Shanta Killian - A Star Awakens

Shanta Ru’killian, daughter of Melissa Ru’killian (aka. Trance Killian), always had a hard time due to her mother’s legacy. Separated directly after birth they had tried to make her believe that her mother had abandoned her and that the clan-community had been so generous to take her in. She was not allowed to weep or cry for her mommy or she would be punished.

One night when she was two years old one of the aunts she only knew from a distance came to her and wanted to drag her away from her dorm. At first Shanta feared that she had done something wrong again and was to be punished, so she fought and screamed as loud as she could, and soon the whole clan was upon that aunt, knocked her down, beat her up and dragged her away. Only later Shanta learned from aunt Ranja that this had been her mother who wanted to take the girl with her when she decided to escape from the clan. Little Shanta thought it was her fault that they had taken her mother away, but any attempt at finding out more about her fate ended with detention, sometimes without supper, and if she still raged the received more spanking.

Although she was sent to the clan-owned school with the other kids, everyone, including her cousins, treated her as a piece of dirt that even the clan leader, grand aunt E’randa, told her she was: a parasitic bastard without father or mother.

Only aunt Ranja was nice to her and sometimes brought her a favorite snack or a small toy when nobody was looking. She also said that one day Shanta’s mother would return and take her away with her. But the years went by without this happening and Shanta gave up hope to ever see her mother again. Then, one night, Ranja was caught when she tried to smuggle some food to Shanta who had again been locked up without dinner. They tore her clothes off and whipped her in front of the ten year old girl. In tears Shanta begged them to stop, but the strong young men didn’t hold back. When she intervened she also received spanking again and Ranja was dragged away. A few days later Shanta saw her again inside the clan building, but she was different and pushed the girl away. It became apparent that they had brainwashed her, as they had done with other divergents before, and now they had her do the lowest and most humiliating tasks there were, until one day Ranja disappeared.

Shortly after that Shanta and other clan children were moved away from Brentaal and brought to several boot camps where the children were taught physical fitness and technical skills. These were mostly remote installations in deep wilderness of some planet, and even an attempt to escape only brought the realization that they had chosen the remote locations on purpose to thwart any attempt to escape. That was even more true for the asteroid-training facility where she spent the next three years.

Determined to not get down until there was a chance to escape Shanta worked on acquiring useful skills like sneaking, climbing or hiding, as well as hacking into computers and droids and reprogram them, in addition to picking locks with the most simple tools, like a hairpin. On the other hand she really liked the language classes and dreamed of travelling the galaxy one day and talking to different species each in their native language. Her schoolmates were seldom nice to her, and after some time and several bruises and bloodied noses she also learned to dish out enough so the others would leave her alone – except they heavily outnumbered her, but none of them got away unscathed.

Then came the holo and her life turned upside down. She and her classmates were sitting in a classroom and they were supposed to watch an educational film about interstellar business relationships when suddenly all available channels showed only one image: the inside of a gigantic sphere where a handful of people of different species fought some guy in black robes. She had heard rumors of this Master Cyrus and his Galactic-Alderaanian Empire, but the topic wasn’t discussed with the children because neutrality was one of the key factors in business.

Scared like the others, but also fascinated Shanta watched the fight and time and again her focus shifted to the woman with blue hair. She noticed the blue tattoos on her face, the blue lips and large silver tunnels in her ears and she instinctively knew that she knew this woman. But who was she? She fought with a blue lightsaber against the dark lord. She stretched out her hand as if to catch a falling comrade, and indeed he seemed to fall slower as if she held him safely with an invisible grip so he wouldn’t be hurt. Then she was tossed away and Shanta was terrified to see the maws and tentacles that were pressing to the outside of the sphere, seemingly ready to grab and devour the fighters inside. This being was about to destroy the galaxy? The whole galaxy? There had to be something she could do to stop it!

But she could only watch as the Protectors of the Galaxy were gripped by the dark lord and shoved against the walls with their end imminent. Then, suddenly the blue-haired woman stepped in and caught off the annihilation-beam, screamed as loud as she could and Shanta remembered the scream…. It was the same scream that this aunt – No! – her mother had shouted out back then when the clan’s bruisers had beaten her up. Could it be?

Then the beam ceased and the woman made a blue, rotating symbol appear: a circle and within… letters? “Help me!” she whispered and this time Shanta was certain that this was her mother’s voice. Was her mother a Jedi-Knight? Why hadn’t she come for her and rescued her if she was that powerful? Why had she abandoned her?

“Concentrate on the symbol!” Shanta heard another voice call out in the holo. “Lend Trance all your strength!” Then the woman’s screams echoed through the room as the dark lord had reactivated his black beam of annihilation.