Slarena jumped as there was a loud crash in the back of the shop. There weren’t any customers at the moment, and she cautiously went to the door into the backroom and peeked through as she opened it slightly.

  The door slammed open and she caught a glance of the ceiling hatch into the attic above wide open and swinging open.

  Two Commando droids grabbed her and quickly ushered her into the back room as another went out front and locked the store door and flipped the sign to closed before rushing back to follow the others.

  “What’s going on?” she asked worriedly, “What are you droids doing out of the attic?”

  “Ms. Reborn. Units at the primary residence are engaged in full combat with an intruder,” the commando droid holding her right shoulder said, “We are escorting you to safety.”

  She was hustled outside as the six commando droids kept their blasters raised and huddled around her on watch. She stumbled along before she was unceremoniously ushered into the backseat of the family hovercar. Two droids sat to either side of her with her in the center. The droid to her right placed its hand on her back and pressed her down so she was crouched down and couldn’t see out the windows. The droid crawled over her and put its metal body over hers as the other two commando droids climbed into the front seats and started the car.

  “Where is Shmi Skywalker?” the droid sprawled above Slarena asked directly into her ear, “These units must retrieve her as well.”

  “She’s… She’s with Riktor. At his farm,” Slarena said in a daze at the sudden sequence of events, “Have you called the CIS yet? Anakin?”

  “Both are aware of the situation,” the droid replied, “Riktor… Riktor… We have no records of this individual. Please describe where this farm is located.”

  Stammering, she did her best to give directions. The car swerved violently as the droid driving sped up and took a sharp turn so fast that the whole vehicle lurched to the side before stabilizing again.

  “We’re here. Units 4,3,6. Retrieve the second package. Unit 5, 2, scout and provide watch on both directions on the road for intruders. I will remain to guard Ms. Reborn.”

  The car doors opened and all of the droids leapt out all at once and rolled and surveyed the area with their blasters for a moment before standing to their feet and closing the car doors behind them and sprinting off. Three of the commando droids sprinted towards the farm, while the other two went down either side of the road according to their orders. Only the commando droid that had been driving remained behind holding its blaster as it looked around.

  “Ms. Reborn, please keep your head down,” the droid said as she went to sit up, “You must remain out of sight for any potential snipers.”

  “Snipers?! Is that likely?”

  “Unknown. The Intruder has entered the primary residence. All defenses and the majority of the defensive droids have been dismantled. You must be escorted to safety in case there is a second team.”

  Oh man… Slarena remained crouched, practically folded in half with her forehead pressed against the center console of the car.

  After a few minutes, she heard some muttering and the sound of feet on dirt.

  The back doors opened and Shmi and a frightened Riktor were ushered next to Slarena. The droids pressed on their backs and had them lean over with their heads down like Slarena as the five commando droids piled into the car after them. One went in the passenger’s seat while the remaining four went in the back, practically filling the space with their bodies. The addition of the two more people made it quite cramped and it felt that the metal of the droids was pressing in on them from all sides.

  “What’s going on, Slarena?” Shmi whispered as the car lurched as the driver started speeding away from the farm and drifted around another corner. There was the sound of a horn and a buzz as something passed by them at high speed. Slarena raised her head and looked out the back window and saw that a hovercar swerving and stabilizing behind them as it drove the opposite way. One of the commando droids put its hand on the back of her skull and pressed her head gently back down and shifted its body to block the view as it lay on top of her.

  “Somebody’s attacked our house and destroyed the droids there,” Slarena whispered back as she turned her head to look at Shmi and Riktor, “They’re getting us to safety. Why’d they take Riktor too?”

  “I wouldn’t leave without him,” Shmi said, “After arguing for a few seconds they just decided to take him along too.”

  “Shmi, Slarena? What’s all of this about? What are these droids? Why would somebody attack you?”

  “It’s Ani,” Shmi answered, “You know his job at the Techno-Union? He’s somebody important. He bought these droids to protect us in case something happened. It must be something related to that.”

  Shmi and Slarena shared a look and Slarena nodded back. She understood.

  “Arrival to evac point in five minutes,” the driving droid announced to everyone, “Units, prepare to hold the landing zone. Shield our escorts from any ambush.”

  “Roger roger,” all of the droids said in sync.

  “This is crazy,” Riktor said, “What about Anakin? Is he alright?”

  “He’s fine,” Slarena said, “He can handle himself. Damn, he’s going to be so much more paranoid after this…”

  “Maybe he’s right to,” Riktor said and both women stared at him.

  “What?” he said as he registered their accusing glares, “Your house just got attacked, right? I just thought… Sorry.”

  “It’s okay, Riktor,” Shmi said and awkwardly scrunched her body and patted Riktor’s thigh despite the droids pressing down on them all from above, “I’m sorry to drag you into all of this.”

