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"Cal!? Kid, come on! Respond!"
Despite Greez's pleading, the comm remained completely silent. The Latero cursed, his hands drumming on the control panel nervously. Merrin closed her eyes, trying to calm herself. It would be no good to have both of them in a panic. But she had to admit, every moment of silence was agonising. Looking at Greez, at the grief stricken look in his eyes, her heart panged sympathetically.
She hadn't known the crew for very long. After all, it was only recently that she had joined their ranks. But she had found that she liked them very much. She had already known that she liked Cal and BD-1. Cal's kind and open nature, and BD's fire and loyalty were easy to like. Greez had been scared of her at first, but she could tell he was gradually warming up to her. He was a very nervous person, but it was obvious to see that he cared for Cere and Cal very much.
Cere.
She sobered quickly at the thought of the other woman. While Cere had been distrustful of her when she had first come onto the ship, she hadn't taken offense. It was clear to see that Cere cared very much about this crew, from the way she watched over them. Cal especially. Merrin was a new factor in all of this, a potential threat to those she cared for.
Merrin had been able to see that she held darkness within her. Knew that she battled with it every day. In the short time she had known Cere, she had come to admire her. Her determination, her protectiveness, her desire to try and do the right thing.
And now she was gone.
Hearing Cal's voice over the comm, telling them what had happened, had been awful. His voice had been terrified, on the verge of tears. Greez's shoulders had shuddered with grief, even as he had told Cal to keep running.
Greez had come to accept the two Jedi as his family. And now one of them was dead. The other could be about to follow at any moment and it absolutely terrified him. That, she completely understood.
The comm's silence stretched on and Merrin growled frustratedly, wisps of her magic drifting around involuntarily in response to her emotions. It was through these wisps that she caught a hint of something brushing against her senses and she froze.
"Lower the ramp!" Merrin demanded, throwing herself out of the chair and sprinting towards the airlock.
"Wait, what?!"
"Something is wrong! Lower the ramp!"
The door slid open and the ramp extended, allowing Merrin to bolt down it. Standing at the edge, she gazed across the waters of Nur. The faint lights of the Inquisitorius fortress were glowing in their depths, allowing her to see dark shapes moving through the water. They came to a stop, drifting.
That hint of something she had felt brushing against her became a hard shove. Deciding to trust in her magic, she dove into the water, swimming downwards as quickly as she could. Getting closer to the shapes, her heart leapt into her throat.
It was Cere and Cal.
They were both alive.
Cere had what looked like a breathing apparatus secured to the lower half of her face, but her eyes were closed. Her chest rose and fell reassuringly, but one look at Cal, and that relief went away. The young Jedi was limp in the water. There was nothing on his own face.
He wasn't breathing.
Gathering her magic, she threw every ounce of her power into transporting them back onto the ship and with a flash of green, they fell onto the metal floors of the ship, water pouring down around them. Ignoring Greez's yelp, she pushed herself up and scrambled over to Cal. The ship moved beneath them, Greez clearly aiming to get them away as quickly as possible.
Cal was in a heap on his side, his face pressed into the floor. BD-1 was at his side, beeping insistently as he tried to get him to wake up. Grabbing Cal's shoulder, she turned him onto his back.
His chest was still. His skin pale enough she could see the freckles dotted across his nose, his lips blue.
Merrin began to panic. She didn't know what to do. She'd never been taught what to do in this situation. Her mind raced as she tried desperately to think of something, anything, she could do to help. But before she could, Cal's body jerked. BD leapt backwards with a squeal as he choked on the water rising in his throat and Merrin hurried to roll him back over. The redhead coughed and choked frantically as he emptied his lungs of the water that he'd swallowed. He fell back down with a cry of pain, a hand clutching his side, and that's when Merrin saw it.
A lightsaber wound.
Ice rushed through her veins as she stared at the round, charred wound piercing straight through his leather armour and into the left side of his chest. She remembered seeing such wounds on the bodies of her sisters, her mother. How they hadn't gotten back up afterwards.
The ship jerked as it went through Hyperspace, and before long, Greez was at her side.
"What happened?" He asked frantically, looking torn between checking on Cal or Cere first. He eventually settled on Cere, knowing that Merrin was taking care of Cal for now.
