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Cal is being hunted. Not by Sith, not by Separatists, not by dark side assassins or battle droids, but by his own clone troopers.
He doesn't understand. One moment he'd been sitting around the campfire with Greer and Putz listening to Greer once again expound upon how there's no reason the pretty Theelin woman painted on their LAAT shouldn't instead be a pretty Theelin man. The next, he'd jerked around at the sudden sound of a nearby blaster shot to see Commander Dust holding the weapon and Cal's master collapsing to the ground with a hole burned in his chest.
Shock and grief had barely had a split second to register before Cal was up and running – not toward Dust, but away. More weapons were coming out, aiming toward him, the Force screaming now, and he'd only known he had to get away if he was going to survive.
He doesn't know any more now as he crouches in a mass of thick bushes, shakily calling on the Force to mute his ragged breathing and dull the senses of the troopers hunting for him. Greer and Putz are the nearest, pushing the muzzles of their blasters into bushes and between trees as they search. Greer, who is the gentlest soul Cal has even seen in a soldier, who talks sometimes about what he might be allowed to do after the war. Putz, who some days can barely put one foot in front of the other without ending up on his bottom but who has a singing voice that could make even Jedi weep. They would never betray him. They could never kill-
But they have. They are. Cal's master is dead by their commander's hands, and no one lifted a finger to stop him or even showed any surprise or horror.
He'll figure it out, Cal promises himself. For his master's sake. Questions will be answered, traitors will be punished. For now, he needs to survive long enough to get in contact with the Jedi Council and get instructions on what to do next.
Cal reaches further into the Force, that still, cool bastion of strength – and recoils with a sharp cry. The galaxy around him roils, the energy field reeking of fear and betrayal and death.
Not just here, Cal realizes numbly. Not just us.
“There!” Putz shouts, swinging his blaster toward Cal, who had lost hold of his shield in his shock.
The Padawan snaps his lightsaber to life and deflects a shot into a tree. The Force warns him a split second before Greer charges, spraying fire. Cal deflects these bolts as well, yelling the clone's name in a fruitless attempt to end this any other way.
Then it's too late, and the blue glow of Cal's blade is protruding from the trooper's back. As Greer tries to gasp a last breath into charred lungs, Cal picks up something from him through the Force.
Good soldiers follow orders good soldiers follow orders good soldiers follow-
Cal wonders frantically what it means, but there's no time to ponder as Putz snarls “Traitor!” and lifts his blaster again. Cal calls on the Force, fumbling to yank the weapon from the trooper's hand, but in his heightened emotional state, he can't manage it.
Putz fires, and Cal has only one choice. He rips his blade from Greer's chest, gagging on the scent of charred plastoid and burned flesh, and returns Putz's fire directly into the gap in his armor at his neck. The trooper goes down without another sound.
The clearing is suddenly shatteringly silent as Cal stands over his friends' bodies panting and shaking. He can't get out of his head how wrong Greer's mind felt against his. He wants so desperately to understand what happened here. What orders? How did everything go so terribly wrong so fast? Oh, stars, his master is-
A commotion in the distance cuts off the thought. Cal stands frozen for one more endless second before he makes a decision. Not matter what happened today, he has to survive. He has to escape, regroup, learn what's happened. He can't do that if he stays and fights. And he can't kill all the men he fought beside and trusted his life to and had their trust in return for years. He can't.
Cal deactivates his lightsaber and runs.