Chapter Text
“Is there something on your mind?”
It takes him a moment to realize that someone is speaking, and another three to realize that he is the one being spoken to. Cal looks away from the holotable.
“I– no. Not really.”
“Sounds complicated,” Cere comments wryly. “You’ve been staring at the starmap hard enough that I’m surprised you haven’t burned a hole through it.”
He grimaces. He had not even noticed, really. He has been too busy simply– thinking, he supposes. Trying to parse through things he cannot understand.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks, curious. As if he even knows what ‘it’ is.
Cal leans back against the cushioning of the couch, and glances back at the holotable. The map is on, and set to some planet that he cannot for the life of him remember the name of, right now. There is no point in remembering. It is just one of many they have visited, recently.
“I don’t know if I can,” Cal admits. “I just– feel like there’s something I’m supposed to do, and I don’t know where or what it is.”
“Is it your heart that’s telling you that? Or is it the Force?”
“I don’t know.”
And that is the frustrating thing, he thinks. He does not know what it is he is supposed to be doing. He needs to keep fighting the Empire, to keep holding the line. For Master Tapal, for the Jedi, for the Republic. For everybody who died because their men turned on them.
Except he does not. Except that fight feels vacant in ways he cannot describe, like it simply is not worth it in the end. Like he has been giving all he has, but it does not replenish or help anything. It just means that he has one less fight in him, and a hundred new people are dead. And– fighting the Empire should be a good thing. Because the Empire is tyranny and fear and does not care who it kills for getting in its way.
That fight does not call to him. He does not feel it in his soul. It feels like nothing more than a token effort and empty words. Like soothing symptoms instead of rooting out causes, and saying, “See? You’re cured, just for now.”
Cere sits down beside him. “Have you meditated on this yet?”
“Yeah. No answers there. Figures.” Cal has… limited trust in the Force. On Bracca, he could not trust it at all. Master Tapal’s death shattered his shields, and every time he so much as thought of using the Force, it risked sweeping him away in floodwaters too deep for him to escape.
That risk is miniscule, now, but Cal spent five years knowing that it could kill him in an instant. That the Force did not warn the Jedi of their impending fates at all. Except, of course, for a lone man who informed only a single archivist of his expectations.
Maybe, because he struggles to trust the Force, it struggles to trust him in return. Maybe it does not answer his inquiries because he does not expect it to. He does not know.
“Well,” Cere says, and she waves one arm in front of her, “the map is right there. Maybe if you look, you’ll find what you’re searching for.”
Given that there are hundreds of thousands of planets in the galaxy, that would take a while. If it works at all.
“We’ll support you no matter what you do, Cal.”
Well, now he has to at least try.
Even as he searches, he does not stop taking missions from Saw. In the end, it takes five months, twenty-three days, and the destruction of two and a Imperial bases to figure out that desert planets draw his gaze the most.
It takes another tenday for him to find a name that makes the Force sing.
“So, this is our next stop?” Merrin asks, a note of curiosity in her usually-blank tone.
“No,” is the reflexive response that Cal gives her. And- to be honest, it is the next stop, but it is not theirs. He can feel it, like a humming deep in his bones. Cal does not want to leave them, want to leave his family, but… “No, this is… This is something I have to do alone.”
“I don’t like the sound of that, kid,” Greez complains, but that is nothing new. Greez complains about everywhere that they even consider going. “Why alone? And there of all places?”
It was less about the planet itself, and more about the environment. So far, of the two deserts that the Mantis has somehow ended up visiting in the last year, both have been utter nightmares. Both the weather and everything else that went down in them. Recently, he has heard Greez muttering about how he never wants to see sand again.
"I need to. I– whatever this is– this is my calling. And– I won't be forcing you to fight, anymore. You have your own callings, and they’re not... they’re not the same as mine."
"Cal," Cere starts to speak, but maybe this time she does not know what to say, because nothing comes after that.
"You have not forced us to do anything," Merrin tells him disdainfully. "It is arrogant to think that you could."
"Maybe not, but none of you have wanted to do what we've been doing. You've just... been following me anyways."
And that may be the worst part of everything. That, to be honest, fighting the Empire is not what Merrin or Greez or Cere were meant for. Maybe Cere would still fight it in her own way, but- she works better from the shadows, in bringing hope and peace to the people who need it, rather than dealing in destruction like Cal does. But the Empire is not Merrin's fight, and Greez has never wanted to fight at all.
Cal has never truly wanted to fight, either.
