Chapter Text
“Father!” He heard a young female voice shout out, the sound of mud squishing under heavy boots as her voice came closer.
Cal looked to where Saw had turned to and saw a young girl, maybe fifteen or sixteen in basic years. She had short blonde hair, a pair of red tinted, mud covered goggles covering her eyes. She was wearing old armor, painted in black, red and cream that was, too, covered in mud and debris.
“Omega, is something wrong? Where’s Rex?” Saw asked, placing a hand on his daughter's, Omega’s, shoulder. She pulled down her mask, taking deep breaths of fresh air. She had freckles sprinkling her face, along with a tiny scar on her forehead, and was only noticeable when she pushed some strands of blonde out of her face.
“Buir, he- He was chasing after a stormtrooper in black armor and the thing caught him. They got buir, father.” Omega explained, face slightly red from running but still in worry. She had a blaster strapped to her hip, along with a golden bow attached to her back. It was engraved with tick marks. He could see Cere and Greez making their way towards him.
“Ra gi'ah nigaba kaysh norac, baretr.” Saw muttered into his daughter’s forehead, then pressed each other’s foreheads together in a.. keldabe kiss ?
We’ll get him back, dear .
Mando’a?
“Ni kar'taylir mhi malyasa'yr, buir.” Omega responded quickly, giving her father a hand squeeze before turning their attention to Cere and Greez. I know we will, father.
“This is Cere Junda and Greez Dritus, Saw. Like I said we’re looking for Tarfful, he knows about something we’re looking for.” Cal explained, staring at the young girl at Saw’s side.
She was pretty, beautiful even with those soft brown eyes and curly blonde hair. She looked nothing like Saw, his dark skin and forest green eyes opposite from her own.
“My husband, Senior Lieutenant General Rex Gerrera, was with him and including my daughter here,” Saw explained with a worried sigh, placing a hand on Omega’s slightly shaky shoulder. “My husband knows his whereabouts, along with Commander Kosan and Lieutenant Commander Omega Gerrera here. She can help you find him and get a meeting with the freedom fighter.”
“Thank you, Gerrera, but this is urgent and-” Cere started but Saw cut her off quickly.
“My daughter is the finest soldier of my Partisans. Next to my partner, she is the best strategist in the galaxy; She’ll help Cal find them and get that meeting together.” Saw reassured with a smile, patting both of their backs with an easy grin. Omega just rolled her eyes at her father’s kindness, pushing his hand away playfully.
“Whoa, whoa,” Greez started, holding all of his hands up to get the rebel leader’s attention. “You expect this girl to fight against who knows what in this jungle?”
“I’m not just a girl! I’m a soldier!” She growled out, giving the latero a death stare as he pulled her goggles back onto her face, then pulling up her mask up over her nose, the fabric dirtied with mud and what he hoped wasn’t dried blood. “C’mon, Cal. This way.”
“Senior Lieutenant General Gerrera must be your biological father, right?” Cal asked, leaping into the small pool of mucky, brown water that Omega had no problem jumping into, they were wading across the water now, BD-1 resting on his head of dirty, scarlet hair.
“He is… and isn’t. My actual bio father is long dead, but I see Rex as my own.” Omega sighed out. They had gotten out of the water, her coat and his poncho drying out as they walked through the lush, forest floor. “I presume that your Jedi Master was like a father to you.”
“He... was, in a way, I mean,” Cal admitted. “But my clone commander, Donher, was more fatherly than Master Tapal.”
“Clone Commander CC-40-791, for what my buir has told me, was a kind man with an even kinder heart. I'm correct to believe that right, Jetti?” Omega asked, turning around to help him up the turned over tree, her grip was strong, clearly built from working out or just fighting.
Cal nodded in agreement, looking at where she hadn’t taken her hand away from his. He blushed beet red, pulling his hand from her grip as he got closer to wherever the Senior Lieutenant General had run after that purge trooper.
They were at a ledge now, looking over a still burning battlefield, white armor and cloth covered bodies lining the forest floor. She had slid down the muddy ledge, jumping at the last moment as she hit the ground with a thud, the mud and dirt around her boots moving with the force of her landing. He followed her, making his movements more little in case one of the dead stormtroopers were somehow alive.
“Omega-” He began.
