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Sunrise, creepin’ in your eyes
Cold empty sidewalks
Miles away from trustin’ someone
Far from giving up
Young blood, cry tough
Mean street run
There’s a hunger inside you
Desperate rebel runaway
Far from giving up
-Journey, “Troubled Child”
*****
His escape from Bracca was completely and utterly chaotic.
He was fleeing through the train, over, under, and around the cars, dodging around stormtroopers and a variety of other obstacles, when a ship suddenly showed up to save him. A woman he did not know was calling out for him to jump. Against his better judgment, yet listening to his desire for escape, he did just that, but he missed the ramp and crashed down onto another platform somewhere lower on Bracca.
And then, he was dueling the Second Sister. Despite never having seen his face, she had figured out who he was. There was only one person he could be. She taunted him throughout the entire fight. A failed Padawan, failed Inquisitor. There seems to be a pattern with you, Brother. Ironic that you also fail to die. Tell me, why can’t you even do that one simple task?
Her constant remarks caused the anger somewhere deep inside himself --- the anger that had grown and festered over the past years, regardless of how much he was urged to move on and let it go, regardless how much he tried --- to stir. As the fight went on, seeing how badly he was getting beat, he tapped back into the Force, but only briefly. Not that it was much help, just enough to prevent the Second Sister from taking his head off.
Still, it had been years since he picked up a lightsaber. His connection to the Force, to the light side, was…
He did not want to think about it.
There was a strange sense of comfort that came over him, like returning to familiar location after being away for so long. Not quite home, but somewhere he knew very well. The voice seemed to be urging on his every move, giving him ideas and plans for what to do next. His attacks became more vicious and aggressive, far more on the offensive than the defensive. The Second Sister did not seem surprised. He suspected that she had wanted him to do it, those suspicions were only confirmed when he managed a strike that knocked her back and he felt a stinging hint of glee somewhere near the top of his skull.
So, you still have some fight in you, after all. I should have expected that, considering most don’t survive a saber wound through the gut, she said before bringing her blade down on top of his.
He was only rescued by the strange woman on the ship firing at him and the Second Sister in a bladelock. Cal was thrown through the air, and his harsh landing on the ground snapped him out of it, severing his tether to the Force. His mind became clear. He felt strangely empty, like he was leaving a familiar place and wandering back into the unknow again. Once he managed to recover, Cal rushed onto the ship, up the ramp, into the cockpit, his saber ignited, mind still panicked and searching for enemies and threats, as the woman continued firing upon the Second Sister.
Relentless as ever, the Inquisitor then jumped onto the exterior of the ship, hanging on like an ever-persistent spider. Using the Force, she reached out and attempted to take control from the pilot, spinning them in wild erratic circles, but the strange woman snatched the controls and yanked the ship so hard to the side the Second Sister slipped right off.
He did not realize when they made it into hyperspace. That after three years, he was leaving Bracca.
He also did not realize the Latero pilot and the woman were staring at him with entirely different expressions.
The Latero, eyes wide with terror, pointed an accusatory finger at him and wheeled on the woman. “You said we were picking up a Jedi!” There was cold fear radiating off him, tingling at the base of Cal’s neck.
“We are.” The dark-skinned woman turned to Cal, a ferocious look in her eye. Her determination spread across his chest. Determination to do what exactly, he could not discern, but Cal was not willing to take any chances.
He ignited the second blade of his saber and assumed a similar stance to the Second Sister --- one half of the blade turned down, held defensively in front of his chest. Like an animal waiting to strike.
“That’s not a Jedi!” the Latero said.
The woman waved him off, then slowly started toward Cal with her hands raised like she was calming a scared animal. “Look, I know you’re scared, and- “
With every step she took forward, Cal took one back. “Who are you people?” he demanded, moving around the holotable in the middle of the room.
“We’re not going to- “
“I asked you a question,” he interrupted sharply, voice low. The backs of his knees hit corner of the sofa. He was half-tempted to look back, but he kept his eyes firmly on the woman, his face even. Against his will, his heart stuttered over a beat at the thought of being backed into a corner.
Her eyes glanced down to the sofa and the way Cal shifted his stance, moving his feet a bit farther apart as if preparing to spring.
