Private The CHILD Called "IT"

[Greah Dobson]

The door to Greah Dobson's condo hissed open with a sharp hydraulic breath. The space inside was angular and stylish — black walls trimmed with violet underlighting, synth-metal furniture, a panoramic skyline of Nar Shaddaa burning violet-orange outside the window. The hum of air traffic drifted in like mechanical birdsong.

Greah stepped inside and threw her black jacket over the back of a low-slung couch. Her boots hit the floor heavily, one after another, like punctuation marks to a violent sentence. Her short cropped hair was damp from a recent confrontation — or maybe just the rain. Her knuckles were bruised. Again.

From the kitchen alcove, Alexis looked up. She was tall, statuesque, with ink-black braids tied back in a silk wrap. She wore a loose, sleeveless tunic and held a glass of red Zeltron wine in one hand, her other braced on the edge of the counter.

"Let me guess," Alexis said dryly. "Mommy Dearest strikes again?"

Greah didn't answer right away. She walked across the room in a storm of coiled muscle and quiet fury, then stopped at the wide window. The glow of the city flickered across her face like a dying pulse. Her voice, when it came, was a low growl barely held together.

"She told me I'm reckless. That I lack vision. That I'm not strategic enough to lead."
A scoff followed. "She trained me to break bones before I was twelve, Alexis. She threw me into pit fights on Culroon like I was some stray dog that needed to earn her place at the dinner table. And now? Now I'm too much?"

Alexis walked toward her, calm and effortless, her presence like cool water across Greah's burning edge.

"She's projecting. She always has," Alexis said softly. "You scare her, Greah. You remind her of everything she tried to suppress in herself."

Greah turned toward her, eyes sharp — dangerous, even now. "I don't want to remind her of anything. I want her to see me. For once. Just once, I want her to say, 'That's my daughter. That's the one who surpassed me.' Not… 'You're still not ready.'"

Alexis reached out and took Greah's injured hand, brushing her thumb across the bruised knuckles. "You don't need her validation. You've built your own name. Your own empire of chaos. You light fires in every room you walk into, baby."

Greah's jaw twitched. Her eyes shimmered just faintly — not from tears, never tears — but from the heat of years of swallowed rage. "It's like I've been fighting my whole life to get her to love me. But all she ever loved was the soldier she sculpted. Not me. Not Grea—"

Alexis pulled her into an embrace, one hand against the back of Greah's head.

"I love you," Alexis whispered. "Not the weapon. Not the war story. You. The stubborn, chaotic, brilliant woman who paints the walls with her anger and still leaves room for tenderness."

Greah pressed her face into Alexis' neck, breathing deep. Her voice cracked when she finally said, "If she tries to control me again, Lex… if she tries to pull the leash…"

"She won't," Alexis cut in, fierce now. "Because I'll be right there. And she doesn't get to own you anymore."

Silence stretched between them, but it was full of understanding — thick and raw. Outside, the city pulsed on. Somewhere, a thunderstorm cracked in the distance, but here in the condo, Greah's storm had finally met something stronger than rage.

It had met love.

 

[Linn Dobson]

Flashback – Outer Rim Compound, 17 Years Ago
Location: Unregistered Culroon Blacksite
Age: Greah Dobson, 11

---

The echo of metal doors slamming shut still rang in her ears. It was always loud here — not from sound, but from expectation.

A cold, sweat-slick training chamber sprawled before her, floor cracked from years of impact, rust from dried blood smeared across the corners. The artificial lights above flickered like dying stars.

"Again."

Linn's voice rang out like a whip. Cold. Controlled. Unmoving.

 

[Greah Dobson]

Greah stood trembling in the center of the mat, fists raised, lip split. She was barefoot, her ribs visible beneath the skin. Every muscle in her eleven-year-old body begged for rest.

Across from her, a grown man — a masked bounty hunter Linn had hired — flexed his knuckles. He didn't hold back. That was the rule.

No one holds back. Not even for her. Especially not for her.

Greah turned toward her mother, who stood behind a reinforced glass panel. Linn's gloved hands were clasped behind her back. Immaculate. Emotionless. Her eyes were two quiet blades of disappointment.

"I can't feel my leg," Greah croaked. Her knee had buckled minutes ago from a direct strike.

 

[Linn Dobson]

Linn didn't blink.
"You don't need legs to finish a fight. You need rage."

 

[Greah Dobson]

Greah's heart cracked and flared. The words didn't motivate her — they cut her, deep and raw. And in the space where love should've been, something darker grew.

 

[Linn Dobson]

"I said — AGAIN."

