Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Some nights are longer than others.

Sometimes the controls on the dashboard blink slower. Dragging on and on like a thousand years between them, while her eyes see nothing but the endless swirling stars in front of her. 

Sometimes it all feels hopeless. 

She wonders often if it’s all been for nothing. All the running, searching, hiding, fighting. She wonders if the galaxy is any better off for it, or if all their efforts have been in vain. Maybe she should have just stayed hidden and not run straight back into the war. But then again, war is the only life she’s ever known. And she can’t just sit back and watch the galaxy burn. Anakin wouldn’t have wanted her to do that. 

If he were here right now, maybe everything would be okay. This war would be over within the next standard year. 

But he’s dead. Just like all the rest of them.

It’s been seven years. They’re not coming back.

There’s nothing she can do. And she has to fight every day to stay out of the pit of despair she feels herself falling into–to scramble out before hopelessness digs its icy talons into her side and wraps her in its cold embrace.

She has to keep moving.

Her feet shift from their spot on the control panel, and she carefully stretches out her shoulders, her hands, her wrists, her neck. 

She stands slowly, making sure her tired legs will hold her before walking into the main hold and staring at the little hole in the wall they call a cot, and the sleeping (almost snoring) form within. 

She considers just nudging him awake with the Force, but the last time she did that he nearly knocked the table over on his way out of the bed, so she resorts to the old fashioned way.

“Rex,” she hisses, jamming a finger into the top of his shoulder. She shakes his arm. “Rex, wake up.”

One of his eyes snaps open, but it’s still bleary and fogged with sleep. 

“We’re almost there,” she says. “Better get your butt to the cockpit.”

—

—

They’ve quickly learned how to be rebels. Three years of being soldiers will teach you a thing or two about how to escape a military’s reach. 

For all these years now, they’ve been doing just that: getting closer and closer to the Empire, but jumping out of its sights at the very last minute. 

Rex is frighteningly good at it.

So he leads this op. 

Ahsoka grips her lightsabers until her fingers tingle. Watching. Waiting.

The top of Rex’s helmet is just visible across the landing platform as he ducks behind more crates, blasters drawn and at the ready. But his eyes aren’t scanning the platform: that’s her job. 

“Find anything?”

She knows she doesn’t need to whisper, but there’s no wind or radio static or whirring of engines, and the environment is a little too eerily silent for her tastes. 

“Just a lot of rations,” her radio crackles back. But she can clearly hear the frustration in his voice. “Same regulation ones we had during the war. Must be just old surplus the Empire doesn’t need anymore.”

“Are they worth taking?” Her eyes flit across the canyon again, scanning treelines and lakeshore, then up toward the horizon and back toward the platform.

“Maybe, but it’s not the goods we were promised.”

Ahsoka grits her teeth. Yet another lead gone awry. What else is new?

“I’ll keep looking,” Rex continues. “This place seems abandoned enough, maybe they left something inside.”

Warning signals blare in Ahsoka’s mind. 

Red-hot flashes of danger! danger! nearly blind her. 

“Rex,” she hisses into the radio as she frantically races across her side of the platform, out toward the open end. “Don’t move. Don’t you dare go into that hangar.”

Danger!

Danger!

Something’s wrong. Something . . .

“What is it?” He knows when to drop into a crouch and wait for orders, blasters raised to eye-level. It’s second nature by now.

“Hang on.” She’s breaking into a sprint, eyes fixed on one point in the forest, right under the landing platform. It’s a reach, but she thinks she can jump down if needed . . .

She’s gripping her lightsabers, but doesn’t ignite them. Force of habit.

Blaster shots.

No.

She spins on her heel, forgets the person in the woods, picks up the speed of her sprint, back toward Rex’s hiding spot.

No, no, no . . .

A flash of yellow.

“Rex!” she shrieks. “Leave him alone!”

A figure had appeared out of seemingly nowhere. He’s heading toward Rex, lightsaber raised, fear and hatred emanating from his very being. 

And she only hears him yell one word as he nearly murders her friend.

“Traitor.”

—

—

She barely makes it in time. 

Their lightsabers meet in a clash of white and yellow. Ahsoka plants herself like a wall between Rex and the offender, an immovable object meets an unstoppable force. 

With a shove, she forces the man backwards, toward the door he must have come from. The mighty push knocks him from his feet, but he’s quick. He scrambles up, readjusts the grip on his saber, and ignites both sides. 

He assumes the position of a trained warrior. 

And it makes her pause. 

Assess.

“Where did you get that?” she demands, flinging out a hand to pull the lightsaber into her own hand. 

But yet again: he’s quick.

He holds onto the saber like his life depends on it, and jumps, flinging himself toward her feet. He sweeps them out from under her, rolls to the side, and places himself behind a crate before she can stand back up.

“It’s mine,” he replies, far too calm for this situation. “I built it.”

She can’t help it: her lips curve into a snarl. “Wrong. Only Jedi can build them, and you can’t be a Jedi. They’re all dead. So tell me: who did you steal it from?”

“Where did you get those? ” he retorts without missing a beat, nodding down to where her right hand still grips the white saber she built from scratch – from discarded parts across the galaxy. Her last connection to her old life.

They’re at an impasse. 

“I was a Jedi,” she says. If he wanted to report her, he already would have. 

“You just said they’re all dead.”

Oh, he’s infuriating. 

“Are you an Inquisitor?” he continues – challenges. “Aren’t you going to kill me?”

This makes her pause.

What?

Why would she –

“Who are you?” she asks, the pieces slowly falling together in her mind. 

She lowers her saber, slowly, and circles the box he’s crouching behind. Her hand is outstretched in question, and at this closer angle she can see clearly.

He’s just a boy.

Just a boy with windswept red hair, hiding under the thick layer of a bantha-wool poncho. His hands are half-hidden under gloves, and he’s carrying a shoulder belt with ration bars and extra charges for the blaster swinging at his side. A small white droid perches on his shoulders, clinging to the straps for dear life. 

She’s not great with human years, but he can’t be older than nineteen. Just barely an adult. 

“You know, I should be asking you the same question. And why you’re protecting . . .” he motions toward Rex, who has been staring in what she can only assume is disbelief this whole time. “ Him? ”

Oh.

Young or not, he just crossed a line.

This time, she’s faster than him. She reaches out with the Force, yanks the lightsaber from his hand, ignites it and her own, and crosses them. Places them right up against his neck, almost too close for even her comfort.

“Try again,” she grinds out, watching his previous swagger drain completely out of his face. He replaces it with a stone-cold determination. 

“Are you a Jedi or not?” is the question he chooses. 

It shouldn’t take her aback, but it does. 

“I already told you,” she bites back, not releasing him yet. 

It’s a battle of wills now. And if there’s one thing Ahsoka is, it’s stubborn. She’ll stand here forever, glaring this stranger in the eyes with the lightsabers threatening his life if it means Rex lives to see another day.

She’s not going to tell him her identity. He’s not going to admit to stealing the saber. 

They’re stuck. And she has the upper hand.

She’s not backing down. 

It happens before she can even think.

But thankfully, Ahsoka doesn’t usually do much thinking in combat situations.

“Watch out!” Rex hollers, and before he can raise his blaster, she’s flying around, cloak almost catching on the crates beside her, just in time to meet yet another rogue lightsaber.

And this time . . . the person fights back.

Doesn’t retreat.

“Get away from him!” the attacker yells, and Ahsoka finds herself locked in a duel with a stranger.

She drops the boy’s saber, snatching her second one off the ground, meeting the newcomer’s every strike. It’s muscle memory. It’s the Force, flowing through her, guiding her movements, it’s –

Wait.

“Master Junda?”

The attacker stops. 

Their sabers are locked in an ironic mimicry of just a few minutes ago. 

Ahsoka can’t look away. She knows that face. She knows Cere Junda.

Cere Junda died at the hands of the Empire.

But . . . she’s here.

The woman’s eyes widen, and her mouth falls open. “Ahsoka Tano.”

—

—

“That was reckless and stupid,” Cere continues. 

The boy sits with his head in his hands, fingers tangled in his mess of hair. 

“You reacted without thinking, and you know better. What did you think would happen, Cal?”

Ahsoka’s body is drained of any anger. She’s fallen into pure exhaustion, a letdown after the adrenaline-filled day. And she feels sorry for the boy. 

She doesn’t blame him. 

If she saw Rex with full clone armor on an Imperial base, she would have reacted the same way. 

He would have been what, twelve?

She’s sure he remembers clearly. 

They all do. 

“I’m sorry,” Cal says. His voice is surprisingly calm and collected, even though he looks like a youngling again sitting on a crate being lectured by his master. 

Instead of looking up to apologize to Cere though, he fixes his gaze on Ahsoka. 

“Please forgive me?”

She sighs, the memories of that day seven years ago becoming clearer by the second. How would she have reacted if she found one of the people who gunned down everyone she’d ever loved?

Probably no differently than he did.

“It’s alright, Cal.” And really, it is. “You couldn’t have known.”

His eyes flick from her to the tall figure standing behind her like a shadow. 

“Captain?” The question is unspoken but it hangs in the air like a laser bolt.

Rex smiles gently, and Ahsoka can only imagine he feels the same way she does: that it’s not the boy’s fault. They all have their ghosts. Especially now.

“No harm done, kid.”

—

—

The story comes out in pieces.

About the Inquisitors. The holocron. The mad race across the galaxy, relearning the skills he’d suppressed in order to survive, avenging his master and making peace with his past. About torture chambers and fallen apprentices and redemption and death. 

How they faced off with the Emperor’s Right Hand and made it out alive. 

And it’s Ahsoka’s turn. So she tells them about Anakin and Obi-Wan, and about Mandalore. About the chip in Fives’ brain, about his death and the uncertainty. About running for their lives, gunning down legions of brothers to make their narrow escape.

About wreckage and burials and hopelessness. 

“I can’t believe we’re not alone,” Ahsoka finishes. 

Cere shakes her head in awe, and Cal’s expression is nothing less than stunned. 

The other crew – Ahsoka hasn’t learned their names yet – sit still as statues, backs pressed into the soft leather, hardly daring to say a word in the echo of silence through the ship.

The Mantis is a fine ship. The thought slips freely through her mind that she and Rex could use a ship like this, with its aerodynamics and spacious bay and low profile. And while she’s grateful that they have anything at all, their current ride isn’t what she would call . . . inconspicuous.

She takes another quick assessment of her surroundings.

The five other figures sit together on the bench. By a stroke of ill fate, Rex sits in the middle, keeping his arms and legs tightly to himself, helmet planted on his lap. Master Junda leans forward – rests her elbows firmly on her knees, hands folded together. Next to her, Cal toys with a loose bolt at the edge of the table, screwing and unscrewing in a rhythmic pattern. The girl with red robes and a pale face (she looks so oddly familiar) keeps her hands folded neatly at her knees. She catches Cal’s eyes every so often, and they seem to communicate in thousands of silent sentences. And the captain of the ship, the four-armed Latero, seems furious at every word Ahsoka speaks. Though she senses no anger from him. Only a genuine curiosity.

“It’s good to know we’re all fighting the Empire together,” Cere says quietly, with more than a little hope in her eyes. 

Ahsoka looks at the ground. “More like running from it, usually.” 

Cal chuckles in agreement, which instantly slices a lightsaber directly through the tension that filled the room before. 

“Beating it up, too,” the captain adds. 

“Grinding it into the dust,” the robed girl says with a determined grin. 

The little droid perched on the table gives a series of enthusiastic beeps and trills.

Rex’s expression finally changes and Ahsoka can feel the awkwardness rolling off of him, dissolving into the air. They’ve found people they can trust, as mismatched and inexperienced as they might be.

But at least they’re not alone.

Not anymore.

—

—

“I’m sorry for assuming the worst about you.”

The voice behind her doesn’t startle her – in fact, she wondered when the boy would approach her. His curiosity and sincere, forgiving nature seems to be his main driving force. 

She meets his eyes and is shocked yet again by just how young he is. Something about him reminds her of Anakin when she first met him: determined, kind, and haunted by his past. Willing to give and give and give and fight and fight until he bleeds dry for the cause. 

“Cal,” she responds quietly. “How old were you when you escaped Order Sixty-Six?”

He stares down at his shoes. That wasn’t the response he was expecting, she knows that. “I turned thirteen the next day.”

“And you didn’t leave Bracca for five years?”

He shakes his head.

“When I was twelve, I still thought that Knights and Masters knew everything. I didn’t think they could make mistakes. I thought being a Jedi Master was the highest honor you could have, that you were perfect when you reached it.”

She braces her hands against the workbench behind her, and Cal slouches against the doorframe. “But during the war,” she continues, “I watched my master slip up. He made mistakes and we fought. All the time.” She smiles. (The pain of losing him is becoming less every day. She’s learned to heal.) “He taught me that what makes you great isn’t being perfect. It’s falling, and getting back up again, stronger than you were before. Not because you never make mistakes, but because you learn from them and you become better because of it.”

She unclips a lightsaber from her belt and holds it gently, imagining it’s her old one – the one Anakin put so much love into that he turned it blue. She looks up, and tosses it to Cal, who catches it without flinching.

“I lost the first ones I ever had,” she admits. “Buried them with my brothers when our Venator went down that day. In the first few years I was running, I would have fought someone who was holding one, too. I didn’t think any other Jedi survived. I understand why you reacted, Cal. And I don’t blame you, I promise. Even I had to remember what my master taught me. To get back up, to be better than I was before.”

Cal clenches his jaw, never taking his eyes off the white, curved saber in his hand.

“You’ve been through a lot,” she says, quieter this time. “Give yourself some grace.”

“If I’m being honest,” he finally says, “I thought I learned this lesson already.”

She laughs, but kindly. “You’ll see pretty soon that you never stop learning. Ever. Don’t beat yourself up about it, okay? It’s in the past now.”

He nods, then looks up with a smile. “I’m glad I ran into you, then.”

“Me too.”

—

—

Chapter Text

—

11 BBY

One year later.

—

— 

Cal still has nightmares.

Sometimes he’ll see the control panel of an escape pod. Feel the cold, heavy hilt of a lightsaber too big for his small hands. Watch the planet as it flies up to meet him. Sometimes he wakes up as soon as he hits the surface, drowning in a cold sweat.

Sometimes he’ll see glimpses of the Jedi Temple. Watch it engulf him in fire and flame, ash, screams of children. His friends. He’ll see the creche master, her panicked eyes as she ushers younglings away, but it’s too late. Too late . . .

But this time . . . This time it’s different. 

This time, he sees a woman. Just one lone figure, a girl no older than fifteen, and she’s talking to him. He can’t understand the words, all jumbled together in a low, rhythmic chant. It’s dark. Her back is turned. She’s silhouetted by a blood-red sun, long hair strikingly aglow. 

Her chant continues. 

But now . . . it doesn’t sound like a chant. It’s more like a song.

And it’s getting louder.

His feet are frozen in place, his hands feel like iron at his sides. He wants to reach out to her – speak to her. But his lips won’t move.

Around him, he can feel the wind tearing through his clothing like a million icy needles, making the endless grass wave and ripple. The wind mimics the girl’s song, harmonizing and moving with the words of it, lifting her hair and letting it flutter back down, taunting Cal with the pain on his skin.

Her song is almost too loud. He wants to cover his ears but he’s entranced all the same.

And then . . . she turns around. Slowly, and with infinite grace and care, she moves to reveal a bundle in her arms.

A baby.

She’s singing to the baby, her hair falling in a curtain to obscure her face. 

The wind punches Cal in the gut. 

He stumbles backward, losing balance, falling —

The woman meets his eyes. Dark and filled with fear.

The song stops.

Goodbye, my love.

—

—

Cal gasps, arms flailing. His knuckles meet the corner of his bunk and he winces in pain. His chest is heaving, his eyes fly open, mind whirling. He can still see the outline of that girl against the dying red sun, feel the rhythm of her song, and it leaves a heaviness at the back of his throat — a longing. Something no nightmare has ever caused before. 

He tries to still his shaking body.

Collect his thoughts.

But the image of her and the song she sang is lodged like a mantra in his mind.

It’s still dark outside, probably nowhere near morning, but he’s never been one to sleep long anyway.

His bare feet hit the cold metal floor and he tries to keep his footsteps quiet as he makes his way through the Mantis. The door to the ramp hisses open, and he’s met with the warm, sticky, swampy air in his face. A nice contrast to the piercing cold that lingers from his dream.

He steps out into the damp grass and kneels, placing his hands lightly on his legs. 

He bows his head, takes a few deep, controlled breaths, and slowly, slowly gives his mind over to the Force.

