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The Partisans’ new base is bustling. Cal hasn’t seen this many of them gathered together, and acting this relaxed, since their victory on Kashyyyk. But they’re able to take advantage of the security inherent in its novelty: this remote base located on the edge of a thick forest had only been under their control for a little over 48 standard hours. It’s unlikely that the Empire has already cracked its location, and since still so few people know about it, they don’t have to be quite as careful about leaks and bugs. It’s been standard practice for the last few years to utilize this period of relative safety to gather together in larger number than would normally be risked, to exchange supplies and news, help each other with ship and weapon repair, and build a bit of camaraderie among the normally disparate small cells.
The invitation had come through the Mantis’s transponders so well encrypted that it took even Cere a full minute to crack it.
“I would like to go,” Merrin said immediately. “If we are to keep taking missions and tasks from these people, I’d like to get to know them.”
Greez agreed. “Yeah, and I’m hoping to get some fresh Candilin orange juice from that trader who shows up sometimes. And we could use some more insulation for the storage hold, especially if we keep up these deep space excursions.”
“No arguments here.” Cal stretched, pressing his hands flat to the ceiling. “We’ve practically been in wild space for weeks, could use a few hours on land. Some fresh air.”
“Cal, I don’t know what you’re implying, maybe if someone hadn’t brought a bogling stowaway on board-”
“I think that’s unanimous then,” Cere cut Greez off before the usual bogling argument could start again. She handed over the unencrypted coordinates to BD-1 to carry over to Greez. “Captain, set our course.”
“Way ahead of you.” He brought them back to real space, keyed in the new coordinates and jumped them back into hyperspace.
They landed a few hours later, in a wide clearing already teeming with ships and people. The clearing is bounded by the forest on three sides, and a broken, ruined city on the other. There’s something of a cantina that’s sprung up in the ruins, and some people have set out makeshift booths with goods for trade. It could almost be any other market, filled with people who were not on the run from the Empire. For a little while, they could almost forget what they were and just be normal, though that would be easier if more than half the booths were not fully made up of illegal weaponry. Cal figures it’s close enough. He takes a leisurely turn around the grounds, with BD-1 of course perched on his shoulder, taking in the slightly giddy atmosphere.
The Mantis crew had all gone their separate ways, to get a bit of a break from each other after weeks of being stuck together in a tight space. Greez had gone to find his Candilin orange dealer, Cere went to see if she could get any updates on the Empire’s encryption codes, and Merrin was wandering aimlessly, much like he was. He could see her hair moving through the crowd. Saw was nowhere to be seen, and Cal doesn’t recognize many of the other rebels, but then he catches sight of Mari across the crowd and gives her a wave. She returns it with a smile, beckoning him over, and he’s about to head over to catch up, when he’s stopped by a small voice saying, “Excuse me-”
Cal turns. Before him is a slight human woman, dressed in worn travel clothes and a woven red scarf. She looks a little nervous. “I’m sorry to bother you, but you’re Cal Kestis, right?”
“That’s me.” He would be set on edge by this stranger knowing his name, but she doesn’t seem to pose much of a threat. Shy, anxious, half a foot shorter than him and apparently unarmed.
“And you’re…you’re a Jedi?”
That sets off more alarm bells, but Cal’s long past denying it. “I am. Can I help you with something?”
“You might. At least, I’m hoping you can. Can we talk somewhere more private? Or at least a little quieter?” Cal agrees and the two of them go to a little outcropping in the ruins, close enough to hear the voices from the popup cantina, but secluded enough for a sensitive conversation. He sends BD to go find one of the others, both so that someone would know where he was in case of any danger, and because the woman had given the droid a wary look. Whatever she needed his help with, she was clearly afraid of being overheard. She relaxes once they’re alone. Cal wonders if she’s new to the fight, perhaps still a little uncomfortable around the rebels.
“Mari told me about you. She said you might be able to help me. My name is Lina and…” She swallows, hesitating. “My sister. She was a Jedi.”
Cal blinks. He doesn’t know what he expected her to say, but it was not that. “Oh.”
“I obviously didn’t know her very well. I was only three when she went to Coruscant. She was a year younger than me. We had some contact, later, but not much. Her name was Paila. Paila Haruss.”
“Sorry, I don’t know the name. I was only twelve when the Order fell so if she wasn’t in my age group…but Cere might, she’s my—”
“That’s not it. I—” She gets a painful look of pity on her face, eyes flitting to his scars. “Twelve? You were only twelve?” He nods, feeling his cheeks warm. “Twelve. That was what finally got me, you know. At first I was not…it wasn’t shame, not quite. But shock, I suppose. I was in shock. I didn’t think my sister could be a traitor, I didn’t think she could be all they said she was. But then I thought…well, I didn’t really know Paila. A handful of meetings over the years…maybe I had missed something, some sign. Maybe I was being manipulated. Maybe I had a rosy view of her in absence of really knowing her. But I started wondering.” She runs her hands through her graying hair. “There had been another family, the next town over. They’d come to us for advice after they had been contacted by the seekers. That child had to be…five, six at the most. I went to ask them what had happened. They said they never heard anything, had reached out only once, to their senator, and been told it was better to stop looking. Five years old. That’s when everything came crashing down and I couldn't believe the Empire's lies anymore. So I went looking for my sister but all I ever found was…this…”
She draws a bundle of cloth out of her satchel. Rough spun fabric, held closed with a black cord. She unravels it to reveal a black stone bracelet, nestled in the cloth. “I found it, a year ago, from a clone veteran. He said she was dead.”
