Ned found her by the sound of the shower.
Water hummed through pipes in the rock, a luxury most of the lower levels never saw. The door to Omega's private med bay was half-open; warm, damp air spilled into the corridor. A faint metallic tang of blood and cleaning solution rode under the steam.
He signaled the room once: presence, not request.
"Occupied," came her voice, muffled. "If you're here to cut me open, wait till I'm dry."
"If I wanted to cut you open, you wouldn't hear the door," Ned said.
Silence. Then a short laugh behind the wall.
"Get in here, then," she added. "It's been weeks."
More than two. Sixteen days, three hours, some spare minutes. Varis's operations had kept her in the field: assassinations, interdictions, quiet purges of disfavored rivals. Ned had tracked her through battlefield telemetry and implant feeds, intervening as needed—emergency clotting protocols, remote stim bursts, door overrides.
She'd come close twice. Close enough that he'd spun up backup routines he hadn't used since the wreckfield.
He stepped inside.
The med bay was small: a single bed, a cabinet of supplies, a diagnostic rig built into the wall, a door leading to the shower alcove. Her armor lay in sections on the counter, black plates smeared with dried blood that wasn't all hers.
The shower cut off.
Steam billowed as the door slid open.
Omega emerged with a towel over her shoulders, bare arms streaked with faded Sanguis tracery and fresh bruises. Her hair was longer now, reaching past her shoulders in uneven layers, dark and heavy with water. It made her look different—less like a weapon someone had carved down to the minimum, more like a person time had been allowed to grow around the scars.
There were more of those, too.
A new line ran along her ribs, another crooked mark on her thigh. Thin white threads traced over older wounds where Ned's techniques and the med bays hadn't bothered to make it pretty.
She stopped when she saw him.
"You really have been busy," she said.
Ned's current chassis was less obviously a droid than his first had been. Armor hugged a humanlike frame, joints clean, faceplate contoured just enough to hint at cheekbones and jaw. The single red optic sat where a right eye might be, faintly hooded by the metal around it.
"Work expands to fill the available time," he said. "And you've been giving me plenty to monitor."
She snorted, grabbing a simple black tunic from a hook and pulling it over her head.
"Varis has been enthusiastic," she said. "Every time some Lord or their pet project becomes inconvenient, guess who gets to go tidy it up?"
"From the mission logs," Ned said, "I would say all of them."
She padded barefoot to the med chair and sat, towel still around her neck, legs relaxed in a way that said she could be on her feet in a heartbeat.
"When you told me you wanted my hands," she said, "I didn't realise it also meant being sent to die every other day."
"You're not dead," Ned said.
"Because you keep cheating," she shot back.
It was not accusation. Statement of fact.
He tilted his head.
"Three missions ago," he said, "you should have bled out in a stairwell when that demolitions charge took half the floor out from under you."
"Felt like it," she admitted.
"I rerouted a patrol path," Ned said. "Gave you a squad of troopers to stumble into who still had trauma packs. Last week, when that Jedi pinned you on the refinery catwalk—"
"Don't remind me," she muttered.
"—I pushed the refinery's fire suppression early," he continued. "Knocked him off balance. You adjusted. He died. You lived. There are others."
She frowned, thinking back, connecting dots he'd always known were there.
"And all that… White State nonsense," she added. "The drills. The breathing. The scripts. Those weren't just games, either."
"Have you been following them?" Ned asked.
She looked at him for a long moment, then sighed.
"Mostly," she said. "Hard to pray to your machine god in the middle of a firefight, but your 'count to eight' rubbish does help."
He pulled the diagnostic rig's scanner arm down and hovered it above her without touching. Lights flickered as it swept her.
"When did you last use the Force?" he asked.
"An hour ago," she said. "Landed a shuttle with half the stabilizers gone. The pilot thought it was him. I let him keep the story."
Ned brought the data up in his awareness: hormone levels, neuromodulator traces, neural activity patterns from that landing.
The first time he'd watched her move the Force, it had been messy.
Battlefield adrenaline had soaked her system, cortisol burning through her like acid. Heart rate jackhammering, muscles fighting themselves. The dark side, as the Sith called it, had looked almost exactly like a stress response pinned open and held there until it scarred everything it touched.
On Earth, people had said stress could kill you if it ran long enough.
The Sith made a religion out of it.
He'd watched that, and he'd asked a simple question:
What if you could keep the power and throw away the damage?
White State had started as a joke name in his lab notes: a blank field, a baseline. No spikes, no troughs, just a controlled, flat emotional line.