—

—

“I thought I heard you get up.” He doesn’t open his eyes, but he can hear her nearly silent breathing. Feel the Force swirling around and through her, a unique, alien, comforting presence all her own. 

“You had a dream again.”

Cal sighs and looks up to where Merrin is sitting, cross-legged on the stone next to him. She hasn’t put her hair up yet, and her outer robe is still loose and rumpled, as if she just rolled out of bed. Her hands are folded in her lap, still as a statue.

“Sorry if I woke you,” he says quietly. But she shakes her head. The bunks are surprisingly soundproof for such a small ship, and Merrin’s a deep sleeper.

“Was it another nightmare?” She’s good at getting straight to the point.

He sits heavily back onto his heels and stares out across the broken landscape of Bogano. The first streaks of morning sunshine begin warming up the horizon, and he idly wonders how long he’s been out here. “I don’t know. Not like normal.”

Merrin just studies him. Doesn’t prod any more than necessary. 

Even now, the dream haunts him. He doesn’t think he could explain it if he tried. Dreams pass in time, his creche master had told him when he was just a small boy waking up unnerved every day.

No. Nightmares pass in time. 

He used to dream vividly about his master’s death and the onslaught of clone troopers he couldn’t stop. 

And that eventually passed. 

But this . . .

This feels a lot more like a vision than any nightmare.

What if it was real?

He meets Merrin’s searching eyes again. And he tells her everything. About the girl in the field, the dying sun, the chanting song, the baby in her arms . . .

Dreams usually fade. But this one remains as clear as if it were happening right now, even as he tries to explain it.

And when he stops talking, finally runs out of details to describe, he lets out a long breath, digs his fingers into the damp soil, and blinks back tears. 

Merrin doesn’t speak for a long time. 

Cal watches the sunrise — the soft yellows and rich oranges and striking red that mirrors his dream — lets the hint of a breeze dry his eyes, listening as the boglings begin to stir. 

“Do you often have visions from the Force?” Merrin’s voice breaks the silence and Cal lowers his head again to stare at his hands.

“No. Never.”

He meets her gaze, and she gives him a slight grin — a reassurance that he’s not losing his mind. “You worry too much, Cal Kestis. The nature of the dream will reveal itself when the time is right. And until then, your job must only be to follow the will of the Force.”

And suddenly, a weight is lifted from his shoulders. The sunrise looks brighter and the breeze feels sharper. 

She’s right, of course. 

He always worries too much. Being stuck in the past or the future comes easily to him. Looking behind or ahead, at all the what ifs and the possibilities. Staying in the present is a necessary skill for any Jedi, but it’s something that often takes patience and practice. The Living Force is what they called it — the practice begun by Qui-Gon Jinn himself and carried on by very few masters, but taught to Cal by Master Yoda when he was still just a youngling. The practice of letting oneself go. Relying on the Force to speak, to guide, to immediately influence a Jedi’s actions and to stay grounded in the present. To listen, to hear, and to respond. Not to worry about what’s ahead or focus on what’s behind, but to go day by day, moment by moment, knowing and trusting that each decision is the right one.

He returns her smile. “When did you get so wise?”

“I always have been,” she says with a toss of her hair. “You are just too stubborn to notice.”

She stands lightly, and reaches her arms toward the sky, stretching out the last bit of sleep from her body. Gently, she takes Cal’s face in her hands and presses a quick kiss to his lips. “Come, have some breakfast. We have a long day ahead.”

—

—

Batuu reminds Cal a bit of Zeffo, but it’s lacking the giant swirling hurricane. Jagged rocks circle the clearing, some almost as tall as the clouds. Cliffs and valleys stretch as far as he can see. And dark, rich green flora covers almost every inch of it.

Above him, birds circle and call to each other with sharp, piercing screams. 

“Kind of ruins the peacefulness of it, huh?”

Beside him, he feels more than sees Merrin’s smile. “I think they’re beautiful.”

“Enough chit-chat, you two,” Cere scolds gently. “Let’s get moving.”

Cal meets Merrin’s eyes, winks, and sets off at a jog. In front of him, Ahsoka’s tandem A-wing comes to a whirring stop on another outcropping of rock. “Funny meeting you in Imperial territory again,” Cal jokes as she and Captain Rex clamber down from the cockpits. 

“Just don’t try to attack us this time and maybe I’ll leave you some loot,” Ahsoka calls back. Rex chuckles.

They jump down from the shallow cliff, and BD-1 projects a map in front of Cal. 

“Alright,” Rex says to the group, and Cal is instantly reminded of his own clone commander briefing his troops before a battle. 

It’s just a little unnerving.

“Here we are,” the captain points to the base of a small-looking cliff face. “The Imperial base is about two klicks north as the aiwha flies.” His finger traces a winding trail through the valleys, rivers, and around lakes. “Shouldn’t be more than three on the ground.” He lands on a tiny square structure jutting out like a sore thumb from the landscape. “My sources tell me there are no more than two platoons here, guarding this place. The Empire doesn’t care about Batuu — they just want to control the hyperspace lanes.”

“And whoever controls this region,” Ahsoka adds, “has almost total access to the western Outer Rim. Hutt space is on the other side of Ryloth, and after the Trade Federation fell it became a true no-man’s-land.”

“And ripe for the taking,” Rex agrees. “If you’ve got a big enough army.”

Which the Empire does. Cal’s seen them firsthand. The endless white helmets, the ruthlessness of their commanding officers. The Empire doesn’t mess around when it comes to conquering the galaxy, and they have the means and the support to do it. Even smaller, remote systems like Tatooine have already fallen under Imperial control, and Cal could never understand what the Empire might want on that dry, scalding desert planet.

“Our reinforcements landed up here,” Rex continues, moving his hand even further north, to the opposite side of the Imperial base. “They’ll move at the same pace and we’ll ambush from both sides at the same time. I intercepted their transmissions as we came in — the Imps have no idea we’re here.”

With every strategic maneuver the captain pulls out of his sleeve, Cal is consistently taken aback. They’re unique, creative. He thinks outside the box, especially for a clone. It shouldn’t surprise him, really. He spent three years with the clones, and skilled ones at that. He fought alongside ARC troopers — one of which Captain Rex seems to be, based on the pauldron and kama that he still proudly wears, the two DC-17s at his sides, and the sharp, calculating glint in his eyes. But there is something different about this captain, and it’s not just the unusually bright blond hair and beard he sports. 

It’s something . . . deeper. Something innately sad that he carefully hides under layers of professionalism and a facade of seasoned war veteran. 

“We’ll move in from the south entrance below the cliff,” Rex says. “There should only be a couple guards stationed there, and a few more when we get to the top. Kestis, Ahsoka–” he meets their eyes with a playful half-grin. “You get the fun part.”

Ahsoka nods. “Cal, you and I will lead the attack once we get to the upper levels. Rex will be tracking their comms as we go. Merrin and Master Junda will take up the rear. We should be meeting the reinforcements by the time we reach level five.”

Rex scans the group when BD-1 shuts off the map. “Any questions?”

Cal plants his hands on his hips, anxious to get going. “Who exactly . . . are these reinforcements?”

Ahsoka and Rex share a glance, and he can’t read their expressions. “They’re clones,” Rex says cautiously, and Cere immediately stiffens beside him. 

“It’s alright,” Ahsoka reassures them. “You can trust them completely.”

Just like we trusted our troops in the war. 

The thought springs to Cal’s mind unbidden, unwarranted, and unwanted. It shocks him and he blinks, recoiling from the harsh emotions that follow. He stares at his feet for a moment, trying to regain control of his thoughts, but it’s too late. He looks up and Ahsoka’s already meeting his gaze, the most knowing and empathetic expression on her face. 

Thankfully, the split-second interaction flies over everyone else’s heads. 

“Alright then.” Rex says with a nod. “Let’s move.” 

And just like that they’re mounting stolen speeder bikes and riding straight into the unknown. 

—

—

—

—

31 BBY

Twenty years ago.

—

Grass rustles and sweeps at her ankles. Cold wind cuts straight through her thin jacket, but she doesn’t mind. 

It’s a red evening. One of those nights that leaves her feeling unsettled and itching to leave. To explore. To find her place. 

Someday.

Someday she’ll be older. Someday her father will understand.

But not today.

Not today.

She loves looking out at the horizon. She shouldn’t be walking yet, probably shouldn’t even be standing. But she’s been restless, and bothered by the news that was brought to her. News that she insisted should wait. 

She can’t give him up yet. She only just met him. 

She may be young, may be naive and foolish and altogether unfit for this task that lies before her, but she’s never felt so ready. And now . . . Now they’re asking her to give it all up.

It’s an honor, they say. 

One in a hundred billion, they say. 

Don’t be selfish, they say.

She’s not selfish.

She’s never been selfish. 

If she were selfish, she would have ended this before it even began. Would have run off-world with him, never to be seen again.

But she didn’t. 

She knows how her father thinks. He would have stopped at nothing to find her again. Hired bounty hunters, combed the galaxy by hand if he had to. 

She won’t let him. 

Someday he’ll see. She’s not the child he once knew. 

She’s never been selfish.

And she can’t start now. 

A song begins on her lips and she welcomes the familiar melody. 

It’s a song of longing, of love, of broken promises. A song she hopes that by some magic, by some stroke of luck, he’ll remember and carry with him all his life.

She sings for his future. For his prosperity. For his health, for courage, for strength, for wisdom. 

She knows what she has to do. For his good. Not hers.

She won’t be like her father.

She’s never been selfish. Not like him.

The last verse of her song rings out across the night, and she presses a long kiss to his soft hair, bright and deep as the setting sun. 

And as the wind caresses her face and dries her tears before they even appear, she clutches her baby tight against her chest.

“Goodbye, my love.”

—

—

Chapter Text

11 BBY

—

—

Ahsoka’s veins course with adrenaline. 

As she clasps Cal’s waist on the speeder bike, watching trees and cliffs fly by, her mind is already kicking into the highest gear. Running through scenario after scenario, trying to picture the Imperial base correctly, letting herself walk through the map over and over and over again. 

She’s done this a million times. She trusts their reinforcements. Every person here is an experienced, skilled, battle-hardened warrior. Together, the ten of them are as powerful as a whole battalion of clone troopers.

So why is her heart pounding nearly out of her chest?

Cal takes the speeder bike in a sweeping arc, diagonally down an outcropping of rock, and as it does every time, her stomach stays behind. She smiles as Cal lets out a whooping laugh, which is immediately carried away by the wind. 

But she feels the laughter in his chest and his joy lights up the Force like a hundred suns. 

He reminds her of Anakin, at least in this moment.

His love of flying. The way he loves so deeply and takes risks and fights so hard for everything he believes in. The depth of the pain he hides so well.

Everything reminds her of Anakin these days. She tries not to dwell on the past, but the deep, constant ache in her chest says otherwise. 

Cal is even the same age as Anakin was when she met him, almost twelve years ago. 

Now there’s a strange thought.

Just over the next rise of cliffs, Ahsoka spots a low-lying gray structure. It juts out from the top of a wide plateau of rock, and just like Rex said, the entrance looks like a narrow crack in the cliff base. Smoke rises from the center of it, and she counts five, maybe seven white figures patrolling the entrance. She taps Cal’s shoulder, and he nods.

They find a cluster of trees to stop and hide the speeder bike in. Ahsoka’s seen some big trees before, but these are simply enormous. They could have hidden all three bikes and a whole platoon in one of the trunks if it were hollowed out. 

She glances behind them, where Rex’s bike cruises down the same dropoff they had hurtled down before, and she gives him a tiny salute. Whether he sees it or not, she doesn’t know, but it’s a tradition now. She’s not one for superstition, but she’d rather be safe than sorry.

Cal meets her eyes, having placed his little BD droid back on his shoulders, and she gives him a smile. “Let’s go.”

—

—

“Fulcrum to Sergeant,” Ahsoka says into her comm, barely more than a whisper. “Sarge, do you read? We’re on approach. Ready to engage, just say the word.”

The comm crackles, and an all-too-familiar voice responds. “Copy, Fulcrum. We have eyes on the north entrance. Ready for a distraction?”

Ahsoka catches Cal’s eyes, and he has the same fire in his eyes that she feels bubbling up in her chest. “Rex, are you in place?” she radios again. “Cere? Merrin?”

Three answers of “affirmative,” ring through, and Cal gives a definitive nod. BD-1 whirs in what Ahsoka can only translate as unbridled enthusiasm. 

“Ready,” she answers the sergeant.

They don’t have to wait long for all hell to break loose. 

Alarms immediately begin blaring through the base, and before she can give it a second thought, she’s already on her feet and flat-out sprinting toward the seven guards. Cal leaps ahead of her, his double bladed yellow lightsaber already flashing in a deadly arc, taking out three troopers at once. Ahsoka follows quickly, spinning and slashing, blocking a round of blaster bolts, thinking nothing but feeling everything. 

With the guards taken care of, she follows Cal into the base, flashing red alarm lights and blaring sirens guiding their path. “So much for a stealth approach,” Cal laughs.

Ahsoka takes the stairs two at a time, right on Cal’s heels. Her body feels electrified, ready to take on anything. “That’s not exactly their style.”

The next level only contains a small control board and a trooper desperately trying to call for reinforcements, but Cal quickly takes care of him. 

With no warning, no transition, a cold, dead, sickly weight settles over her.

She stops running. 

The adrenaline that had been fueling her . . . is gone.

“Cal,” she calls, and the boy swings back around, obviously sensing the warning and raw fear in her voice.

She knows this feeling. 

Too well.

Danger.

“What?” Cal asks, his eyes darting around the red-lit room, then back to her. 

Her mind is whirling. Spinning, buzzing with warning signs. The Force is screaming at her, but she can’t identify it. There’s no clear direction, no alternative action. 

There’s only danger.

But they can’t stay here forever. She can hear Rex updating the sergeant of their whereabouts on his comm, just below them. They have a job to do.

She shakes her head. “It’s . . . nothing. We need to keep moving, but . . . keep your eyes open.”

Cal doesn’t look convinced, but he takes up the rear this time, letting her forge ahead, their lightsabers casting an eerie white and yellow glow that clashes with the red blinking lights.

Above them, she can hear explosions. The rock walls shake and shudder, making the stairs tremble under her feet. The tunnel spirals upward in a narrow death trap. It’s just big enough for a staircase, with a few divots carved into the rock on each level, where control panels are wedged into the dark, damp corners. 

What a cheery place to work.

The distraction upstairs is working marvelously. All the troopers had raced upwards to attend to the emergency, leaving the lower levels completely exposed. Of course she never expected anything different, but it’s good to know at least something is going right for once.

“All clear up here,” Cal tells the others through his comm, and Ahsoka can hear the vague crackling echo through the narrow shaft from below. 

Three more flights, and the sense of urgency and danger only continues to gnaw at her chest. 

She’s never been so uncertain about a gut feeling before. She’s always been able to listen to it, even in the heat of battle, able to turn on a dime and demolish any opposition the second she feels the nudge of the Force to move. But this time she feels stuck. Like she’s about to be struck by lightning but the sky is blue. It feels debilitating. 

But Cal doesn’t seem bothered, and that does, admittedly, lend her some peace. In the short time she’s known him, she’s realized and come to appreciate his unique and admirable connection to the Force. He’s a force of nature all on his own, as well as a walking contradiction. Gentle and good-hearted, and yet as stubborn as they come. Optimistic and cheerful, and yet cautious and weighed down by years of hiding and fighting for his life. She trusts him as much as she’s able to trust anyone these days, and she hopes the feeling is mutual. 

Because they’re going to need it.

Rex, Cere, and Merrin must have been hauling ass. They seem to materialize behind her, and at the sight of Rex’s scuffed helmet – Jaig eyes on full display – a tiny sliver of her uncertainty vanishes into the overwhelming darkness. 

They race up another level. The explosions become louder and louder, and by level six she can hear yelling and blaster shots echoing down around her. 

“This is it!” Rex exclaims, stopping in his tracks to motion toward a control panel that looks like all the others they’ve passed.

“Are you sure?” Ahsoka can’t help but ask. All this effort, and one wrong step could cost them the mission. 

“Completely.” Rex gives a firm nod, holsters his DC-17s, removes his helmet, and heads straight toward the panel. 

Ahsoka motions toward Cere, but the woman is already following on Rex’s heels. She meets Ahsoka’s eyes and gives a reassuring grin. “Don’t worry, nothing will get past us.”