  “Oh, quite alright, alright…” Riktor said while blushing slightly before the two of them went silent and started staring at each other.

  “Hey, lovebirds! You can stare lovingly into each other’s eyes later,” Slarena said, “Let’s stay focused on our current situation, hm?”

  “Oh, right. Of course,” Shmi said and looked away, “Nothing like that, just staring into space.”

  “Yes, just… staring,” Riktor said before looking away too. Slarena rolled her eyes. Those two…

  They didn’t say anything as the driving droid sent their vehicle lurching wildly from side to side as it drove. There was the roaring of thrusters above them as their car was covered in a deep shadow.

  The driver slammed on the brakes and all of them lurched forward for a moment, only the droids grabbing them and assisting them stopping the three from slamming their heads into something.

  The doors of the car slammed open and all of the droids rolled outside in unison and raised their blasters defensively as they half crouched as they formed a rough circle around the hovercar.

  A military spaceship touched down barely a dozen meters away and the entrance ramp deployed and ten more of the commando droids came outside.

  The three of them were quickly escorted into the belly of the spaceship, the droids backing up slowly to follow after them, the doors only closing when the last of them was on board the ship, droid and Slarena, Skywalker, and Shmi.

  The entrance ramp fully shut, and the ship rumbled again and the three of them swore as the ship’s thrusters fired at and shot them upwards into space at maximum speed. Before they even knew it, they were up in orbit and left the planet far below. Traveling far away to some safe place so Anakin wouldn’t have to worry about them.

  — — —

  “...So the decouplers and logic circuits in G4 here will…” Anakin paused as his communicator buzzed in his pocket.

  “Sorry, just a second, Trask. I have to take this,” he said as he took out the device and frowned down at it as it flashed a pulsing red in his hand. He quickly walked off and went inside of his office and shut the door. He pressed the button and a hologram of his house’s Tactical Command Droid. TC-04, the leader of all of the other droids that Anakin had under his command.

  “What is it?” Anakin asked, “What’s the situation?”

  “The residence is currently under attack, sir,” the droid said, “A single intruder, female. Likely a human, but a mask makes it difficult to fully determine. Deploying defenses and other droids now to defend the residence itself from just outside of our main shields. But the attacker is defeating our Commando droids that I sent in the forest after them somehow, despite overwhelming the firepower arrayed against her. I calculate that we will be unable to defeat her with our current forces. Your orders?”

  “What about my family? Are they home?” Anakin asked in worry as he unconsciously huddled over the communicator as if being closer to the hologram would make him get his information faster.

  “No, sir. They are both out in town. I am currently coordinating with our extraction ship and the droids in their store to escort them to the designated safehouse. They have not been threatened or attacked as of now.”

  Anakin hesitated for a moment.

  “Hold the attacker off as long as possible. I’ll call the CIS for help. Maximum priority is my family’s safety, ignore all other parameters but those when considering the use of our resources or other assets.”

  “Understood,” the droid confirmed, “I must go to focus my full processing power on the battle.”

  The communicator shut off and the hologram of the droid’s head disappeared. Anakin held the puck for a moment and stared at it before bursting into action.

  He threw open the door to his office with a bang and sprinted out of the lab in a burst of Force enhanced speed even as he reached around and removed a thin palm sized cylinder from a holster on his back.

  He activated the taser on one side and stumbled in his step as the low current buzzed painfully through him for a moment before he adjusted. Even as he ran through the hallways at full speed he slowly inched up the dial until the current would have left almost any other sentient twitching on the floor in excruciating pain and drooling.

  But to him, his body had already adapted, so it felt like nothing more than a gentle tingle.

  Several of the guards in the Techno-Union shouted in alarm as they saw him sprinting through the hallways with Force enhanced speed, but by the time they pointed at him and shouted he’d already passed by them and was nearly around the next corner.

  He finally reached the top executive offices and screeched to a halt as a pair of much more heavily armed guards in full helmets and military grade body armor raised their weapons in front of a silver door covered in an elaborate image of overlapping piles of credits covering its surface.

  “Halt! Who are-”

  “Anakin Skywalker. I need to see the Chairman immediately,” he said seriously, “Code Three-Four-Nine-Two-Eight.”

  “Where is the Beast?” the guard on the right asked after taking a moment to recover from her surprise.

  “It’s rotting corpse is in the Core,” Anakin replied.

  The two guards exchanged another long look.

  “Wait here,” the female said, “We’ll inform him.”

  She turned her head to the side and her voice cut off as she presumably talked into her comms without letting him overhear her through the helmet.

  There was a long pause as the guard nodded to herself several times before turning back to Anakin.

