Chapter Text

Chapter 45: CZERKA

Few were clear about what was happening behind the scenes. And none on Naboo would speak to me off the record about things they claimed they knew or witnessed regarding Binks. A meeting in Harte Secur, a strange happening in Otoh Jahai, a bank account opening in Spinnaker, a series of deals managed in Otoh Urs.

None of it was verifiable. And as soon as it was mentioned, those who mentioned it seemed remiss to bring it up again.

“I shouldn’t have said anything,” said one of my contacts, “really, I can’t say what I witnessed. Or why, frankly.”

Still, even if everything is on the up and up, which it very likely was, it ’s no secret that proximity to power brings with it mighty rewards. And being the conduit of that power - something which both of Naboo’s two sides are very familiar with - carries many opportunities to skim from the top.

I ’m not particularly interested in engaging in idle speculation. Expressing just how frustrating this was to research, however, is difficult to overstate. Everywhere I turned on Naboo, the truth seemed just out of reach. The answers I was seeking were right out of my field of view. If only I could turn fast enough, I could see whose shadows those were that ducked away from me.

- Who is Jar Jar Binks?: The Rise and Rise of the Representative from Naboo, by Den Dhur, Galactic News Network

[Unknown Location]

1015[?] Days after Geonosis [Estimated]

He hadn’t felt like this since he’d woken up on Pirdia.

Czerka’s whole body seemed to be telling him to stay down. Even his old wound said, Hey, maybe we stay lying here, huh?

But he knew that that was just the desert’s lies.

Or so Lord A’UrokUrrt called them.

He coughed, “All right, Czerk.” He opened his eyes and the world slowly came into focus. Above him, there was an overcast sky. Dark, pointy shapes stretched over him, reaching into the clouds, aiming like cannons on a Venator at the enemy.

Czerka reached a gauntleted hand to his head. Thank the maker for this helmet. Had he landed with nothing to protect him but his skull, he’d be bantha fodder.

He reached up and removed it, letting the cool air of whatever planet this was lap at his face. He realized only as he took a breath that he should have checked his link for the planet’s atmospheric composition and its pressure differential before he opened his sealed environment to his possible death, but too late. He took a deep breath of the fresh mountain air, and felt better. Czerka recalled how the Mandalorians said hello to each other: so you’re still alive.

The sound of cracking branches alerted Czerka to something’s approach. He didn’t have time to reach for a weapon or even put his helmet back on when a Mirialan in a black cloak emerged into his small clearing.

“Commander Wooy?”

“Czerka!” Arya ran and dropped down on the ground next to him as he tried to stand. Her smile was so wide that Czerka found himself wondering if maybe it was more than just seeing a friendly face on a strange planet, “Force, I’m so happy you’re all right.” She threw her arms around his neck and squeezed him. Czerka gently put his arms around her, resting his hands between her shoulder blades.

For moment that would never be long enough, he never wanted to let go.

Just beyond the trees, a familiar shape emerged to look at what was happening.

Czerka’s instincts went into action. He dropped out of Arya’s embrace and drew his sidearm, aiming it at the battle droid shape in front of them.

The droid then did something that Czerka had never seen a B1 do: it held up its hands and surrendered, “Don’t shoot!” it whined.

Arya got her footing and agreed with the droid, “Czerka! That’s the asset. Remember?”

Oh. Czerka had been so consumed with the fact that he had survived the ordeal, falling out of the ship that he’d forgotten that this was all a part of the mission: taking a Separatist asset from their facility on Arvala-7, and transporting it back to Coruscant.

Then a couple of Mandalorian banshees tried to achieve their mission objectives by throwing the three of them out of the cargo bay of their ship.

Czerka stood down and holstered his blaster.

“How did we… we must have fallen from an incredible height.”

“When the two of you were pushed out the cargo bay, I tried using the Force to get you back on the ship as we were going down. I was barely managing to hold on when one of the Mandalorians kicked me, knocking me off balance, and I fell with you.”

“But, we’re alive.”

“I still had the Force with me, Czerk. I pulled the both of you to me and held onto you. As we approached the ground, I tried to build up a cushion between us and the surface. But cushion or no, we were approaching a terminal velocity and hit the ground pretty hard. I landed about a half klick that way,” she pointed east into the woods, “And the asset, about the same that way,” she pointed north of their position.

“Wow.” Czerka said. He reached for his helmet on the ground, and then looked at the Commander, “Thank you.”

“I couldn’t do differently.” She said, “You’re my Squad.”

