Chapter 2: Independence

Every journey has a first step…

Hers began when the control boards of the cockpit lit up, alerting her to the end of her travels. A week it had been, a week since he left her. A week with the ship to herself, a week of quiet and darkness and peace. The young girl hadn’t thought about him since that first day. No. In a week of quite and peace, she was beginning to live again, after that night of darkness. It was different to what it was before… She wasn’t a child anymore, not an innocent. It was different, but not necessarily bad. Kyla was getting used to it, and the week of solitude – something utterly new in her ilfe – was helping. A week while her ship took her to this planet called Coruscant, where her new life would begin.

She was ready, now, to take that step. To begin a new life of excitement and adventure. There was only one problem. Kyla looked over the boards of her ship, her young face distorted into a puzzled frown.

“How do I land this thing…?”

It wasn’t the first time she’d landed the ship. But it was the first time she would be doing it alone, without her father there to guide her, to remind her what to do, correct her if she made a mistake. Kyla bit on her bottom lip nervously, and almost jumped a mile as the comms board lit up, and a voice emerged.

::Approaching Vessel, identify yourself.::

Kyla hesitated only a moment, then leapt forward to press the button and answer.

“This is Kyla Dev’ar, captain of the Serendipity.”

She added the ID-code, taking comfort in this familiar process. Since she was nine, she was often allowed to do this, with her father by her side, nodding approval at her. She could almost imagine him doing so now.

::Acknowledged, Serendipity. Transmitting landing course now. Do not deviate from course::

Kyla licked her dry lips and nodded, though he couldn’t see her. Sure, she could do this… The young girl eased herself into the pilot’s seat, by far too big for her small body. Wriggling around for a moment, she got comfortable just as the landing course numbers came up on her screen. Kyla checked them carefully as she input them into the computer.

“Okay. Just take this easy… one step at a time,” she muttered to herself, taking hold of the controls. “I can do this.” She accelerated the ship delicately, wincing as she saw by the numbers that she’d gone too fast, and had to counter it. “Relax,” she hissed at herself and tried again, sticking to the course designated her by the landing authorities. She refused to think about what could happen if she accidentally went off course.

It wasn’t really so hard, once she got started. Just keep the numbers in front of her matching the coordinates they gave her, and make sure her speed was on target. Not that hard, right? But her hands were sweating, and her eyes were getting sore from constantly checking the scans. When the ship began descending through atmosphere and started shaking, the girl almost jumped out of her skin.

Through the viewport in front of her, she saw the blackness of space seep slowly into the blue of the planet’s atmosphere. The city spread out below her, at first just a blank blackness, spreading like a cancer over the entire surface. Then she got closer, as the ship began its final descent towards the landing pad assigned her. Kyla spared a brief look over the viewport and her breath caught in her throat as she realized the enormity of the city. The phrase ‘planet-wide city’ was just words, conveying nothing of its enormity. Its incredible size and stunning appearance.

“Sithspawn,” she whispered, using the curse word her father often used. She didn’t know what it meant, but it somehow suited.

The ship shuddered beneath a particularly violent gust of wind in the lower atmosphere and Kyla jumped, checking her numbers again. A little off… Her heart thudded against her ribcage as she fixed it, expecting every moment to hear that inflectionless droid voice telling her she was off-course. Or would they just shoot her out of the sky? Her skin chilled with a clammy sweat, her body straining, every muscle tense as she lowered the ship vertically over the landing pad. She could do this, dammit! A steady pounding set up residence in her temples, her face contorting into a grimace as she fought the wind currents to land the ship on the landing pad.

There! The ship landed – almost collided – with the landing pad, the violence of the connection shuddering through the vessel, knocking loose items around and sending them tumbling to the floor. Kyla’s bones rattled with the thud, but she’d done it. A huge grin spread over her face as she keyed down the engines, feeling them rumble into silence. Her body was drained, exhausted as she slumped against the pilot’s chair, her eyes closing. But the grin still stayed.

Kyla stayed like that for a while… not entirely sure how long, but it couldn’t have been more than a few moments before the droid voice broke through the silence. Jumping up in the chair, Kyla listened intently to the recorded message which informed her that she should access the general rules of conduct and local maps, as well as transmitting a file that contained information on local entertainments and sites to visit. Kyla watched the computer acknowledge the downloaded file with a beep, then signed off without commenting. She was just too tired.

The girl wearily dragged herself out of the chair, rubbing at her eyes. That took more out of her than she’d thought; her stomach was still wound up in tense knots, and there was an acrid taste at the back of her throat. She headed straight for the refresher, wanting to get the scent of sweat off her skin, and hoping it’d calm her down a little. As she moved through the ship, planning what to do – a shower, then some food, then she’d look over that file – the girl found herself feeling amazed at how easily she’d settled into being alone.

All her life until one week ago, she was dependent on her father. Her mother, too, while she still lived. How could Kyla discard everything she was used to and enjoy being on her own so much?

Fifteen minutes later, clean and clothed once more, the young girl sat in the galley. As she ate a hastily prepared meal, Kyla looked over the recorded file, downloading it to her datapad. She frowned a little as she read through it, wondering where she was going to find a pilot. There was a commercial guild… but she knew they would be very expensive, and her account wouldn’t stretch that far. Besides, she’d still have to provision the ship… something else she’d never done on her own… and she was vaguely concerned her age would make it difficult to get supplies.

Not to mention… whomever she hired as a pilot, she wanted them to teach her how to fly, too. It made sense, after all. She wouldn’t have enough credits to keep paying someone to fly her around forever, and she’d have to learn how to do this properly sometime. From all she’d heard of guild pilots, though, they stuck to their own. They wouldn’t train her, if she wasn’t going to pay guild dues. Kyla sighed and put the datapad down. The only other option was one she didn’t really like that much.