Ahsoka purses her lips, and every system in her body resists. Screams. Begs her not to let them stay by themselves . . . but what choice does she have? The battle upstairs is getting louder, and if those troopers aren’t dealt with right now, this situation will escalate beyond repair. Her reinforcements haven’t come down to meet them yet, which isn’t typical of them. 

Something’s wrong.

She gets the feeling Cere senses it too. 

But she has to keep moving. They all have a job to do, and they all know how to take calculated risks. They have to stick to the plan.

Rex meets her eyes over the panel, and in just one split second, she’s overwhelmed with a barrage of emotions. They slip through her carefully-constructed barrier of focus, around the nervousness and uneasiness she feels, straight to the center of her chest. He doesn’t have to say anything, but his dark, familiar eyes tell her exactly what he’s thinking. Or maybe she just knows him too well. He mirrors her perfectly – the twinge of fear at the corner of his mouth, the well-worn confidence he always seems to possess, but most of all the complete and total trust he has in her. The years’ worth of camaraderie and friendship that built the two of them into what they are now, that allowed them both to survive so long against all odds. It was nothing if not a good mix of love and stubbornness that saved them both all those years ago . . . and that’s kept them alive this long. And that’s exactly what she sees in his eyes now: nothing but unconditional love and endless stubbornness, and she knows it’ll get them both through this. Together. 

“Make it fast,” she says, trying to inject her voice with all the confidence she doesn’t feel. “And be safe.”

Cal squeezes her shoulder and Merrin gives a determined nod, and together they sprint up the remaining flights of stairs, straight into the sounds of battle.

—

—

—

—

The dream won’t leave him alone. 

Flashes of it come back to him as he inhales the breakfast Greez made. He jokes around with Merrin as they run through what Ahsoka told them about the mission on Batuu, but there’s a gnawing emptiness in his gut that insists on distracting him.

His hands are restless, searching for something to do as he sits on the corner bench. Listens to Merrin antagonize Greez in the cockpit. He watches blue swirling stars fly by and wonders what else is out there in the wild, open galaxy. 

He wonders if his mother is still out there.

He's never thought about her before. So why now?

Two deep breaths. 

Focus.

He closes his eyes. Guide me, he compels the Force. What did it mean?

But no answer. 

And still, though he’s just as conflicted and confused as before, the simple act of a short meditation is enough to cover him in a blanket of peace. The Force is familiar. Like a ray of light in a pitch-black room. And when the entire galaxy is shrouded in that overwhelming, immovable darkness, this is his only comfort. This familiarity, this untouchable reassurance. 

This family they’ve created. A family all his own.

He feels a presence join him on the couch, and he breathes a deep, content sigh. 

“Ready for this, Cal?” Cere asks.

He leans back and clasps his arms behind his head. “Just another day on the job,” he says with a smile. 

“I’ve got a funny feeling about this place,” she admits, staring out into space. “Just . . . watch your back when we get there, alright?”

That raises a number of alarms. 

Cere is one of the most cautious people Cal knows, but she normally doesn’t voice her concerns right away. She trusts his gut, and vice versa. Even when he was about to go face down with one of the deadliest Inquisitors inside their largest fortress, she still gave him full reins and adopted her role as partner instead of mentor. 

But now, watching worry crease the corners of her eyes makes him rethink this entire mission. 

It’s too late to turn back now. 

“We’ll be okay,” he tries to assure her. “We always are.”

An image of long robes flashes through his mind. A dying red sun.

Greez calls the heads-up, and Cal doesn’t have time to worry about visions or bad feelings anymore.

They’re landing, and he’s ready.

—

—

Cal has never wanted to be a warrior. 

He’s gotten good at it over the years. His skills grow every day, and he works to improve them constantly, because there’s no other way to survive this galaxy. And people need him. 

Sparring sessions with Cere, meditating, calling on every bit of training he received from Master Tapal. And Cere is a wealth of information, as difficult it is for her to talk about it sometimes.

He’s comfortable with his lightsaber now. It’s always been second nature, but now it really feels like an extension of himself. He doesn’t remember the different forms or the names for techniques, and it’s never been Cere’s specialty. But still, he learns. 

Even so, fighting has always felt like a last resort. 

Maybe at seventeen he thought differently. He was scared and overwhelmed and altogether in over his head. But if time has driven home any lesson even further, it’s that being a Jedi doesn’t mean being a warrior. In fact, he finds himself resorting to combat less and less. There’s always an alternative. 

But as he emerges into the blinding sunlight behind Ahsoka, with Merrin at his side, not a single alternative comes to mind. 

It’s like the battles he remembers from his years with Master Tapal, and for a moment he’s twelve years old again. 

Raw panic clamps his throat closed, and his hand falters. 

She must have sensed his reaction, because Merrin grasps his free hand, squeezes it tight, and says simply, “Be strong.” And just like that, she vanishes into the thick of the fight. 

There’s something to say about muscle memory, so Cal takes half a second to gather himself. To reach out to the Force for his strength. To fall back into what he’s been practicing for three years now.

And in half a second he goes from confused, panicked, and overwhelmed child-warrior to sharp, calculating, and confident Jedi Knight. 

One more half-second and he’s already assessed the whole battlefield.

They’re standing on the roof of the base, about the size of the hangar in a Venator-class cruiser. The wind is so strong up here it feels like he’ll be blown away at any second, but he can use that to his advantage. Roughly three or four hundred storm troopers and droids are spread across the roof, armed much better than he ever expected from low level Imperial grunts, but he’s learned to be ready for anything. They have barriers set up in front of them, cannons pointing every which way. It’s organized chaos, almost sloppy to say the least. But even three hundred sloppy troops are too much for a team of five.

He’d been expecting clones, that’s true. But these men don’t look like clones.

They’re wearing armor so dark it’s almost black, with red and white markings. They’re all different – different heights, different armor, different fighting styles. Cal picks out one of them who seems to be the leader, who is currently slashing throats with a vibroblade, of all things.

Two figures are perched on each of the control towers that stick out from both western corners of the roof, one with a long and deadly sniper rifle, the other with some type of modified plasma bow. That second figure doesn’t wear armor. The distance is too far to make out any kind of features, but the silhouette is the smallest of the group, and Cal notices bright blonde hair sticking out from under a tactical helmet.

Merrin is already engaged, plowing through the melee, casting her magick in every direction. Her red robes twirl with her, never impeding her movements as she body-slams a storm trooper that got too close and flings him over her shoulder in one fell swoop. It’s quite a sight to see.

He takes a deep breath, his muscles already wound and ready to explode into action. Ahsoka looks up, meets his eyes, and together they charge into battle. 

First, he takes out the cannons. 

Ahsoka sprints to the left, and Cal covers her back before yanking the northernmost trooper out of his seat and Force-shoving him off the side of the roof. He goes down the line of ten cannons, knocking heads together, stabbing, flinging them off the edge. Once the cannons are secured, he loads one up and sends it straight into the most concentrated group of troopers. It rocks the whole roof, and he wonders how the cave hasn’t collapsed yet. 

A squad notices the disruption and immediately turns toward Cal, guns blazing. 

Adrenaline courses through him, charging his arms as he twirls his lightsaber in a shield around his body, blocking every bolt as it comes his way. He presses forward, until he’s almost close enough to slice off the blaster barrels. 

A couple troopers step out to the sides, effectively surrounding him, and Cal knows it’s time to move. He jumps, sailing over the tops of their dirt-crusted white helmets, flips twice and lands directly behind the squad. Within seconds, they’re all on the ground and Cal is already scanning the roof for his next opponent.

The rush of adrenaline and his heightened senses through the Force essentially gives him tunnel vision, while allowing him to be aware of every threat around him. 

It’s a deadly combination.

He slashes and leaps his way through the horde of troopers, and watches in awe as Ahsoka does a triple-flip maneuver off the side of one of the towers, sending a shockwave through the whole platoon when she lands. 

A bolt of green light knocks out the troops in front of him, and his eyes dart around. Merrin has placed herself next to the smaller figure on the tower, and together they’re taking out entire squads at once from a distance. He has to force himself to look away, knowing he could stand and admire her forever. Her robes flap wildly in the wind, and the top of her headscarf has already dislodged itself. She doesn’t seem to care, and he’s just close enough to notice the menacing grin on her face.

He’s never sure whether to be impressed or terrified. 

Probably both. 

One more accelerated sprint through a squad, and he finds himself fighting back to back with one of the black-clad warriors. 

“Glad you made it!” the man calls, and his voice is much too familiar. 

There’s no doubt he sounds like the clones, but aren’t clones supposed to be, well . . . clones?

“Seems like you have a handle on things,” Cal jokes, high-kicks a trooper in the face, slams another onto the ground with his shoulder, while impaling a third with his lightsaber.

“We always do,” the sergeant yells over the chaos. 

“I’m Cal,” he remembers to say. It’s not fun to try to fight side by side with someone and not know their name.

“Hunter,” the sergeant calls back. 

Any more information can wait. 

The army is thinning. Merrin and the girl on the tower are wreaking havoc on the outer edges, and the sharpshooter on the opposite tower never seems to miss. Across the roof, Ahsoka is engaged with an unarmored, higher-ranking official in hand-to-hand combat. And it’s not long before the official goes sailing over the edge with his subordinates. 

Things are looking up.

They might actually be able to capture this base.

But of course, that moment of optimism is usually when things start going horribly, awfully wrong.

Merrin’s agonized cry is the first thing he notices. It jars him. Feels like an electric shock coursing through his body. 

She’s screaming, and he can’t see her from under the tower. He yells for her, with no answer.

Hunter must have seen his panicked eyes and momentary lapse in concentration, because he leaps in front of Cal and bodyslams a trooper that would have shot him point-blank.

Cal is already halfway up the tower when he hears Ahsoka hollering for him. 

And he would have ignored her and kept climbing, but at the same time that he hears her first cry, his blood runs cold.

He can sense all the fear and pain from Merrin, Cere, and Ahsoka all at the same time.

He can’t breathe.

Every cell in his body is on high alert. He drops from the tower, but not before calling to Merrin, trying to tell her it’s alright, that everything will be okay. 

If only he actually believed it himself.

He’s never run so fast in his life.

The Force propels him forward, finally giving him direction, finally whispering to him to follow, to listen, to act. Concentrate, it seems to say. Pay attention.

He’s at a distance where he can see Merrin on the tower. The other girl is holding her up by the shoulders, guarding her from being hit again. Around him, the roof burns. Ahsoka’s face is smeared with dirt and charred steel, and her expression mirrors his emotions exactly. 

A shout echoes from inside the southern entrance. 

And suddenly the remaining storm troopers turn on a dime, facing the small door. Some keep their blasters trained on Cal and Ahsoka, and some on the group at the other end of the roof.

Smoke, debris, and dead bodies litter the ground. The wind whistles in Cal’s ears, and behind him BD-1 lets out a quiet, nervous trill. 

He should have felt it.

He should have known. 

Most of all, he should have listened to his gut and never come to this planet in the first place. Never let Ahsoka and Rex come here. Never let Hunter and his squad meet them here.

But it’s too late now. 

The first thing he notices is Cere with her hands behind her head. Next to her stands Rex with his helmet back on, also holding his arms up, probably scanning the battlefield to make sense of this situation.

Three men follow behind them, two blasters fixed directly in between Rex and Cere’s shoulder blades. The third holds their weapons proudly, like trophies. 

The men are armored in pure black from head to toe, their armor vaguely reminiscent of the storm troopers that stand in front of them now. As they continue to walk forward, an entire platoon of black-clad soldiers emerges in pairs from the doorway. 

Cal knows what the three leaders are. 

He’s encountered them on multiple occasions, and holds them in a place just underneath Inquisitors.

Purge troopers.

He hadn’t known there was a name for them until Saw Gerrera went off on one of his speeches and everything finally made sense.

They’re clones. Taken from their squads, trained in Jedi-hunting, and set loose upon the galaxy.

The leader of the three steps forward and fixes his black-covered eyes directly on Cal and Ahsoka. A shudder runs down his spine.

“Put down your weapons!” he hollers across the roof. “Surrender for questioning, or everyone here dies instantly.”

His voice is so familiar and yet so alien. So twisted and damaged by everything the Empire has subjected him to since that day, eight years ago. 

No one moves a muscle.

It seems like slow motion. The leader reaches up, grasps the bottom of his helmet, and pulls it off to reveal a lined, furious expression. A curving, twisting scar runs down the left side of his brow.

Beside him, Ahsoka gasps and takes a step backward. She only says a single word, but it’s injected with so much pain and disbelief that Cal feels it ricocheting through the Force.

“Cody?”

.

.

Chapter Text

They need a plan, and fast. 

But Ahsoka just feels empty. Where panic and fear and anticipation were before, there’s now nothing but a gnawing emptiness that sends her heart sailing over the edge of the roof, a hundred feet down onto the rocky ground. 

Whatever cover she had before is blown now. She doesn’t know how much Cody (Cody!) has heard in order to predict their movements here on Batuu, but it’s enough. That raw panic she felt earlier was a warning. She must have been feeling the dark presence of several clone troopers, their minds all maimed and twisted by the chips in their brains. 

Why haven’t they killed us yet?

Questioning, Cody had said.

What questioning? 

Here stand two Jedi, lightsabers disengaged but still on full display. Cere has nothing but a blaster, so hopefully she’s in the clear. Cody knows Rex, and by now he’s probably figured out that he’s a defector. On Imperial records, Rex was killed in action on the Tribunal as it crashed into the moon, and any clone that survived that crash, assuming the chip was still intact, would have immediately called for a rescue and become a faithful servant to the Empire. But Rex escaped and laid low for eight years. That’s suspicious in and of itself.

And Cody knows Clone Force 99. The Bad Batch, who have been traitors since day one and have a long history with purge troopers. 

Assuming he’s figured out at least that much, Cody and his whole squad have been ordered to murder at least nine of the eleven Rebels standing on the roof. 

And even then, Cere has already escaped Imperial imprisonment twice before, and if they know who she is there’s no way they’ll let her go again. 

So that leaves Merrin. Completely off the grid, the last member of a dying race. She has no obvious reason to be here except that she was told a lie from a young age and finally saw the truth. But Cody doesn’t have to know that.

Otherwise, they’re all dead. At least a hundred guns are trained on them at the same time, if not more. 

She wishes telepathy were in her arsenal of tricks. 

Do something, she pleads silently with someone, anyone. 

But only about two seconds have gone by since Cody removed his horrible black helmet, and most of the people here are either in a state of shock or too nervous to do anything at all. 

Do something. Please.

“Ahsoka Tano,” Cody says with a scowl, and she physically recoils. “I was told you were dead.”

“Good,” she spits back automatically. “Keep that rumor going, would you?”

He doesn’t respond, but she watches his expression morph into an unrecognizable sneer. 

This is not the Cody she knew. Not the same Cody who Obi-Wan trusted with his life, who was braver than any clone alive, who counted Rex as closer than a brother. Not the same Cody who gave the five brothers who now stand at the other end of the roof a new chance at finding purpose in life.

Now he’s here to end it all.

So why hasn’t he killed them yet? Don’t the chips hardwire the clones to kill on-sight?

I can help you, she wishes she could say. All the suffering, the nightmares. They could be gone. If only you knew.

If only they’d all known. If only Fives hadn’t been shot. They could have saved so many.

There’s no time to dwell on that. What’s done is done, and all they can do is their best.

A hundred guns are ready to fire at once. Rex and Cere are inches away from the barrels of two blasters. Six more clones have taken the corner towers in the few moments of confusion and captured the three figures inside. Merrin’s face is still contorted in pain, and Ahsoka can feel her waves of agony through the Force.

One word from Cody and it’s over.

There’s no way out of this that won’t end in someone’s death.

What would Anakin have done?

Obi-Wan would have smooth-talked his way out, and if that didn’t work he would have given it his all. Every last breath to save the people he was responsible for. 

Anakin would have had a plan B. Then a plan C, and D, and then finally some batshit insane trick he would have pulled out of his ass at the last possible second.

Ahsoka has none of those. They have an extraction plan, but she can’t contact Greez without Cody finding out. She can’t explain a plan to eleven people out loud. Her plan B already went down the drain the second Cere and Rex were captured. 

But hope isn’t lost.

It’s never lost

Because while Cody is opening his mouth to order their capture, she notices something.

It happens so fast, she’s going to need a few days to process it all. 

She can feel her own heart racing, pounding out of her chest.

Three things happen almost at the same time.

One.

Cere shifts her hand so that it’s pressed against her opposite sleeve.

Two.

Rex bends his knees as if he just landed from a jump, absorbing the shock.

Three.

Cal nods. 

And then, the ground disappears.