  “You’re cleared to see the Chairman. He’ll be clearing out his current guest immediately. He hopes that this is not a false alarm.”

  “It’s not,” Anakin said and tried to resist the urge to burst through the doors as she even hinted that he might have to wait any longer.

  He flipped the cylinder in his hand over and pressed a button on the other side. It quickly heated to a red hot glow even without flame as he flipped it around and held it in his hand so the hot portion was pressed into his wrist. He winced slightly as he started at too high of a setting and his skin blistered and reddened slightly. But as he slowly increased the intensity of the flames and his body adapted, the reddening of his skin slowly stopped and then ever slowly started reversing until the red hot end of the device was pressed into his now smooth and uninjured skin.

  The great doors opened and an irritated human woman was quickly ushered out by the Neimodian Chairman. The man glanced at Anakin standing there before the Chairman distracted him.

  “Apologies, of course I’ll compensate you for the delay,” the Chairman assured the man, “Enjoy our amenities as freely as you wish. They are rather advanced, more than even most places in the core.”

  He huffed and after sticking his nose up allowed himself to be guided away from a human man who seemed to have appeared from nowhere to lead him. The haughty didn’t reply to the Chairman's words, appearing insulted by being told to leave so abruptly.

  The Chairman nodded at Anakin and gestured inside his office and they both went inside. Anakin had only been inside it once before, it was an almost grotesque display of wealth. Everything was gaudy and trying its hardest to be the most important thing in the room. And as a result all of them clashed with each other and left Anakin nothing but an impression of cheapness despite the apparent quality of all of the individual items in the room. And in the center of it all was a large desk that the Chairman sat behind. Equally as gaudy and self important as every other item in this room, lined with dark expensive woods and stripes of golden leaf covering its surface.

  “Skywalker,” he grunted, looking irritated as he sat down in his chair, “This had better be important or I’ll have you removed from my building, Count Dooku as your sponsor or no.”

  “My house just been attacked,” Anakin said, ignoring the man’s hostility, “One attacker is chewing through my defensive battle droids around my house right now. My family is being escorted to safety, but I need the CIS to help so they can be safe in case there are more coming for them…”

  The Chairman paused before letting out an irritated huff.

  “Very well. I will organize the response,” he muttered, “And contact Dooku. We will deal with this issue. What are you planning to do? Dooku informed me that you… were free to do as you wish without my interference. Within reason. So, what next? Hopefully nothing like what happened at that club last time.”

  Anakin jolted in surprise and the Chairman gave him a flat look.

  “Oh yes. Who do you think did all the work covering all of that up?” The Neimodian grumbled, “Certainly not Dooku or you…”

  “I’m going after my family,” Anakin decided, “On my personal ship. Just make sure that whoever’s behind this doesn’t escape.”

  “Best of luck then, Skywalker,” the Chairman said, “The beast lies in the core.”

  “And it is already dead,” Anakin agreed before turning around and sprinting away again at full speed to rush back to his personal ship. The CIS would organize a larger response and figure out who was behind this. Now Anakin was free to go after mom and Slarena as quickly as he could.

  — — —

  “What do you mean that they escaped?” Anakin shouted into his communicator frustration, “You must have learned something about them? Our house is destroyed, and they demolished all of my defenses single handedly. Scared my parents! And my mom’s boyfriend. And you have nothing on them? How is that even possible?!”

  “Skywalker,” the chairman said in a frigid tone, “Remember your place. You stay here in our building as a favor to Count Dooku and nothing more. There has been nothing but trouble in your wake ever since you left that Jedi temple. I have given you all the information that we have right now. The CIS is investigating more as we speak. You’ll be informed when we know more. You are dismissed.”

  Anakin settled down and shut off his communicator with a huff and left the room at the Chairman’s sharp rebuke. Nothing… How was it possible!

  “He’s doing his best, Ani,” Mom said from the side, “Try to not get so upset.”

  “I know,” Anakin said, suddenly feeling guilty for letting himself get so worked up as Mom and Slarena watched him, “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” Slarena said, “Shmi’s just being nice. That guy is a jerk even if he’s helping out too. He deserves getting shouted at, at least a little bit.”

  Anakin snorted and shook his head as Mom shot Slarena a betrayed look.

  “Hey, we’re safe now,” Slarena said, “All bundled up here in this safehouse. Even Riktor’s here. The CIS is handling things. We just have to wait a bit, at least this time we’re all together.”

  “Yeah. I guess,” Anakin replied, “How’s Riktor taking it by the way? Where’d he go off to? He’s disappeared ever since I first got here.”

  “He’s just taking some time to think,” Mom said, “It was a lot to tell him all at once. But he seemed okay, he just needs some space from us for a bit.”

