Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic: Sweet Sixteen

Chapter 1 - Havoc on the Spire

The bunks of the Endar Spire weren't comfortable by any standard. Quite truthfully, they were comparable to rocks, and the crew of the massive warship spent many sleepless nights rolling around in search of a comfortable position atop them.

The port-stern dormitories were probably the worst. To add to the discomfort, the rooms were backed up directly next to the Spire's engines, and the idea of "peace and quiet" was easily drowned out by the hum of the vast machines powering the vessel.

Those port dormitories were reserved for the newer recruits, fresh out of the academies, and for this mission, they'd picked up a lot of them. "Fresh meat," or "Noobs," as they were referred to by the more seasoned Republic soldiers.

"Noobs" coming from the younger officers who had been in the recruits' shoes merely months earlier.

Of the several academy-fresh soldiers who had taken up residence in the cramped port dorms, only one seemed to be able to get a decent rest on those rock-hard metal planks that were passed as bunks. It was a talent, one he proudly and jokingly reminded his peers of as they wiped groggy eyes and shuffled about every morning. Seth Avery was, as he claimed, an "adept" at sleeping, though he honestly believed he was average in every sense of the word. The new recruits aboard the Endar Spire ranged in age from as early as fourteen to the early twenties; drafting tended to strip most of the galaxy's population of their youth during times of war, and this was no different. Seth sat comfortably in the middle of that age range at sixteen, perfectly content with the way his life had turned out. An orphan raised by the streets of Coruscant, without a cent to his name, he had to believe that volunteering for the military was one of his smarter decisions in life. Free food, free beds, friends at his side- they all beat what he'd grown up with.

As much a deep dreamer as he was a deep sleeper, Seth had been experiencing one of those rather odd, memory-like dreams on the morning of the day his life was turned upside down. Two shadowy figures argued, their tones rising in decibel until they were practically shouting at each other. He couldn't see faces. He never could. And in this dream he shrank back against a figure barely bigger than he was and he felt very small indeed. He could almost feel rather than see a fair-skinned hand grasp his pudgy, smaller one, and Seth the sixteen year old felt as if he were seeing through the eyes of Seth the three year old. And a little girl's voice hushed him and told him it was going to be fine, and that they'd stop. He turned to look at her, but she was hidden by the shadows just as the others were.

And then her voice came again, but it was much deeper. Almost teenage-boy-deep, it seemed. And she was telling him to wake up. Three-year-old Seth furrowed his eyebrows. He was awake, wasn't he?

And now she was hitting him hard in the ribcage. So much for her soothing words. Three-year-old Seth mumbled a few obscenities that no three-year-old had any business mumbling, and through blurred vision saw the girl transform into a teenage boy right before his eyes. He rubbed at his pupils, closed his eyelids, and opened them again, and the surroundings of his dream were gone. He looked down at his body and saw not the pudgy form of a three-year-old, but the toned, lean muscles of a sixteen year old. Seth glanced up again groggily at the "girl," who was actually another of the recruits, dressed in Republic oranges and golds and shaking him awake violently.

Seth groaned and licked dry lips. "Iggy?" he mumbled.

"No, Bendak Starkiller," the taller, lanky boy said with a roll of his eyes, his tone dripping with sarcasm. "Who else would it be, di'kut?"

"Sleeping in again, Avery?" Draven Melik laughed, grinning at the other teen.

Seth stifled a yawn and sat up, popping several joints in his back as he went. "What time is it?"