came slowly through the helmet’s modulator.
”I’m fine.”
A bead of sweat trailed downward along her temple before disappearing against the edge of the helmet’s inner seal. CT-312 resisted the urge to remove her helmet to wipe it away. Instead, her attention was on the small isolated window that BARCA had placed on the HUD. It was from the shuttle’s surveillance feed. The grainy video and compressed audio played across her visor, showing the Princess and the Senator during the final moments of their meeting inside the hanger.
CT-312 did not fully understand what they were discussing. The live feed she watched was not one of “normal” discussions of interaction. Something was wrong. From both of their movements and brief pauses that lingered where none should have been. Their words carried the flow of the conversation, but their bodies did not seem to follow it. Something where they were was affecting them.
And it wasn’t just them… It was everyone. CT-312 had seen it in the shuttle crew before excusing herself to the smallest unoccupied compartment she could find. The pilot had grown nervous and distracted, continuously rechecking instruments that had already been checked. One of the Echani guards had been staring through a viewport for several seconds too long before realizing they had been addressed. Even the air aboard the shuttle seemed altered. It felt thick and heavy, rolling in waves, but BARCA’s scans showed normal levels.
The pressure returned. It pushed against CT-312’s mind with slow forceful weight, pressing inward as if there were hands against the sides of the helmet. Her jaw clenched. Blue eyes remained fixed on the live feed, forcing herself to follow the sequence of events that happened. A movement toward the Princess— the bond flared. Fear struck first. It was so sudden and sharp that CT-312’s breath caught midway through an inhale. Disgust followed, crawling beneath her skin with the familiarity that made her stomach twist. Panic flooded after it. It bled through the invisible thread connected to them and tore through CT-312 with enough force that her gloved hand braced against the wall.
BARCA
chimed again, louder than before.
[ MEETING CONCLUDED ]
[ PRIMARY SUBJECT ABOARD SHUTTLE. ]
Quinn had returned. CT-312 pushed away from the wall and left the compartment. The shuttle’s narrow corridor felt even smaller. An Ecani stood near the central cabin, one the Scout recognized was an aid that the Princess had brought with her. Quinn was nowhere in sight. The woman’s eyes settled on CT-312 as she approached. The Echani offered a silent dip of her head. Then her gaze shifted briefly towards the rear of the shuttle, where a smaller private quarter was located.
No explanation was needed.
“Tell the pilot we are ready for takeoff.” CT-312’s visor followed the direction of the glance. Her irritated tone emerged harsh through the helmet’s modulator,
“We are leaving at once.” CT-312 did not wait for confirmation as she continued down the corridor. With every step towards the private room, the pressure followed, settling heavily between her shoulder blades. Quinn’s emotions grew clearer through the bond. The door slid open with a muted
hiss. CT-312’s eyes immediately scanned the room as she entered.
There she was— The Princess, sat curled beneath the blanket that was wrapped tightly around. Quinn appeared smaller. CT-312 looked back at the clock that was mounted along the wall. Barely a minute had passed since she had entered the shuttle, yet CT-312 could feel how long each second had been. She crossed the room slowly and carefully, so as not to appear abrupt or threatening.
“Princess.” Lowering herself in front of Quinn until one knee touched the ground, placing herself beneath the Princess’s line of sight rather than looming over her.
“I am here.”
CT-312 noted the dried tear tracks that marked her cheeks. Fresh tears gathered along Quinn’s lashes, her fingers were twisted into the blanket so tightly that the fabric had bunched between her knuckles. BARCA too, swept across the Princess’s visible form.
[ NO EXTERNAL INJURIES DETECTED ]
The confirmation offered no relief.
It reminded CT-312 of another time Quinn said she would be fine. Then too, physically she had no injuries. But she felt the truth through the bond, just as she felt it now.
“Quinn.” The name slipped softly through the helmet’s modulator. Guilt tightened beneath CT-312’s chest, this was just like before. Even as she was there, she wasn’t… not in the way that mattered. Everything should have been fine, but it was far from it.
“I’m sorry—” CT-312’s visor lifted fully to the Princess’s face. The emotions that have been pouring through the bond reverberated louder than before.
“—I was late.”
Again.
Another wave of pressure rolled through, this time CT-312 felt it as something nearly physical. It bore down heavily across her back and shoulders. The air in her helmet suddenly seemed too warm or too thin. Each breath required more effort than the last. She could feel another bead of sweat trailing down. Gloved fingers curled against her palm, the motion was subtle and hidden beside her leg. A tremor followed, her tightened hand balled into a fist until it began to hurt and the material creaked faintly. CT-312 did not know what to do.
How useless.
BARCA flashed another set of elevated levels of alerts across her HUD. It briefly gave something tangible for CT-312 to hold on to, returning her focus back to the Princess. After Quinn’s return from Coruscant, BARCA had stated emotional distress could persist without visible damage. A distraction could interrupt that cycle. If anything it could redirect the mind, even briefly, toward something harmless.
CT-312 forced her fist open. The pain lingered through her fingers as she lifted both her hands up towards the scarf wrapped around her neck. Loosening and pulling the fabric free, breathing slowly as she worked. The air still felt suffocating inside the helmet, but she refused to let whatever this onslaught of pressure and thoughts dictate.
Gathering the scarf between her hands, CT-312 began twisting it. The fabric tightened into a long coil. Bunching unevenly beneath her gloves as she adjusted one end and folded the portion back upon itself. Her visor remained angled downward in concentration.
“Look…” CT-312 gave the scarf another twist before holding it up between them. The results were lopsided with one end bent upward while the rest of the fabric trailed between her hands and forearm. Her visor lifted up to look back at Quinn.
“It’s a snake.”
Silence settled over the room. Each breath sounded louder than the last, trapped within the confines of her helmet. Perhaps not the best distraction.
