Star Wars: New Age

Chapter 13

The Watch

The revelation that they were all from the same sprawling desert metropolis had forged a strange, unspoken bond between them, but it had also brought the harsh realities of their situation into sharp focus. The bridge of the ancient ship, which had felt like a separate universe, was now tethered to the real world by three fragile, biological threads.

Zana paced the bridge, her heavy mag-boots making no sound on the seamless floor. The strategist had taken over completely. She stopped and turned to face the two men.

"Alright, let's talk logistics," she began, her voice cutting through the quiet hum of the bridge. "Real-world logistics. Our pods will keep our bodies alive, but they are not magic. The NMES cycles prevent atrophy, but they can't replace actual movement. The nutrient packs are finite. Sooner or later, we have to cycle out."

She let the words hang in the air. "The second we initiate a log-out, our avatar here goes dormant. It becomes a defenseless, empty shell. If an enemy found this place, they could walk right up, put a blaster to its head, and that's it. Perma-death. We lose everything."

Kael paled at the thought, a nervous tremor running through his furry hands.

"So we create a protocol," Zana continued, her gaze firm. "One person logs out at a time. Fixed eight-hour cycle. Long enough to sleep, eat real food, stretch, and handle any pressing real-world needs. The other two stand guard. No exceptions. We sync our real-world chronometers. When your eight hours are up, you log back in. No matter what."

She looked at their faces, seeing the fear and uncertainty. The plan relied on a level of trust they hadn't earned yet.

"I know it's a risk," she said, her voice softening slightly. "It's the biggest risk we've taken since we crashed. It requires absolute trust." She paused, letting them feel the weight of the decision. "So, I'll take the first watch."

Kael and Jax both nodded, relieved.

"No," Zana clarified, her expression unyielding. "You misunderstood. I'll be the first to log out."

The statement stunned them into silence. She was putting her life, her one and only character, completely in their hands. It was the ultimate trust exercise, a commander showing faith in her unit by making herself the most vulnerable.

"I'm putting my life in your hands," she said, as if reading their thoughts. "Prove to me I'm not making a mistake."

Without another word, she sat down in one of the elegant, alien chairs, her back straight. "My chronometer is set. I will see you in eight hours." She looked at her own inert avatar. "Keep her safe."

She closed her eyes. For a moment, she just sat there, and then, her body went completely limp, her head slumping forward. The faint blue light in her cybernetic eye extinguished, leaving it dark and lifeless. Her avatar was now just an object, a sleeping statue in the chair.

The silence on the bridge was suddenly immense, heavier than before. It was just the two of them now. Jax and Kael, alone with the sleeping form of their leader and the monumental responsibility she had just given them.

Kael looked at Jax, his eyes wide with a new kind of terror. "What… what do we do now?"

Jax looked at Zana's dormant figure, then at the vast, silent bridge that was now their sole responsibility. He felt the pressure settle onto his shoulders.

"We do what she said," Jax replied, his voice quiet but steady, surprising even himself with its newfound resolve. "We watch."

The moment Zana's avatar went limp, the silence on the bridge seemed to gain a new and crushing weight. Before, it was the silence of an ancient, sleeping place. Now, it was the silence of a guard post, tense and alert. Jax and Kael were alone, their only company the dormant forms of their leader, the ship, and the Warden in its core.

Kael paced nervously, his soft Bothan footfalls making no sound. He kept glancing from Zana's sleeping form to the tactical map she had left displayed on her console, as if expecting a threat to appear at any moment. Jax, feeling the need to project a calm he didn't entirely feel, took up a position near the main viewport, his eyes scanning the star-dusted darkness.

Several long minutes passed before Kael's scientific curiosity finally won out over his anxiety. He sidled up to Jax, his datapad clutched in his hands.

"So…" he began, his voice a hushed whisper, as if afraid of waking Zana. "When you… when you do it. The Force. How does it… feel?"

Jax considered the question. How could he possibly describe it? "It's not one thing," he said slowly, trying to find the words. "When I moved the sphere, it was like… knowing its weight without having to lift it. When I made the shield, it was like pushing against a strong wind that wasn't there."

"Fascinating," Kael breathed, tapping notes into his datapad. "So it provides direct sensory feedback on physical properties. What about the dodge? The precognition?"

"That's different," Jax admitted. "That's not a feeling. It's… a quietness. The whole universe gets loud with possibilities, with what could happen. But for a split second, there's one path that becomes quiet. The safe path. I just have to be listening for it."

"A quantum probability waveform collapsing into a single, observable state," Kael muttered to himself, translating Jax's mysticism into the language of physics. He looked up from his datapad. "My thesis back at ASU was on hypothetical communication models for non-corporeal, energy-based intelligences. I thought it was a purely theoretical exercise for the next thousand years." He gestured around the magnificent, alien bridge. "I guess the future came early."

Jax allowed himself a small, weary smile. "And I thought my biggest problem this week was going to be figuring out how to get enough subscribers to pay my real-world rent."