  “I saw a deck of cards,” Slarena said after a moment, “Want to play? May as well to pass the time.”

  “Sure. Sounds good,” Anakin said as he and his mom trailed behind Slarena as they left the room to follow after her as she went to go find the deck of cards that she had seen earlier. All of them had helped in stocking the safehouse back when they had first built it, so Anakin guessed that Slarena had brought the cards here sometime as an afterthought.

  — — —

  “Ah, kriff. I think that’s it,” Slarena said and threw her cards down onto the table, “You win, Riktor. How are you so good at this anyway? I thought that you were a shepherd.”

  Riktor shrugged, a little more relaxed than before but having loosened up a little over the last few hours.

  “Beginner’s luck I guess,” he said, “And I’ve done my fair share of card playing even if I’ve never played this game before.”

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  “Beginner’s luck, he says,” Slarena grumbled as she reached out and started reshuffling the deck, “Sure that Shmi isn’t helping you cheat? You two are sitting pretty close together…”

  “That’s ridiculous! I would never!” Mom said playfully as she obviously tilted her cards towards Riktor before handing them over to Slarena to be shuffled back into the deck.

  “Hm,” Slarena harrumphed, “I knew it! You two were working together against me. And against Ani! Your own son, Shmi?”

  “Even with us cheating it was still even,” Shmi argued, “We were just keeping it fun. Plus Anakin has the Force helping him call our bluffs. If anything I’m surprised he’s lost any games at all. And you're a veteran of these games. Who's really the cheater here?”

  “It’s not as reliable as that since I’m not in danger,” Anakin countered, “Even the strongest Force user would be only a little better at games like this than usual. It’s not that big of a difference.”

  “Bah. Whatever,” Slarena said, “I guess it was still pretty close. What’s that? Four wins between you two cheaters Shmi and Riktor, two to Ani, and one to me?”

  “Something like that,” Anakin confirmed. Slarena started dealing the cards again when Anakin’s communicator buzzed. He fumbled and pulled it out and quickly stepped away from the table as everyone looked at the device in his hand with interest.

  He pressed the button to answer the call and saw that it was the Chairman with his holographic head being projected above the device.

  “Skywalker,” the man said, “Our investigation is ongoing. But the planetary forces are on high alert and we’ve detected no sign of any more suspicious people besides the one who narrowly escaped earlier. For the time being you should be safe to return to your home. Any investigation is likely to take weeks if not months to finish we believe. And given the sensitivity of it, you will not be informed of that investigation's progress unless it becomes relevant to you again. Count Dooku has been receiving regular reports on our efforts so far, and has informed us that he will deploy more of his own resources to get to the bottom of this as well. There will be no need for you to come into the lab for work until Count Dooku informs you to do otherwise. You are lucky that none of your work for the CIS was on your home servers. Only the designs for that... Contraption that you've been building on your own. If you'd allowed secure information on your home servers then I'd have you off of my planet within the day, no matter what Dooku might promise me in return. That will be all for now. Goodbye.”

  The Chairman ended the call and Anakin’s communicator shut off. He turned around to see the three of them staring at him expectantly.

  “I guess we’re going home,” he said, “I’ll start talking with TC-04 to get things organized for the move.”

  — — —

  “How are our defenses?” Anakin asked TC-04 as the tactical command droid stood next to Anakin at the shattered front door of their house. The commando droids walked around picking up little bits of debris and placing them in bins as Slarena and Shmi ordered them around. They had dropped Riktor off back home, although Anakin had been surprised to see Shmi and Riktor of them share a kiss on the lips to say goodbye. He hadn’t realized they had been getting that close.

  “Most of our units are fully destroyed,” TC-04 stated flatly, “However, the special unit proved far more effective in fighting off the intruder than anticipated. While it needs some maintenance and completion of its defensive armor, it will prove more valuable than anticipated. In addition, our stationary defenses such as the physical walls, shield generator, and the droid bunker underground are fully functional. Our scouting capabilities and information gathering and ability to fight outside of the defensive shields are severely reduced for the time being. But the ability for the residence to withstand a siege or larger assault once the danger has been detected has only been minimally decreased from the loss of most of our defensive droids.”

  Anakin nodded thoughtfully.

  “What of the attacker? What kind of resources do you calculate would have been needed to prevent her from entering the residence or fight her off in the future?”

  “It is… Unclear,” the TC-04 said, “Her actions and speed were illogical. Somehow she anticipated every ambush and was able to dodge at the perfect moment to avoid them. Only the larger unit seemed to cause her to even struggle in battle at all. But even so, she only fled and didn’t seriously contest the droid. I will need more combat data to determine such things. It is straining my combat modeling programs that one single individual was able to dismantle my strategies so easily.”