“I’m sorry,” Cal says, and means it. His mind stumbles and sticks on the thought of the other child — he’d spent much of the last five years very, very carefully not thinking about the creches left behind at the Temple — so he’s slow to process where she was going with all this.
“He couldn’t remember what happened, but he knew her and he said he was sure she couldn’t have survived. And he gave me this.” She runs her fingers over the black beads. “I’m sure it was hers. This stone is mined and polished like this on our planet. I’m sure we sent it with her to the Temple, as a reminder of home.” She swallows. Cal feels a slightly nauseous sense of dread. “He couldn’t remember…it was just a blank he said. It was all a blank, like time had skipped over and she was just gone. I know, I know she probably didn’t survive. He told me not to have hope…but I can’t help it. I have to know for sure. If there’s any scrap of hope, I need to find her, to help her. Mari said that you can see things, that you can touch things, people’s belongings, and see things from the past.”
“You want me to find out what happened to your sister? If she could have escaped?”
Lina nods. “If you can. Please. It’s been five years of searching, of wondering. Our brother thinks I’m mad, he thinks I should have given her up for dead. He has his own way of dealing with things. But I can’t let her go. Not until I know for sure.” She extends the bracelet towards him.
Cal frowns down at the bracelet. “I can’t promise anything. It doesn’t always work the way you’d want it to. I can’t control what I see. And it would have to be something she was wearing when it happened. If it’s not, if it fell off or—”
“I understand it’s a long shot. I know, it’s crazy to hope. But if there’s any chance you could tell me what happened to her, I had to ask. Maybe we could finally move on.”
Cal bites the inside of his lip. Oh no. He’s being rapidly won over by the sheer desperation in her eyes. He glances warily at the beads. It could be nothing. It might have actually belonged to someone else or it could simply hold no echo at all. As soon as the thought crosses his mind he knows it’s not true. He can already feel the shimmer of the past, drawing him in. The Force wants him to look. It always wants him to look, to bear witness. He’s just not sure he wants to see. He has enough nightmares of that day, between his own, Cere and Trilla’s that he’d picked up from Trilla’s lightsaber, the pair of remains he’d found on the wrecked Venator on Zeffo. It’s a lot to take in, he’s not sure he’s strong enough to hold on to yet more memories of that day.
But isn’t this what they’re meant to be doing? Finding survivors, helping to track any bit of the Order that could have possibly survived? If this Paila did survive, she might need help. Even if she didn’t, can Cal leave Lina wondering like this? That doesn’t feel right.
Cal takes a deep breath and nods. “I can try. Are you sure you really want to know? Because it’s probably not good news.”
Lina nods. “I know. It’ll be better than not knowing. Anything will be better than not knowing.”
“Okay. I’ll try.”
He hesitates only a moment more before reaching out and touching the pads of his fingertips to the polished stone beads.
Cal sits with his back resting against the cool metal hull of the Mantis, tucked in the door with his legs stretched out in front of him and his hands resting in his lap. He is very, very carefully not thinking of anything at all and very, very carefully not moving.
Familiar footsteps approach, then stop. “You’re back early.”
Cal half-wishes it had been Greez or Merrin to come back and find him. Them he could handle without thinking too much. Because if he thinks, the spike of pain currently boring into his right temple drives in a little further, and if he thinks, he remembers, and both of those things make him want to vomit. But of course it is Cere that finds him here, as he knew she would. The wind picks up, cooling the nearly-dry tear tracks on his cheeks. “So are you.” His voice is a pathetic croak.
Cere walks up the gangway and sits on the edge so that they’re face to face, letting her legs dangle over the side. “Can you tell me what happened?” Her voice is painfully gentle. Cal closes his eyes.
The worse part was how fast it was. Fast and brutal. Everything was normal one moment, and then, in the memory of Paila Haruss, Cal had turned to the line of troopers. All of them had their sights trained on her. Without more than a second to consider what was happening, they had all opened fire. A dozen bolts, more, had pierced her body. She was dead before she hit the ground.
With his eyes closed, in a low voice, he tells Cere what he’d done, what he’d seen. “Maybe I shouldn’t have looked, shouldn’t have told her. But after, she did seem better. Not at peace but…but like she might accept it.”
“It can be very difficult, not knowing. I expect there are many families throughout the galaxy who have been left wondering all this time. It was good of you to help her find closure. Does your head hurt?”