 

[Greah Dobson]

Greah turned back toward the opponent. Her arms dropped, loose at her sides.

The bounty hunter lunged.

And this time, she let him come.

She stepped inside the strike, slid under his punch, and drove a broken metal shard she'd palmed from the floor into his thigh. Then she bit down on his collarbone — hard — and elbowed his throat with all the fury of a child who had never been hugged, only hardened.

The man dropped, gasping, clutching his throat.

Greah stood over him, blood on her teeth, eyes wide — feral.

Breathing hard. Shaking.

 

[Linn Dobson]

Linn's voice filtered through the intercom.

"Better. You're learning that pain is nothing. Victory is everything."

 

[Greah Dobson]

The girl inside Greah whimpered.
The thing her mother was making… just stared back.

Later That Night…

Greah sat alone on the edge of her bunk. The room was concrete and cold. A camera blinked red from the ceiling. Her back was raw. Her fists wrapped in synth-bandages. Her hands wouldn't stop trembling — not from fear, but from containment.

 

[Linn Dobson]

A single screen flickered to life on the far wall. Linn's face appeared, calm and stern.

"If you ever want to be free of me, Greah… you'll have to earn it. Through blood. Through control. Through becoming something greater than me."

 

[Greah Dobson]

Greah looked at the screen. Then at her hands.

And then she whispered something only the shadows heard:

"I will. And when I do… I'll tear your world apart."






Back in the present, Greah blinks hard as the memory fades — the storm still burning in her chest, even after all these years.

 

[Greah Dobson]

A few days later....

Dagobah –

The transport landed with a squelch, its landing gear half-submerged in thick swampwater.


Mist curled like ancient spirits across the gnarled terrain. Vines dripped from skeletal trees. The air buzzed with life — insects, unseen predators, and something deeper that pulsed just beneath the surface of the Force.


Greah Dobson stepped out, her boots already soaked, her sleek black armor glistening with dew. Her long black hair — as always — was slicked back like a dark wave. She looked like a predator dropped into the marsh.

"Dagobah," she muttered. "Where the dead parts of the Force go to rot."

Rumors spoke of an off-grid Jedi enclave, hiding here after the fall of a distant order. But this wasn't a reclusive monastic retreat — this group was said to be building mechanical defenders, hulking droid-warriors programmed to protect swamp settlements from intruders.


Peacekeepers? Or soldiers in disguise?


Greah didn't trust Jedi. Never had. They wore robes and spoke of balance while leaving children like her to be broken and discarded.


And now they were building mechs?


She would see for herself.

 

[Greah Dobson]

Three Days Later – "K'nal Hollow" Settlement

K'nal Hollow was a fog-wrapped cluster of wooden platforms, suspended between marsh-tree roots and stilted walkways. Simple people. Traders. Nomads. And clearly — tech scavengers.

Greah moved through the crowd like a shadow, drawing glances. She wore no badge, no insignia, just coiled violence wrapped in silence.

Children scattered. Vendors stiffened.

She spotted it: a large mechanical frame, humanoid, built from a fusion of Clone Wars scrap and new alloy plating. It stood dormant in the plaza center, moss already growing along its joints. A Jedi symbol half-sanded off its shoulder.

"That's no guardian," Greah muttered. "That's a threat on standby."

She was about to question a mechanic nearby when a voice called out to her from behind:

"You military, girl?"

The voice was friendly. Curious. A local vendor, older man, weathered from years of sun and steam. He held up a canister of native fruit, smiling, trying to make small talk.

"Just never seen your kind here before. Thought maybe you were Signa-Ki or—"

That word.

That name.

Greah's body reacted before she could stop it.

Her hand snatched the vendor by the collar, lifted him off his feet, and slammed him through his own table. The fruit exploded in a wet burst as screams rang out.

"DO I LOOK LIKE ONE OF THEM?!!!" she roared, fists clenched, eyes wild.

She heard her mother's voice in the back of her skull. Cold. Measured. Mocking.

"Control your rage, or it will control you."

Too late.

The crowd scattered. Someone screamed for a droid. Someone else yelled, "Call the Jedi!"

The mech in the plaza began to stir — its eyes glowing blue. Boot-up sequence detected her aggression. Weapons began to shift from its wrists.

Greah backed away, breathing hard. The man she'd hit coughed, groaning, bleeding from the mouth.

She hadn't meant to. Not really. But it was always there — just beneath her skin — the lesson of violence first.

 

[Greah Dobson]

She turned… and walked into the swamp.

She needed silence.


