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“Down there.”
“Yup. Down there.”
Cal looks dubiously down the narrow hole, into the black chasm beyond. “Prauf-”
“Look, Shan swore he saw a whole bunch of near-mint fighters and some transports down there. The collapse must have protected them from damage. Just think how much cash we’ll get as a bonus if we bring this back to the Guild.”
Cal looks hesitantly again through the crack in metal and dirt. It did look like there was quite a large pocket beyond, and if what Shan said was true, it would mean a decent bonus. He was in need of new boots. His current pair was already too small and leaking water. More water than usual today. He didn’t normally stray this far into the wastes, but Prauf had gotten a tip from another rigger who’d claimed that there was a big haul waiting just below Bracca’s surface. So they’d embarked on this scouting mission, to see whether or not getting a full crew out here would be worth it.
“Just a look, kid, to scout it out. Fifteen minutes, in and out. I can’t fit through there, you know.”
At least going below would mean getting out of the cold and rain for a bit.
“Fine,” Cal finally agrees. “Just a look.”
“Great! I’ll watch the line
And so Cal finds himself lowering carefully down a cord into the darkness below, way lit by only the flashlight affixed firmly to his shoulder.
It’s hard to see the edges of the chasm. He can only hope it’s stable. The stillness and silence are good signs; no groans or creaks to signal points of instability. And, as it turns out, the bottom is not very far below the entry point. He still has a good twenty feet of line, coiled on the ground, when his boots touch the rocky surface. Cal unhooks from the rope and turns in a circle, letting the light fall around him. He stops in his tracks when the lamp’s glow lands on reflective metal.
“Shan was right,” he says through the radio. “There’s a whole bunch of smaller vessels down here, a pile of them. They’re damaged, but the metal doesn’t look corroded.” Probably protected from the foul Bracca weather by the roof of the cave. His current working theory is that this had once been an open valley in the wastes, and some sort of mudslide or wreck on top of them had created the cave structure, sealing in the old shuttles and sheltering them from decay. In the dark, the pile of ships stands out like a strange metal mountain, a peak of stacked metal jutting out from the shadows.
He ignores Prauf’s excited hoots that echo from above and from the radio and moves closer to the pile. Carefully, he starts to climb, mentally cataloging how many ships and roughly of what types. At a level point, he stops to take a break, smiling. The bonus really is going to be good on this haul. Cal moves a bit closer to inspect what looks to be an old Republic troop shuttle.
The edge of his lamplight catches something dull-white, propped against the outer wall of the shuttle. It takes another moment for his perception to catch up, to realize that the white object is the distinctive helmet of a clone trooper.
Instinctively, Cal skitters backward with a cry, until his back hits the wall of the cave. He braces himself for the blaster fire, suddenly shaking and clumsy hands desperately searching for the lightsaber he keeps hidden under his clothes.
His heart thunders in his chest. The pile of armor remains inert. Cal releases the hilt of his lightsaber. Of course…of course, he’s dead. It’s been four years.
Cal hasn’t faced a clone trooper since escaping the Venator with the body of his master four years ago, but the terror and confusion come roaring back as if it was only yesterday. He remembers clearly the way they hadn’t hesitated to fire on him, how they had hunted for him as he crawled through the burning maintenance shafts. The scars on his cheek and neck ache with the memory of the searing shots.
Prauf’s voice crackles over the radio, distracting him from the well of memories. “How’s it going down there, kid? You okay?”
Cal manages to find some amount of composure to respond. His breath hitches in his throat. “Fine. Found a body.”
“Shit. You think you can take care of it, or would we need to call disposal?”
Regular scrappers are permitted to dispose of skeletonized remains. If the body is fresh, it needs to go to the doc’s for identification, and then bio-waste specialists decontaminate the site before they start salvaging again. But it’s been four years. The body should be decomposed enough for Cal to take care of. All he needs to do is to pitch the remains off the pile of metal and onto the bottom of the cave. Once the Scrappers had finished lifting all the metal out, they’d collapse the hollow, and that would be as good a grave as any. But Cal realizes something awful.
That means he’s going to have to touch it.
Cal nearly gags in sudden revulsion. He presses his fist to his mouth and breathes through his nose for a moment. This was only meant to be a scouting trip, so he hadn’t brought his heavier protective gloves. He only wore fingerless pads meant to protect his palms from rope burn if he slipped on the cable. To maneuver the body into a position to be dropped down, he was going to have to touch it with his poorly-protected hands. And no amount of will is likely to stop him from feeling the echo in the Force. He can practically feel it now, the energy emanating towards him though he is a few feet away.
“Cal?”
He scrambles for his comm. “Yeah, I think it’s been long enough. Just give me a second…second to check.” He drops it again, pressing back up against the wall of the broken ship and breathing through nausea. He could save it for someone else. He could wait until they return and he’s wearing heavier gloves that might save him from the worst of the feeling. But he made a mistake and already told Prauf the body was down here, so if he doesn’t move it, there will be questions. He’s never been squeamish about shifting skeletons in the past. Prauf will wonder why he’s suddenly put off. He’s going to have to do it now.
But as horrifying as it will be, it’s also an opportunity. For the last four years, he hasn’t understood what happened that day. The troopers had turned on them so quickly, without any explanation. All he’d had was the horrible memories of blaster fire raining down on him and Master Tapal, a final message on a holocron he’d later destroyed out of fear it would be found, and the story the empire’s been peddling, that the Jedi betrayed the Republic and had to be eliminated.
The clone troopers had always been kind to them, up until that final moment. He had never understood how quickly they could betray them.
