Private One Long Heartbeat

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

THE BEZHARL
EN ROUTE FROM SVOLTEN TO SOMEWHERE SECURE

The silence in her own heart unsettled Ashin more than the carbon-freeze itself. Any time she'd ever waited for anything, her pulse — fast or slow — had been a thankless, unrecognized companion. Its absence struck her as forcefully as the utter quiet of stepping into hard vacuum. Frozen in carbonite hibernation, each heartbeat took a minor eternity.

You weren't supposed to stay conscious during carbon-freeze, but she'd steeled her will and played one of the Sylops up her sleeve. A few decades back, she and her wife had sat down with the one and only Kaiburr Crystal and figured out a way to touch the Force, even with a ysalamir nearby.

In theory, ysalamiri had locked her away from the Force since the moment the Jedi had brought her on board the Bezharl. And as the Jedi froze her in the improvised carbonite rig, she'd finally used that secret — but not to break her cuffs or lash out or run. She'd connected with the Force, simply and surreptitiously, to remain conscious.

The ploy gained her relatively little. It might even prove a terrible idea. From glacial heartbeat to glacial heartbeat, she found herself locked in: no senses, not with frozen carbonite across her eyes and inside her ears. Her body was well and truly hibernating, and would be for the coming days or weeks until the Jedi saw fit to thaw her out. Even her mind drifted, half-dozing, so as not to set off status monitors or outpace her hibernating body's resources. The last thing she needed was to wake up brain-dead for her trial. And reaching out past the ysalamiri bubbles to perceive her surroundings could give the Jedi a hint that things were not as they seemed.

So her entire existince, her reality just now, boiled down to chilly half-dreams and a muted-but-indefatigable connection with Spencer Varanin . And the silence between one heartbeat and the next.

I'm safe, she sent regardless of the ysalamiri. Hum me a song.