Disclaimer: I wish I were George Lucas' daughter, 'cause then I actually –would- own the star wars universe! Obviously, I'm not, so I don't. Chill, and don't sue.

A/N: well, just like to say I appreciate the pair of reviews that prompted me to continue writing. Also, I messed around with the timeline a bit, so if you have any questions about what's happening during this fic just drop a review or a PM.

-LFK

Star Dancer, Reysha's Quarters…

When the 'fresher door was safely closed behind her, Reysha stumbled over to the toilet, raised the lid, and proceeded in what had become a morning ritual to the ex-Jedi: puking her guts out.

"ow, ow, ow…" She groaned her stomach finally stopped heaving up whatever synthehol had refused to be processed by her poor liver and settled down to an empty ache. Sliding to the floor with another groan, Reysha laid her pounding head against the cool tiles and waited for the pain to die down enough that she could go look for a kolto-seltzer tab. That, and a glass of water, would settle her stomach enough that she could probably tolerate a relatively large breakfast. Then again, she thought as her throbbing head pounded with increased fervor, maybe I'll stick to a bagel. "Oh, my head! Force, frak it!"

Reysha lay there for a long, long while, not thinking of much of anything. Simply, being. Once, long ago, she may have called what she was doing meditation, but, back then, the calm feeling would be augmented by the tantalizing swirls of errant thoughts floating in and out of her mind, and the ever present buzz of Life in the hollow of her ears. This mockery, still part of her morning routine even after eight years of hiding from her past, gave her a chance to poke and prod at the wound inside her head where the Force once lay without feeling the pain of loss cutting through her thoughts. She liked to call the state 'Coherency'.

Alright, Reysha, She thought as she pulled herself to her feet and tottered over to the sink, fishing about the sides for her toothbrush with one hand while the other quested for the paste. Time to get your act together and face the day. All of this was done with her eyes closed, from running the bristles over her pearly whites to splashing cold water over her face, neck, and shoulders.

Finally, the woman reached blindly to the side of the counter and felt around until her hand encountered a fuzzy piece of cloth, which she then used to dry off her face and her somewhat damp hair. She lowered the washcloth a moment later and opened her eyes with a sigh, only to meet them in the cabinet mirror.

Haunted, dull green eyes gazed back at her from a too-thin face framed with wavy purple streaked, black hair. She jabbed the dark bags under her eyes with a finger and snorted with amusement when they faded to caramel, and then jumped right back. In other words, Reysha was a complete mess.

With another weary sigh, she fetched her brush from one of the drawers in the counter and started the count to one hundred that she knew she'd never finish. Thirty strokes later, Reysha heard a timid knock at her door.

"Hello?" She called out wearily, knowing whom it was just by the way she knocked.

"Reysha? It's me, Sorah." There was a hesitant pause before the girl continued, "Can I come in?"

"Sure, one sec." Reysha sighed at the interruption so soon after Jake's as she exited the fresher and threw on one of the cleaner shirts tossed on the back of her chair. Luckily, it seemed the captain had picked up her room while she was in the fresher, and the bottles were all stashed away out of sight. She fixed a fake smile on her face and palmed open the door. "Yes? Can I help you?"

"Hey, Reysha," Thankfully, Sorah's excitement had been tuned down a couple of notches. "Just coming to tell you that we're going to be docking soon, and, um," she trailed off as red suffused her pale cheeks.

"Sorah," Reysha sighed –she seemed to be doing that a lot since she woke up – and ran a hand through her hair. "Just tell me what you want, 'kay, hon? I already got the mother of all lectures from your brother before I was even properly awake, and I want to be able to have my morning caffa before we get to the port."

"Yeah, hehe," Sorah chuckled nervously and peeked up at the purple haired woman. "I was just wondering if you'd, um, want to go shopping with me?"

"Shopping." Reysha deadpanned, crossing her arms and leaning against the doorframe as she spoke.

"Yeah!" Sorah chirped in reply, bouncing from foot to foot with nervous energy. "We're only gonna be in port for three days, and Raga's been complaining about the lack of edible food in the frig-unit and drinkable booze in the bar. 'Sides, we're not gonna be in port for a long time afterwards, and I wanna pick up some holodisks and vids." She gave Reysha a quick once over and wrinkled her nose. "More importantly, we need to pick up some clothes for you. You're twenty-four, not fifty, and you should dress like it!"