The woman stopped advancing on him but kept her hands raised. There was not too much room between them, and if he needed to rush and jab at her, he could before she realized what had even happened. “My name is Cere Junda.” Cal’s head tilted slightly, eyes narrowing. He recognized that name. “And this is my captain, Greez Dritus.” She motioned to the Latero, who had moved from the pilot’s seat to beside Cere.
Greez shakily nodded to Cal. “How- how you doin’?” His beady eyes were intently focused on Cal’s saber. “The- the Mantis is my ship, but you better pay attention to this lady here.” He pointed to Cere.
“Where did you get that lightsaber?” Cere asked.
Cal’s eyes flitted back and forth between the two of them. “Your pilot’s already got it figured out.” He motioned with his head to Greez but showed no signs of wavering in his stance, flexing his fingers around the hilt. “It’s mine.”
The fear coming from the pilot spiked, sending a stabbing pain down his spine. He let out a shaky exhale but made no other sign of discomfort.
“But you’re not like the people who wield it anymore, are you?” Cere continued, tone and face neutral.
Her eyes drilled into him for an agonizingly long moment before he mentally shook himself. He could still sense the residual traces of the dark side within him, the longing for it reopened with a renewed vigor since it had been so long since he had allowed himself to fall to it. But in the quiet hum of the ship --- the Mantis, the pilot had called it --- and the emptiness of hyperspace around, the chaos of the fight with the Inquisitors far behind, he no longer felt the desire to attack, to protect nothing but himself, even if it meant harming someone else. “No.” He moved back to normal stand and deactivated the blade. “I’m not.” I’m not, he vowed to himself as he holstered the weapon away.
The fear from the pilot dimmed ever-so slightly, and a sense of calm came over the woman. “So… “Cere began, “who’re you?”
“Are you following the Inquisitors?” Cal demanded, still on guard. On the off chance they showed up when the Inquisitors did… no, it could not be coincidence. “Why’d you help me?”
“We track Imperial communications,” Cere explained, indicating Greez and herself with a wave of her hand. “We heard the Inquisitors were heading to Bracca, so we made our move.”
“Oh, yeah?” Cal scoffed, hand starting to drift back toward his saber. The Latero stiffened, mouth peeling open to warn Cere. “And what’s the bounty on Imperial traitors these days?”
“We’re- We’re not going to turn you in, kid,” Greez stuttered out. “Believe me, if we were, I would’ve had your ass on the ground in five seconds. I don’t want an Inquisitor freely roaming the halls of my ship.”
Oh, you would’ve? Cal desperately wanted to answer. Instead, he settled for returning the comment with a dismissive look.
“I remembering hearing about you,” Cere said. Her eyes shifted down to his hand nearing his blade. “The defector Inquisitor. Most everyone who knows has said you were dead. You’re… the Fourth Brother?”
“Sure,” Cal responded sharply back. “We’ll go with that.”
Greez snorted. “ The Fourth Brother,” he mocked. “I ain’t calling you that. You got like an actual name?”
His name was on the tip of his tongue, but he pushed it back. “Well, you’re going to have to because if I did, it’s none of your business.” It was not something he gave away freely. The Empire knew who he was. He did not tell Prauf his name until almost three months after they first met, with the latter just referring to him as “kid” for the first while.
“Oh, so you just ran around Bracca for Force-knows-how-long calling yourself ‘the Fourth Brother?’” The pilot scoffed. “Wonder how they found you… “
He wanted to return with another biting retort, but Cere drew his attention again. “Fourth Brother,” she began once more. “Four, if that’s okay. I get it. You’ve been surviving on your own for so long that it’s impossible to trust anyone. And it’s what’s kept you alive. But this is about something bigger than just… surviving.”
He narrowed his eyes. “And what could be bigger than surviving for someone like me?”
Her tone became evermore serious as she looked him dead in the eye and said, “Rebuilding the Jedi Order.”
In the silence that followed, Cal realized she expected it to be some sort of bombshell, some huge drop that would win him over without any more effort. He had to smother down a laugh. “You certainly came to the right place, then,” he responded acidly.
Her disappointment sunk to his gut. “Four- “Cere tried.
“No, no, no,” he interrupted. “No, I completely get it. You two- “he looked between her and Greez” - against the Empire. With nobody else?” Cal shrugged. “Sounds like it’ll go over so well.”