"This isn't permanent," Cal tells them, because they need to know that. "I'll be back. But– whatever is on that planet is something I need to see, and maybe it will take a while or maybe it won't."
The ship is silent.
"Well, kid, how do you plan to do this?"
Cal smiles at Greez, and shrinks the image on the starmap, swiping away the holo of Ponemah Terminal. "We're in orbit over Chalcedon now, right? Drop me off on Rattatak- it'll be a short trip there, and there's been a lot of pirate activity there over the last several years. I nab a ship, and I'll be able to get wherever I need to be on my own."
They don't like the plan. In fact, it would be safe to say that all three of them have never hated anything more. Unfortunately for them, there is no swaying Cal's opinion.
He knows that being on his own will be awful. Cal does not do well when left alone. It's just one of those things about being a Jedi– or maybe that is too broad a descriptor. It's just– Jedi are raised in the creche, and crechelings are encouraged to bond with each other, encouraged to love freely until they have to learn self-control. They sleep in cuddle piles all the time, from the moment they arrive to the moment they leave.
On the Albedo Brave, not much had changed in that regard. He still slept in cuddle piles, even if it was with the troopers, with people who were not Force-sensitive and therefore could only rarely send out those signals of love and peace and sleepiness in the Force.
And then, after the Purge, there was nobody to sleep around, nobody to anchor him. Prauf was the closest thing, and Prauf had been his best friend, but- there had never been that same ease of trust, because Prauf could not know that Cal was a Jedi. Because one wrong word, one wrong move, and Cal would be discovered. Had been discovered.
He spent the first twelve years of his life sleeping surrounded by those he trusted with his life, and then he slept alone. And– losing your network is horrible for Jedi, because the Force amplifies emotions but Bonds help stabilize and anchor them.
Cal still does not have that connection, but– it had gotten easier, with the Mantis, to simply sleep and trust that even if he had no Bonds, they would watch his back. That he could love without worrying that it would be used against him.
He does not know how long he will be separated from the others. But he has to prepare for it being long-term, and ready himself to be alone for longer than he would like.
He won't drag them into his problems.
Cal is planetside for three days.
He spends most of it within the nooks and crannies that litter the cliffsides, where the stone shades him and is cool beneath his touch. It is almost surprising, just how many places there are to hide, just big enough for a humanoid to fit within if they lie flat.
The gaps in the cliffs are just about the only real coverage, here, unless someone lurks behind the boulders or under the overhangs. Rattatak is practically a desert, with its canyons and lack of foliage, but in most places it is simply cracked earth instead of sand. Both its saving and losing grace is that it is not nearly as humid as the swamps of Dathomir.
Part of him is certain that there might be entire caverns underground that people could live in if only they had the forethought to– many of these crevices extend deeper than he can see without a light, and Cal is unwilling to pull out his lightsaber in such an enclosed space.
Even that short time, protected from the brunt of the heat, stretches the water supply he brought with him. On his first day on Rattatak, there was a battle in the distance. Later that same night, there was a second fight, closer. His second day on Rattatak was eerily quiet compared to the first.
On the third day, however– it is nearly evening when the newest skirmish breaks out. Cal is tempted to step out into the open and take part in the battle, if only so that he can grab whatever rations the warmongers carry with them.
And then he hears the whirring of engines, and the crackling sort of thumping that tends to come with heavy ships landing unevenly and bouncing just a bit.
He slips out of the cliffside, as quietly as he can, as he watches nearly thirty beings join the fray. They must have been waiting for the herd to thin before taking part. It is the easiest way to minimize losses.
Cal takes the chance to board the freighter.
Honestly, three days was far too long. This planet is practically half pirates by now, and not seeing a single ship for three days is absurd.
Only a skeleton crew of four had been left on the ship to monitor the fight outside. To be honest, Cal is surprised there are even that many– this ship is not large enough to hold almost forty people.
In fact, he would be surprised if there are even six built-in bunks on board. Part of the cargo hold– holds?– must have been retrofitted for them to carry that many people comfortably.
Dispatching them is simple, despite being better-armored than the cheap plastoid most stormtroopers wear. Nobody outside the core of the Empire really expects Jedi these days.
Shots trail behind him as he leaves the atmosphere, but there is no anti-air weaponry in the area. The blaster bolts do nothing to stop him.
After an hour, he dumps the bodies and six crates of weaponry– probably from Rattatak– out the airlock. He keeps the rest. Either he will find a use for them, or he will fence them for funding.
