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The commander would be appalled, Cal thinks as his eyes rake over the repurposed hangar. Although surprisingly well-built for its placement within a ravine with a size limit, it is… disorganized. There is no division. He can see the sleeping quarters and the command tent and the armory, all from the off-ramp of the ship he arrived on.
Maybe this place is not the largest– an old smuggler’s rest, perhaps?– and lacks any sort of complex attached, maybe it is just the lone hangar, used to duck out of sight more than for storage or living. Maybe there used to be a complex, but it fell apart and has been rendered unusable. An explosion, or a less intentional collapse.
He would actually cry.
Of that, Cal has no doubt. Operational security must be a nightmare to uphold in a place like this, where discussions of strategy and data cannot be withheld from anyone here. For the GAR, it would be workable– no brother would ever willingly sell out their own even if they walked into a meeting they were not meant to see.
For this cabal– this group of strangers working without support against a powerful, wealthy, corrupt enemy– relying on such faith and goodwill is what someone should be calling MAD at best and tantamount to suicide at worst. He wonders what measures they have in place to prevent spies from eavesdropping– all it takes is a single reprogrammed mouse droid, let alone an actual traitor or espionage spider-droid. Cal would know.
All things considered, though, he already expected the disarray. Logically, this cabal has limited structure to it for being swept together so quickly and secretly. Most of its current ranks might technically have prior experience, but only individually. Not as a group, and certainly not under a unified hierarchy. There is no government backing them up with state-of-the-art weaponry or professional training or fully outfitted outposts, and no way for them to create such things without the Empire blasting them ten ways straight into the nearest trash compactor.
These people are citizens and smugglers. They are still adapting, still learning the methods of an Empire that behaves like the Republic in only the most superficial ways, still determining what works and what does not. They know individuals, groups and factions of the planetary scale. Not on the full galactic scale, however, not yet.
Cal may not be used to being the one calling shots outside of battle, but he has had to think in terms of sectors instead of cities since he was dumped on a venator without so much as a regulation manual to guide him. Nor, ironically, so much as a by your leave.
If they were only working on the scale of a single planet, or working on one place at a time, dissidents could get away with the lack of structure here. Working on the scale of the entire galaxy, organization will be vital if they are to get anywhere. They combined might of several thousand planets working against them, being fed so many lies and propaganda that it may as well be a miracle that the nonsense has not blotted out the skies.
“Kestis,” the weathered man in front of him acknowledges-greets, turning and waving a hand forwards in a gesture to follow. The movement makes the patch of snowcap-pale hair atop his head flop in a different direction, and the two of them start walking.
This is General Devlin, Cal is fairly sure, though that title is of the in all but name variety. The cabal does not have titles like that, not yet. Popular opinion is still that they’re simply correcting mistakes, not that this is a dawning insurrection hoping to bring down an Empire before it learns to run instead of walk.
As he said– civilians.
He is the one that approached them first, and he already knew the approximate location of three different cells before he did so. Cal does not know how large this cabal truly is, but with any hope he can help them pull together before the Empire deems them enough of a threat to quash.
General Devlin leads him to an alcove in the corner of the hangar, one of those spots that has been shuffled around and turned into a sleeping space. Only a handful of people are actually in it for the moment, the residents scattered around doing whatever it takes to keep this place functional.
“San’ra,” the man calls out, and though a few heads turn no one moves until a woman comes jogging out from behind a pile of crates with a datapad in her hand and a bundle of space-grade wire tucked under her arm.
There are two dark bars on each of her cheeks, and the uppermost ones have a downward point at the outer edges. Cal does not know much, but he’s fairly certain that the pattern is supposed to represent loss– the smaller, lower bar is for the first person that was lost. The uneven number of smaller, hollow triangles lined up beneath the pattern… those that still remain, maybe.
She will need to rethink her method of remembrance soon, because unless she falls first then there will be many more marks in her future. He can appreciate a permanent reminder, but Cal hardly has the room on his skin to cover just his battalion, let alone the rest of the Order. He has already had to separate the spoken remembrances and later stop them entirely when days of voicelessness followed.