“What?” Greez held his arms wide, indicating himself. “We’re not good enough for ya, Four?”
“Oh.” He turned back to Cere. “You want… me to help you? What are you, a recruiting service?”
“No,” Greez responded, interrupting whatever Cere was going to say. “We just risked out necks for you, had a big ol’ fight with an Inquisitor, and decided to keep you here on this ship standing on your feet rather than knocked out and cuffed up somewhere just because we were in a real peachy mood.”
(Decidedly, Cal was going to slap him in the next five minutes if he opened his mouth again, consequences be damned.)
“There’s no one else we can find,” Cere said. “The Jedi Council, our greatest hope, is gone. You’re all we have.”
Oh, stars above, how hopeless do you have to be to come to Cal Kestis, failed Padawan, failed Inquisitor, for help? “Look, thanks for rescuing me back there, but I’m the last person you want to rebuild the Jedi Order.” Cal shoved down all the memories of his time with the Inquisitors that had arisen today, that were edging their way into his mind at the moment. “There are dozens of other survivors out there somewhere. We- they haven’t gotten them all. I can show you suspected hideouts of where some might be. Help you find someone more worthy to do this. Just agree to take me where I want to go, and I’ll be out of your way. It’s safer for you.”
Greez snorted again. “Safer? Did you not see the crazy lady jump on the front of my ship and try to kill us? We know exactly what we’re getting ourselves into."
“Harboring a former Inquisitor isn’t much more dangerous than harboring a survivor of the Purge,”’ Cere added. "Ironically, you happen to be both, but we'll go with the level of the former for now."
Cal's head tilted. "Is that a joke?"
"A bad one, but we'll go with it for now."
Holy kriff, they were hopeless. Cal shook his head. “No, it’s not like that. The Second Sister is a relentless hunter. She won’t stop going after you until she has me.”
“And why’s that?” Greez challenged.
He flashed back to every time the two of them had been paired on a crusade together. How she would push and push and push, keep going until they physically or mentally could not. She would not be deterred by cold leads or lost trails, instead turning to him and his abilities to press farther and farther, far as she could. “She doesn’t like prey who escape her.”
It put question into them, pressing at the back of his skull. “Four- “Cere took a step toward him. Thoughtlessly, Cal stepped back, hand returning to his saber from where it had dropped away. “You were once a Jedi, weren’t you?”
Barely, he wanted to say. “I was,” he replied instead.
Cere nodded. “The Empire, they did that to you.” She motioned to his saber. “They turned you to the dark side. But you turned away from it all, if I would have to guess.” She paused, looking expectantly at him.
He offered her a small nod.
“You know the Inquisitors and the Empire, but you also know the Jedi. Really, I think there is no one better suited for the task,” Cere finished.
He wanted to call her out on her words. She was partially correct, but not all, and it was what was incorrect that stung the most. He wanted to blame the Empire, but he knew he could not. He wanted to blamed Vader, who had overseen the torture and the training. The Emperor, who ordered the process on a select few imprisoned survivors he had taken a favor to or saw potentially useful abilities. They had put him in the situation, but they had not done it entirely.
It was his own choice, to turn to the dark side. To let it fully consume him, to drown in everything it offered. Cal vividly remembered being dropped out of the chair, yanked to the floor by the Force Vader had manipulated. He recalled anger and hate, everything he had been warded away from as a Padawan, filling him.
In a moment of fury, he had unleashed it all on Vader, throwing the Dark Lord back into a far wall. He suffered far more punishment and pain for that; it had only served to strengthen the dark side’s hold on him.
It became addicting, the power that it offered. He had ignored what it was doing to him. How it was slowly killing him, how the sick satisfaction he got from all the torment, killing, and endless power was not fulfilling him. Despite it all, how he was still empty and barely living.
He was little more than a shell of a person, less than a failed Padawan or an Inquisitor or a nobody in the grand scheme of the galaxy, when Second Sister had left him for dead. He still felt like that shell most of the time, barely biding his time, barely surviving, until something happened. Until either he died, relapsed, or was found and forced back into the life he had fled from.
Dying would be a greater mercy than such.
Cere thought he had turned back to the light.