Despite being in the same sector, Cal is still surprised by how short the trip to Ponemah is. Maybe it is because of how long he spent simply trying to locate it. The freighter– which he has nicknamed The Cordance for now, after Cordova– has a class eight primary hyperdrive. It is not nearly as fast as the Mantis's class three, but it gets the job done, and freighters were never meant for speed. The backup hyperdrive is a class sixteen, and Cal hopes he never has to use it, if only for how horribly slow traveling would be.
Cal has no idea what it is he is supposed to be looking for, and he has no intention of landing until he finds something that is not sand, or until the Force actually pings an area as important. The air is rippling wildly on the other side of the transparisteel windows, and Cal would rather not subject himself to heat or long walks again until he has to. Ponemah Terminal might be even hotter than Rattatak is.
The ship's scanners are not picking anything up on the surface– for all intents, this is a barren desert, without a single sign of life to be found under the sands. There are no known inhabitants here, either, from what he can glean from the holonet.
No civilization or cities. Just sand, sand, and more sand. It has a breathable atmosphere, though, so Cal is sure there is some sort of criminal outpost somewhere, especially so close to Chalcedon.
While The Cordance does not pick anything up, Cal thinks he can feel something at the edge of his senses. The Force is nudging at him, and he angles the ship westward. West-adjacent. Cal has no idea if this planet has a registered system of direction, so he is just running off the basic guideline of "the planet's left when facing the sun and looking at it from orbit."
None of that matters, really.
There is a dark mass on the horizon, towering crookedly over the sands. A ship, Cal recognizes– massive compared to what is common, but far from the sheer size of a venator or lucrehulk. He does not recognize what kind of ship it is, but it feels– familiar, distantly, in a way Cal cannot tell if it is of his own memory or an imprint within the Force.
The Cordance slows, and he lands it in the shadow of the wreckage. He only has a few hours before the shadows will likely vanish under the sun, but for the moment it should be enough to mask him from outside eyes.
When Cal steps outside, even in the shadows Ponemah proves to be grossly hot. It will be inconvenient, but he makes sure to wear his old Guild air filter, if only because he has no idea what the inside of the ship will be like.
Cal drags his fingers against the surface of the terminal as he steps over the battered head of a clanker that is half-buried in sand. Fear– unknowable, indeterminate fear– lingers and clings to it, but it feels strange.
Dread may be a better word for the emotions that cry out within the Force. Or maybe it is terror. But it is not the emotion that is strange. It is the way that the imprint does not belong to what carries it. It clings to the desks and the chairs, just as it clings to the walls and floors, but there are no memories that follow.
It is hard to know what happened here. Droids never leave more than shallow imprints in the Force, making it hard to unwind the echoes from them on the best of days. But this fear, this dread– it is radiant and uniform, and it comes from a single source. It is not natural, because people are ever-changing and nothing shifts more than emotion. Still, for all that these echoes are– identical, really, there is a certain sort of strength to them that varies within them.
The fear in this place is both old and recent, and he thinks that it may be what the Force wants him to find. Perhaps something still lives on this planet after all, like the way Malicos survived on Dathomir.
Cal makes his way deeper into the wreckage. The echoes of fear are stronger, there– and the number of clankers is denser as well. Some still have life in them. He sees two on the ground jerk their heads around to face him, making nonsensical staticky sounds, but they are otherwise unable to move. In another room, a dozen inactive droids unfold, joints squeaking as they stand, and Cal cuts them down when they attempt to charge at him.
The desert– and the crash– clearly had not been kind to the old Separatist ship. Seven years is a long time for the elements to work, when there are holes poked all throughout a ship.
In the deepest parts of the ship that he can find, emergency lights still flash a dim red under the power of whatever backup generator still remains active.
And that is when he finds it.
A stasis pod sits in a dark room, its internal light shining through dusty glass. The source of the shadows permeating this place. Cal rests his hand against it, the window too high for him to truly see what is on the other side.
It comes in flashes.
"...framed— I have to talk to them—"
Why did he die? What did he do?
What have the longnecks done—
"No, no— there's— I have to—"
Stop—
Not enough time—
"—captured CT-6116."
A clone. Within the stasis chamber is a clone.
Cal thinks he would have preferred to find a Sith in the chamber, if this had been the only other option available.
Instead, the subject of seven years worth of his worst nightmares is sitting in front of him now.