The shared absurdity of their situation, the immense gap between their former lives and their current reality, created a small bubble of connection in the vast chamber. They weren't just a soldier, a scientist, and an archivist anymore. They were two guys from Phoenix, in way over their heads.

The hours crawled by. They took turns pacing the bridge and watching Zana's still form, their conversation a low murmur that kept the oppressive silence at bay. They talked about their lives in the sprawl, the best noodle shops, the brutal summer heat, the shared, mundane reality that now felt like a distant dream.

They were deep in a discussion about the pros and cons of different mag-lev transit lines when Kael's chronometer alarm chirped softly. Eight hours had passed.

As if on cue, Zana's avatar stirred in its chair. Her head lifted, and the single blue light of her cybernetic eye flickered on, followed by the sharp intake of a breath as her consciousness reconnected with her body in the game. She blinked, her organic eye adjusting to the light of the bridge. She looked at Jax, then at Kael. Her first word was a command.

"Report."

"All quiet," Jax said immediately. "No change in the ship's status. No external contacts."

Zana gave a single, sharp nod of approval. "Good," she said. Her voice sounded more relaxed, her posture less tense. "The protocol works." She stood up, stretching her arms and rolling her neck. "The sun is just coming up in Phoenix. It felt good to walk around my own apartment."

The simple, domestic statement was as jarring as anything else they had experienced. It was a powerful reminder of the world they had temporarily left behind.

Zana looked at Kael, her expression clear. The first cycle was a success. Now it was time for the next.

"You're up, Kael," she said. "Log out. We have the watch."

Kael's eight-hour watch passed as uneventfully as Zana's, a fact for which Jax was profoundly grateful. The Bothan's return was marked by a new sense of quiet confidence. He had faced the vulnerability of the log-out and had been protected. The trust between the three of them had solidified, forged in the shared, silent responsibility of the watch.

Now, it was Jax's turn.

"You know the protocol," Zana said, her voice leaving no room for error. Kael stood beside her, looking on with a newfound seriousness. The two of them were a united front, the guardians for this cycle. "Don't get distracted by the real world. Eight hours on the clock, then you're back. We need you."

We need you. The words carried a weight Jax was still getting used to. He nodded, gave them a final, trusting look, and settled into the captain's chair that had become his designated interface point.

"See you soon," he said, and initiated the log-out sequence.

The world of the ancient ship—the soft hum of the Nexus Core, the glowing consoles, the concerned faces of his companions—dissolved into a sea of rushing data. The sensation of disconnection was sharp, a feeling of being pulled backward at an incredible speed. Then came the jarring return of his physical self.

The first thing he noticed was the ache. A low, dull ache in his back and limbs. Then came the faint, monotonous hum of his Sleeper Pod's life support, a sound so much less elegant than the ship's. A notification pinged in his mind, a message from the pod's OS.

Welcome back, user. Nutrients at 88%. NMES cycle complete. Mild muscular stiffness is to be expected.

The pod hissed open, and the stale, recycled air of his small apartment filled his lungs. He sat up, his movements stiff. He felt weak, his body a clumsy, heavy thing after the effortless responsiveness of his avatar. He swung his legs over the side, and when he tried to stand, his knees buckled slightly. He grabbed the side of the pod for support, his muscles trembling with the unfamiliar strain of holding up his own weight.

After a few moments, he found his balance and stumbled toward the small sanitation stall. The feeling of real water on his face, the simple act of stretching his arms above his head and feeling the pull in his own muscles—it was all a grounding, powerful reminder of the life he had temporarily left behind.

After drinking a full glass of water that tasted more real and satisfying than anything he'd had in days, he walked over to the wall-mounted terminal to check his status. The screen flickered to life, showing his real-world information. He bypassed the news feeds and went straight to his financial statement.

His heart sank.

The number was lower than it had been two days ago. It wasn't just his rent and utilities. A new series of itemized micro-transactions were listed, timestamped from his time in the game.

Omni-Pod Power Grid Usage: -12.50 Credits.

IV Nutrient Pack #2 Depleted/Replaced: -45.00 Credits.

NMES Conductive Gel Depleted/Replaced: -25.00 Credits.

Every second he spent in that ancient ship, he was bleeding money in the real world. His severance pay, which had seemed like a decent cushion, was now a rapidly draining resource. At this rate, he didn't have months. He had weeks. Maybe one month, if he was lucky, before he couldn't afford his pod's upkeep, let alone his rent.

The grand, cosmic scale of his in-game mission—of a 50,000-year-old Warden and a reality-eating horror—slammed into the brutal, simple reality of a man who was about to go broke. His original plan to find something valuable to sell on the Holo-Net Exchange was no longer a long-term goal. It was an immediate, desperate necessity.

He stared at the dwindling number on the screen, the weight of his real life suddenly more terrifying than any ancient threat. The training, the discoveries, the responsibility—it all had to lead to something tangible. It had to lead to a payday.

He looked at the open, waiting maw of his Sleeper Pod. His eight hours of reality felt less like a break and more like a countdown timer on his life. He had to go back. He had to succeed. There was no other choice.