Chapter Text
“Commander!”
Chatter dies down in the hazy half-empty lounge and half of the occupants, dressed in the familiar orange flight suits of the old Rebellion and the newer blue of the New Republic, turn in their seats at the bar or stand up from their game of pool. They stare at the stranger at the door, dressed in dark gray robes under a weathered brown cloak, and then they keep staring when the stranger pulls back their cowl.
Luke Skywalker pretends not to feel the weight of so many eyes on his face while watching a pilot in Rebellion orange jog up to him. She looks like she’d come back from patrol; there are shadows under her eyes and lines marking her face, and her flat dark hair is coming undone from its messy tie at the nape of her neck. She wears a dark leather jacket over her flight suit and it is adorned with patches marking her time with the New Republic Starfighter Corps.
One of the patches catches his eye and he nods respectfully. “Lieutenant.”
She smiles a little too widely, abashed to have his acknowledgement. “Sash Ketter, Commander. You’re here for Captain Teva?”
He nods, considers the tone of her question, and glances around the lounge. Most of the pilots have returned to their drinks, conversations, and games, and none of them resemble Carson Teva.
“I am,” he slowly says. “Is he not here?”
Her smile twitches. “Summons from Coruscant. He left a couple days ago.”
He sighs inwardly. He’d hoped this would be a quick visit, an exchange of information like the captain promised, but now he’ll have to travel coreward and spend more days away from Grogu. He won’t risk the child’s safety for this rendezvous so he’ll have to come back another time.
“I see,” Luke says. “I’m needed elsewhere so if you could tell him-”
She half-lunges to stop him from leaving. “Now wait a minute! … uh, I mean, he left something here. He didn’t want it getting lost or confiscated so he told me to hold it for you. Just stay here. I’ll be right back.”
She runs to the back of the lounge and disappears. He sits back on his heels, clasping his hands in front of him, wondering what exactly it is that Carson has for him. He last spoke with the captain over the subspace transceiver a week ago and while Carson insisted they meet in person, he didn’t divulge the real reason why. Did he discover something so dangerous and explosive that he needed someone who could pass the intel directly to powerful members of the Senate? What made Carson trust a retired Rebellion commander more than his own superiors?
Sash reappears, carrying a bundle carefully wrapped in dull dark fabric, and he is suddenly struck by a faint ripple in the Force. What could she be holding, and how did Carson know to call for Luke?
She holds it out to him. “Here. Teva said he got it from one of his Outer Rim contacts a while back.”
“Did he?”
Luke takes it and his hands already notice its weight, its angles, and the subtle grooves in its smooth surfaces. He slowly lifts away a corner of the fabric and then another. His heart suddenly thumps and lodges itself in the back of his throat as he realizes what he’s holding and why it’s here, why he’s here.
“Oh,” he says faintly. “I see.”
Sash trembles in place, eager to inspect the item but afraid of invading his space. She still leans in by increments until she sees the cracked leather binding and realizes what the captain had been holding in storage for Luke.
“Is that a book?” she asks.
He runs his fingers over the debossed leather cover. At first glance, it seems an Imperial crest had been pressed into it but Luke knows too well the difference between it and the ancient symbol of the Bendu. The archaic Aurebesh tells him that this is a middle volume on the teachings of the ancient order, an incredible prize for a wealthy collector and utterly invaluable to those trying to save these last traces of the Jedi.
“It is,” Luke says and carefully covers it back up. He spots a darker stain in a corner of the cloth and wonders whose blood was spilt to claim the book. “I collect them.”
Sash’s brow furrows in confusion and he braces for questions. Instead, her stance relaxes and she nods in understanding. “Interesting hobby, Commander. Guess you need something to do in retirement.”
“I’m not that old,” Luke replies. “Or bored.”
He looks at the text in his hands. This would look like an eccentric’s hobby, wouldn’t it? It would be keeping in with his strange reputation with the Starfighter Corps, a hero of the Rebellion who didn’t climb the ranks or continue serving with the New Republic but left to join a dying religious order.
“But it is something to do,” he says, smiling reassuringly at the pilot. “Thank you for this. Keep up the good work here, and give Captain Teva my regards.”
She nods. “I will. Force be with you, Commander.”
His smile widens as he turns away. “May the Force be with you, Lieutenant.”
He tilts his head to the onlookers and steps out of the lounge. He squints at the blindingly bright sunlight warming the base while a cool salty breeze sweeps up from the sea and past him into the palm forest. A few of the pilots stationed here sit in the shade of the huts on overturned crates or tinker with their starfighters, swapping intel and scuttlebutt while waiting for their next assignments. Someone loudly questions the paint job on a battleworn X-wing sitting a little ways from the other starfighters, not believing the number of red stripes on the S-foils, and then falls silent when they see Luke approaching it.
He can’t help looking at the scraped and flaked paint on the starfighter’s hull and S-foils while climbing into the cockpit. Perhaps he could requisition some paint along with repairs the next time he visits Chandrila. He tucks the thought away and settles into his seat, but he doesn’t close the hatch yet. He doesn’t start up the engines yet. The too-warm sun crowns his windswept hair and the salt of the blue sea fills up the small spaces in the cockpit while he carefully unwraps the book in his lap. He traces the Bendu’s sigil on the leather cover and then gingerly opens it to glimpse some of the flimsi pages he’ll read later in the privacy of his current home. The ink had faded in places to a light brown but the words are still legible. He can still transcribe them to preserve the book’s knowledge before it finally crumbles to dust.
He smiles as he closes the book and covers it up again, but his lip trembles and his chest aches. It hurts to think not only about how little there is left of the Jedi Order’s history, how little there is left to build on, but also about the person who brought this book to Carson, someone who is so far away but still made time to reach out to Luke.
“I hear you, Din,” he murmurs, looking up at Adelphi’s blue and white sky.
Beyond it is the deep black void of space. Beyond it are the many, many stars and their systems making up the known galaxy. Beyond it is a Mandalorian answering the call of his people, and still remembering the ones he left behind.
“Wherever you are, I hear you.”