Finding an independent pilot.

Kyla had seen more than enough of them in her young life, and knew there were some good ones. Even some who did things legal all the way. But she didn’t have the credit to keep paying for the landing pad for very long, and how would she find someone like that in such a short time? With a frustrated sigh, Kyla put her fork down. She was just getting all wound up in knots again and stressed. The girl took a deep breath and let it out again. She could do this. She’d landed the ship, hadn’t she?

With a determined nod, the girl returned her attention to both the meal and the datapad. There had to be something in there that could give her a clue where to start looking…

A minute later she caught sight of something and stopped scrolling. There. Swoop races on lower Coruscant, in this very sector. A broad grin appeared on her face, her eyes completely innocent of what ‘lower Coruscant’ really meant. After all, she naively assumed if it was advertised like this, it must be a reasonably respectable enterprise. Pleased with herself, Kyla finished off her meal, then stood up to go clean the dishes. She came back a few moments later, grabbed hold of the datapad and headed off to her room to get her bag.

She threw the datapad into the bag, along with a very few credits. Kyla knew enough to keep as few credits on her as possible when going into strange territory. She tugged the bag onto her back and headed out of the ship. The instant the ramp began to descend, a rush of air whipped inside, nearly tugging her off her feet. It took a moment to compensate for it, her eyes wide with surprise. Cautiously, the girl descended the ramp, staring around her in wonder.

The ramp ascended behind her, but she barely noticed, too caught up in her amazed survey of Coruscant from this angle.

“It’s beautiful,” she whispered in surprise. The delicate spires that rose up alongside her, the lanes of traffic overhead that looked as though they should surely crash into one another at any moment. Walkways and turbolifts going every which way, carrying people around, up, down and across Coruscant’s crazy geography. With incredulous eyes, Kyla made her way to the turbolift at the end of the landing pad. She almost sagged against the inside of the lift with the surcease of the wind tugging at her from every angle. She was so high up… Kyla stared out the plasglass window in the turbolift as she descended lower and lower. It would be enough to give her vertigo, if she were prone. But for a girl raised in space, and taught to think in four directions rather than three, it was simply intriguing.

Some time later, she was moving across a public walkway with every confidence that she knew precisely where she was going. Kyla knew enough to recognise that wandering around in confusion with a map was just gonna make her a target, no matter what planet she’s on, and no matter how good the local security. And, in point of fact, in the twenty minutes it took her to get to the swoop races, she only had to pull out the map twice, to get her back on the right track.

It certainly was a confusing planet. It was easy for her to think in terms of up and down as well as the flat 360 degrees most people were used to thinking in. She was born in space, after all; it was the norm to her, not these planets. Still, Coruscant was unlike any planet she’d ever been on. Her father was here once, she thought. He’d never said anything about it, but Kyla always got the feeling something bad had happened to him here. It made her wonder why he told her to go here and find a pilot. He probably figured she’d get a good pilot, hire one up and keep on with the family charter business. If she’d wanted to do that, she would have gone into business with someone back on the Rim. That wasn’t her plan.

Kyla pushed those thoughts aside as she stepped out of the turbolift and onto a walkway designated as one of the better places to view the Swoop races. She’d figured out… oh, about twenty minutes ago… that ‘lower Coruscant’ wasn’t just geographically lower. It was socially, economically and probably genetically lower as well. But perhaps she’d get lucky… And she’d always enjoyed watching the Swoop races.

The teenager stepped up to the railing and rested her elbows on it, leaning closer. A view screen set up a few metres from where she was standing showed the first few swoops in the lead for this race, as they came round the corner towards this part of the track. Kyla didn’t bother going near the screen, letting the others up here occupy it. The swoops would be here soon enough.

It was much darker down there, and as they came racing around the corner, she saw the Swoops were all lit up bright as day, with brilliant headlights to light up the path ahead of them. What confused her was the low-pitched hum of a swoop coming far ahead of the headlights… but it wasn’t until she felt the whip of air that signified a passing swoop that she realized what it was. The leader swoop… Winning in the dark, without a single light to guide its pilot.

Whoever that pilot is, he’s either suicidal or… Kyla broke off the thought, shaking her head. Nobody was that good. Were they? She bit down on her bottom lip, worrying it between her teeth as she considered. After a moment, she did move, going reluctantly closer to the viewscreen, pushing a few people aside to get a glimpse of it.

It was following the first swoop, so far ahead now in its third lap of the four-lap race that the screen didn’t even show the headlights of the second swoop. Kyla watched as the swoop neatly avoided an obstacle, ducked below a lowered walkway, and continued on its path, never slowing down.

Suicidal, my ass. This guy is good!

Her eyes were wide in amazement as she watched the swoop pilot through the next lap. The screen flashed up the image of a near-Human male with his name lit up in lights. Cago Dorne, apparently a Coruscant native, but with such terrible odds against his name that she suspected he was new to the Swoop circuit.

Kyla was nearly leaning over the rail in anticipation as the swoop closed on her location for its final lap. Her eyes were avid, trying to pierce the gloom to track the swoop running dark. It was difficult.. all she caught was a shadowy shape going too fast to discern any details. But something in her told her to go see the pilot after the race. She didn’t know anything about him but his name. What she did know was that a lot of good pilots liked to hang out at these things, test their skills against one another in ways that wouldn’t damage their ships, but get them good credits if they won. Especially a fairly decent, down on his luck pilot who might be very interested in her proposal.

Kyla grinned eagerly to herself, not waiting any longer to see if the swoop won. She knew it would. She was already heading off to find its pilot, and discover if this Cago Dorne was as good with space transports as he was with swoops…

And if he was interested in what she had to offer.