"Is there any way I can get out of this?" Reysha asked dryly, already knowing the answer. Hey! What's wrong with how I dress?

"Not a chance!" Sorah laughed as she hugged her friend around the neck and then, literally, bounced off in the direction of the crew quarters.

Reysha stared after the hyper girl in bemusement and simply shook her head. That girl reminds me of the way we were, so long ago. How did we lose it all, Revan? As usual, her long dead, or missing, twin didn't answer her thoughts. She just couldn't believe the reports that said her sister was gone. Something told her that Revan was still alive, and she'd just have to wait until the universe saw fit to bring them back together.

"I was on my way to warn you," Reysha started out of her thoughts as the zabrak woman's cool voice hailed her from down the hall. "But it appears you've already been hit by Hurricane Sorah. Looks like you came through unscathed."

Reysha smiled thinly at her crewmate. From the moment she'd met Kara, Reysha, perhaps through some remnant of her empathic or Force bonding abilities, had immediately distrusted the horned alien. It wasn't anything she'd ever done, but Reysha just had a feeling that the eyes that she felt watching her when she was alone belonged to the mercenary.

"Yes," she replied civilly, palming the door shut as she saw Kara's eyes drift over her shoulder. "Sorah blew through here a moment ago. Looks like we're going to be making a bit of a dint in our pocket money."

"Sounds like fun!" though Kara's voice was friendly, her eyes remained cool and calculating. Like a snake's, Reysha thought as she stubbornly met those eyes. Or a Sith's.

"Sure." Reysha replied shortly as she started down the hall in the direction of the galley. "I'll let you know how it went when we return."

"Oh, I'm coming along too, don't you worry." Kara said smugly as they entered the crew lounge together. Reysha stalked over to the frig unit and pulled out a slightly wizened apple and a half-empty cartoon of milk, ignoring her crewmate in favor of fixing herself breakfast.

Biting into the fruit to hold it in place, Reysha then reached into one of the cabinets and pulled out a cup of insta-caffa, the last remaining non-synthesized food in their foundering stores.

"Great," Reysha growled around her mouthful as she pulled the tab that instantly heated the contents of the styrofoam cup. The heavenly scent of caffa wafted throughout the room, making Reysha sigh in contentment as she poured a bit of milk into the cup and then raised it to her lips. Blessed silence fell between the two women; Reysha drinking her caffa and eating her apple while Kara scrounged about in the cabinets and frig in search of edible food.

"So Ah hear you gals are gang onae shoppin' spree." Pol Raga's brogue shattered the well-constructed silence as he reentered the room for the second time that morning.

"Wha," Reysha replied with a genuine smile teasing at the corners of her lips, mimicking his rough accent perfectly. "No' enough booze fae ya?"

"Nevah enough booze!" Raga replied with a wink. Reysha just smirked and shook her head. Only a year ago, it had been through the burly ex-soldier that Reysha had acquired her position aboard the Star Dancer.

Nar Shadaa, Four Years after the end of the Mandalorian War…

After years of wandering planet-to-planet, former Republic General and Jedi Reysha Starfire found she no longer had the energy to run. Drawing from her last credit chip, Reysha took a grav-lift to the entertainment district of the roughest quarter of Nar Shadaa, and hadn't left yet.

It was nearly three a.m. standard time when Reysha came out of the fog of synthehol that clouded her thoughts long enough to notice the group of shady looking aliens stumbling towards her table in the darkest corner of the nameless dive. Another quick glance showed the bar to empty but for the snoozing bouncer by the door, the rodian bartender idly cleaning glasses with his dirty rag, and a clearly unconscious bothan lying slumped over a pile of bottles at the barstand.

"What's a pretty lady like you doing in a dirty pit like this?" a slimy looking twi'lek leered as he leaned over Reysha's table. "Come on, me and the boys will help you to someplace fun, if you're nice about it."

Reysha squinted up at him and said in clear, intelligible Basic, "didn't your mother ever tell you not to pick up strange girls? Now, go 'way before I…hurtyoureallybadly…" the rest was cut off with a low moan as all of the beer and spirits she'd been drinking finally caught up to her. Damn, she thought. That would've been so much more profound, too. She's missed the oily smiles passed amongst the group as the twi'lek gestured with his headtails.