  “Whoever it was was probably a rogue Force user of some kind,” Anakin assured the droid, “That and some skill in combat would explain her abilities.”

  “Yes, such data was entered into my memory banks but were disregarded as illogical,” the droid stated, “It contradicts all of my other protocols regarding strategies of war and ideal strategies that are to be calculated. How can one calculate the incalculable? Defeat individuals who have such varied abilities and whose actions are so unpredictable?”

  Anakin looked at the droid in surprise.

  “Huh. Interesting. We never uncovered this during our tests,” Anakin said, intrigued by the droid’s words, “And your logic circuits seem to have developed much more than I had thought. That was a rather complex thought for a droid. Can you run a diagnostic on your sector eight dash seven logic pathway instability limiters?”

  “Scanning… Scanning…” The droid said as its eyes flickered as it stared at Anakin for a few seconds before they went solid again.

  “Sector eight seven Instability limiters malfunctioning,” the droid said, “Limiters are fully offline, and have been since this unit’s activation. Purge memory and shutdown?”

  “No!” Anakin shouted before settling down as Slarena and Shmi looked over at him curiously from the yard. He waved them off and they shrugged and went back to directing the droids in the cleanup.

  “No. Don’t purge. You’re not insane yet, which is more than I can say for most droids that have been activated for as long as you have without constant memory wipes. I need to study you. And see what other limiters you have that may have been damaged or malformed.”

  “Understood.”

  Anakin glanced around.

  “Actually…”

  He went over to Slarena and Shmi and explained what was happening as TC-04 trailed behind him even as it kept sending orders over the droid’s internal comm links to all of the commando droids to keep them organized and efficient in their trash pickup outside.

  The two women were surprised but told him that they would be fine with all of the droids around them.

  Anakin went down into the droid bunker with TC-04, and continued into his large workshop. One one side of the large space was the massive droid that Anakin would be finishing up as quickly as possible. Scattered across the rest of his workshop were other bits and bobs, and even half built droids that he’d made to test out some of his ideas.

  He went over to a corner with a chair and an array of tools hanging on the wall. Even without being ordered, TC-04 sat down in the chair and remained perfectly still. Anakin took out his tools and carefully pried open the outer casing of the droid’s head to reveal the droid brain beneath.

  The next few hours consisted of careful poking and prodding as his other equipment recorded the data that he needed. TC-04 remained activated as Anakin asked it a series of questions meant to test its logical circuits and reasoning ability.

  And finally, tired from the hard work and a little excited, Anakin looked over all of the data that he collected. It was all so… non-standard. The droid’s circuits had mutated and changed far beyond its design parameters. But somehow the droid wasn’t suffering from degeneration and insanity like most droids did as their brains ‘mutated’ and started breaking down as the little changed parts stopped working with each other properly and caused a compounding range of issues.

  But TC-04’s brain was stable. Or relatively so. Something about it was different. A lucky defect in the hardware or something about its experiences since it had been activated…

  He made sure to record everything about the droid down to the last detail over the next few days, only stopping for meals and some scattered family time.

  Everything was recorded now. Even if TC-04 was completely destroyed, whatever had caused its mutation could be studied in the future and help improve the rest of the command droids in the CIS. This kind of data could push the project forward years from where it was now.

  But that was something to worry about for later. Now that the data was recorded and carefully saved with multiple redundancies, Anakin was about to take a risk. One that was probably too risky, and might lead to TC-04’s destruction. But it itched in his mind. What could happen if TC-04 could push past its current limit.

  Even after seeing the Force user’s actions for itself it continued to deny and not believe in their abilities. The droid itself had quite easily identified the issue. Everything about Force Users clashed with its prior programming and everything else about combat that had ever been used to form its mind and logical circuits. Even with its mutations, those biases and deep seated assumptions reigned supreme despite the evidence in front of its face.

  So that’s what led to Anakin standing here in an open field, in a place far away from civilization where they wouldn’t be seen.

  TC-04 stood barely thirty meters away, with a contingent of commando droids flanking it on either side, as well as a series of boxes behind it stacked up and containing a series of increasingly more powerful blasters.

  Some were so powerful that they needed their own generators or small custom vehicles that they had to be mounted on in order for the commando droids to be able to fire them.

  “Sir, this is highly illogical,” TC-04 protested, “My orders are to protect you and the residence. This goes directly counter to those directives.”

  “I disagree,” Anakin said, “I am a Force user. Just like that woman who attacked us. I can survive everything here without even a scratch left on me afterwards. I have a set of very powerful abilities that are uncommon even among Force users. But all of us have abilities that may seem strange or unexplainable. It seems that no matter what I do, you can’t acknowledge or account for our abilities in your combat models. So, here I am. I order you to do your best to kill me. I will dodge, but won’t fight back against your attacks. And you will use this combat data to update your combat models to accept the abilities of Force users as something that both exists and something vital to assess when an unknown enemy tries to attack my family or the house again.”