He nods, regretting the movement immediately. His vision blacks out for a moment and then bleeds slowly back in. “Death’s hard. It always seems to hurt more.” Suddenly overwhelmed, he presses the heels of his hands to his eyes, both to relieve some of the migraine pressure and to hide the way his eyes had filled once again with tears. He still feels the shock, the jolt of the blaster bolts. The echo blends with his own memories of crawling through burning vents, of being too slow and too clumsy and so small and so scared. The migraine is typical after these visions, but this time his old scars ache too. He drops his hands from his eyes, and touches the scar on his neck, looking at his fingertips as if he’d see blood as fresh as the day he got them. Like five years hadn’t passed, and the wound hadn’t healed. But there’s nothing there.
Cere holds out one hand towards his. “Can I try something? I’m not sure it will work, but there’s a pressure point in your hand that can help with headaches. Might be worth a shot.”
He nods, then winces. “Ow.”
“Close your eyes.” He obeys and Cere takes his hand in hers. She presses down with her thumb until it almost hurts, then eases up and presses down again. She keeps down that in a regular pattern and with her other hand she finds the pulse in his wrist, gently running her fingertips from that pulse to the crook of his elbow. He suspects she’s doing something in the Force but it’s subtle enough he can’t pick it apart. It does help, after a quiet minute of repetitions. The nausea eases up and the muscles in his neck that had been painfully taut start to relax.
“Did you ever think about finding them?" he asks. "Your birth family?”
Cere is quiet for a long moment before she answers. “No, I didn’t. I think I was afraid of what I’d find. For every one like the one you helped today, there’s another who believes what the Empire tells them about us. It’s possible that they would have been welcoming, relieved…but equally possible that they wouldn’t. It was a risk I didn’t want to take.” Cere stops the pressure in his hand, but keeps her fingers on his pulse. The headache doesn’t worsen again. “There was a girl. I heard about her shortly before I found you. She had been a senior padawan, in her twenties. I picked up her trail and found the people who’d sheltered her in the first days after the massacre. They told me that a few months after, they learned her birth family had been searching for her. They reached out. She secured false identity documents, booked passage…and vanished. They’d assumed she found her family and was in hiding with them now. I almost didn’t go after her. They were so sure she was safe. Still, I felt compelled to check. Travelled to her family’s hometown and got the story from the neighbor, after buying him a few drinks at the cantina. She made it. They took her in for one night. The Empire moved in the next day. Hauled her off screaming.” Cere’s next breath is a little unsteady. Both of them know all too well where the young woman had ended up. The only question was how deeply she was buried in the Inquisitors’ fortress. “Her birth family had lured her out of hiding, and betrayed her. I found out that their son got a place at the academy with an assurance of a good commission on graduation and the father secured a lucrative Imperial contract. Rewards for turning in their traitor Jedi daughter.” Cal can tell how heavily this story weighed on her. “I wish it were not so difficult to trust. I’d like to think that if someone reached out, I might find connection. I have sympathy for the families out there forever wondering…but I admit I have to be wary of them as well.”
“Do you think I shouldn’t have told Lina about her sister?”
“No, I think you did the right thing. The Partisans are careful, I trust their vetting process. But perhaps if it had lead to a survivor, their location, maybe be careful of how much information you reveal. Something to consider, if it ever comes up again. Just be aware of what you’re giving away. And how much you’re taking on. How’s your head feeling?”
“Better.” The pain is fading. He just feels tired now, like he could sleep for a few days. “Thanks, Cere.”
“Don’t mention it. Actually do, if it helped. You can come to me any time.” She pats his hand. “And if your family is something you want to pursue for yourself, I would support you. I hope you know that.”
“I never even thought about it. I guess I never thought I’d leave Bracca. I was just taking everything day by day, they didn’t even cross my mind. And it does seem unfair. If they’re just out there, living normal lives, to bring all this danger to them. Seems like I should just leave them alone. I’m glad I could help Lina though.”
“That was good. I hope she can find peace. As for you: come on. Let’s get you some water, and then to bed.” She gets to her feet, offering him a hand up. Cal takes it and lets her help him up.
“I’m sorry about what happened to the other girl.”
I am too. I’m sorry about them all.” They both wallow in the melancholic mood for a moment, and then Cere nudges him into the Mantis. “Water. Food. Bed. Let’s go.”
“Did you get what you came for?”
Cere shakes her head. “We’re all in the dark, just taking stabs. Imperial codes change faster than we can keep ahead of them.”
“Hopefully the others had better luck.”
“Be careful what you wish for, have you ever actually had a Candilin orange…”
Cere makes him drink a full glass of water and have some bland toast. Merrin returns soon after, BD-1 in tow, and they all talk for a bit, until it’s fully dark outside, making sure to keep the conversation light. After Cal nearly falls asleep at the table, Cere sends him to bed. He crashes into his bunk, listening to their voices and the distant hum of the gathered rebels outside. He falls asleep almost as soon as his head hits the pillow and dreams of a question he’ll probably never find the answer to.
Back at the ruins of the city, the makeshift cantina has become a bonfire. The rebels gather around, swapping stories and watching the firelight dance. A woman breaks off from the group, stealing into the shadows. She drops to her knees in the starlight and buries a bundle of cloth in the dusty soil and she lets her sister go. When she returns to the party, she has an air of sadness with her, but seems lighter. A heavy burden had been weighing on her for five years and it’s gone now. The others take notice of this as they welcome into the circle around the fire with open arms.