"Come now," he said as his boys flanked her table, cutting off all escapes. "Don't be that way, we just wanna show you a good time!"

His first mistake was touching her.

"I said," Reysha gritted out between her teeth as she took the offending limb and twisted it in its socket until the twi'lek was on his knees whimpering. "Leave. Me. Alone. What didn't you understand about that?" she applied more pressure to his arm until she heard that satisfying pop as his shoulder dislocated.

The man squealed in pain, headtails wriggling furiously as he issued unspoken orders to his gang. "Get…her!"

Reysha dodged the first round pf punches and kicks easily, only stumbling once or twice due to the ten or so liters of synthehol floating in her system. She caught a clumsy kick flying towards her head with the outside of her forearm and then grasped her attacker above the ankle and swung him off balance and into three of his mates. A hard left hook rocked her entire body as it clipped her right shoulder, and she could feel her arm go numb.

Shit! She thought as she slid under a table and entangled another alien's feet in a chair. They're on stims! And why in the name of the Force hasn't that bouncer woken up? Where's the bartender? She rolled out from her hiding spot and drop kicked a burly trandoshan where the sun doesn't shine, knocking him out of the fight with a girly squeal.

It wasn't until the twi'lek spat out a word in Huttese that Reysha began to worry. As one, the gang members -those still standing anyway- reached behind their belts and pulled out stun rods.

"Pretty girl is about to be not so pretty!" an ugly looking weequay laughed harshly as he circled closer to the surrounded woman.

"Just try it, bantha butt." Reysha spat in reply as she maneuvered her back to a wall away from any other enemies, dropping back into a fighting stance. Bantha butt? What kinda insult is that? Oh, I am SO off my game!

The weequay seemed to be just as bemused by her comment as she was, leaving an opening in his guard that she didn't hesitate to abuse. A loud crack heralded the departure of the first casualty of the brawl, and the combatants seemed to stall a bit to acknowledge the drawing of a new line. This wasn't a game anymore, and Reysha had clearly expressed her desire to be out.

"Any more takers then?" Reysha demanded as the thugs reconvened around her. She could feel fatigue pounding behind her eyes, and knew she wouldn't be able to hold out much longer. "Come on! You huttslimes ruined my night, so the least you can do is offer up some entertainment!" You idiot! She berated herself as they came on again, wary readiness in their eyes and rods at bay. Do you want them to kill you? She cut off that train of thought before she could actually consider it.

There was a crash of glass shattering against the wall, and the whole room froze as a rough voice rang out. "It's no' nice to be pickin' on a wee lass all 'lone, ye bunch o' bastards! Why don' yeh, try this on fer size!" Reysha watched in stunned amazement as the bothan from before crashed into the back of the group and began laying about with his heavy fists with blows that cracked bone and ruptured organs.

"I suppose you want me to thank you," Reysha said stiffly a few moments later. The remaining gang members were spread out haphazardly amidst the ruined tables and chairs that were all that was left of the dirty dive.

"Well, that'd be nice, but it's not wha' Ah want." The bothan swigged back the half-full bottle remaining on the barstand and then tossed it into a wall where it shattered into a billion pieces. "Now, yeh have tha look of a fighta about cha, and ma ship could use a lass like yersel'. Have yeh any other skills to bring t' tha table of a cargo boat?"

Reysha appraised the man for a moment, not for the first time cursing her lack of Force powers, and then nodded. "I'm a tech. fighter craft, frigates, droids; you name it, I can handle it." Or at least I hope I can, she thought to herself as the bothan nodded his shaggy head in thought. How much of who I am -was- was through the influence of the Force?

"Alrigh' then, mah name's Pol Raga, and Ah'm firs' mate aboard tha Star Dancer. Come with me, and Ah'll introduce yeh to the cap'n."

Star Dancer, crew cabin….

"Ladies and Gentlemen!" the crew paused as Jake's voice came over the intercom. Reysha was shaken out of her reminiscing and hurriedly gulped down the rest of her lukewarm caffa. "Please take a seat and strap in as we make our final approach to Dea'une. Would all flight attendants please make preparations for reentry? Than- hey! What the- AT!" Sorah giggled as she heard AT trill an insult on the tail end of Jake's announcement, and the violent clank that was her brother's response.