The bang is so loud she barely hears it. It’s a ringing in her head, a tugging, crushing sensation in her chest. 

She’s standing on the edge, so she watches in abject horror as the middle of the roof caves in, cracking and swallowing almost the entire army in one fell swoop. 

Guns start blasting, Cal leaps across the chasm before she can even look his way and starts sprinting back toward the west towers where Merrin and the other girl are engaged in hand-to-hand combat with their captors. 

She turns back toward the south entrance, lightsabers at the ready, prepared to give it her all . . . and her heart stops. 

No.

Rex is gone.

—

—

She doesn’t realize how hard she’s screaming until her voice cracks. 

Cody is nowhere to be found. If he had been swallowed by the collapsing base, so had Rex. 

And that’s not an option.

Only a couple of the troopers are still standing in front of the south entrance, so Ahsoka sprints toward them, ignites her saber. Nothing can stop her in her panic-fueled, laser-focused barrage. 

Within seconds they’re on the ground, and she’s scanning the rest of the battlefield.

The edges of the roof are still intact. The Batchers are back at it again, invigorated by the sudden disappearance of almost the entire army, and they’re finishing off any survivors. Cal is on the tower with Merrin, already helping her back down. Ahsoka can’t see much, but Merrin isn’t limping and she’s started to cast her green magick again so she prays her injuries aren’t debilitating. 

Some of the troopers who had been standing at the edges of the roof are trying to regroup, but Ahsoka has more pressing concerns. 

The edges of the roof are starting to crumble. One massive shift makes the concrete rumble beneath her feet and sends a seismic quake straight to the short barriers that line the roof. A crack forms right next to her, at least a foot wide, and Ahsoka’s mouth goes dry. The entire structure of the base is about to collapse from the inside-out.

“Cal. Hunter,” she says into her comm. “Radio Greez. Get everyone off the roof now. ”

“Copy that,” Cal answers, yelling over the noise of the dissipating battle around him. “What are you–”

She interrupts him before he can finish the sentence. “That’s an order, Cal. Tell him to fly close and wait for me, just get off this roof. ”

She takes a few shaky, focused breaths. Then she turns, faces the south entrance, and descends into darkness.

—

— 

The winding staircase is shaking, knocked off-kilter by the explosion below, and she knows it’s about to collapse with the rest of the base.

But she has to find them.

They’re here, she knows it. Buried under rubble or making a quick escape for the exit, she doesn’t know. But they’re here, and that gnawing emptiness in her stomach is beginning to reappear.

By the next level, she can hear support beams breaking all around her. Metal creaking, stone crumbling. So she flies down the stairs, each step feeling like eons-

“Ahsoka!”

Oh no.

She spins on her heel, holding her lightsaber out in front of her to illuminate the staircase. “I told you to get on the ship,” she snaps.

Cal is entirely unfazed by her uncharacteristic anger. “You said to get off the roof. Greez has them, they’re watching the area for any runaways.”

For Rex and Cere, he doesn’t say. But she knows. 

“And no offense,” he calls as they continue down, “but running down here without backup was a pretty stupid idea.”

Oh, he chose the wrong time to be exasperating. “Thanks for the tip. But I can handle myself.”

He’s caught up to her by now, and she won’t say it doesn’t startle her when he grabs her by the elbow and spins her around to stare up at him. He’s as tall as Anakin was, she realizes. Add that to the list of things that remind her of her old master. But he’s still so, so young and so unburdened by the world as a whole. He’s been through a lot, that’s true. But he still has that hopeful, naive sparkle in his eyes that reminds her of herself, in a way. At least, it reminds her of a much younger self. 

He holds her shoulder at arm’s length, and his expression is one she’s horribly familiar with. Stern, lecturing, and oh so pitying. Normally it would have bothered her, but she’s too worried for her friends to be any more angry with this boy.

“Of course you can,” he says, ignoring the way she had brushed him off. “But you don’t have to anymore. Me, Merrin, Cere . . . Even Greez. You have friends now. You don’t have to risk your life alone every time something goes wrong.”

His words feel like a slap in the face. 

How often has she given that same speech to people she’s encountered? Rebels emerging out of the woodwork, rogue ex-Imperials, scared and abandoned children. Even Rex, when he tries to be all independent and heroic. They’ve all heard it from her own mouth. And now here she is, throwing herself headlong into danger without a second thought. Alone.

She’s handled herself quite well for over nine years now, but the more she thinks about it, her success has always been thanks to the help of someone else. First Trace and Rafa, then Bo Katan, then Anakin giving her the 332nd Company and the gift of her lightsabers, and finally Rex. 

Rex.

He’s the whole reason she made it this far. Without his knowledge of the Empire and his resourcefulness, she would be dead in the water. 

And now he’s the reason she dove headfirst into a winding, pitch-black tunnel on a wild goose chase in a quickly-collapsing Imperial base. 

Cal is right, of course. 

There’s no way she can do this alone.

She’s about to open her mouth to respond, when her comm lights up. 

For a moment, there’s nothing but static on the other end. She stiffens, and Cal tightens his hold on his lightsaber. 

She can’t breathe.

“-ano? This is–”

More static. 

“-soka come in. This is Rex, I’m–”

That’s all she needs. 

“Rex!” she calls, pounding at the buttons on her wrist comm, trying desperately to increase the range. “Rex, where are you? I copy; where did you go?”

His voice comes back loud and clear, and a thousand tons are immediately lifted from her shoulders. “We’re down here. Third level. I think.”

“Are you okay?”

“For now,” he says, and she notices the strain in his voice.

She looks at Cal, panicked but determined. He nods firmly, holds his lightsaber out to illuminate the tunnel, and starts leaping down the staircase almost a flight at a time. She’s right on his heels.

—

—

She has no idea how they make it down alive. Around them, the cave continues to crumble. Rocks pelt her face, her arms. A metal support beam falls between them and she has to squeeze herself through the staircase to get under it. 

Cal struggles, though he’s doing his best not to show it. He’s strong and agile and obviously accustomed to tight spaces, but he’s quite a bit bigger than she is and at least half a foot taller. He barely fits through one of the barely-open, wedged and stuck doorways, and it’s so tight that BD-1 has to jump off his shoulders and shimmy through separately. But he’s confident and he tries to lighten the mood, and she admires him for it. 

Even through all this – through the plan failing, the backup plan failing, resorting to a much worse, very un-ideal plan . . . through his best-friend-turned-girlfriend being shot and wounded, through the uncontrollable trauma response they both felt of running into not one but three clone purge troopers, through his mentor being either kidnapped or killed again – he still manages to hold onto his endless optimism. And she’s grateful. 

The stairway narrows even more.

The lower levels of the base are taking all the weight from the collapse, and she guesses that it was like a domino effect: once a few of them went, they all did. 

She prays the southern exit on the bottom level hasn’t been totally blocked yet.

It feels like an eternity before she counts down to level three. 

“This is it,” she calls ahead to Cal, and he scans the area with the slight yellow glow of his lightsaber. 

“Rex,” she says into her comm. “We’re on level three, where are you?”

No answer.

No. 

This won’t happen. She’ll find him, and he’ll be okay, and there’s no question about it. She’s almost lost him more times than she can count, and he’ll be fine. He always is.

There’s an access door to her left. Together, she and Cal shove it open, and all of a sudden she’s staring at an enormous room, filled with mountains of rubble, broken and exposed wires, and a gaping hole in the roof where the building had caved in. 

The sunlight barely flickering down from ten levels up is more eerie than helpful. 

“Rex!” she yells, knowing that if he’s anywhere, he must be here.

BD-1 gives a concerned trill from Cal’s shoulders, and what he says makes Ahsoka’s blood run cold.

“His scanners are picking up smoke,” Cal translates. She understands binary, but she’s glad he says it out loud. It knocks her out of her momentary shock and she takes a sharp breath. It’s ashy and tangy.

Fire.

But they don’t have an option. 

There’s no immediate escape, and even if they ran, Rex and Cere would die.

And Cody too.

“Rex!” she calls again, knowing her voice is laced with fear and cursing it for that. “Cere!”

Cal grabs her shoulder and places a finger to his lips. “Shh. Listen.”

He stands completely still, his head just slightly tilted. She tunes in her senses too, not moving a single muscle, tuning out all the creaks and rumbles of the unsteady base. 

She hears water dripping somewhere further away. A soft rush of air as the wind whistles through the hole in the roof. And she just barely . . . barely hears a voice.

It only takes a split second to triangulate the sound, and she’s already gone. Clambering over piles of steel and concrete while Cal follows right behind her. 

Curse the size of this base.

It’s deceptively small, just going by the south stairway. But each level stretches as far as the roof did – hundreds of yards. And now she’s vaulting over obstacles in her way to push past the rubble and find her friends.

The voice gets louder, and her comm begins to flicker again. 

Wait.

Not voice, voices.

And they’re yelling.

She uses the Force to crank open another door to a smaller control room, and her heart skips a beat.

It takes a moment to take in the scene in front of her.

It’s a small, dusty room with a low ceiling and a wide observation window at the far end. The entrance to a turbolift is on the left side, and a fallen support beam divides the room in half, sitting only two or three feet high.

And there’s the problem.

On one side of the beam sits Rex, blood staining his white and blue armor. His breathing comes in heavy, ragged gasps, and his blond hair is plastered to his forehead, sweat dripping down over his nose and into the neckline of his protective blacks. 

Cere sits next to him, her back against the beam, and she doesn’t look much better. She’s clutching her arm to her stomach and her eyebrows are drawn together in what can only be excruciating pain.

And on the other side of the beam . . . lies Cody. His entire left leg is trapped under the ton of steel, and his face is ashy and ghost-like. Blood crusts the side of his face and neck. Like Rex, he struggles to breathe. His chest is heaving, his arms press up against the beam as if to push it away from him, and his eyes are screwed shut. He’s yelling incoherently, but she recognizes a few words.

“Good soldiers,” he mutters. More pained shouts. “Good soldiers . . .”

Oh no.

She rushes forward, falling in a heap beside Rex, and pulls him into a crushing embrace. His arm shakes as it raises to clasp her back, and his breathing seems to even out just slightly. 

She doesn’t let go. Can’t let go.

“Are you okay?” Of course he’s not okay, but she has to ask.

He just vaguely nods his head. “I’ll make it.”

She’s getting blood all over herself, but she couldn’t care less. Rex leans onto her shoulders, shifting his weight so that he doesn’t have to hold up his body all on his own.

This was never supposed to happen. 

Not just this – crouching on the grimy floor of a collapsing Imperial base, three injured and no clear escape route – but any of this. The hiding, the running, the fighting for their lives every single day. The years and years of being hyper-aware of everything around them, never fitting in, never being known, never having a break from the fight. 

And Rex, who slumps against her like all the life has been sucked right out of him . . . her heart breaks clean in half.

Watching all his brothers be controlled against their will by a chip implanted probably before they were born. He escaped by the sacrifice of others, and that’s something he’s carried close to him for all these years. It’s something that’s eaten away at his mind, stolen his will to live at times, knowing he’s alive because hundreds – if not thousands – had to die first. And that millions more are imprisoned forever with no hope of being saved from endless torture and slavery to the Empire. She can feel the total, absolute weariness as she clings to him like they’re the only two people left in the world.

“I can’t help him,” Rex breathes, still not lifting his head from her shoulder. 

Just a few feet away, across the massive support beam, Cody still mutters to himself, mixing in deranged shouts every few words.

“We will,” she promises, but something in her knows they’re empty words. Who knows if Cody will live through this? His injury is obviously beyond repair, except for the option of amputation and cybernetics. And even if they could somehow extract him, they have no immediate access to a medical bay with the capabilities to remove his chip and save his life. He seems to have sustained damage to his brain, which no amount of bacta can fix.

Even so, they need to get out of here. “Can you walk?” she asks gently, pulling slightly away and scanning his body for major injuries. 

With a grunt and a few shaky movements, she has Rex standing, leaning against one of the vertical supports. Next to her, Cal has Cere’s good arm over his shoulders. He’s on high alert, his eyes flitting across the dark room every which way. 

“Cal,” she says, moving around to where Cody lies, his face even paler than before. “You have to help me lift this beam.”

“What?” His shock is almost tangible. 

She turns to face him and wills him, implores him to understand. “We’re getting Cody out of here. Remember, it’s not his–”

“Don’t.”

The voice is small, weak, and raspy. She spins on her heel and stares down again at the fading body of one of her oldest friends.

His head thrashes suddenly, his neck tensing, making his whole body convulse. His arms strain against the beam, almost involuntarily, and his eyes remain wide, focused on nothing, rolling around in their sockets.

Rex watches in abject horror, too weak to help, too confused to say anything. She feels the same way.

When the seizure subsides, Cody is a shell of himself. His breathing is more labored than before, sweat streams down his face, his eyes are closed, but he seems aware of the people staring down at him.

“I’m not gonna make it, you . . .” His chest heaves. His eyebrows draw together, and he mutters incoherently. “Get out.”

Ahsoka is almost sure of what’s happening. But she’s too afraid to voice it.

“-follow orders,” Cody mutters again. “. . . Soldiers . . .”

Rex meets her eyes, and they’re more pained and filled with sorrow than she’s ever seen them before. In a low voice, heavy with the burden of his dying brother, he somehow has the strength to say what she knows is true.

“His chip is failing.”

—

—

It must be pure shock and force of will keeping Cody alive. 

Together, Cal and Ahsoka are able to move the beam, and she almost wishes she hadn’t. 

She grew up in war. She’s spent lots of time around Kix, following him around when he went to attend injured soldiers because Anakin wanted her to have that perspective. She was always too brash, too careless, and she needed to see the extent of the damage her decisions could make. The way men could suffer in war, and the sacrifices they made every single day. So for a while, on journeys back to the Core, she would follow Kix through the hallways of the Resolute, through the medbays to pass out painkillers, bacta treatments, and sometimes simply to provide comfort as a soldier’s life slips from his eyes.

She’s seen a lot. She’s been in the literal trenches, watching hundreds of soldiers be shot, maimed, and disintegrated before her eyes.

But nothing could ever have prepared her for the sight under the beam.

Cody’s leg is unrecognizable.

By some stroke of pure luck, the floor was already dented, and his leg landed right in the middle so that the beam hit the floor on either side. But still, the distance between the floor and the beam is less than three inches. And Ahsoka can’t believe he hasn’t bled out yet.

Mangled wouldn’t be the correct word. But destroyed . . . No amount of bacta can save his leg.

“Cody,” she says carefully, and his eyes flicker open. He’s obviously disoriented, confused.

She knows he recognizes her. But his eyes drag over her like they’re being pulled along by a string, finally coming to rest on the figure standing just to her right. 

“Rex?” he croaks. Whispers, almost. “Brother?”

A strangled sob escapes her throat, and she can only imagine Rex must feel it tenfold.

BD-1 gives a nervous trill, and Ahsoka knows he’s warning about the fire spreading ever closer, threatening to finish the collapse of the entire base. Around her, metal continues to creak, stone continues to rumble, but all she can see and hear is this tragedy in front of her.

Rex hobbles toward his oldest friend and Cal rushes forward to support him as he collapses next to Cody’s right side. 

Another seizure takes over Cody’s body. Ahsoka knows his time is running out very, very quickly.

She doesn’t notice the tears until they’re splashing onto her arms and blurring her vision almost completely. Cere lands a warm hand on her shoulder, and Ahsoka is grateful.

“We can get you out of here,” Rex says, echoing her own promise from earlier. But his words are shaky and rough, and anyone would know he’s lying.

There’s no hope.

Hope.

What a fickle concept.

Was there hope for an army of millions, bred and raised and slaughtered for the furthering of an empty promise? Used, in the end, by the very people they’d given their lives fighting against. Forced to kill the only people who ever saw them as more than just pawns in a game? Not one true, honest Jedi could ever say they didn’t know exactly how unique and admirable each of the clones were. Identical men with completely different presences in the Force. Different personalities, different dreams and jokes and experiences. 

There was never hope. There could never have been hope. And now, anything Rex can say – any peace he can lend his dying brother – is nothing but false hope.

She’s seen it on battlefields almost every day during the war. Kix, running around, lying to his brothers in their last minutes, telling them they’ll be fine and it won’t be long before they’re extracted and brought to Kamino for healing.

False hope.

But it’s comfortable. And it’s necessary. 

Because even now, she can’t see past this.

When will it end? 

All the suffering, the dying, the endless striving toward something better. The hurt, the lies, the injustice of it all. To bring these men into a world for no purpose except to die.

Because of them, she survived. And because of them, the galaxy burned that much faster. 