She needed to bury that part again.

But as she disappeared into the thick mists… someone watched from a ridge of twisted roots — robed, silent, and deeply intrigued.

An enclave member? Or something else?

 

[Greah Dobson]

The roots opened like jaws.

Greah dropped into the darkness, her boots splashing down in knee-deep black water. Faint phosphorescent fungi lit the walls — cracked duracrete and ancient stone, overgrown and weeping from age.

She had found it.

The Jedi enclave wasn't in the village. It was below.

Collapsed steps led her into a buried chamber, half-consumed by swamp decay, yet humming faintly with Force residue. Carvings lined the walls — Jedi symbols merged with diagrams of machines, blueprints etched in stone and moss.

In the center stood a circular console, powered by an ancient, dormant core. She tapped it. It flickered to life with a weak blue glow.

A hologram shimmered — a Jedi master with no name, speaking to a future they never lived to see:

"We built guardians, not to defend against darkness… but against ourselves. Our fear of intrusion became a cycle of violence."

Greah stared. The mech droids hadn't been designed for control. They were a last-ditch experiment in self-discipline — Force-enhanced empathy protocols. Designed to defend, not to destroy.

It was… noble. Almost beautiful.

And it made her sick.

Or… worse — it made her feel.

She activated her wrist-com and began recording a voice memo, intended for her mother's inbox.

 

[Greah Dobson]

Greah's Holo Memo (private)

[crackling static]
"Mother. I've found the chamber. There's tech here… remnants. But it's not a weapon. Not in the way you'd want."

[a pause. breath. the tone softens]
"They're not building control. They're building… restraint. Peace through presence. It's not weakness."

"You won't like that answer. You never do."

[voice sharpens again, but there's something else in it — doubt]
"I could destroy it all. Send you the coordinates. Let you burn it from orbit."

[a long pause. finally:]
"...But I won't. Not yet."

[click]

She ends the recording but doesn't send it. Just stares at the console. The water. Her reflection — more beast than woman.

For the first time in a long time, she questions: Who am I when I'm not being shaped by someone else's war?

 

[Linn Dobson]

Nar Shaddaa — Greah's Condo

The chime rang.
Not a knock. Not a message. Just a cold announcement.

Alexis didn't expect anyone.
Her instinct tightened before her body moved. She slid the wrap tighter over her chest, bare feet crossing the polished floor.

She opened the door.

Linn Dobson stood there.

Immaculate.
Uninvited.
Unapologetic.

"Where is she?" Linn's voice was flat, practiced — the kind that once ordered executions with a nod.

Alexis blinked once. No smile. No warmth.

"She's not here," she said calmly, and shut the door behind Linn as she stepped inside anyway. "But I'm guessing you already knew that."

Linn said nothing. Her eyes drifted through the space — over the wine glasses on the side table. The loose shawl hanging on the back of a chair. The soft music still humming from the sound system.
She took it all in with clinical disapproval.

The air grew colder.

"You've made her…"
A pause.
"…soft."

Alexis's jaw ticked. The words scraped across something primal in her chest. She folded her arms, one thumb pressing against her opposite wrist — grounding herself.

"I've made her human," she said simply.

Linn's gaze stopped at a holoframe on the shelf — an image of Greah mid-laugh, head thrown back, Alexis behind her, kissing her temple. The light in their faces was unmistakable.

"She was never meant to be human," Linn replied, voice like silk dipped in ice.
"She was meant to rise. To conquer her chaos. Not coddle it."

Alexis felt the flare of heat under her sternum.
She didn't speak right away.
Didn't want the woman to see her pulse quicken.

"She is chaos," Alexis finally said, voice low, deliberate. "But she's learning to own it. Not drown in it. That's what scares you, isn't it?"

A pause.
A beat of silence too sharp to be passive.

Linn turned, slowly — precision in every movement. She stepped in closer, just enough to invade the space between them, but not enough to touch.

"You think you've won her."
There was venom under the calm.
"But love is a leash. One even tighter than mine. One day… she'll snap. And when she does—"
Linn leaned in. A breath from Alexis's cheek.
"I hope you're strong enough to watch what crawls out."

Alexis didn't back away.
Didn't even blink.

Her voice, when it came, was quiet. But it carved.

"If she breaks… I'll help her rebuild."
Then a step closer.
"You? You'll only sharpen the pieces and send them back to war."

The silence cracked like tension wire between them.

Linn's expression didn't shift. But something in her eyes narrowed — just a flicker. A twitch in the mask.

Then, without ceremony, she turned and walked toward the door. It slid open at her approach.