“San’ra,” General Devlin reiterates when the woman finally nears them, “meet your new recruit, Cal Kestis. Kestis, this is your new squad leader– San’ra Sryte.”
I’m not in command?
Of course not. He is the odd one out in this place. He is the one that still needs to prove he is trustworthy, that he is capable. That he is not a traitor just waiting to tell the Empire everything needed to ruin their plans.
It’s like following the General–
How much do the people here know about tactics? Cal wonders, and he salutes in lieu of a verbal response to the introduction. They must know at least something about guerilla warfare to be here, or else he may be having some choice words about resource allocation later.
No, that is not fair. Iron Battalion gave Cal a chance to learn. He must do the same.
If nothing else, he has enough experience in going from untrained diplomat to career soldier to help others go through the same sort of struggle.
Leader Sryte frowns at Devlin, only giving Cal a flickering glance. “What?”
Ah. Already, part of him wants to close his eyes and pray to the Force for patience. He can imagine it, at least, and imagine Bit clapping his back and laughing about how similar he looks to their other commander when he worries. It’s the sort of comment that would’ve prompted Cal to Lift the trooper by his kama until General Tapal came around to scold him.
Mostly because someone else always inevitably asked if it was twirling time, and he’d be trailing troopers through the air behind him like baby nunas by the end of the hour. It was a good exercise, a challenge, even if it was also misusing the Force. He does not think he could still manage it– that particular ability had been a gift of trial and circumstance, and it shattered with the War’s sputtering end.
“Kestis will be joining you on missions from now on,” General Devlin– still not Cal’s general, but a general nonetheless– clarifies. “I imagine his skillset will be of quite some use to you.”
“That is a child. Why our team?”
Cal twitches. The term is biting, a mockery of who he is and a reminder that when outsiders look at him they only see his age instead of his experience. Some members of the 13th would call him Kid in jest, but only in the same way that a lot of them called each other that exact same thing. It had just been another way to say vod or batchmate or Brother for them, really– age was mostly irrelevant.
He might have arrived as a Shiny, but he has not been a cadet or a fresh-faced rookie since the first month. Not since the first time he held a dying Brother in his arms while they apologized for the inconvenience. Not since the first time he left the Brave with a platoon and returned with only half.
“With all due respect,” Cal speaks up, and currently means none at all, “until the… fallout on Coruscant and subsequent dissolution of the Grand Army, my title was Commander Kestis. I served in the Wars, and I will continue to serve until I am no longer needed.”
Remember, Commander, we’re only ever a half-step away.
He is what the Republic made him to be. They placed a nine year old on the front lines and told him to die for the sake of the Senate. They put a psychometrist on a ship that met with death on a weekly basis and told him to sink or swim.
And so he did. He fought, and the Jedi in him died while the Trooper lived on. Dozens upon dozens of broken bonds still sit in the back of his mind, untended, trailing like a mikkian’s headtails.
Leader Sryte stutters, wordless.
“And it is for that reason he will be joining you,” Devlin tells her. “This is not a thoughtless choice. Kestis has a good head on his shoulders, and experience with missions like yours. Do not waste that talent.”
Cal does not say anything further. The phantom pressure of a gloved palm burns itself into his shoulder.
It will not be long, he thinks. Sith or otherwise, governments cannot simply shift form overnight without instability. People don’t appreciate words like empires, it does not matter that most denizens of the Republic outside of Coruscant never even think of the Republic at all. What do they care for interplanetary laws when they are unlikely to leave their home, or for some government resting halfway across the galaxy? He knows how the galaxy felt about the GAR, however, and even under a different name it is still the same at its core.
There are always both critics and fanatics. The Emperor has his fanatics already. The insurgency just needs to leverage critics in the right places, needs the right people to pick apart the flaws and reveal the sheer injustice within this new, still-settling system. Just one place at a time– the Empire cannot be everywhere at once, even with the former GAR at its command.
I’ll hold the line like I swore to, General, but I don’t think I’m much of a Jedi anymore. I’ll hold the line until the galaxy is ready for someone to pick up the mantle.
Just a little while before Cal can go home.
Just as long as it takes for this operation to be seen to its completion.