Chapter Text
Chapter 1: Teenage Dirtbags
Depth: +60 kilometers (Level 5432)
The day started quietly, but all the worst ones always did.
Barriss went about the routine she had established for herself before the war; she would dress, prepare a small meal, and meditate-in that order-before beginning the day in earnest. Theoretically, there should have been classes to take or coursework to complete, but most of the instructors were off at the front.
Looking out the window, Barriss watched the aircars humming past in their endless streams, broken occasionally by a CSF cruiser or a Coruscant Guard gunship. A Victory Star Destroyer hung in low orbit above the capital, visible from the surface. It was a part of Home Fleet, hundreds of ships whose only purpose was ensuring that Galactic City remained secure. They policed air traffic, monitored who broke or entered atmosphere, and patrolled the system on constant vigil.
The sight chilled Barriss. Only two years before, it would have been unthinkable for a warship to monitor Coruscant, let alone any other world in the Republic. Now, the Vicstar was just another part of life for the denizens of Galactic City.
Sipping at a mug of herbal tea and attempting to be interested in the piece of toasted flatbread she had smeared with something pretending to be jelly, Barriss’ mind wandered. As usual, she had dreamed last night; while she usually did not remember her dreams, the sheets soaked through with sweat and the cry that was on her lips indicated that they had not been pleasant. This morning, she remembered flashes. They were less dreams as much as they were memories. Try as she might to avoid thinking about them, they eventually worked their way forward as the worm slid up her cheek, the infected clones looking on and chittering like insects, squirming, writhing, pleading, no effect—If there’s one thing we clones know, it’s how to stop a Jedi…
The thump of knuckles against her door shook Barriss from her reverie. The memories, knocked loose from her psyche by her disloyal subconscious, sublimated as she opened her mind’s eye and gazed beyond herself. The person at the door blazed in the Force, a beacon of emotion in a place where most people seemed akin to shades in the aether.
Ahsoka. Barriss tried to keep the excitement from her voice as she called, “Come in.” She mostly succeeded.
The door whooshed open on an automated track, and Ahsoka seemed to bounce into the room like a rubber ball given an adrenaline rush. “Morning, Barriss!” she chirped, a ziplock pouch of something that had probably been meat in a previous life clutched in her hand. “Mind if I eat with you? Skyguy’s still off on deployment, so it’s either fight with the Initiate clans for seating in the mess hall or hide in my quarters.”
An unwilling smirk crept onto the corner of Barriss’ face. “Oh, so coming to see your best friend was your third option? I’m touched.”
“As long as you know your place in the pecking order,” Ahsoka said, winking at Barriss. The teens looked at each other for a moment before bursting into laughter.
“It’s good to see you, Ahsoka,” Barriss said, her mirth fading.
“You too, Barriss.” Ahsoka dropped into the seat across from her best friend, tucking into the bag of what Barriss could now clearly see was some sort of jerky and placing a steaming mug of caf on the table before her. She ate noisily and messily, clearly taking great pleasure in her breakfast.
“What are you eating?” Barriss finally demanded.
“Dunno,” came her answer from around a mouthful of jerky. “Some kinda bird I found. Made this.” An orange hand proffered the bag. “Wan’ some?”
“You are feral,” Barriss said, pushing the atrocity away. “Are you aware of this?”
Ahsoka grinned, studiously keeping her mouth shut. “You love it,” she said after swallowing some of the jerky, though quite a bit remained stuffed in her cheek like she was a great carnivorous rodent.
Yes, I do, Barriss’ treasonous mind thought. “I only tolerate it because I enjoy your company,” her reasonable mouth replied.
Slurping from a mug of what smelled like utterly butchered caf, Ahsoka patted her on the hand as though she knew exactly what Barriss had not allowed herself to say. “Damn straight,” she said, pulling another strip of cured meat out of the bag.
Barriss shivered. Aside from Master Luminara-and that was how she referred to her mentor, even in the confines of her own mind-she allowed no one to touch her in a way that might be construed as intimate. Everyone, to her way of mind, ought to be allowed a few eccentricities. An aversion to touch was hers. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, it was just her way. The only people that rule did not seem to apply to were her Master, who might as well have been synonymous with a mother figure, and Ahsoka Tano.
What was Ahsoka to her? The question worried Barriss; she cared for the girl, of course, but strictly speaking that was the problem. Emotions were the path to the dark side, weren’t they? Of course, if she was going to worry about the affection-bordering-on-another-word she felt for Ahsoka, she had to worry about the ronto in the room; the terror she felt every night when she tried to sleep, the memories of that ship of the damned slipping back to her. Her hand shook as she lifted the mug of tea.
“Hey,” Ahsoka said. “Are you alright?”
Barriss cocked her head. “Why do you ask?”
Ahsoka rolled her eyes. “You live in a building full of professional psychics, Barriss. You were radiating loud enough that I could tell something was up from two levels down. Talk to me, will you?”
Barriss tried opening her mouth, she really did, but all that came out was, “It’s nothing, Ahsoka. Really, it is.”
“Huh.” Ahsoka stared at her for a long moment. “No,” she finally said. “It’s not. If you don’t want to talk about it I won’t push, but just give it to me straight.”