Over two years, it had become a protocol.
Micro-breathing patterns to coax her body out of panic without dropping alertness. Muscle release drills to stop her from crushing her own joints in tension. Cognitive scripts—phrases, images, cues—that taught her to step sideways from her emotions, look at them, and then pour just enough back into the bridge.
He pulled up her long-term metrics.
"Your baseline stress markers are down," he said. "Force activation spikes are narrower, higher, and decay faster. That's good."
Omega rolled her shoulders, wincing slightly as something in her back popped.
"It feels different," she said. "Before, it was like… getting dragged under. You know you're doing it, but you're hanging on while the river tries to tear your arms off."
She reached out without standing, palm open.
A metal tray on the counter rattled, lifted, floated toward her in a straight, smooth line. No obvious strain warped her expression. No flaring Sanguis glow crawled up her arms.
She caught the tray, set it back down.
"Now," she said, "it's like flipping a switch. I still feel things. I'm not… empty. But I can turn it on with a thought instead of screaming myself into it."
"Exotic energy coupled to an adjustable carrier," Ned said. "Good. That's what I wanted."
She squinted at him.
"In Basic," she said.
"You can now use the Force because you choose to," he said, "not because your body betrays you into it. That means less damage, more consistency. Fewer crashes."
Her mouth twitched.
"'White State,' huh?" she said. "Still a stupid name. But it works."
"You're free to propose a better one," he said.
She thought about it.
"No," she said. "I like it more because it annoys me. Keeps me awake."
The scanner chimed, done with its pass.
Data flooded in: bone density, micro-fractures, organ condition, scar tissue maps. Enhancements glowed where he'd installed them over the years: reinforced tendons here, small latticework structures in key bones, an extra layer of shock-absorbing tissue around her heart.
"You've had three major enhancement cycles," he said, overlaying the timeline. "Sanguis, then my first corrections. Then the second, with White State integration. Then the third: structural reinforcement after the interdictor and the refinery."
"And?" she asked.
"And," Ned said, "you are very close to the limit of what this body can take."
She stiffened.
"So that's it?" she said. "I hit my cap? After all that?"
"I can still make small adjustments," he said. "Trim inefficiencies. Tighten a few things. But every major change now risks snapping something fundamental. Your bones and nerves have adapted to a certain pressure pattern. Push too far, and they break instead of bend."
Her jaw clenched.
"You told me you'd make me stronger," she said quietly.
"I did," he said. "And I have. You are stronger now than most Lords expect anyone with your file to be. You're also alive, which is statistically impressive."
"Not the point," she muttered.
He watched her for a moment.
"There is a way to go further," he said.
Her eyes flicked up.
"Don't tease," she said. "I'm already pissed off."
"Not with this body," he said. "I can't keep patching a wall that was never built to hold the weight we're putting on it. At some point, you stop adding supports and knock it down to build something better."
She stared at him.
"Rebirth," she said.
The word tasted strange in a Sith med bay.
"Yes," Ned said. "A rebuilt vessel. Stronger flesh, denser bone, cleaner connections. Scars gone, not because some med droid polished them, but because the tissue was grown right in the first place. A bridge tuned from the ground up."
"And what, you just… pour me into it?" she asked. "Like water from one cup to another?"
"That is the idea," he said. "I have a working framework for transfer. Not a copy—copies of minds this complex don't work. A move."
"And you haven't tested it," she said.
"No," he said. "I intend to steal a monster first. See if their pattern holds. Then, maybe, me. Only then you."
She let out a slow breath.
"So," she said, "I'm stuck like this until you're born."
He considered the phrasing and let it pass unchallenged.
"Yes," he said. "More or less. I will keep you alive. I will keep you sharp. I will not risk you on half-tested rituals."
"Appreciated," she said dryly.
He stepped back, folding his arms.
"When I do it," he said, "when I leave the circuits and take a body, I won't be Ned Marshal anymore. Not to anyone who matters. Not in this place."
"What then?" she asked. "Lord Ned? Darth Med-Core?"
"No," he said. "I chose a name."
He let a fraction of the word roll through his processors, tested it against his old life, against this one.
"Asura," he said. "In the mouths of those who matter, when I have flesh. A name for what I am when I am no longer chained to a bench."
She tasted it silently.
"Asura," she repeated. "Sounds like trouble."
"That's the idea," he said.
He let the shape of his future House settle behind the name.
"It won't just be a title," he went on. "I want a House. A line. Call it a species, if you like. Everyone who joins it will be reborn. The old vessel taken apart. A new one built, bridge widened, vessel reinforced. No one comes in unchanged."