She left.

Just like she always did.

---

The moment the door sealed behind her, Alexis's breath released. Long. Shaky.

Her fingers curled around the edge of the counter. Not in fear — but fury. The kind that burns slowly. Quietly.

She turned her eyes to the holo console still active on the table — the last transmission Greah had sent flickering faintly. Unsent. Unresolved.

She whispered into the stillness:

"Come back soon, baby…
Before your past decides for you."

 

[Greah Dobson]

reah stood alone, the pale blue glow of the console flickering across her face. Her fingers hovered over the "SEND" prompt on her wrist-com.

The voice memo for her mother waited.

It pulsed like a heartbeat. Like a trap.

She stared at it. Jaw tight. Breathing slow.

Then—
She deleted it.

No fanfare. No final words. Just gone.

Instead, she pressed a different code.

Private frequency. Scrambled. Encrypted.

The comlink buzzed once before the signal stabilized, revealing Alexis's face in soft light. The backdrop was their condo, still. Her expression shifted from relief to concern in an instant.

"You're alive," she said, smiling. "I was starting to think Dagobah swallowed you whole."

Greah smirked. Just faintly. But her eyes were tired. Shadowed.

"Close," she said. "I found it. The enclave. It's buried, hidden beneath swamp rot and vines. They're not building weapons the way we thought. They're trying to build restraint. Mercy. Jedi programming machines to… feel."

Alexis blinked. "…That's not what your mother will want to hear."

Greah tilted her head, expression hardening.

"That's exactly why I'm not telling her."

Alexis hesitated.

Then said it — the thing weighing on her chest.

"She came to the condo. Unannounced."

Greah's eyes narrowed immediately. "What?"

"She walked through like she still owned you. Told me I was making you soft."
Alexis swallowed. Her voice shook. "She said love was a leash. And when you snap… I won't be strong enough to watch what comes out."

The line was quiet for a moment.

Then Greah's voice came through — low, but unmistakably steady.

"She's testing boundaries. Yours. Mine. Ours."
"When I get back… I'll handle it."

Alexis searched her face.

"Greah… she's not just playing mind games. I think she's scared of losing you. And she's the kind of scared that destroys things to keep control."

Greah's jaw flexed. Not in fear — in calculation.

"Let her try."

But before Alexis could reply — an alarm shrieked in Greah's headset.
Proximity breach. Zone 3.
Two red pulses on the holo-grid. Movement.

Greah straightened.

"I've got company."

"Be careful."

"Always."

The signal cut.

 

[Greah Dobson]

Aboveground – Perimeter of the Swamp Ruins

Greah emerged from the moss-slick tunnel, the mist curling around her like steam from a fresh kill.


Two armored enclave officers stood at the edge of the clearing, weapons lowered but active. Their brown-green fatigues bore the faded symbol of the Old Jedi Order, stitched awkwardly onto newer armor plates.


The taller one, a Duros with an upturned chin, took a step forward.

"You're trespassing. That area is restricted. Who authorized your descent into the lower chamber?"

Greah didn't answer.


She wiped a smear of mud from her cheek and kept walking forward — slow, deliberate.


The second officer, human, raised his voice.

"You didn't answer the question. Step back. You're interfering with an active Jedi heritage site."

Greah stopped.


Her voice was calm. Hollow.


"I didn't see any Jedi."

"Watch your tone."

The Duros flared. "This is your only warning. Step back, submit your identity, or we'll detain you."


Greah smiled.
And something in her broke.


She took one more step forward. Her boots hit the swampwater with a splash.


"You're going to detain me?"
Her voice dropped an octave.
"You're going to try and put a leash on me too?"


The Duros started to lift his blaster.


And that's when she moved.


Fast. Brutal. Surgical.


She grabbed the Duros by the chestplate, lifted him off his feet, and slammed him into the tree behind him. The bark cracked from impact. His blaster hit the mud.


The second officer barely reacted before Greah was on him — one knee to the gut, elbow across his jaw, and then she hurled him into the side of the transport they arrived in. The metal dented inward.


She stood over them both, chest heaving, eyes gleaming with that old, familiar light.


"You want to protect the Jedi legacy?" she snarled, voice tight. "Then start by not threatening what you don't understand."


The Duros wheezed, crumpled at her feet.


"You think I'm the intruder?" she hissed.
"I've lived in war. You're playing defense. I am the offense."


The forest went silent around her.


Mist drifted in.


And somewhere beneath the calm…


The ancient mechanisms of the swamp temple began to hum.


Something deeper had awakened.