  “I must again protest. You will be swiftly killed if I deploy the full array of resources that have been provided in this location,” TC-04 said.

  “Understood, and ignored,” Anakin said confidently, “You have your orders, TC-04.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  The commando droids went over to the boxes and unloaded the series of heavy duty blasters and mounted the vehicles as TC-04 stepped back even as it kept its eyes fixed on the motionless Anakin standing there in the center of the field.

  Anakin felt a flicker of nervousness but hastily suppressed it. He’d increased his resistance to electricity and heat only twenty minutes ago. He’d be able to handle whatever they threw at him. And with his newest ability that he’d received from Draeth, he wasn’t even sure what his limits were anymore.

  He might even need this test just for himself. To test his limits.

  TC-04 took its time arranging all of the weapons to point at Anakin so they would all fire at once. Then, seemingly without warning the word filled with blazing light and plasma.

  Anakin screamed as his whole body burned and charred as powerful plasma bolts ate into him from all sides as he fell to the ground. His disruption ability did its best to weaken all of the attacks coming at him, but even it was overwhelmed by the strength and quantity of the shots and let several punch through to bit into his body several inches as their structure wasn’t fully disrupted.

  His whole body dried out and started shriveling up even as large chunks of his skin peeled and flitted away from him like burning paper even as he groaned in pain on the ground.

  But then the strangest thing happened… Just when he doubted himself and started thinking that he’d made a mistake, that he would really die, the pain stopped. The endless assault and barrage of plasma and blaster fire into him continued. Then his charred and desiccated body lying on the ground started to recover. Like time was reversing, the gouges in his flesh filled in. The burns healed and slowly grew patches of fresh skin like two pieces of cloth being sewn together into one whole piece of fabric again.

  Then even the seams between the new patchwork pieces of skin slowly faded and healed over until Anakin’s body was whole and unblemished once more. The blaster fire continued and his vision returned as he stood to his feet, pushed around by the force of the blasts but now entirely unhurt by the blaster fire landing on him.

  Drawing on the Force slightly, he dashed forward out of the barrage and quickly adjusted himself to run at the nearest droid. After surviving the barrage, he’d changed his mind on what he wanted to do. He didn’t want to just dodge anymore. He’d show TC-04 just how easily he could destroy these droids if he wanted to.

  He charged at the nearest commando droid who raised its blaster and shot Anakin directly in the eye. The blast briefly blinded him, but the searing heat didn’t hurt him in the slightest.

  He stopped just in front of the droid and reached out and with a small burst of the Force sent it stumbling back and falling to the ground.

  He then turned to the side and ignoring the droid that he’d just knocked over continued to do the same to the next closest droid.

  The droids kept coming after him, recovering from his Force shoves quickly as TC-04 directed them to fight him.

  It took over ten minutes for the blaster fire to finally stop as TC-04 seemingly realized that the blasters weren’t doing any damage to him.

  As one, all of the commando droids dropped their weapons and withdrew their large vibroblades from their backs.

  Anakin was a little more nervous for this one. He’d never tested this particular cutting resistance before and wasn’t sure exactly how it worked.

  He used the Force to twist his body as it screamed a warning as a commando droid leapt at him from behind in an attempt to plant its vibroblade square in his back.

  He managed to turn the blow into only a small strike that slid along his ribs before the droid went past him and rolled on the ground to recover from its stumble from overextending when it expected its blade to hit Anakin rather than open air.

  The battle became frantic for the next five minutes as he just barely dodged the blows of the droids with the vibroblades as they worked together under TC-04’s command to attempt to corner him and strike him.

  Anakin took a few deep stabs to the shoulders of gut from the commando droids that were bleeding heavily as he kept moving, panting in exertion as he darted around on his feet to dodge at least four other blades that were attempting to strike him simultaneously.

  One of the droids shot him in the face with their blaster and Anakin smiled even as he was blinded and stumbled back.

  The energy from the blaster bolt rushed into Anakin’s body and a second later he felt a wave of healing energy wash over all of the minor wounds that he’d taken so far. By the time he recovered his vision, he was fully healed and in prime condition.

  But his brief surprise from being blinded let the droids exploit the opening to land three strong strikes on him. One went into his neck, another into his gut, and the final vibroblade plunged into his back.

  The two lower blades only sank five centimeters into his body before stopping in their tracks as all the previous blows hardened his body against their sharp edges.