The series of events that ended the Brave is still fresh in his mind, after the vision in Dathomir's temple. He remembers the way Master Tapal cut the Commander down– Runi–, and the duo who shot at him from down the hall– Ville, stop– and the shots that scarred his face and mortally wounded his mentor.
In all honesty, Cal never thought he would see a clone again. But– the Force led him to this place, to this chamber, and... there has to be a reason for that, right? Even if he does not want to think about it.
Against his better judgment, he opens the pod.
The clone gasps for air as they tumble from their prison. Cal catches them by their upper arms, armor digging at his fingers, to keep them upright and away from him. The weight bears down on him, and Cal is fairly certain that his hold is the only reason that the soldier is not already on the floor.
Their hands grasp at his forearm and his shoulder, but the grip is weak. The clone's entire body is shaking, almost vibrating– a bad sign. They still gasp for air, unsteady under their helmet, and make a sound like a broken-up sort of whine.
Slowly, Cal begins to lower himself, until the clone is sprawled-sitting and Cal is kneeling beside them. He hesitates, before he lets go with one hand so that he can unseal and pull off the trooper's helmet. He has no guarantee that their air filter is working properly, and it certainly seemed like it was not helping anything regardless. He drops it to the side.
Cal does not recognize this clone, but he had not expected to in the first place. Their armor is painted blue, and he has never personally met a trooper with blue armor before. But– he can see the stark red symbol of a medic on their pauldron, and at the very least he is quite familiar with those.
A medic. A medic that had been- captured, supposedly, by Separatists for whatever nonsensical reason the Separatists used to do pretty much anything. He assumes captured, because while a defector might be a possibility, he can distinctly remember Hypo dully reporting that no, I don't have time to plan a mutiny, kriff off, one day after a battle gone wrong.
And he knows personally just how kriffing overworked the medics could be, with only two people to handle upwards of a hundred injuries per battle. Or, in the case of larger divisions– probably only five people to take care of several thousand.
"Breathe with me," Cal tells the clone, but it does not seem like they can hear him. He is not sure if they even know he is here. He continues anyways.
"In for four, hold for seven, out for six," he says, and takes a breath using that guideline in example. The trooper does not react, but Cal keeps repeating the cycle.
In for four, hold for seven, out for six, breathe. In for four, hold for seven, out for six, breathe.
Nothing changes, really, except for a weak tilt of the head. Their eyes are still unfocused, but they aim in his general direction. Looking for the source of the sound. It is not much, but it is enough for Cal to know that they can at least hear him.
Kriff, what kind of side effects do stasis pods have? He has never had to learn anything about them, so he has no idea if partial– full?– blindness and trouble breathing is a consequence or something else entirely.
He thinks of the fear that lingers throughout the wreckage, and switches tactics.
"I've got you," Cal murmurs. "You're safe, I've got you. Just keep breathing. Everything else can come later."
The medic makes a sound that must have been an attempt at some indistinct word. Cal wonders if someone can get dehydrated when frozen, but... he left his supplies on The Cordance, because the wreckage here is still insulating enough that the heat isn't so harsh, especially since the deeper inside he is, the colder it gets.
Cal hesitates for a moment as he wonders what to say next. Then, he says, "I've got the watch. Rest."
A pulse of recognition sparks within the Force, at those words. It is warped, still, but it is something that is not fear and Cal can work with that. Probably. A cacophony of vague, shattered noises comes from the trooper, likely an attempt to respond. Cal does not catch anything except for a sound that might have meant "general" in an adjacent universe, and a word that Cal does not immediately recognize, but is fairly certain means "helmet" or "head." One of those two.
The rest is little more than gibberish to his ears.
Cal has not exactly had an opportunity to brush up on his Mando'a in the last seven years.
"My name is Cal Kestis. You just came out of a stasis chamber," Cal tells them. "I don't know how long you were in it, but you were caught by Separatists. The ship crashed on a planet called Ponemah Terminal."
The trooper's hands spasm. Cal continues.
"It's a desert planet, and the time is currently somewhere around midday. The War ended several years ago in the Jedi's loss."
"Loss?" the medic manages to wheeze out, letters slurring together. It is the clearest thing they have said so far.
"We lost," Cal agrees slowly, and grimaces at the spark of grief that arises. "What is your name?"
"'icks," is the first thing they say, followed by, "Kuh.. eck... Kix."
"Kix?" That seems to be the final result of the trooper's struggling, so it must be close enough. And, like the liar Cal is, he says, "Good to meet you."