And now, she’s watching the man who deserves nothing less than endless happiness as he fades away, fulfilling the only purpose he’d ever been created for.

To die.

—

—

“It wasn’t your fault, Cody.”

“. . . Yes. It was.”

“We were lied to, tricked. We didn’t know. I tried to find you, to save you. But I–”

“Rex.”

“Yes?”

“All the killing? . . . Our generals.”

“Don’t–”

“I’m sorry . . . my brother.”

“No. No, I’m sorry. If I’d known, if any of us had known, we could have . . . Could have changed things.”

“Rex.”

“Yes?”

“The mission . . .”

“No. Brother, no. ”

“The nightmares.”

“. . . Cody.”

“They’re finally . . . over.”

—

—

Chapter Text

—

10 BBY

Eight months later.

—

The first thing Cal notices is his burning face. 

Someone must have lit it on fire. 

The right side is numb, and he can feel the blood pooling there; he can feel his heart and its erratic rhythm, trying to wake him fully.

He groans.

Blinks.

The sun is like laser beams in his eyes. He physically recoils from the light, drags an arm up over his face. Sand falls from his sleeve into his mouth and into his ears but he’s too weak to brush it away and his mouth is too numbed by the heat to spit it out. 

His ears are ringing but he swears he hears a voice.

It’s awfully familiar . . .

Washed and distorted by the howling wind.

. . . Goodbye, my love.

He blinks again. Moves his arm from his eyes.

“. . . love. Kestis, you wake up right now, or I’ll–”

Merrin.

She doesn’t finish her sentence when she sees him move.

He can’t feel the right side of his body, but he thinks she’s checking him for injuries.

He tries to tell her he’s okay, that he’ll be just fine, but his mouth feels like a fire was lit inside it and left to smolder and smoke.

She runs a hand over his forehead. That, he can feel. 

His heart finally begins to even out its beating, letting him breathe. 

Cal opens his mouth. 

“Wh–” he tries. His throat feels like someone forced him to swallow lava. “Happened?” he mouths. Talking is impossible.

Merrin’s eyebrows crease. “Ships crashed,” she murmurs as she runs her eyes and fingers gingerly down the side of his head, smoothing out his hair as she goes. 

She must see the panic in his eyes, because she squeezes his hand. “They’re okay. We didn’t crash as hard as you. Will take some work to get in the air again, though.”

Slowly, carefully she helps him sit up. His face isn’t quite as numb anymore, but now it feels like it’s being pounded with a spike-ended mallet. 

It’s slowly coming back to him.

A stolen A-wing. 

A storm none of them saw coming.

He had to eject.

. . . A defective Imperial. 

Right.

He struggles to focus. Merrin’s red robes stand out stark and bright against the dusty orange ground. He notices blood on his hands. Dirt and sand crusting his legs. 

Dark red cliffs and sand dunes stretch for miles. 

“Do . . .” he whispers, each word feeling like it’s tearing out his throat. “See that?” 

He raises his arm and Merrin’s eyes dart in the direction he points. 

Over the nearest dune, distorted by the blazing sun, walks the unmistakable shape of a person.

Merrin visually tenses up, ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice. Her hand lingers on Cal’s back as she watches. Waiting. Silent as the wind throws pellets of sand into their eyes and the blazing sun does nothing to soothe his pain. 

“Do you think you can walk?” she asks quietly, her gaze landing back on Cal, giving him another once-over. 

He nods, even though his whole right leg is on fire (better than being numb, he supposes) and his left side feels like it was stepped on by a bantha. Staying here could be worse than the pain he would feel by moving. 

So, inch by agonizing inch, he heaves himself up and only blacks out for half a second. But Merrin is right there, letting him lean on her shoulders, hauling him back toward the wrecked hull of the stolen A-wing. 

The outline of the Mantis sits smoking about a hundred yards further, right at the base of a steep outcropping of rock. 

He collapses onto the wing of the little fighter, and Merrin drops a hurried kiss onto his forehead. “Stay right here.”

And with that, she’s off again, charging toward the approaching figure. 

It’s not like he can actually move, anyway. He tries to stretch out his arms, but the muscles pull and complain constantly. No amount of rubbing and bouncing will take away the stinging in his legs, and he’s pretty sure he can see his heartbeat in his eyeballs.

Even still, he grips the hilt of his lightsaber and fumbles for his binoculars. It hurts to lift them to his eyes, but still he squints against the sun and adjusts them to focus.

And just in time, too.

A man with long, tattered robes lifts his hands in the air in a show of surrender. 

Cal of course can’t hear what they’re saying, but he can vaguely see the man’s lips moving. He picks out just a few words.

Strangers . . . Out.

The man points toward where Cal is crouching. Ship, he reads.

Merrin is still as a statue. She’s not an expressive talker, and now while he’s staring at the back of her head, he wishes she would give him more of a clue of what she’s saying and feeling. 

Empire, the man says, followed by more unintelligible ranting and waving of his arms. 

He can’t see her face, but he knows Merrin is becoming tense and nervous. She taps the side of her leg in an erratic rhythm. 

He knows she’s winding up to bury this man in the sand. Or worse.

She nods at something he says, then flicks her hand and before Cal can blink, the man’s arms are held behind his back, wrists bound with swirling green magick. And Merrin is hauling him by the elbow. She meets his eyes through the macrobinocs and he can’t quite read her expression. She’s not afraid, she’s not angry . . . It’s more like mischief. Arrogance, almost. 

They’re approaching, so Cal puts down the binoculars and tries to shift his weight so he’s half standing, half leaning against the hull of the ship. The fire in his leg is slowly fading, but not without first becoming a million needles jabbing themselves directly into his skin over and over again. 

His hand doesn’t leave the cold, worn hilt of his lightsaber.

“Cal!” 

He whips his head around and breathes a huge sigh of relief. “Cere,” he whispers. You’re okay, he wants to say, but his throat still won’t allow it.

She checks him over carefully like Merrin had, probably noting every scratch and burn on the exposed skin of his neck, hands, and face. 

He tries clearing his throat, and the pain makes him want to vomit.

“You’ll be alright,” Cere decides, and Cal nods in agreement.

The pain is already changing and morphing, which means it won’t last forever. He can stand, so he didn’t break his legs. He can move his head, he’s not confused, and he’s tracking Cere’s movements just fine. It’s a miracle he didn’t end up with a concussion. 

Sure, he’s winded, but that’s nothing new. He probably inhaled and swallowed some sand and that’s why his throat feels like it’s been torn through by a rogue blaster. He’s able to think straight and see better than he could a few minutes ago, and the sun feels less painful now. 

He’ll be alright.

Merrin all but tosses the man down to the ground in front of Cere and Cal. He stumbles to his knees, his hands still firmly tied behind his back, and glares up at them with wild, menacing dark gray eyes. 

“Who are you people?” the man spits. 

Cere becomes tense. Guarded. “I’ll ask you the same thing.”

“That’s none of your business.” The man’s shoulders stiffen with anger and he doesn’t take his eyes off Cal. “This is my land and you have no right to be here.”

Obviously astonished, Cere gestures behind her, first to the crashed A-wing, then to the distant shape of the Mantis . “I’m very sorry. Our ships crashed here. We had no choice.”

“That’s what I said,” Merrin adds. 

“You’re gonna lead the Empire here,” the man hisses, his eyes darting around like storm troopers are about to appear out of thin air. 

“Who said we have anything to do with the Empire?” Cere demands.

The man goes quiet. Cal guesses he hadn’t considered that possibility. Their crew admittedly looks like a squad of bounty hunters, and that certain profession isn’t always the most trustworthy. Their loyalties are often . . . questionable. 

“Weren’t you sent to kill me?” the man asks, this time quiet and almost scared. 

Cal meets Merrin’s eyes, and she looks just as confused and stunned as he feels. 

“We don’t want to hurt anyone.” Cere’s voice matches the stranger’s – quiet and serious.

That was the answer the man wanted, Cal knows that for a fact. His face changes from furious and scared . . . to calm and determined. And the phrase he utters next is one that Cal has heard only a small handful of times. One that floats around radio waves like a whisper. One that people don’t dare utter in the light of day. He stands in awe at the gall this man has, saying that phrase to a group of total strangers who have him bound and tied down, and yet . . . what more does he have to lose?

“Long live the Republic,” the man says at barely higher than a whisper, staring down at the sand like he thinks it will swallow him up.

Cere’s eyes widen in disbelief. 

Merrin and Cal share a look of recognition. “Rebel,” she mouths. He nods just slightly. 

“Long live it.” Cere surprises him by answering back; the phrase they’d heard repeated just one single time, almost two years ago when they came too late to a public execution. They were the last words the innocent woman screamed before a storm trooper cut her down like she was nothing while a man holding a baby stood sobbing and shaking in a dark alley.

Cal still sees it in his nightmares.

The man’s head whips up, so that the fringes of his long head covering flick the sand below him and send it flying. “You’re . . .” he hisses, still wary but bordering on relief. 

“Yeah,” Cal answers. “Yeah, we are.”

—

—

As it turns out, the man’s name is Trava. 

“My family’s owned this land for generations,” he explains. “We don’t much like visitors. Especially unexpected ones.”

Cal leans heavily on Merrin’s shoulders, BD-1 practically shaking and clutching his rough brown poncho. The pain in his leg is slowly subsiding, but now he wonders if that’s a good thing. His hip feels weak, like it won’t hold him up for very much longer. But they’ve gone too far to turn back now, so all he can do is hope and pray that this Trava has some sort of hidden medical facility in this Force-forsaken desert. 

Each step feels like an inch. He’s beginning to question every decision leading up to this journey, as the blazing sun threatens to melt the skin right off his bones. 

Just over the next rise, he sees it: the storm that caused their epic crash. 

If it weren’t so dangerous, it would be beautiful. 

He can see the edge of the desert where the storm begins. Craggy rocks mark the transition from seemingly endless sand to rough, cracked grassland. Twisted trees dot the landscape for miles upon miles. He just barely makes out the outline of mountains scratching the horizon.

And above everything, swirling black thunder clouds cast a menacing shadow over the whole landscape. 

“What . . . is that?” Cere wonders, awestruck.

Trava bites his lips into a thin line. “A curse.”

They begin their descent over the last enormous sand dune, and Cal wonders if it wouldn’t be easier to just sit down and scoot, letting gravity have its way.

“Don’t even think about it,” Merrin admonishes quietly. Somehow, even though he never said a word, she can still seem to read his thoughts. 

“I wasn’t,” he retorts. That’s a lie. Obviously.

They plod on. 

Trava isn’t exactly the talkative type, and though Greez asks about the weather, about the planet, and what the local cuisine is, the man hardly answers more than a word or two. And Cal is in far too much pain to even talk with Merrin, so he turns inward. Takes a breath. 

The air is dry and tastes like distant rain. 

As his feet plod along, he reaches out to the Force. Searching for what, he’s not sure. Wisdom? Clarity of mind? But whatever it is, the Force is speaking to him. Tugging at the very center of his chest until he can’t help but listen. Merrin’s arm around his back is like an anchor, and he allows himself to ignore all the hauntingly beautiful scenery around him and focus on this pseudo-meditation that he’s become strangely good at.

There, he finds peace.

Flashes of the crash play through his mind like an old holo. Something happened there that wasn’t purely caused by the storm. Sure, those clouds look menacing, but the Mantis has been through worse.

So what happened?

He tries to sort it out like shining tendrils of a web in his mind and calls on the Force to grant him clarity. 

One floating string of memory catches his attention. He tugs on it gently, and he can see that it’s frayed at the end. 

Like a train to the chest, the memory almost knocks him clean over.

A woman’s face.

A dying red sun.

He gasps.

BD-1 lets out a concerned trill.

Merrin’s arm tightens around his back. “What is it?”

He shakes his head, still drawing in lungfuls of air like he’s never breathed a day in his life. “I . . . don’t know.”

They walk in silence for a good minute. He tries to revisit that memory, but it’s long gone. He tries to reach out to the Force again, and while he can still easily find a measure of peace and familiarity, the web he’d found before is swept away. Just out of reach. 

“Remember–” he whispers. Talking still hurts. “Remember that dream I had before Batuu?”

Merrin nods. “Your mother.”

Cal sighs. The ground below them changes slowly from sand to broken rock, and finally they’re wading through tall, crunchy brown stalks of grass. “It’s back.”

“Just now?” Her confusion is evident

“Yeah.”

Before Merrin can respond again, Trava stops and raises his arm. Just in front of him, having previously been completely hidden by a bent-over tree and five-foot-high grass, lays a shallow wooden structure. Its planks are knotty and uneven, much like the shrubby trees around it. He beckons to the group. “This way.”

The wooden structure is deceiving. Cal had been sure he’d hit his head inside, but a few steps lead down into a wide pit where the house is built into. It only stands four or five feet above ground level, because the rest of it is two or three feet below ground level.

Inside, it’s nearly just bare bones. The walls are made of that knobby wood, bound together with a type of ferrocrete. A single chair sits perched under a window, a grass-stuffed cot is tucked into the far corner, and a cookstove and table fill the corner to the right. To his left, Cal notices the other oddity: shelves upon shelves packed full of emergency ration kits and barrels labeled “drinking water.”

“Safe house,” Trava announces. “Ain’t much, but the Empire won’t find it, that’s for sure.”

The man must have the Force with him in one way or another, Cal decides. Who else, other than someone with the clearest and purest of intuition, would lead four armed and dangerous strangers to a safe house in the middle of nowhere? How does he know they are who they say?

Pure trust, it must be. 

He respects it.

Cere inclines her head. “We’re in your debt.”

Trava lets out a noncommittal grunt. “Just try not to break anything.” He raises a hand and points in a couple directions. “Neighbors that way. They’re friends, if you need something. I have business yet tonight. I’ll show you to the others tomorrow.” He moves toward the door, then pauses . . . looks back over his shoulder as if he’s considering his next words thoroughly. “Oh, and . . . Don’t leave the house after dark.”

And with that, he’s gone.

—

—

—

—

Ahsoka can’t sleep.

It’s nothing new. She hasn’t slept more than three or four hours at a time since . . . Well. It’s been a while. 

But tonight, none of her usual tricks are working. She closes her eyes and imagines flying her ship through an endless sea of pink and orange clouds, lit by the far-setting sun. She pictures a meditation chamber, with all its glowing, flickering lights and the soft maroon hues. She remembers the feeling of stone under her ankles as she sits cross-legged, and recalls the soft sounds of her master’s breathing next to her.

And still, her mind won’t calm itself enough to even allow her an hour or two.

She turns to her side and glares at the dim light filtering in from under the door.

Screw it.

With a resigned sigh, she throws the thin blanket to the side and slips her boots on. The dark brown earthen walls muffle any sound that might have come in from outside. Under her feet, the ground is lumpy and altogether not meant to be a permanent living solution. She creeps to the rickety old door. It’s a manual one – completely unlike the vast majority of doors she’s ever used in her short lifetime. It swings out on hinges and has a handle on one side instead of sliding into the wall with an opening mechanism. It’s primitive, just like the rest of this place.

It creaks as she opens it, slowly and carefully to avoid waking her half-dozen roommates. 

Out in the brighter hallway, she takes a moment to blink out the haze from her sleepless eyes and takes a deep breath of moist, musty air. Lanterns flicker up and down the narrow pathway and she’s grateful for the relative peace of the place. She wraps her thin cloak more closely around her shoulders and wanders down the hall to the left. This should be where the tiny service entrance was . . .

Her memory serves her well. Sure enough, another rickety old door greets her about thirty yards down, and it, too, protests and creaks weakly as she turns the handle and pulls it open.

The thrilling beauty of the planet is almost overwhelming. A dark, dying red sky stretches out to the furthest horizon she’s ever seen. Huge, towering, black-gray clouds hang low over the landscape, skimming the jagged peaks of rock that seem to be reaching up and crying out for help with their broken arms. A massive structure that Ahsoka can only guess is some type of gargantuan, ancient petrified tree stands looming over the ruins of a low-lying city. Half of the city is covered in a layer of something resembling the shape of boiling water. The best she can guess is that it was hit by an erupting volcano and thereafter completely abandoned. 

“Stunning, huh?”

The voice doesn’t startle her. She’s lived with Rex long enough to know that he has a habit of appearing at the most random times. She glances down and to her right, to where he’s perched himself against the cold stone wall, one knee hiked up to his chest. He’s not wearing shoes, so he must have just stumbled out of bed too. His scruffy white-blond hair is a disaster after wearing his helmet all day, and he’s long overdue for a beard trim. 