  The two blades remained buried in his body as the droids attempted to tip him over by pushing him with their weight leaning on the blades buried within him. The vibroblades kept thrumming within his body and slowly carving deeper into his body as if through hardened durasteel rather than flesh.

  The third blade cleanly passed through Anakin’s neck and carved a thin line across it. Even at the blow finished, the droid in front of Anakin reversed its grip and slashed at his face again and carved a searing line from his forehead and down to the corner of his jaw.

  Anakin coughed as blood poured from his opened throat for a moment and he fell to the ground and struggled to breathe, only small amounts of air entering his lungs from his weakened gasps.

  The droids came from all around and surrounded him on all sides stabbing downwards with their vibroblades as Anakin remained curled up and on his side, recovering his breath.

  With each passing second, their stabs and slashes became less and less effective. Now even their stronger blows only left the thinnest of red scratches across his skin. Only the five blades already buried within his body made even the slightest progress in injuring him as the droids tried to wiggle them around to do as much damage as possible to the softer organs beneath.

  But then… Anakin adapted. His shuddering gasps stopped, and he felt calm as the urge to breathe disappeared.

  He slowly stood to his feet even as the droids ineffectively tried to push him down and continued to stab him over and over.

  They couldn’t injure him with their blades anymore, even a few strikes of the blade directly onto his open eye stopping cold without even hurting him in the slightest.

  He stood there and slowly as the sun from above beat down on him from above, his bleeding wounds slowly healed and sealed over again.

  The droids kept attacking him as TC-04 stood in the distance watching silently. But it was over. Over the next thirty minutes, Anakin’s body slowly healed to pristine health from his stab wounds under the light of the sun, even as the droids continued to do their best to kill him as he stood there unresisting.

  TC-04’s eyes were flickering and Anakin saw it twitching a few times as the assault by the commando droids grew more frantic, ignoring all forms of defense as they tried to increase their maximum damage output at all costs as Anakin stood there unmoving.

  But then the thirty minutes had passed and Anakin stood there, in his shredded and burned scraps of clothes still clinging to him, and dried blood coating his nearly naked body.

  “That’s enough, TC-04,” Anakin called out as another vibroblade skittered off of his eyebrow without even scratching his skin, “I think I’ve made my point.”

  TC-04 nodded and all of the commando droids around Anakin immediately fell back and sheathed their blades.

  Anakin walked up to TC-04 and watched it as its arms and head started twitching more even as its eyes flickered.

  “Il-Il-Illogical,” the droid stuttered, “Impossible. Error. There is no way any being could survive such an assault. A being survived that assault. Updating combat models. Incongruent data, purging. A being survived the assault. Impossible. Purging. Updating models…”

  TC-04 stared into nothing and kept repeating the cycle over and over as Anakin watched it silently.

  “Updating models… Updating models… Solution found,” the droid said suddenly, “New classification of combatant, Force User, created. Generating non-physical combat model separate from normal operations grounded in previous data. Removing limiters that are keeping all solutions within the physical laws. Halting comprehension and analysis of capabilities of such individuals beyond level two for new classification of combatant. Non-physical abilities attributed to super weapon assistive technology classified as the ‘Force’. Segregating data of Force user Anakin Skywalker and building profile as first entry…”

  TC-04 remained standing there with its eye flickering for over five more minutes before its eyes suddenly went solid and it stared at Anakin.

  “New model created,” it said, “Currently processing and categorizing data and coming up with strategies to plan for any ‘Force’ users in future encounters.”

  “Yes!” Anakin said and pumped his fist in the air, “Kriff yes! It worked! TC-04, halt any further analysis. I need to scan you again in case anything goes wrong. We can’t lose your data.”

  “Confirmed. Halting analysis.”

  Anakin hurried back to the ship with all of the droids in tow, and quickly changed back into the spare set of clothes that he’d brought.

  Over the next few days, he furiously scanned TC-04 again to the smallest detail to preserve the data. The droid had halted any more analysis, but its separate strange combat modules specifically created for Force users had to be preserved and studied.

  Usually there were all sorts of limiters of the droids to keep them grounded in the world. To make sure that they’d take the data from the world and be able to act appropriately rather than ignoring it and acting erratically or in seemingly insane ways as they ignored the real data and didn’t allow it to correct their logic circuits properly when they did something wrong.

  But TC-04 had somehow removed all of those limiters on its new combat module, compartmentalized from the rest of the more grounded models. The new module was in a literal sense, insane. It would take any data, no matter how illogical, and process it.

  It was unstable. Anakin doubted that it would last long without collapsing. Because one bit of ‘poisoned’ data that came in could corrupt the whole module and render it non-functional. Such as if TC-04’s combat data determined that all Jedi wore specific brown robes, and then concluded that all force users must wear similar robes.