"Cere?" He shook the Jedi Master's shoulder firmly. "Cere! Come on!"
Cere's eyes shot open and she flung herself back up to her feet. Greez fell backwards in his hurry to get away, crying out in surprise. She stood there in the middle of the ship, a wild look in her eyes. Casting her gaze on those around her, she gradually began to calm. Reaching up, she pulled the breathing mask off of her face.
"How did we-?" She stopped dead as she noticed Cal's prone body, and flung herself down next to them. "No!"
"He is alive." Merrin reassured, looking down at the redhead's pain etched features. "But he is injured."
Cere's hand hovered over the lightsaber wound, her expression dark. Hurried footsteps came towards them, before a large box dropped to the floor next to them.
"I got the medkit!" Greez panted. "Please tell me it'll help."
Cere tore the lid of the box open, rifling through its contents. Pulling out the trauma shears, she handed them to Merrin.
"Get that shirt off of him. We need to see what we're dealing with."
Merrin cut through Cal's soaked shirt and leather vest as quickly as she could, wincing when he whimpered quietly as she peeled the fabric away from his wound. She paled when she saw the angry wound in his side, the edges burned black.
“ Kriff. ” Greez cursed. He looked away, unable to take the sight of it.
Cere pulled out a small vial of Comaren, a basic painkiller, and loaded it into the micro-sonic vibration injector. A light on the side flashed green to show that it was ready and she pressed the tip of the injector to the skin surrounding Cal's wound. There was a hiss as the injector emptied its contents into Cal's body and she watched as he began to relax as the pain left him and he slipped back into unconsciousness.
"Greez, hand me the disinfectant and bacta sprays." The Lateron shook himself and shot forward to follow her order, pulling the appropriate canisters out of the kit and handing them to her.
Popping the lid off of the disinfectant spray, she prayed that the painkillers had set in enough that Cal wouldn't feel this. Spraying the disinfectant onto the wound, she was relieved when the boy didn't stir. Immediately following it up with the Bacta spray, she finished off with a Medpatch, smoothing the bandage over the wound and hoping that it would be enough.
Sitting back on her heels, she took a moment to breathe as she looked over her work. BD scurried forward the moment she sat back, the blue light of his scanner flickering as he checked on his friend.
"Kid is breathing kinda funny." Greez commented, bending down and placing a hand on Cal's head. Almost as if to convince himself that he was still there. "It's not… it's not the wound is it?"
"No. He was lucky." Cere said.
"How is that lucky?!"
"An inch deeper and the lightsaber would have gone straight through his lung." Greez's mouth snapped shut at that, and Cere felt slightly guilty at the pained look on his face.
"Let's get him off of the floor." Cere said. She slid an arm beneath his back and one underneath his knees, and prepared to lift. "We can stick a filtration mask on him once he's comfortable."
"I could lift him with my magic?" Merrin offered, hovering at their side while trying to pretend that she wasn't.
"No need." Cere grunted as she stood, almost wobbling beneath his weight before she caught herself. "I have him."
She had to have him. She had already failed Trilla, in more ways than one. There was no helping her former Padawan now. But she could still help Cal.
Carefully carrying him through to the back of the ship, making sure to keep his head clear of any corners, she placed him on his seldom used bunk in engineering. Looking down at him, she cursed as she remembered that the clothing that he still had on was absolutely soaked. He didn't need any illnesses on top of his already hard recovery ahead. She rubbed a hand over her face as she suddenly recalled that he hadn't even had time to grab a bag of his things before fleeing Bracca. He had nothing to his name but the clothes on his back.
He didn't have anything of his own that she could change him into.
How hadn’t that occurred to her before?
"BD?" The little droid perked up from his spot at the edge of the bunk. "Look after him. I'll be right back."
The droid beeped affirmatively, hopping up onto the edge of the bunk to hunker down next to Cal's head.
Making her way into her own tiny room on the ship, Cere yanked her footlocker out from under the edge of her bunk, opening it and rifling through her own meager collection of clothing. Greez's clothing sure as hell wasn't going to fit Cal, and she had no idea if Merrin had even brought anything aboard, what with the panic to get to the Holocron first. So that left her being the closest to his size.