“Lieutenant Commander.” Omega groaned, walking over to a male pantoran’s corpse, his blaster and helmet splayed in front of him.
“Lieutenant Commander,” Cal corrected, BD scanning a new plant and picking up a few seeds. Greez will like cooking with that plant. “I believe that we should leave, everyone’s dead.”
Omega lowered her mask, picking up a hunk of mud, grass and moss, letting the texture combine and run over her gloved fingers.
“This way.” She simply noted, dropped the earth as she quickly pulled up her mask, running in a thicket of bushes.
“Wait, Omega-! C’mon, BD, we can’t have her getting killed by a couple of purge troopers jumping out, or worse.” Cal shouted out, running into the thicket. BD jumped onto his back with a worried beep, sensors looking for any sight of the young teen.
He heard a shot, the sound of armor hitting woods and dirt, the ringing noise of blaster fire. Then a thud of a body hitting the ground.
Cal picked up his pace, using his lightsaber to cut through the branches and foliage. The blue blade hummed as it cut though everything in front of it and him.
“Rebel scum!” A loud, modulated voice boomed, the sound nearly deafening.
“Ah yeah?! How about you say it to my face!” He heard Omega’s voice grunt out, then another sound of a blaster bolt, then quiet with the sound of Omega and another man huffing for breath, along with the sound of animals and trees in the wind.
“Omega!” Cal shouted out, gasping for breath as he broke through the bush to see Onega helping a man in armor up, his armor was painted in shades of blue and he had the Partisans’ simbol emblazoned in his left shoulder guard. “I nearly thought you died.”
“Buir, this is Jedi Padawan Cal Kestis. And Cal, this is my father, Senior Lieutenant General Rex Gerrera.” Omega sighed, wiping her gloves for mud and dirt, as the Senior Lieutenant General walked up to him. He was shorter than him, having to look up with that too familiar visor.
“Padawan Kestis, aye?” The man plainly, helmet tilting to the side.
“Just call me Cal.” He sputtered, feeling sweat build up at the nape of his neck.
“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Commander. Call me Rex, and Om’ika,” He shouted out, turning to look at his daughter, who had pulled an electrobinoculars to look over a large lake. “Is my husband okay?”
“Father’s fine but,” She sighed out, looking forward towards… something below them. Rex and Cal moved towards another ledge, looking at far worse than a single purge trooper. A whole squad of them, fifthteen or maybe even twenty. “I don’t think they’ll like two deserted clones and a Jedi Padawan lurking near them.”
What?
He took a step back, looking at the man and his “daughter”.
They are…
“Cal? Are you okay?” Omega asked, lowering her binoculars to look at him with the raise of her eyebrow.
She was a-
He was a-
“Kid, you need water or something? You look really pale.” Rex asked next, hand reaching out as he detached his cantine, bringing up to his face.
He fell to the jungle floor, hand reaching for his lightsaber. The blue blade was now pointing towards the older clone, his helmet hiding his clear expression of fear or whatever that monster’s feelings he was bleeding into the Force, like a pool of warm blood running down his face.
The clone was choking, he realized, hovering in front of him as he clawed at his neck for air. Omega was shouting, pulling out her pistol and-
“Omega- don’t .” Rex gasped out, breathing in lungfuls of air that he had deprived of.
Cal was crying into his hands. He nearly killed him, he used the dark side of the force.
He used the dark side to hurt a man who only showed him kindness, nearly getting stunned by a scared, angry woman, who seemed to be the closest thing to a friend.
“What the hell was that?!” Omega shouted, bunching up the front of his poncho. He heard a slap of skin, the ring of it going wild in his ears. “Answer me! Gods, Buir, are you okay?”
“Yes, Omega, I am.” Rex coughed out, wiping his face before taking his daughter’s hand, Omega helping him up quickly.
He was laying on a soft bed of moss and grass, the trees leaves above him swaying with the soft breeze.
Donher, Egg, Giftbasket .
Those were his troopers, his father and older brother figures.
He was crying, sobbing on the ground. He wanted to be back in his commander’s arms when he was ten, having him tell him stories about his vode as he drifted into blissfully, warm conforming sleep.
“Cal...” He felt a hand on face, leaning his head up to stare into a worried expression of a young man before blacking out, the Force taking him into something, different from a vision. More like a black void with nothing to feel or touch.