With a deep sigh, she lowers herself gingerly onto the rocky sand. He quickly clears off a little spot for her to sit, then grasps her shoulder and squeezes it in greeting. 

“Can’t sleep either?” she asks. 

He shrugs. “Never really do, anyway.”

A corner of her mouth lifts in sardonic amusement. They’re the same that way, and they both know it. It’s left over from the war, when no one ever slept a wink, and if they did it was guaranteed to be the most unrestful sleep they’d ever experienced, riddled with nightmare after nightmare. Since the war ended (from the Empire’s perspective), the nightmares have continued. It’s easier to sleep now, but she’s wary of it. 

“How long do you want to stay here, commander?”

The honorific is an old joke of theirs. She likes hearing the slight chuckle in his voice when he says it, and so for that reason it doesn’t bother her like it probably should. 

“Honestly, Rex? I would stay forever.” There’s no one else in the whole galaxy who she can be this honest with. Their bond has been forged over more than a decade of unbreakable trust, and showing this kind of total vulnerability and weakness to her best friend is as easy as breathing. “I’m tired. I wish we could just . . . run away and forget.”

He hums quietly, deep in thought at her words. “Forget. Now wouldn’t that be nice?”

It’s been eight months, but the memory of Cody still lingers in their minds. That day down in the collapsing bunker. The utter exhaustion. The feeling of total helplessness as their best friend slowly slipped away into oblivion. 

It’s raw, like a wound that will never quite heal. 

“I know we can’t just give up,” she amends, mostly for herself. “But don’t you wish it were all just–” she snaps her fingers. “Over?”

The red glow of the sky reflects in his eyes, and Ahsoka notices the wisps of gray appearing in his beard. The deep wrinkles at the corner of his eye. The worry lines creasing his forehead. 

“Of course I do,” he says quietly, and she can hear the obvious weariness in his voice. And even quieter, he adds, “I wish it had never happened.”

At that, she lowers her head to stare at the tiny grains of dark sand that have already scattered themselves across her lap. 

They’ve been over this dozens of times, it seems. Of course she wishes the war had never happened. Of course the galaxy would be better off under the questionable-but-fair guidance of the Republic, instead of whatever corrupted dictatorship this Empire has become. Not even to mention the slaughter of thousands of innocent Jedi. That’s another open wound. The slavery of millions of the clones. That one will never heal.

But without the war . . . she would never have become Anakin’s padawan. Without the war, the clones wouldn’t exist, and she wouldn’t have her best friend who sits next to her now, so close that she can practically feel his heartbeat. He’s her other half in almost every way, and she has no idea what she’d do without him. It’s selfish to think, but she’s glad at least that through all the horror, she has him. 

Gently, she takes his hand and pulls it to herself. With an earnest gaze, she meets his sad, dark eyes. “We could stay for a while.”

At that, he shakes his head in resignation. “‘Soka, no. I can’t just run away from–”

She reaches up to guide his chin back and implores him to look at her. “I’m not saying forever. Just . . . for a while. These people could obviously use some help, at least just to get back on their feet. Then, maybe when they’re doing better, we can go back and find Cal again. The Path needs us, I can feel it. But not yet.”

A hint of a smile warms his face again. “Yeah. You know, I could get used to this view.”

But he’s not looking at the landscape. 

His eyes don’t break from hers.

Her heart gives a sudden jolt, and she’s momentarily at a loss for words. 

She breathes in sharply. And smiles. “Okay then.”

His smile widens, and they both turn back to the expanse of blazing red sky and rock and the whisper of an ancient civilization so long gone that even its remaining inhabitants can’t explain what happened. 

She doesn’t even notice that she’s still holding his hand.

—

—

Chapter Text

A string of half-formed curses from under the ship makes Hunter chuckle.

“That all you got?” He bends himself over, craning his neck up to check on Omega’s handiwork. Her blonde hair is plastered to her forehead, grease and soot smeared across every inch of her face. She lays on her back on the dolly, arms flung out to each side. Her glare sends daggers through Hunter’s skull.

“The damn thing spit on me,” she exclaims and weasels her way back out toward the daylight.

“Ships can’t spit,” Tech calls dryly from the opposite side, and Omega rolls her eyes and gives the loudest, most obviously-annoyed sigh she can muster. 

Laughing, Hunter goes to retrieve a rag for his sister. 

He’s glad he decided to remove his upper blacks and keep on the loose, white, natural-fiber shirt he’d acquired from the locals. The air is so hot and humid that even his advanced, altered heat-resistant biology can’t keep up with it. He’s sweating buckets under his leg armor, even with the breathable shirt up top. The next planet they stop at will be an ice planet, he decides then and there. 

After a good wipe-down of her face and a long drink of electrolyte water, Omega is a new person again. 

“Let’s never come here again,” she begs. “This place hates us.”

“I second that,” Echo grumbles. 

Hunter can’t help but agree. Just walking feels like he’s swimming through a boiling sea. 

“Omega!” Tech calls. “Did you get that capacitor replaced?”

She barely opens her mouth to answer, when a grating, metallic, slithering voice interrupts them.

Hunter should have sensed it coming. 

“Hands in the air, clones. ”

His blood runs cold, the instinct to fight immediately gripping every muscle in his body, winding them tight like springs. He can feel the last of his discomfort with the heat dissipate like he’d lived here forever. 

It takes half a second to shove Omega behind some stacked crates, putting her between them and the solid hull of the Marauder , another half second to meet Echo’s eyes. They know their next move. 

He whirls, hands raised in mock-surrender, and Echo does the same.

In front of him, blocking the small hangar exit door, stands a thin, spindly black-clad figure. Its hood hangs low, covering any hint of a face. Dark, ragged, heavy looking robes drape over its whole body, folding and creasing like they’re being held up by no more than the shoulder bones of a skeleton. A thin silver belt is the only break in the endless black cloth, and even that is tarnished and worn.

But it’s not just the belt that gives Hunter pause. It’s the long golden cylinder that hangs from it.

Dank farrik.  

Okay, change of plan. 

He hopes beyond hope that Tech stays behind the ship, safely out of sight of this ghost-like Inquisitor. Wrecker was due to return with parts and lunch any time now, and Hunter just prays to any god that may be listening that he got lost on the way back.

Maybe this mysterious figure can be reasoned with.

Hands still raised, he lowers the little finger on his right hand just slightly as a signal to both Echo and Omega to stay quiet and stay put. 

“Who are you?” he begins, feeling like he’s diving straight into a dying star.

The figure responds without moving. Not a single rustle of the hood, not even a shuddering of the shoulders to indicate breath. “Where are the others-s-s?” The s is stretched out. Hissing.

Deflecting a question with a question. Not a great move.

“This is all of us,” Hunter blatantly lies. “Now tell me who you are, or I’ll put a hole through that hood of yours.”

Maybe not his best negotiation attempt in the world, but it does get a rise out of the figure. And that confirmation and distraction is just what he needed.

While one spindly arm reaches for its weapon, Tech emerges from the shuttle door, armor fully on and a blaster in each hand. 

And then, all hell breaks loose. 

Hunter clamps his fist shut, and the second he does, Tech lets it rain. The figure screeches – the most unholy sound he’s ever had the displeasure of hearing – and rushes forward, glowing red blade spinning circles, blocking each bolt as it comes. 

Hunter ducks and rolls, joining Omega behind the crates. Her wide eyes are filled with some mixture of panic and adrenaline. He dives for the first heavy-duty fully-automatic blaster he sees, spins back around, crouches low, and empties a few blazing rounds at the figure’s mid-section.

To his right, Echo is sprinting for the hangar door. 

Hunter doesn’t watch long enough to see what he’s up to, because suddenly the Inquisitor has seized hold of Tech with an invisible arm and is holding him in mid-air, lightsaber hovering dangerously close to his throat.

Hunter’s senses are on full alert now. He wants to scream, but that would only cause Tech’s immediate death. Omega’s face is ash-gray and her mouth drops open. Quickly, he clamps a hand over it. 

Time freezes.

He’s stuck.

It feels like every training session, every battle, every instinct bred into his very bones has been for nothing.

He’s watching his brother’s death and there’s nothing he can do about it.

Move.

Do something.

He feels the second pass by, as purely as if he were living a whole hour.

This won’t happen.

He won’t allow it.

They’ve come too far, been through too much, fought too many battles, cried too many tears, for their lives to end like this. By some hooded ex-Jedi skeleton with a murderous streak. It simply won’t happen.

It won’t.

With the loudest battle cry he’s ever uttered, he flings himself forward, gun blazing. His feet feel like they’re floating, like the air is pulling him along unbidden, like he’s in a tunnel running at full blast and saving Tech’s life is the only thing that matters. 

It might be the stupidest thing he’s ever done. But for a moment, for one blessed moment, it works. The Inquisitor drops Tech and barely has time to face Hunter. The red lightsaber swings as if blocking his attack, but Hunter knows the Inquisitor has been hit at least ten times directly in the torso.

No one should be able to survive that.

Now he’s close enough that he can throw down the gun and yank the vibroblade from his hip holster. 

Knife in hand, he does the second stupidest thing he’s ever done. He ducks low, aiming for the silver belt . . . and tackles the Inquisitor.

The golden hilt of the saber goes flying, and Hunter’s chest slams into the Inquisitor’s body, which offers almost no padding between him and the ferrocete. He hears a crunch like breaking ribs, and they weren’t his.

In a flash, the knife is at the Inquisitor’s throat, and the hood . . .

The hood is gone.

Hunter finally processes what he’s seeing. 

The face truly is skeletal. Deep, sunken eye sockets, sharp cheekbones, and a smooth, bald, round head. Sickly green-orange skin. But what really takes Hunter aback are the bright red flaming eyes, the pupils in long slits like a feral loth cat. And the snarling, cracked lips barely covering a row of rotting yellow teeth. 

“Who are you?” Hunter demands again, fury and near-panic overpowering his entire body. “How did you find us?”

The snarl only widens on the Inquisitor’s face, like the answer to the question is the greatest secret. Hunter winces when the Inquisitor laughs, wishing he could avoid the rancid, snake-like breath. And then . . . a word. One that sends chills down his whole spine.

“Kestis. Where is Kes-s-s-s-tis?”

Hunter grits his teeth and easily lies. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

A bone-chilling laugh cuts through the humid air. “You will.”

And just as suddenly as he appeared, the Inquisitor is gone. 

Hunter is left crouching over the ferrocrete, his knife now threatening nothing but air. 

He collapses to the ground, strangely spent.

Quick footsteps approach from behind him, and he cranes his neck around to see Omega falling to her knees next to him, her energy bow still clutched in one shaking hand. 

“What was that?!” she exclaims.

Hunter slowly shakes his head as Echo approaches from his right. He must have been locking the hangar door to prevent their enemy’s escape, but there was no need. 

“I have no idea,” he mutters. “Someone who really doesn’t like Cal Kestis.”

—

—

—

—

Rortham has never been the impatient type. He’s never cared much about time. What is time anyway? Simply a measurement of breaths breathed – a four-dimensional vehicle in the physical world. It’s a comfort to some and a torment to others. 

It’s inconsequential to him. 

His time may end, but time will continue. The things he sets in motion will burn until they are snuffed out. 

Time is one piece of the galaxy he doesn’t often find himself fighting against. All things tend to work out with time. It heals, and it corrupts. You just have to know which way to bend it.

And yet . . . he’s not too arrogant to know that not everyone agrees with his views. For some, time is a limited resource. It’s something to be spent, like credits. It’s something to be hoarded and bartered with; something to crave and lust after. People go crazy for time. They tear each other to shreds in the hopes of gaining one singular second. Empires are built on the slowing of time. The attempted immortalizing of things still subject to time’s icy grasp. Information, history, memories. All fade and wither away with time. 

It’s inconsequential to him. 

It’s the natural course of things, and who is he to argue? 

But now . . . he suddenly feels the slow ticking of the chrono. 

The whispering that maybe, just maybe, time is running out.

“You failed? ” Rortham nearly howls. Around him, the bare durasteel walls echo with his anger. A dim light flickers across the room, responding to the passion in his words. 

“He wasn’t with them,” the robed figure sneers, yellow teeth just visible below the edge of his hood. Unrepentant.

Rortham feels the fury boiling up in his gut, ready to spill onto this worthless creature in front of him. “And you think that is reason enough to come slithering back to me? Empty handed, no less.”

He notices just the smallest flicker of apprehension in K’shenek’s mood. “Those clones-s-s were more capable than you realize.”

“I expected better from you.” He slams a fist on the table, sending a precarious glass dish shattering to the floor.

The Sauro man rustles in annoyance. “You have been given my word. I will find the boy. But I mus-s-st be allowed to use my own . . . methods-s-s.”

Rortham considers, allowing the rage to grant him clarity. If K’shenek is so confident in his abilities to track down the Jedi, why has it taken him three standard years just to hit yet another dead end? Rortham has heard whispers of other Inquisitors having burned down entire Rebel hideouts, many of them containing Jedi. Their skills are unmatched. They have the support of the Empire behind them, lending them resources and intelligence. One Inquisitor has proven over and over again to be a good match for an entire legion of Rebels. 

K’shenek’s incompetence is inexcusable.

But what other option does he have?

The boy must be found.

With a jaw clenched so hard that he hears a rushing in his ears, he glares at the Sauro and lifts one finger. “You have . . . one more chance. If you come back to me empty handed again, I will personally ensure that you rot in a dungeon until this planet swallows you whole. Is that understood?”

K’shenek bows deeply from the waist, and Rortham gets the impression that he’s being mocked. It wouldn’t be the first time.

“As-s-s you say.”

And with that, he’s alone again. 

The silence is suddenly deafening. Rortham lifts his hands to rub the frustration out of his face. Hired hunters only cause more trouble than they’re ever worth. 

With a sigh, he heaves himself up from the chair and slowly crosses the room, deep in thought and fighting the wave of anger.

Eight years. How has it already been eight years?

Every waking moment, every minute. He’s spent every drop of that time searching for the boy. 

Through the transparisteel viewing window, he gazes down at the same scene that greets him every day. Its familiarity is almost comforting, somehow. The great expanse of grassland, the deep red rocks with their jagged edges, the shining white lake that glitters like the most precious stone. And the blazing red sunlight filtering in through the valley. 

With his home built into the side of the tallest cliff, he’s fortunate to have this view. 

Most ordinary citizens would only dream of seeing the whole landscape at once, in all its haunting glory, whenever they wish. He remembers the time he spent down there. The air is hotter and more suffocating down in the valley where the town is. Vapor from the lake combined with the incessant heat from the dying sun combine to create a very uncomfortable few weeks every year, which the people often escape by retreating into the shady crevices between the two walls of rock that make up their valley. It’s not an experience he would ever like to revisit.

It’s a good thing he’s not one of them .

Rortham purses his lips and crosses his arms.

What to do about the boy?

Cal Kestis.

Such a bold name. A proud, pungent name. Recognizable, and yet not uncommon. 

But this Cal Kestis is finally the right one. The Jedi. A lone survivor of the purge, who has avoided Imperial capture for the last eight years. 

Maybe he’s just a rumor. A cryptid.

But Rortham is confident. He wouldn’t have hired the likes of K’shenek if he wasn’t totally sure of himself.

He’s too important to just forget about.

He shuffles through the facts he already knows.

Cal and his crew were seen on Batuu less than a standard year ago, with the oh-so-recognizable Clone Force 99. That stone turned up empty.

He knows that Cal has faced Inquisitors before, even that he broke into Fortress Inquisitorius nearly four years ago. He’s heard rumors of the Jedi’s capability, that he’s a force to be reckoned with. Whispers say that he faced down with the unbeatable Darth Vader and still escaped with his life.

But what good are rumors, anyway?

Rortham cares about the facts. 

And the fact is that this boy is the one he’s been searching for. That he’s escaped every attempt at capture Rortham has thrown at him. And that K’shenek has proven to be absolutely useless.

He just has to keep trying . . .

“Father?”

The call startles him just slightly. He hadn’t heard the hiss of the door – he must have settled too deeply into his thoughts. Rortham turns to greet his daughter, who returns his inviting words with a blank smile.

“What’s the matter?” he asks.

Lora shakes her head and steps sideways, creating an open path for him to exit. Her long hair falls into her face, deep and red as the dying sun. “You’re wanted in the dining hall.”

Ah yes. The visitors from Coruscant were due to arrive today.

“Thank you, child,” he replies. “But next time, just send a servant to get me. You should be down there with the senators.”

She avoids his gaze, instead choosing to stare at the black desk at the center of the room. “Yes, Father.”

Avoiding him. The same as she has for the last twenty-one years.