She managed to find an old jumper, something that probably should have been thrown away some time ago. It was deep maroon in colour, old enough that some of the edges were frayed, and lint had begun to gather in some spots. But it was the softest item of clothing she owned. Something she pulled out on her worst days.
She found that she didn't mind giving it up for Cal.
Grabbing a pair of lounge pants that looked like they'd be loose enough that they wouldn't put any pressure on him while he was healing, she gathered her items and went back to Cal's side.
The young Jedi was still unconscious, his skin lit up under the frequent scans BD was running on him. Cere smiled fondly at the little droid, her heart warming at his clear protectiveness over Cal.
"Careful that you don't wake him." She admonished gently. The last thing they wanted was for the lights to disturb him. The droid paused, before beeping dejectedly and shutting down his scanner. She gave him a comforting pat on the head before setting the clothes down.
Looking back over at Cal, she bit her lip as she thought about the issue of changing him. She didn't want to embarrass him, but leaving him in wet clothes was out of the question, and changing him while he was unconscious was going to be difficult.
"Greez!" She called, her voice travelling down the ship corridor. She heard the sound of boots hurrying towards them and the Lateron's head soon popped through the doorway.
"What's wrong?" He demanded, looking over at Cal with wide, panicked eyes. "Is the Kid okay?"
"He's fine." Cere said. "But he can't stay in those wet clothes, and I might need some help."
Greez stepped fully into the room, calming down slightly now that there was something he could do to help.
"Where do you need me?"
Between the two of them, they managed to dry Cal off, careful of his wound while they did so, and change him into the dry clothing. Laying him back down, Greez pulled the blanket up to the teenager's shoulders, tutting at how thin it was.
"That's not going to be warm enough." He complained. "I'll be right back."
Cere chuckled as he scurried out of the room towards his own quarters. It was hard to believe that he had been so against Cal coming onto the ship in the beginning.
"Is this the mask that you were talking about?" Merrin asked as she stepped into the room, holding a strange looking clear contraption in her hands.
"Yes, that's it." Cere said, taking it from her.
Turning Cal's head gently to the side, she slipped the mask over his face and secured the straps behind his head, leaving it covering his nose and mouth. There was a slight hiss as she flicked the small switch on the very edge of the mask near his nose, and she watched as Cal took his first full breath since Vader had stabbed him.
"Is he going to be alright?" Merrin asked tentatively.
"He'll need a lot of rest." Cere smiled. "But yes. He'll be fine."
"Of course he'll be fine!" Greez grumbled as he stomped back into the room, blankets piled high in his arms. "The kid is a fighter. He's not about to let this knock him down."
Dumping the pile on the floor, Greez pulled the first blanket off of the top. It was a thick, knitted blanket, the yarn all in varying shades of blue. Shaking it out, he carefully threw it over Cal.
"My Grandpa knitted this when I was a kid." He said, smoothing the edges out. "It's about the warmest thing I got on this ship!"
BD scanned the blanket suspiciously, before deciding it was acceptable and using one tiny claw to help pull it up to Cal's shoulders.
"Good." Cere said, stretching and grimacing as her back popped. "He needs it."
"So could you." Greez said, pointedly looking at her.
Looking down at herself, she finally remembered that she'd also been in the water. Her own clothes were soaked too.
She'd been so worried about Cal that she hadn't even noticed.
"You should go change and get some rest. The bucket of bolts and I will keep an eye on- Hey! Ow! Don't do that!" Greez yelped as BD zapped him with an indignant beep.
Cere shook her head, trusting them to look after Cal despite their antics, and left to go back to her footlocker. Merrin wasn't far behind.
"I will clean up the mess." The Nightsister said, looking at the pool of water left on the floor of the main room of the ship after their quick escape.
"Thank you, Merrin." The Nightsister nodded, knowing that it wasn't just the clean up that Cere was thanking her for.
Closing her door behind her, Cere changed into her own dry clothing and lay down on her bunk. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and tentatively opened herself back up to the Force once again. Searching through the Force, she finally found what she was looking for. Brushing against Cal's own Force presence, she wrapped herself around it protectively, feeling him relax in her grasp.
Reassured that he, that everyone on this ship, was safe, she finally gave into the demands of her body and drifted off to sleep.