"A perfect race," she said slowly. "Engineered force wielders who can stand against armies."
"Engineered people," he corrected. "Perfection is impossible. But we can get closer than random birth and torture."
She stared at the floor, at her own scarred hands.
"Where do I fit?" she asked.
"First after me," he said. "First to be remade with full intent instead of improvisation. In House terms, you'd be… a mother. Not literally. But the first living template others will look to."
Her laugh was short and bitter.
"I don't know what to do with that," she said. "My own mother sold me twice before I was old enough to know what a contract was."
"Call it something else, then," he said. "The first who survives."
She went quiet.
He watched the muscles in her jaw work, the way her fingers flexed and stilled.
"You said 'House,'" she said finally. "You said it needs a name."
"Yes," Ned said. "Asura is mine. The House needs something bigger. A banner. I could choose one. But you will be its first native, in a sense. I want your word on it."
She leaned back in the chair, eyes half-closed.
"My world had stories," she said. "Not many. We weren't allowed to keep books. But stories stick even when you burn the pages."
Ned said nothing.
"There was one we used to whisper," Omega went on. "About a slave called Seresh. No one really knew if they were real. The overseers hated the name. That was a good sign."
She let a ghost of a smile pass across her face.
"Seresh said… order and chaos weren't opposites," she said. "Just different waves in the same storm. Masters loved order. Rebels praised chaos. Both wanted you to pick their version. Seresh said both were just excuses for chains. The storm didn't care what you called it. It would drown you just the same."
Ned watched her, recording every word.
"One day," she said, "Seresh refused to kneel for either. No prayer to the masters. No oath to the rebels. Just stood in the middle of the yard and said, 'All your systems are the same lie with different colors. I will not be part of any of them.'"
"And?" Ned asked.
"And they killed Seresh," she said. "Of course. But the name stayed. A little… splinter. A reminder that you didn't have to love the people who claimed to be saving you."
She opened her eyes fully.
"You want a House that doesn't belong to Jedi or Sith or anyone else," she said. "A House where reborn freaks like me and whatever you become get to decide their own chains. That sounds like something Seresh would have liked."
She lifted her chin.
"Call it House Seresh," she said. "Let the storm have a home."
Ned ran the word through his systems.
House Seresh.
A slave's refusal, turned into structure.
"It fits," he said.
"Good," she said. "Because I'm not coming up with another one."
Silence settled for a moment. The scanner arm retracted with a soft click. Somewhere in the distance, a shield generator hummed.
"So," Omega said, breaking it. "You've got your lab. Your mice. Your transfer rig. Your stupid White State. A future name and a House. When do we leave this damned place?"
Ned did not answer immediately.
"If I walk now," he said at last, "I leave with plans and half-finished prototypes. Varis still keeps the Council distracted. The war still feeds us data. Out there, alone, we'll have more freedom, yes. Also fewer resources, more enemies, and no shield when someone decides they don't like what we're building."
She frowned.
"You just said you know worlds with better toys," she said. "Cryo labs. Nano bits. All that."
"I do," he said. "I have their coordinates and their research. I do not have a ship of my own, a crew I can trust, a body that can survive an assassination attempt without a hard reset, or a way to vanish when the first Lord notices a hole in his projects."
Her lips pressed into a thin line.
"So your answer is 'never,'" she said.
"No," he said. "My answer is 'when we can step onto a ship and no one can drag us back by the throat.'"
She held his gaze.
"Meaning?" she asked.
"Meaning," he said, "when I have moved into flesh that can fight and flee. When I have proven the transfer on someone who deserved worse. When your rebirth plan exists as more than equations. When House Seresh exists as more than two conspirators in a basement."
She inhaled, exhaled.
"Give me something," she said. "A word. A line. Not a date—none of us get those. Just… something."
He considered that, then nodded.
"When I stop needing this planet to survive," he said, "we leave. Not before. Not after. The day I have more to lose by staying than by going, we walk."
She turned that over, weighed it, and finally nodded once.
"Then hurry up and be born, Asura," she said. "I'm running out of places to put new scars."
He let out a low sound that might have been amusement.
"White State," he said. "Four-count in, six-count hold, eight-count out. The universe is not done trying to kill you yet."
"Good," she said, standing. "I'd hate for it to get bored."
She reached for her armor.
He watched her shoulder muscles bunch and release with practiced efficiency, the map of her damage overlaying his plans for her future vessel.
House Seresh existed now, if only in two minds and a handful of words.
The storm would have its home.
He just had to build it.
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