Avoiding what, he’s not sure. His wrath? The consequences of her own actions? Both are long overdue, and he wonders how long he can keep up this charade of kindness. Her decision was one of adolescent stupidity, and she deserves every bit of anger he feels toward her. And she knows it.

One day, this will all come to light, justice will be served, and his grandson will be back here, where he belongs. Where he’s always belonged.

And he is nothing if not patient.

So until then, Rortham has a dinner party to attend.

—

—

—

—

For all its beauty, Orvax is a hellhole.

Ahsoka’s seen her share of poverty. Of devastation. But not much can compare to the dregs of this place. 

People live in community bunkers, practically piled on top of each other, using hand-dug toilets wherever they can find a place out of the way. 

Ships are reserved for the rich, so there’s no way off-world even if they could possibly afford public transit. And anyway, only one bus arrives every couple months. Not much for intergalactic travel.

Food is scarce. Families do what they can, but the native plants here are few and far between, most of them filled with toxins from volcanic eruptions and the failing atmosphere. These people are hardy, but there’s a limit, and that line has been crossed eons ago. Children are rare, and if they manage to make it past age two, they’re regarded as higher than royalty. And even so, many of them have distended, swollen bellies that ache of hunger and suffering.

Ahsoka’s heart breaks over and over for them. She’s given away all the spare rations from her A-wing, all the tools and emergency supplies, every last credit she can spare. 

And still, she should be doing more.

So they settle down for a while. She and Rex spend countless hours teaching, mentoring, building structures, encouraging sanitary practices wherever possible to avoid even more disease. Her stomach aches with hunger more often than not, and Rex’s cheeks begin to hollow under his beard, but they don’t care. These people have been through enough – don’t they deserve every ounce of strength Ahsoka and Rex are willing to give?

The days fly by. 

And the more time Ahsoka spends with the people of Orvax, the more she respects their view of things; a fact she found to be true almost every day during the war.

That sometimes in the midst of suffering is when you find the most beauty in the world.

The glint of sunshine reflecting off a silver bucket handle. The laughter and joy of children playing together. The brush of a loved one’s hand against hers during a particularly grueling work day. 

They don’t let their dire situation prevent them from feeling . . . human. In fact, she finds herself respecting humans even more for their unbreakable perseverance against all odds. It’s something togrutas share in that regard – their resilience. Among these poor, starving, weary, beaten village of people, she feels strangely at home. 

But eventually, she knew the fight was going to come again, knocking firmly at her door. 

Or rather, through a quick comm link message.

Ahsoka sits back heavily, staring at the dirt wall in front of her, still reeling at Hunter’s words. 

“Well,” Rex mutters. “Here we go again.”

It had sounded like the Inquisitor didn't know of her existence or their partnership with Clone Force 99 – just Cal’s. At least they may be able to use that to their advantage. Do some digging, find out more information before Cal is found. Her shoulders sit high and tight, full of something bordering on raw fear. 

There’s something behind this attack, much more than the Empire hunting down the last remaining Jedi, that much is clear to her. 

“What do you make of it all?” Rex asks. His hands are braced on his knees, the rough brown fabric of his tunic falling down over his fingers. 

Ahsoka shakes her head slowly. “I don’t know.”

“We have to warn Cal.”

She nods, only half-processing his words as she transmits Hunter’s message to Cal’s encrypted frequency. The dark walls seem to swallow her up, and she fights against the helplessness of it all. Of course, she’s never felt safe as long as the Empire has been around, but there was a moment there – just a few standard weeks – where she could see past some of the horrors and simply do some good for the people around her. The people of Orvax are suffering. They’ve been burned and wounded in more ways than physical. Their planet is dying, running out of resources. 

She and Rex have done everything they can, but it doesn’t feel like enough.

If only they had more time. 

And now they’re being pulled back into the fight.

She turns her head, meeting Rex’s familiar, determined, and tired gaze. And she knows that if she takes on this challenge, she won’t be alone. As long as they stick together, she’ll never have to go it alone. 

But is it really what he wants? 

More struggle, more Inquisitors, more narrow escapes from the Empire. She sees clearly the toll these years have taken on her best friend. Aside from the recent season of near-starvation, Rex is not who he used to be. And she feels it in herself, too. That spry teenager she once was is long gone, replaced with a more careful, more hesitant adult who is simply weary and bordering on bitterness. She sees the same thing in his eyes. He would do anything for her and for those he considers friends, and if she goes after this stranger hunting down Cal, he’ll be beside her the whole damn time. 

But she sees the slight gray beginning to show at the edges of his dusty blond beard, and her heart gives a strange lurch. He still stands tall and proud, still handles every bit of work and labor thrown at him with grace and professionalism. Still has that sharpshooter eye, that keen agility, that seemingly endless endurance and strength. But he’s tired. She can tell. Burdened by the millions of his brothers who are still in slavery. All the brothers who could be saved with one simple procedure, but can’t be accessed because of the impenetrable steel wall of the Empire.

Do good and don’t look back, he’s told her before. They can’t focus on everything they can’t do. Instead, they both have to keep pressing forward, keep finding ways to offer some relief to all the galaxy’s citizens being horrifically oppressed by Palpatine and his bulldogs. 

Sometimes she wonders if the sunken cheeks and the dark circles under his eyes are something of a shrine to his lost brothers. 

“You think we can help him?” she asks quietly.

He raises an eyebrow. “You don’t?”

“Well,” she amends. “We’ve definitely handled worse.” 

Rex chuckles. It’s an understatement, and they both know it.

“But when are we going to stop trying to do everything and help everyone? If I could be in five places at once, I would. But I just . . .” She buries her face in her hands, emotionally spent.

Rex sighs and extends his hand. “‘Soka. Let’s take a walk.”

—

—

There’s a path they take sometimes, that winds up over the distant hill past the main village, toward the sunset. It’s a beautiful walk and Ahsoka is always grateful for a break in the sameness of the day-to-day. Usually their walks are silent, simply processing everything in their minds separately, reliving the events of that day, or quietly meditating on the vast possibilities of the future. 

But today, though she doesn’t want to listen, Rex talks. He’s never talked much. Speeches to his men, sure. Clipped and professional reports to Anakin or the council after a mission, of course. But simply saying what’s on his mind? Ahsoka is sure he’s never expressed himself like this before.

So she listens.

“Do you remember that first battle we fought together on Christophsis?”

She nods. “Of course I do.”

He smiles slightly, deep in thought. “You were so brash. So defiant of anyone telling you anything, giving you any orders. I wondered what the council had been thinking, assigning you to the likes of General Skywalker. You two were . . . hotheads, respectfully.”

Ahsoka laughs at that. “It’s okay, Rex. You can say we were the worst.”

“Your words, not mine.” But he grins for a moment, then loses himself in memories again. 

Around them, the wind howls. Miles upon miles of rough, broken terrain echo with the pain of past civilizations. The sky glows blue and orange and pink, and Ahsoka just marvels at the beauty.

“You know,” Rex continues, “I always was curious of how you would turn out. You had potential, commander. You always did. You care about people like no one I’ve ever met. And whatever you put your mind to, you see through. Even when you were just a padawan, I know the general respected you. He was harsh because he wanted you to succeed, and that you did.”

“But I failed, Rex. Remember?”

He shakes his head. “Maybe in the eyes of the Order. But I always believed you. The general fought for you, and it broke his heart when you left. I don’t remember a day when he didn’t talk about you or reference one of your strategies. You did some real good when you were fighting, ‘Soka. Saw Gerrera’s band of Rebels is practically making headlines now, because of what you taught him. You were the general’s voice of reason when he nearly lost himself sometimes. And, well . . . You saved me. I’d be six feet in the ground right alongside Jesse if you hadn’t given it everything you had.”

Tears threaten to spill over. He’s never spoken so openly, so freely. They’ve talked about almost every aspect of their past lives, but never like this. It feels as though he just tore out his own heart and is handing to her on a platter.

He stops them at the top of the hill, and she lets the wind sweep over her face. It smells like sulphur and damp earth.

Turning to face her, he places both hands on her shoulders with outstretched arms. His eyes are so understanding, almost like he’s the one feeling her emotions through the Force. 

“You can’t help everyone,” he says, more quiet and poignant this time. “Just like I can’t help all my brothers. But who would we be, ‘Soka? If we don’t burn ourselves out for the greater good.”

“But you don’t–” she tries. 

And somehow, he’s already read her mind. “I will fight until my last breath. I owe it to General Skywalker, to all the clones, and mostly,” he lifts a hand and places his index finger gently against her chest, right above her sternum. “I owe it to you.”

She tries to take in his words as they come, but they’re overwhelming. All the pain in his gaze, mixed with every bit of steadfastness she’s always known he possesses.

“I know you feel like Cal is your responsibility to protect,” he says, and again he’s reading her mind. “So as hard as you fight to protect him, I’ll fight harder. Do good and don’t look back, remember?”

Grateful is too weak of a word. He says he owes her, but he’s wrong. It’s the other way around.

With a strangled cry, she flings herself forward and wraps him tightly in her arms. She’s gotten taller in the last eight years, but she’s still at just the right height to bury her face in the crook of his neck, clinging to his shoulders with all her might. 

No words need to be said. Any doubt about his motivations or selfish wants dissipate into the howling wind. 

She should have known better. They’re both in this for the long haul, and nothing save death could tear them apart now.

Do good and don’t look back.

—

—

Chapter Text

—

Ahsoka says a silent, final goodbye to Orvax through the window of the double seater A-wing. 

Her heart aches for the people left behind, and she swears that once she has more resources and supplies, this will be the first place she visits. 

For now, she has to focus. 

She’s glad for the long hyperspace trip. It’s almost a full ride across the galaxy to the backwater Rebel-controlled space port where they’ll switch out this ship for a more versatile, fully-loaded cargo shuttle. 

It’s cramped in the tiny seat behind Rex, but she doesn’t mind. Her body has taken a severe hit in energy due to the months of near-starvation, so it’s nice to simply sit and stare out at the familiar swirling blue, not worrying too much, not thinking about the next step. Just existing in the moment, exchanging a few words with Rex, dozing off here and there. 

Hyperspace always reminds her of the war, which she realizes should be concerning, but not all the memories are bad. The war shaped her; molded her into the person she is now, so how can she fault it? In her mind’s eye, she sees Kix’s med bag with the red symbol. Fives’ tattoo on his temple. Long, exhausted walks back to her quarters in the Resolute . Anakin’s many lectures and training sessions. 

She gets lost in the swirling blue of it all.

Blue, like the 501st. Like the armor she buried. Flashes of orange, like her own skin. Echoed on the helmets of her brothers. Gone too soon.

She loses track of time, her mind drifting in and out of sleep, sometimes in a half-formed dream of what things would be like had the chips never existed; had they managed to dethrone Palpatine in time . . . What if, what if, what if?

There’s always a what if. What if Obi-Wan hadn’t found the clone army on Kamino in the first place? What if Palpatine never rose to power? What if the Jedi Council refused to assist the Republic in the war?

The possibilities are, without exaggeration, completely endless. 

“How much further, Rex?”

He presses a button and she leans forward and presses her forehead against the back of his seat, just able to see the control board as it blinks idly, signaling another two standard hours left in their journey.

That’s not so bad.

“Doing alright back there?” he asks. Always looking out for her.

She hums in the affirmative, and keeps her forehead against the softened plastoid. It’s cool and the frequency of the ship trickles through it, into her skull and montrals like music. 

“I’ve been thinking,” Rex begins, which always means he’s been thinking about something for days, if not weeks, and is finally ready to share his conclusion. “About the inhibitor chips.”

She listens, her interest piqued.

“Back on Kamino, we had these growth acceleration chambers, as they called them. Our whole lives, once a week for an hour, we would lay in a dark room and wear electrodes on our heads. It hurt like hell. And afterwards we’d have muscle aches for a day or two. I never really thought about it, just figured they stimulated the pituitary gland to speed up growth. But . . .”

He trails off.

Ahsoka waits, eyes closed, intently waiting for his voice to resume, low and thoughtful.

A minute passes. 

They’re in no rush. 

He needs to gather his thoughts.

“See,” he continues, “when you rescued me and I woke up from that surgery to remove my chip, it was like . . . All I felt was the absence of that same pain. I didn’t realize I was feeling it every day until it was gone.”

“What are you saying?”

Rex absently strokes his beard. “According to a growth rate of double that of a human, I should be at the equivalent of at least my mid-forties by now. But I’m not. It’s been eight years since the war, and I don’t feel any different. Should feel like nineteen years since then, but . . . it’s like my cells stopped dying so quickly. Just like the pain. I can almost feel the absence of deterioration.”

He’s right. Ahsoka couldn’t have pinpointed it, but he’s right. He has a few stress lines on his face, sure. But no one escapes a galaxy-wide war and eight years of hiding and fighting without developing some of those. There are a couple flecks of white in his beard and near his temples, understandably. But physically, he’s almost completely unchanged by the years. He’s still as nimble and steady and strong as ever, and while his cheeks may have hollowed and his shoulders narrowed from the period of malnutrition, he still has a certain youthful air. Normally she would have brushed it off as just his good genes that resist the physical signs of aging, but the Force doesn’t lie. And his Force signature is undoubtedly that of a young twenty-something year old human with plenty of life ahead of him. She’s run into older clones before, some of the first that were made, and it’s different – she knows that much.

Something doesn’t add up.

“So, do you think . . .” she starts, not quite able to nail down the one missing piece.

Rex lets out a long breath. “It’s the chip,” he says softly. “It has to be.”

“You think the chips speed up your aging?”

“It’s the only explanation, isn’t it?”

Ahsoka’s mind runs a hundred parsecs a minute. “I always assumed it was just part of the altered genetic code.”

“So did we,” Rex explains. “Thought there was nothing we could do about it.” 

“So when you were in those growth acceleration chambers, they weren’t stimulating any gland, they were . . .”

“Programming the inhibitor chip. Yeah.”

She’s trying to put the pieces together. “But wouldn’t that have set it off somehow? Like how Tup’s malfunctioned?”

“We still don’t know what caused that, ‘Soka. I don’t think they would be so sensitive to electricity, or we’d have chips malfunction all across the galaxy.”

“What about the enhanced clones? Like the Batch?”

Rex’s fingers tap out an erratic rhythm on the control panel. “That’s where my theory falls apart. The chips had to be obsolete enough so they didn’t trigger during Order Sixty-Six, but active enough to stimulate growth.”

“Maybe they–” 

Suddenly, the ship all but erupts.

She can’t even finish her sentence.

It’s deafening.

She’s violently interrupted by a horrible mechanical scraping sound, like ungreased gears and a freight train rattling by. The control panel lights up with ten warning signals and a shrieking whistle.

Immediately, Rex has the joystick in hand and is punching the hyperdrive kill switch. “Brace!” he shouts, and she throws herself backwards into her seat, gripping the emergency handles. 

Blue turns to white streaks around them, which narrows to pinpricks of stars. If she wasn’t fearing for her life, she would be enjoying the sight. It’s her favorite part of space travel: the sudden switch from endless motion to complete stillness. Peace.

But there is no peace here.

“Shutting down main power,” Rex says, his no-nonsense Captain attitude already fully engaged. “Shutting down main engines. Switching on auxiliary power.”

Almost an eternity passes before he finally says, “Fire suppression complete.”

“What just happened?” Adrenaline courses through Ahsoka’s body, making her fingers tingle and her senses tuned to a thousand. 

With one last flip of a switch, everything is suddenly silent again. The stars outside rotate with the floating of the ship.

“Fire started in the left engine. I think it killed the hyperdrive.”

He says it with such a flat, unconcerned tone, she almost doesn’t register his words fully. 

“So . . . by killed, you mean–”

She can’t see his face, but she knows the expression. Lips pursed, eyebrows drawn together, nostrils flaring in well-disguised panic. “We’re not going anywhere, Commander.”

Amazing.

“How’s the right engine?”

He reaches up and flips the ignition switch. The ship hums, quieter than before but with no obvious trouble. “Looks good.”

She breathes a sigh of relief. “Okay. Where are we?”

He scans the map for a moment, then gives a pronounced huff that almost borders on a chuckle. “You’re not gonna like this. We’re just corewards of the Aargau system.”

A bolt of fear strikes Ahsoka straight in the chest. “The core?! We could have ended up anywhere else, but now we’re stuck in the core?”

“It’s alright,” Rex assures her. “It’s doubtful we’ll even be recognized.”

This time it’s her turn to huff. “Says the buckethead.”

She can feel his silent exasperation echo through the ship. 