He hadn’t. Not entirely.
There were still times when everything threatened to take him. Somedays, he thought about fighting it. Proving that he was better, he had grown. He could become the person he had always desired to be. He was who Cal Kestis should have been.
But most, he thought everything would be easier if he just let it happen. Let the shadows of the Fourth Brother control him. Become nothing more than an angry ghost, controlled by the dark side, by everything negative that he carried.
He had not turned back. He had not left it all behind. It was all still there.
The light was repulsed by him. The dark welcomed him.
But Cere…
It had been so long since someone had looked at him with that much hope in their eyes. Hope he felt singing across his heart. He wanted to believe it was misplaced, but it was so... genuine. She did not think him a lost cause, time and space wasted.
Master Tapal had always seen what she saw in Cal. The desert wanderer, the man who had helped Cal get back on his feet after Second Sister tried to kill him, saw it too.
And Prauf. Prauf, who died standing up for what was right, for what he believed him. Braver than Cal or anyone else was. And he had died for it.
He could not change the past. Who he was, what he had done. The best he could hope for was to atone for the future, make a better tomorrow so no one else ended up as he did. He could rebuild a new Jedi Order for people like him --- like he was before --- to know safety and security, that nothing, not even the herculean Empire, omnipotent Emperor, or almighty dark side, could touch them.
Even if he could never truly be a part of it.
Slowly, Cal inclined his head toward her in agreement.
She nodded back. “Captain,” she said to Greez, “set a course for Bogano.”
Greez narrowed his eyes at her then motioned with his head toward Cal, asking a silent question. You sure?
She gave him a stern look that reminded Cal of a scolding mother.
He sighed. “Aye, aye,” he muttered, throwing Cal a glare before moving off to the cockpit. Cal matched it with a glare of his own.
“In the meantime- “Cal looked to Cere” -try and relax.” She held a hand out, indicating the back of the ship. At his skeptical expression, she added, “Go. You’re safe.”
“Ah, ah, ah.” Greez turned back from the cockpit. He pointed to Cal’s belt. “He might be safe, but I don’t feel so. I want his weapon.”
Oh, he’s really asking for it, isn’t he? the voice whispered in Cal’s ear, and it was the one time that he could agree with. Cal shifted, turning to face the Latero, his hand going for his saber once more. The dark side brushed at his mind. His fingers twitched on the hilt of the saber.
“Greez, that’s enough,” Cere snapped.
“What?” Greez threw his hands in the air in frustration. “I have reason.”
Just push him back, the voice continued. A light, little tap. It’s not hard. Just to teach him a lesson in keep his fat mouth shut because it’s really bothering me.
Cal smothered the voice. As tempting at it was, he was not going to do it. Not when he thought he might have just earned Cere’s trust. Annoying as he found the pilot, it was too petty to go that far to do anything about it.
Of course, he thought Greez was right. He had no reason to trust Cal, especially after the whole debacle with the Second Sister earlier. From what he had seen with Inquisitors and what they were capable of, what the sabers could do in the right hands, asking for his weapon… Cal was surprised neither had done it earlier.
“No,” he said quietly. “He’s right.” Both Cere and Greez turned to him with expressions of shock, probably at the fact he was agreeing with Greez. Drawing in a breath, he unclipped the saber from his belt and held it out to Cere. He despised the damned, cursed thing. Yet, it was hard to part with it.
Cere’s eyes remained locked upon the blade before she placed a hand on the crescent ring and pushed it back toward him. “You keep it,” she said firmly. Cal blinked, and Greez opened his mouth to argue. “Take it,” she continued, speaking louder to drown out whatever Greez was about to say, “take it as a token of good faith. You are safe here, and I trust you. Can you say the same for me?”
He bit the inside of his cheek. She’s a stranger, the rational part of him argued. You’ve never been good with strangers. Prauf was just a lucky case. You don’t know her, don’t know if she’s telling the truth. Why would some random stranger want to rebuild the Jedi Order?
But a different part of him rebutted that. The same part that had felt warm and healthy as he had tapped into the Force once more to save Prauf. It hummed strongly somewhere deep within him, told him that Cere was safe. That Cere was truthful, that she would not lie and betray him like others in the past.
So, he slowly nodded. “I can.”