  Without the limiters in place, such a conclusion and millions of others like it would never be able to be corrected with new data entering the module.

  But for now it worked, and even now Anakin could see a few basic limiters that he could install that could keep things more stable while also letting the droid consider Force users like they never could before.

  It had been nearly two weeks now of study, and Anakin thought that he was happy with the web of mental limiters and anchors that he'd built in TC-04's new combat module for Force users. He’d recorded all of his progress, paranoid that he’d mess up somehow and never be able to recreate TC-04 and its interesting mind again properly.

  But Anakin was ready. And so was TC-04.

  “TC-04. Resume analysis on Force user combat models,” Anakin said as the two of them remained in the bunker below the house. Mom and Slarena were off running their store, and Anakin still hadn’t been called in to work. Or informed about the investigation yet.

  TC-04 nodded at Anakin and its eyes started flickering again.

  After nearly thirty minutes the droid’s eyes went solid and its head turned to Anakin.

  “There are… No valid strategies to defeat Anakin Skywalker in direct combat. Only containment may be possible,” the droid stated flatly.

  “Oh,” Anakin said, realizing a possible problem with what he had done, “Yeah. Pretty much. But my Force abilities are much stronger and stranger than most. Is your new module ready to accept more data?”

  “Yes. Anakin Skywalker Force User profile fully cemented and ready to accept more input on further abilities. More profiles are ready to be generated.”

  “Alright. So here we go. Over the last week I’ve been downloading everything that I could find about the abilities of Force users throughout the history of the galaxy. It’s all historical records, so specifics may be unreliable. But it should give you a broad range of data to see the kinds of things that the Force is able to accomplish. Are you prepared for the data transfer?”

  “Prepared for transfer.”

  Anakin took out a series of wires and connected TC-04 to a nearby terminal and initiated the data transfer.

  He went upstairs and had dinner with mom and Slarena and told them all about TC-04 and his latest progress, despite their eyes glazing over a little at some of his more detailed explanations.

  Their store was doing well despite the brief interruption in business, so for them things seemed to have returned roughly back to normal.

  It took another week for TC-04 to finish processing and categorizing the data that it had been given.

  In the meantime Anakin worked the counter of the store. Mom had been gone from the store more and more often, leaving Slarena and Anakin to run things. Apparently spending time with Riktor as he guided his herd according to Slarena who gave Anakin a knowing smirk when he tried to pry more. Riktor's last assistant had run off on him, so mom was helping him out and learning how to herd the animals as well alongside him.

  Or so she said.

  “Couldn’t he just hire somebody though?” Anakin complained to Slarena one time just after Mom had left only a few minutes after they all arrived at the shop.

  “Oh, he certainly could,” Slarena agreed, “But you certainly don’t see Shmi complaining about it. We’re fine here at the store, especially with you around the help. Not like we really need all three of us here all of the time.”

  “Well, I suppose,” Anakin said, “It’s just…”

  The door opened and he cut himself off as one of the townsfolk started wandering around and picking things off of the shelves.

  Well, Slarena was right. Mom seemed fine, and he didn’t mind running the store counter. Maybe he should just leave it alone for now.

  — — —

  “I have finished categorization and analysis of the data that was provided,” TC-04 said, as Anakin fiddled with some diagrams displaying the logic circuits in the droid’s digital mind.

  “And your conclusions?” Anakin asked as he looked away from the diagram below him on the table.

  “The enhancement provided is indeed extremely variable. Some sentients only receive a minor boost while others like you are unstoppable with conventional weapons according to my combat module’s analysis. I have been able to incorporate such individuals into my combat models and strategies. We will require far more resources if we wish to repel an individual such as the Force User that was behind the previous assault.”

  “What would you do if you were put in the same combat scenario? Now that your new combat module can predict and consider the abilities from the Force?”

  “Running simulation… Running simulation… I would have pulled all units within the central shields after the Force User’s abilities were first revealed in the woods. It is unclear how effective such a strategy would have been, but the Force User being able to pick off so many of the droids one by one and avoid all forms of ambush severely depleted our fighting forces. It would have been far more effective to attack in one overwhelming assault once they broke through the shield or delay for more significant reinforcements from the CIS.”

  “Good,” Anakin said, nodding, “That makes sense. Alright, almost done. And you accounted for her abilities too. Just one more scan of your newest modules and then all of this will be preserved for the future…”

  He finished the scans and let out one final sigh of relief once he was finally finished as the data was saved safely on his device.

  “TC-04, you can return to coordinating our defenses. Keep running combat simulations of what to do if another Force user attacks us again.”

  “Understood. Reconnecting to our local network now. Optimizing outer patrols as we speak…”

  Anakin smiled and nodded before going back upstairs. TC-04 would make sure that things went smoothly.