Barriss opened her mouth, then closed it. She wanted to talk, she truly did, but she was afraid of what Ahsoka might think of her. Her fears, her doubts, her growing anger; it was a crushing weight on her soul. Chiding herself— never take counsel of your fears— she began to open her mouth again, about to tell Ahsoka everything she was feeling-
Dee-deep, dee-deep.
Ahsoka glared at her wrist comm. “It’s Master Windu’s comm code,” she said, tapping the CONNECT key. “Tano.”
“Padawan Tano,” the Jedi Master said, a holographic image coalescing from the top of Ahsoka’s wrist. He looked over at Barriss. “And Padawan Offee. Good. I need you both to report to the War Room; a situation has come up, and unfortunately, you two are our specialists. I’m aware you’re on leave, but this is both time critical and of great importance.”
“Yes, Master,” Barriss said, and Windu cut the connection.
“Specialists?” Ahsoka echoed. “What special skills do we have in common?”
“Not very many,” Barriss admitted, resigning herself to the prospect of another morning without significant breakfast. “We should get up there.”
The War Room was the embodiment of everything that Barriss was finding progressively more repugnant about the Jedi Order. It was brutish, it was utilitarian, and above all else, it was designed to support the waging of an intergalactic war.
Mace Windu stood at the holotable, speaking with a man in a rumpled CSF uniform. They both turned to the door as it slid open.
Windu nodded. “Good morning,” he said. “This is Jaller Obrim, he’s a captain with CSF.”
“Anti-Terror Unit,” Obrim said. “We’re the guys who kick in doors and shove black bags over people’s heads.” His half-smile suggested he was only partially joking.
“ATU?” Ahsoka asked. “So you think whatever’s going on is being caused, like those bombings last year?”
“We don’t know what to make of it,” Obrim admitted. He jacked a disk into the holotable, pulling up a collection of crime scene photos. “These were taken on Level 19 last night.”
“That’s very deep,” Barriss said. “I didn’t think CSF went below Level 300 on most occasions.”
“Normally, we don’t,” Obrim said. “It’s damn near lawless down there; we’d need an army and two decades to get the lower levels back into shape, and the government won’t allocate that kind of money. Normally we steer clear, but normally, we’re not seeing this.” He pulled up a photograph of what appeared to be a human—or at least, what a human might look like if he was cut into pieces with a reciprocating saw after being mauled by a wild animal. Barriss gagged, and Ahsoka looked ill.
“Residents on Level 19 reported that a Besalisk attacked this guy yesterday,” Obrim said, apparently unperturbed. “Mauled him, even ate part of him. The locals saw him climb out of a disused elevator shaft leading down to Level Three. What worries me is the fact that he apparently got up again and attacked his wife within the hour.”
“He what?” Ahsoka asked, dumbfounded.
“Yeah, I thought the woman who told us that was either lying or doped to the gills, but we found him beating on a door. He rushed us. Took my guys forty rounds to put him down.”
“He’s been through a tox screen?” Barriss asked.
“‘course. Totally clean, aside from the typical industrial chems you always see in Coruscanti bloodstreams. No spice, no cilona extract, not even a whiskey sour. He was cleaner than your average politician. What the coroner did find was an infection.”
Barriss raised an eyebrow, intrigued. “What kind?”
“Beats me.” Obrim shrugged. “Some kind of fungus. It was growing pretty much everywhere in his body by the time we slotted him, but the worst concentration was on the brain. We don’t know what it did, and we’ve never seen anything like this before. The body’s been quarantined for now. We’ve got reason to believe this is a biological weapon.”
“What about the Besalisk?” Ahsoka asked.
“Already accounted for. The wife put three in his head at point-blank range. He’s got the same growths, but much more advanced. Parts of his body were beginning to necrotize.”
Windu stepped in. “I need you two to lead a team into Level Three. Find out what’s going on down there, clear it out if you can, and report back.”
Barriss bit her lip. “I mean no offense, Master, but…”
“Why us?” Ahsoka asked. “Isn’t this a job for CSF? Or the 65th, if you need to get ‘proportional?’”
“We are still peacekeepers, young one.” Windu looked at Ahsoka sternly. “You would do well to remember that.”
“Right,” Ahsoka said, nodding vigorously. “Sorry.”
“We did call in the Guard,” Obrim said. “I don’t like doing that on general principle, but we’ve got crime to deal with. This is a bit out of our league.”
Windu nodded. “As for why I need you both specifically, this is a biological weapon. The pair of you have the most experience with biohazards than any other Jedi in the Order.”
Barriss stiffened, realizing what Windu meant. The worms. “The brain worms. Could this be connected to them somehow?” She tried to keep her voice steady, but Windu noticed nonetheless.
“No, Padawan Offee,” he said, “this is something else. I need you and Padawan Tano to find out what it is and put an end to it.”
“We’ll get it done, Master,” Ahsoka said. “Won’t we, Barriss?”
Barriss saw the worm in her minds’ eye, crawling up her face, squirming as she tried to escape it, praying for death with every moment that passed as a prisoner in her own body, she looked at Ahsoka and nodded, saying “Yes, of course.”
Inwardly, she shivered. She had a bad feeling about this.