Cal crawls forward hesitantly. He has tried his best not to overtly use the Force since that day, fearful that someone would see or that the empire would somehow be able to trace it. But psychometry is another story. He’s never been in full control of it and can’t help sense echoes in everyday objects, especially ones with a strong emotional history. It still feels strange to consciously choose to embrace his power, to welcome the vision.
He hesitates another moment, wondering what he’s doing. But the pull of curiosity and the Force is too strong. He inches forward, pulling the fingerless glove off his right hand. Cal takes a steadying breath and lays his hand on the armor’s breastplate.
The cave dissolves.
In the blackness that descends, Cal gets only flashes of images and sounds. Pulling a comm out of his pack, the cloaked holographic figure that rises up…“Execute Order 66,”…an explosion, the Venator tilting severely…“Still can’t find the little one…he’s in the vents!”… blaster fire, Cal’s own young cry echoing through tunnels…“Padawan, quickly!”…
More than flashes of things he already remembered, already relived in the worst of his nightmares, Cal feels the sudden shift in emotions in the clone trooper. From boredom, hope that they’d be finally leaving Bracca, to a sudden, singular need to kill. There is nothing else but the primal desire to hunt and destroy, no other thoughts as to why. There is only the objective and the method. The trooper coordinates with the others, hunting the Jedi through the failing Venator, pursues Cal like he’d pursue any other enemy or any other prey.
The escape pod disengages. He can suddenly move again. He doesn’t know what the young Jedi had done to him, but one moment he had been about to fire the final shots and the next he couldn’t move. Time passes by in a wink. The others lunge forward, but he knows it’s too late. The shuttle is off, their prey escaping the Venator. But the hunt isn’t over. The prey is not dead, so the hunt cannot be over. He can think of nothing else until their objective is completed.
Some of the other troopers head to the control room to try and save the ship. The others try and get the other escape pod working. He knows there is a smaller fighter that should be operational, in the neighboring docking bay. That’s where he heads, thinking of nothing else by the small Jedi’s demise. He is bloodthirsty but feels no real hatred or anger. He hunts not out of murderous rage but cold, calculating need.
The Jedi must die. He must kill them. It is simple.
There was no way for him to know that the fighter’s control system had been compromised. The electronics to control the ship’s steering had been damaged by a droid’s blaster fire, and they’d not repaired it yet. The ship dives steeply down towards the wastes of Bracca as the Venator above explodes. The trooper watches the escape pod fall in an arc and tries to follow it, but cannot. The uncontrollable ship careens downwards, away from the pod and now the trooper feels rage, fury that his prey is slipping away, he fights to control the fighter as the ground gets closer-
Cal yanks his hand back just before the moment of impact, collapsing onto his side, breathing heavily. He clutches his hand to his chest and swallows down nausea. It takes a long time for reality to coalesce around him again. He focuses on the firm feeling of the metal under his body, the cool air, the smell of old oil and dirt.
He manages to get to his feet, glances back at the trooper’s skeleton. He hadn’t realized anyone had followed the pod away from the ship. If the starfighter hadn’t been damaged, the trooper might have actually made it to the ground to continue his hunt. Cal has a sudden flash of being stalked like an animal through the wastes and cannot keep down the nausea this time. He bends over, bracing himself against the wall of the shuttle, and vomits into a crevice until his stomach is empty and he’s only dry heaving.
“Cal? Hey, answer me, kid!” It sounds like Prauf has been trying to raise him for a bit.
Cal just manages to get control over himself and grabs the comm. “Sorry, electronics are weird down here,” he lies, hoping the rough quality of his voice won’t transmit through the frequency. “Something must be jamming them, or interfering. I took care of the body. I’m coming up in a minute.”
Prauf says something else that Cal can’t focus on. He can’t look at the clone trooper again, keeping his eyes downcast as he, for the second time that day, consciously calls upon the Force to shove the pile of armor and bones over the side of the pile. He can’t bear touching it again. The body clamors downwards, sliding along the slope of metal until it strikes the bottom with a muted thud.
The exercise had taught him almost nothing. He still did not understand how the empire had taken over so quickly, how with such simple words everything about the clones’ demeanor had shifted. At least he knows now that it had been a shift. For years he had wondered how they had all missed the signs, how the clones had acted their part so perfectly if they’d been planning on murdering them all along. But it hadn’t been an act. It had all been real, both the camaraderie and the cold violence that followed. But still, this jaunt into the past leaves him with more questions than answers, and no one left to ask.
Cal puts his gloves back on and mechanically climbs down the pile and back up the rope.
Prauf is there at the top, offering him a hand up. Cal shivers in revulsion at the touch, but Prauf doesn’t notice, only concerned about the haul down in the cave. Cal gives basic answers about the number and size of the ships and listens to Prauf cheerily speculate about the cost.
He does seem to notice something off as they get back to the speeder to take them back to base. “You okay? You seem spooked.”
Cal offers what he hopes is something of a sardonic smile. “It’s spooky down there.”
“Come on, don’t tell me you’re creeped out by a little skeleton. There’s no such thing as ghosts, kid, trust me.”
Cal isn’t sure if that’s quite true. He glances one last time back down into the darkness of the hollow and certainly feels haunted.
Later on, that night, tucked in his tiny dorm bed and safely hidden in the dark and among the snores of the other Scrappers, Cal curls around his master’s lightsaber and for the first time in years, cries. He weeps like a child, but as quietly as he can, with one hand pressed against his mouth and the other desperately clutching the metal of the lightsaber, to feel what he can of the last echoes of his master. Jaro’s hope that he will be safe, the lingering feelings of care and concern that Cal wraps himself up in like a warm blanket. He doesn’t know how long he weeps in the dark, but eventually, he cries himself to sleep and when he gets up in the morning, he goes back to work and tries to forget about the body in the wastes.