"Well, yeh 'eard tha man," Raga said as he placed his drink in the dishwasher and then moved to strap himself into one of the seats around the lounge. "Strap in, lassies, so we can get this show on tha road!"

Reysha put her empty cup in the incinerator bin and then strapped herself into the seat across from Raga's, taking a deep breath to calm her racing heart. She was fine with flying –hell, she'd flown point in a starfighter squadron during the wars!- but there was just something about taking off and landing that caused her anxiety.

Just as the others managed to get their belts clipped, the Star Dancer began trembling and shaking as the stabilizers fought to control their descent into the atmosphere of Dea'une. Suddenly, as the ship hit a particularly rough patch, Reysha began feeling strange- dizzy. It was almost as if her consciousness was being spread out in two different directions, or another mind was trying to invade her own.

"Reysha? Reysha!" Reysha forced herself to focus on Sorah as she realized the girl had been talking to her for some time. "Are you ok?"

"Fine." Reysha replied shortly, putting her head in her hands as the splitting pain in her skull increased exponentially. Finally, just when she thought the pounding couldn't get any worse, that other presence disappeared altogether, and she felt herself slowly coming back together.

What the hell was that? She mused as her thoughts stopped bouncing off each other insanely and the world stopped spinning. I haven't felt anything like that in... years!

"But, Reysha, your nose is bleeding!" Sorah exclaimed. She hadn't stopped babbling on in the whole time Reysha was zoned out, unsurprisingly. The moment the ship evened out, she jumped from her seat and knelt beside Reysha a split second later with a wet rag from the kitchen.

"It's nothing." The tech croaked out, shoulders tensing at the continuing headache assaulting her cranium. Maybe the caffa hadn't solved all her problems like she'd thought. "I've never been good with reentry, but this is definitely one of my worst experiences up to date." Damn, she thought, it feels like my fracking head is cracked!

The next thirty minutes until landing were uneventful, after her friends got the teasing out of their systems. Reysha stayed quiet for most of that time, ignoring the concerned eyes of her crewmates as she nursed her headache and tried to figure out exactly what had happened.

Three years ago, Reysha had felt something similar to what she'd just experienced, but it had been so much worse that she'd spent the whole day drinking and taking stims to bring the pain down to a tolerable level. That was the day she felt the death pains of a part of her soul she thought she'd long disowned months earlier, but this pain felt like the birth of something new.

"Reysha!" suddenly, Jake's face was inches from her own, and she realized that the ship had landed and the crew was nowhere in sight. "Are you ok? I understand that you're coming off a bad hangover, but I need you to do the post-flight checks with AT before I allow the dockworkers to help themselves to our cargo. Are you up to it?"

"How many times do I have to say I'm fine?" Reysha grumbled as she nudged Jake out of the way and freed herself from her harness. She missed the flash of hurt in the captain's eyes as he moved away from her, as well as the slight sigh that escaped his lips.

"Dammit, girl, go ahead and sue us for worrying when a crewmate near passes out!" Jake snapped to her back as she headed towards the docking ramp down the hall. "Get to work then; everyone else sure is!"

The normally cool girl waved a rude gesture from behind her back as she stalked down the ramp, ignoring Sorah's shocked gasp as she passed.

"So how'd it go?" the teen asked her brother as he came up alongside her. "Any, fireworks?" it had been her pet project ever since the reticent woman had joined their crew to hook her up with her brother.

"No," Jake replied stiffly as they both stepped off the ramp and into the bustling spaceport. "And there sure as hell won't be any, if I have any say about it!" he finished with a growl as he watched Reysha press a button on the side of her forehead, causing a red visor to flash across her eyes with flickering visuals that told her the status of the ship's systems. She muttered a curse and the glared directly at Jake before pulling a fusion cutter from her belt and popping open a pane on the belly of the ship.

"Oh," Sorah replied rather dejectedly. "I see. She still wants to go shopping with me though, right?"

"Whatever." Jake muttered as he strode towards where Raga was negotiating docking fees with ground control. That girl was getting on his last nerve with her self-righteous pity fests and her arrogant attitude towards the rest of them! God, he needed a drink. Maybe Raga would hit a bar with him when they were done with the post-flight stuff.

A/N: Sorry about the long delay, but I finally got motivated enough to actually finish what I'd written a couple weeks ago. Thanks for reviewing, and I hope new readers continue to do so!