“There is some good news, though,” he adds. “Aargau has a remote desert moon called Aayez. Two space ports, minimal life forms, breathable air. Might as well be the Outer Rim.”

“Can we make it on one good sublight engine?”

“Might take a while, but–” he flicks a few switches, warming up said engine for the new journey. “Yeah. There’s enough fuel. We should be alright.”

“Okay,” she sighs. “Aayez it is, then.”

–

–

–

“So. What’s next?”

Merrin’s question only puts words to what everyone is thinking. They managed to fall asleep on piles of blankets strewn across the wood plank floor of Trava’s little hideout, tended to Cal’s wounds, enjoyed their rations of packaged food and plastoid-flavored water, and gathered their thoughts. 

And now, what’s next to do?

The ending of Hunter’s message echoes in his mind from the night before.

Someone out there is hunting Cal. And it’s not just the Empire.

Normally he would have brushed it off. It’s not rare that he gets death threats from a group of barbarians or two. But something about the raw fear in Hunter’s voice sets some warning signals off. There isn’t a lot that can shake a clone, especially those as experienced and competent as the Bad Batch, so he’s inclined to take this very seriously.

“Get to them and take care of it before they can find me,” he says. His voice needs more time to heal, so he’s been reduced to half-whispering for now.

“Cal, you’re in no shape for that,” Cere scolds. “Plus, we have no leads, no information, and no resources.”

“We need to go back and patch up the Mantis, ” Greez insists. “Otherwise we’re stranded here and no one’s fighting anyone .”

Cere nods. “You’re right. Merrin, take Greez back and you two start working on it. I’ll stay with Cal and ask Trava about these others he was talking about.”

BD-1 whistles a question, and Cal points a finger to the ground in answer. You stay here.

On her way out, Merrin grasps Cal’s hand and gives it a reassuring squeeze. Her expression is unyielding as always, but the slight crook of her mouth is all he needs to see. He nods, just barely, and squeezes back. 

And with that, she and Greez are gone, camouflaged by the shrubby grass and trees.

And just in time, too. 

“Good morning,” Cere calls to Trava as he makes his way down the slight incline toward the hut. He raises a hand in response.

“Come with me,” he beckons. “I must introduce you to the others.”

–

–

The landscape of Aayez is more varied than Cal had thought. Shrubby trees and thick, brown stalk-like grass cover a good portion of it, and he’s already become intimately familiar with the sandy desert terrain. But he can also see the hazy blue mountains just barely poking up over the horizon, tall and proud and mysterious.

The sun is harsh and piercing in his eyes, and his wounds still ache. But he plods along, BD-1 holding firmly to the back of his jacket. 

A quaint little town rises up in front of them. It’s low-set into the ground, just like Trava’s hut. It’s all knobby wood planks and handmade ferrocrete and thatched roofs. One landing pad graces the far side of the village, but to call this a space port would be putting it generously. 

But for all its humble charm, Cal can’t shake the small, nagging feeling in the back of his mind that something isn’t quite as it seems.

“Cere,” Cal whispers, “you realize this might be a trap?”

“Of course. But it could also be exactly what we’ve been looking for.”

Alright then. He trusts Cere.

Even so he reaches back and lightly brushes the hilt of his lightsaber hanging just under his long jacket. 

Trava stops just over the rise, looking across at the tiny village.

Cal admires the layout of it, how the small paths spread out from a larger, round building like the roots of a tree, connecting each tiny hut in a unified branch. It’s homey and peaceful. Familiar, almost.

“Welcome to Pon,” Trava says with a hint of pride in his low, cautious voice. “It’s not much, but we have good people here, and plenty of history.”

And with that, the man is heading down the rocky path again to the left, toward an outlying building on the edge of town. 

But before Cal can even move his foot forward to follow, an all-too-familiar whooshing, rumbling sound splits the air above him. He throws his head back to the sky, his heart already pounding in his chest all the way to his throat, his focus suddenly clearer than it’s been in weeks.

A modified A-wing soars over the little village, stirring up dust and straw, sending children dashing into their huts for safety.

That’s not just any fighter.

He knows that ship.

Ahsoka!

But how could she have found him?

Cere must recognize it too. “Go ahead and meet them,” she urges. “I’ll go with Trava.”

Warning signals go off in Cal’s mind. Cere shouldn’t be going in there alone. Something is wrong, something he can’t place, something . . .

“I don’t think–” he warns.

“Cal,” she says gently, not quite scolding but not quite understanding, either. “I’ll be fine. Trust me.”

He considers. 

She took care of herself for years before finding him. She’s experienced and confident and as powerful as they come. She wields a new lightsaber, built from scraps but no less elegant than any other. She’s resourceful and quick-thinking and back in tune with the Force after so many years. Maybe she will be fine. It’s probably just his disoriented mind playing tricks on him.

With a hesitant, cautious nod and a clasp of his master’s shoulder, they part ways.

He jogs down the path toward the landing platform, dutifully ignoring the throbbing pain still shooting through his leg.

The ship rattles to a stop, lowering shakily onto the ground, and Cal notices smoke trailing from the left engine. That can’t be good.

“Rex!” he calls hoarsely – where’s the ingestible bacta when you need it? – as the man climbs quickly out of the cockpit, Ahsoka not far behind. 

Said clone captain whips his head around to face Cal, the expression of shock and confusion almost comical. The second their boots hit the ground, Cal wastes no time in greeting both his friends with enthusiastic hugs and handshakes. 

“What are you doing here, of all places?” Ahsoka asks immediately but not unkindly, stretching the space-travel soreness from her limbs. 

“Long story short, we crash landed outside of town on our way to Coruscant, and now I’m deciding how to deal with another mysterious person out for my blood.”

Ahsoka grins. “Just another day, huh?”

Rex glances around the tiny town, squinting against the harsh sunlight. “Where are the others?”

“Fixing the ship, and Cere is that way,” he motions toward the outlying building Trava had been walking towards, hoping everything went well and they found people in the Rebellion who can help them.

But the sudden knife-sharp alert from the Force tells another story. 

It’s not exactly a danger warning, but the hair on his arms stands on end, and that familiar electricity tickles the back of his neck.

In less than a second, his hand is on his lightsaber and Ahsoka is grabbing his free arm. She meets his eyes with a determined, knowing gaze. “I feel it too.” 

She turns to face Rex, and a thousand words are exchanged silently between the two. He nods in understanding, holsters his two blasters, and flips up the hood of his rough brown cloak to cover the upper half of his face. 

Another half-second later, and the three of them are booking it toward the distant hut.

I’m coming, Cere. Just hold on.

–

–

–

–

Twenty-six standard hours earlier . . .

–

“You should be down there with the senators,” her father scolds.

She avoids his gaze, instead choosing to stare at the black desk at the center of the room. “Yes, Father.”

With a self-important flick of his green cape, Rortham Kestis strides down the hallway toward the turbolift, and Lora is alone again. But this time, she’s exactly where she needs to be.

She makes doubly sure that her father is out of earshot before she slips into his office and lets the door hiss shut behind her. 

“Carefully, carefully,” she mutters to herself under her breath, stepping lightly across the ornate carpets and glistening steel floors. With a few practiced taps on the desk controls, the blue holo is alight with every file and piece of information Rortham has ever gathered on her son. One plug-in of her data stick and two minutes that feel like an eternity later, the files are copied and safely tucked away in a tiny pocket, the metal cold against her skin.

Her heart is pounding, but the fear and anticipation grants her a slice of clarity. 

This is the closest she’s come to seeing her son in almost twenty-one years. 

Her Cal.

Her boy.

The only child she ever bore, who she gave up before he’d even been in this world one standard month. He was the product of youthful love and immaturity, but he was perfect. Oh, how incredible and beautiful he was. Soft, wispy red hair the color of the rocks and the dying sun, wide blue eyes that seemed to see every secret she held. He was such a quiet, thoughtful infant, and he shattered each piece of her heart and put it all back together again. She’s always known that giving him up to the Jedi Order was the right decision, to give him a chance at life away from the iron grasp of his grandfather and the family history of evil and suffering, into a world of hope and good and purpose. But the pain of separation from him has always been poignant. 

When news of the Purge spread like wildfire through the galaxy, she’d mourned for him, knowing the chances were quite literally one in ten thousand that he’d managed to survive. 

She donned the shimmering maroon garb of mourning. Wailed for hours alone, felt her heart being torn in two, over and over again. 

It’s one thing to give up a child for a higher purpose, for the service of the galaxy and to a better path . . . but it’s another thing altogether to lose that child to the horrors of war and unexplainable evil.

On what would have been his fifteenth lifeday, she hand-carved a thin, flat ring out of the native red stone as a traditional symbol of his entrance into adulthood. She now wears it on her right index finger above her own ring, which was in turn carved by her mother. 

For years, she mourned because no one else would. 

The Jedi, his family, were slaughtered. No one on this hellhole of a planet remembers the tiny redheaded bastard child, heir to an unfortunate legacy of slavery and pain. Only his mother. Only she remembers. 

Oh, remember, she did. 

And now, she’s going to find him. Warn him about the lengths to which his grandfather will go to have him brought in and forcefully reinstated as part of the family. Rortham is a jealous, selfish leader, and she won’t have him ruining yet another life. 

She has sat back and let her father win for thirty-five years now. 

But no more. 

This time, her son’s life and freedom is on the line, and there’s nothing in this galaxy that will stand in her way. 

Lora Kestis will find her son if it’s the last thing she does.

That’s a promise.

–

–

It might as well be a palace, Rortham’s house is so vast. Lora has every hallway, every crevice memorized backwards and forwards, inside and out. Thirty-five years in the same house, and she can walk these halls with her eyes closed. And so, she knows all the shortcuts. Knows how to make it seem like she was right behind her father all along.

She takes a moment in front of the door to smooth out her long, draping robe. It’s her favorite one: deep, dark green, cinched in at the wrists to keep her hands free, with a modest collar that fits snugly around her neck. But right now, she’s grateful for it, for another reason: it hides the no nonsense, practical traveling garb underneath. 

Smile. Be casual. He doesn’t suspect a thing.

She clears her throat. Smooths out her cloak. Plasters on a fake smile like she’s done her whole life. Pretending to be interested in subsidies and senate proceedings.  

Do it for him. 

Do it for Cal.

One last time.

The door hisses open, and the play acting begins. 

“Lora!” Rortham greets, his face twisted into the mask of a proud father. He stands from his seat at the long table, prompting his guests to follow suit. “Everyone, I’m sure you remember my beautiful daughter.”

She nods respectfully and smiles, finding her usual place at the table. A serving droid pushes in her chair and delivers a plate of something warm as the group sits back down – she’s not paying attention to the food. Instead, she analyzes their guests. Across from her sits a wise-looking older gentleman, with laugh lines and black geometric tattoos on his chin. Next to him, a small, young Pantoran woman with deep blue skin and kind eyes. Beside her sits a stern, serious Twi-lek. Then Father at the end of the table, and two identical human brothers, with huge, bushy, white-blond eyebrows to match their hair, and midnight-black robes. And finally another human male, who’s tall even sitting down, with navy and silver robes, jet-black hair, and gentle, fatherly eyes. 

As the chatter resumes, her mind begins to wander. She’s grateful that no one can see her heartbeat or hear her thoughts. What she’s about to pull off is against everything her father has ever ordered. If she could commit treason against a family member, this would be it. She doesn’t know what will happen. She has no way to predict the outcome. All she can do is take it one moment at a time, with the hope of holding her son in her arms again as the only guiding light.

“. . . Finally decommissioning the remaining clones,” the Twi-lek is saying. The Pantoran beside him has a murderous glint in her eyes.

“Well, it’s about time,” one of the twins chimes in. “They were only leeching funds, anyway. Most of them are a decade past their expiration date.”

This elicits a few chuckles from around the table, but it only fills Lora with a confused rage. Talking about human beings as if they were antique droids, only there to do the bidding of a heartless senate? That doesn’t sit right with her.

“Can you believe the pension plan got voted out?” the other twin says.

The man beside Lora visibly stiffens, but his face remains neutral. “Typical of the senate, isn’t it?”

The Twi-lek’s nostrils flare just slightly. (Lora wishes she could remember everyone’s name.) “Typical to withdraw funds from a resource no longer serving the Empire, so that its citizens may benefit instead? Yes, Senator Organa, I’d agree with you.”

Organa. She remembers now. Bail from Alderaan, with the charming little daughter.

“Come now, Tresh,” Rortham scolds lightly. “If Organa wants to take the losing side, let him. The bill is already passed, isn’t it?”

This only heightens Tresh’s sense of haughty disdain, and Lora sneaks a glance sideways at Organa’s face. Nothing but stoic, diplomatic neutrality. 

Impressive.

“Too true,” Tresh admits. “Senator Chuchi, how did that campaign for the continued support of our Grand Army of the Republic go for you?” He adds such a sneer to the words, Lora wonders if his head will explode.

The small Pantoran holds her fork in such a vice grip, a deep purple hue begins to show through the blue skin on her knuckles. “Unfortunately for you,” she bites out with all the dignity in the world, “my campaign wasn’t the problem. It was the weak-willed, heartless people who voted against it.”

Oh, damn.

Lora’s jaw nearly drops to the ground.

Just as expected, half the room erupts into barely-concealed diplomatic rage.

“How dare you, Senator–”

“I’ll have you know that the Empire–”

“Absolutely unbelievable–”

From across the table, she meets Chuchi’s eyes and wishes she could jump over the gilded plates and piles of lavish desserts and wrap the senator in the tightest embrace, saving her from the scornful mob around her. 

But the Pantoran senator doesn’t flinch. In fact, the smallest of smirks lights up her countenance and Lora is taken aback.

In all her years of senate dinner parties with her father, never has she seen the likes of this before. 

In a heroic moment of pure genius, Bail Organa stands up and gives a slight bow from the waist. “Senator Chuchi,” he nearly bellows over the cacophony of insulted politicians, “I believe our presence is no longer appreciated at the moment. Would you like to accompany me back to our shuttle?” He turns to Rortham and bows again. “Senator Kestis, it’s been a lovely evening and an honor spending it with you. More productive conversation another time, perhaps?”

And with that, the two are gone. 

Okay, slight change of plans. But that's alright. There's still a way.

This is her chance.

Take it.

Take it.

Go after them.

But her muscles won’t move. She’s frozen to her seat.

What if it all goes wrong?

What if Rortham discovers her plan and places a bounty on her and her son? What if this time, the bounty reads “Dead or Alive?” 

What if she doesn’t have what it takes to get to him and warn him before it’s too late?

But how can she know if she doesn’t try?

Go.

Go.

Go.

Amidst the remaining confusion and kerfuffle, she ducks down and slips through the door.

There.

It’s done.

A weight lifts off her shoulders. She’s free.

“Senators!” she calls down the hallway, jogging to catch up. 

Senator Organa stops and turns, confusion evident on his face. “Miss Kestis?”

“Yes, please keep walking, and hurry,” she urges, her mind suddenly clear and focused as ever. “Will you take me to Coruscant with you?”

“I–” Organa hesitates.

“Is there room on your shuttle? Please, I would never ask this favor of you if it was not incredibly urgent. I can explain it all later.”

He nods, and Chuchi grasps her elbow in reassurance. “Yes, of course there’s room,” the Pantoran says. “You’re welcome to fly with us.”

Lora feels like crying. The politicians who frequent her father’s house are never this kind.

“Thank you,” she breathes. “Thank you, you have no idea–”

“Please,” Organa says, a smile lighting up his eyes. “It’s our pleasure.”

They’re almost to the landing pad. 

If Rortham wants to intercept them, it would be here. Now.

But the hall is silent. 

Just a few more steps . . .

The Coruscanti aides and guards meet them at the base of the ramp, and the door hisses open. The gleaming silver shuttle is so close. The ticket to her freedom. 

To her son.

As her boots meet the hollow metal of the boarding ramp, her heart leaps straight into her throat. 

The shuttle’s engines whir.

The order is given to strap into her seat for takeoff. 

And just like that. With a push of the boosters. With a roar of the engines. She’s free.

Finally, finally free of this place that’s been her prison for thirty-five years. 

Through the viewing window, she wishes Orvax one final goodbye.

The glimmering stars tell a new story for her life, now. One of love and hope and family reunited. She actually has a chance. 

Follow the Hidden Path. The whispered words ring through her mind like a promise. 

Her father may have resources, but he’s driven by selfish ambition. What she has for her son is infinitely more valuable: Love .

That, and one incredibly valuable hint that her father doesn't have.

Because now, she has a framework. A starting point. 

I’m coming, Cal. Just hold on.

–

–

–