Czerka put his helmet back on, less so he’d not feel so exposed like his Ghorfa upbringing taught him, and more so he’d not let Arya see his face turn red, “What now, Commander?”

“We need to find the rest of the Squad. And the ship.” Arya said, “The ship was going down, we know that much. And based on the direction of the broken branches on the trees above, I’m pretty sure we were heading that way.”

Arya pointed west. Czerka looked up and compared the broken branches with what she said. She was most likely right. Of course, if they fell out of the ship in the stratosphere, then the rest of the Squad, and the Mandalorian former prisoners could be as far as a continent away. Assuming this planet even had continents. They might find out that they just happened to be in a very densely forested, small island amid an abyssal sea.

“What do we do, Commander?” Czerka asked.

Arya looked at the asset, then back at Czerka, and then faced west, where the ship might have gone, “We need a better vantage point.”

Czerka nodded. He pointed westward. The trees seemed endless, and the foliage blocked their view, but there was a slight incline that started to turn northwards, “The end of this incline is bound to peak somewhere.”

“Or it could just slope down again.”

The Commander was right. They had no real way of knowing whether they were in a mountainous region, or a forest with a gently sloping plain.

Arya turned towards the asset, “I don’t suppose you were programmed with higher probability functions in mind?”

The droid looked from Arya to Czerka, “All droids are programmed with probability functions.”

“Higher probability functions.” Arya repeated.

The droid looked at them again and said, “It depends.”

“We need to know which direction to head in that’s most likely to end in a higher vantage point. We need to get our bearings and figure out where we are.”

The droid looked at the clone, and Czerka knew it was calculating that he was a threat.

He wondered if this was how Wookiees felt whenever they left Kashyyyk.

The droid finally pointed, but more northwards, at about a thirty degree angle from the direction that Czerka and Arya were initially considering.

“All right,” Arya said, “Let’s go.”

“Wait.” Czerka said. He approached Arya, reached out, and held her arm, “I’m not sure we should trust the clanker.”

“It’s just one, and it’s unarmed,” Arya said, “Besides, there’s two of us and one of it, and it’s not like it can call for reinforcements.”

“Can it not?” Czerka said, “What if there’s a Separatist base on this planet?”

“We don’t even know where we are.”

“Right. But it might. It might have connected with the base when it entered wireless range. For all we know, Separatist units are headed in this direction right now. It could be luring us into a trap.”

“I highly doubt that.”

“Why?”

“Because we were out cold for almost six hours. If Separatists had connected with the droid when we hit atmo, we would have been sitting targets.”

Six hours? Czerka almost didn’t believe her, “Six hours?”

“At least.”

“And the droid was out, too?”

“Mostly. It told me that its systems went down and were in recovery for about three or four.”

“So it woke up before us.”

“Yes.”

That didn’t make any sense to Czerka. Arya had a lightsaber. If she had hit the ground and was out for two hours… wouldn’t the smart thing be for a Separatist droid with hands be to take the lightsaber and do away with one of the Republic’s biggest military assets?

“What was the droid doing when you woke up?”

“It was just sitting against a tree, watching me.”

Had Czerka woke up to that, he would have drawn his blaster and fired. And not entirely consciously.

“Come on,” Arya said, waving to the droid, “Let’s head that direction and see what we find.”

Czerka let the droid go in front of him. It still stared at his helmet as if worried that any sudden movements might provoke the Human to attack.

Good. Czerka thought.

Arya let it lead them, to which Czerka took all his feelings of red klaxxons and betrayals and shoved them deep down inside of him. Commander Wooy was his commanding officer, and a Jedi. And it was his job to follow her orders, and protect her.

And now, to protect the asset.

They walked in silence in the forest for a good seven hours. They only stopped because Arya asked them to. Or ordered Czerka to, as the distinction was… what, out here?

She checked her belt for a small pouch. Inside a pocket she had stored what appeared to be a small piece of jerky. She offered Czerka a bite, but he said they should maybe try to conserve resources. Besides, he had…

Czerka opened his belt pouch and counted the number of rations cubes he had stored in it: six. Good for a month’s-long op.

The sound of thunder rolled overhead and echoed through the trees.

Shelter was going to be difficult to find if there was to be any of it. Their hours-long hike had produced at least some results. The slight incline had evolved into the slope of a small mountain. They were certainly heading the right direction. At some point, it would terminate and they would either be able to get a better bearing of their surroundings, or find another direction to head in.

But that thunder was worrisome.

“I’d rather not get caught out in a storm.” Arya said, “And given that we don’t know what planet we’re on…”

“We don’t know what these storms are like.” Czerka sighed. Had they time to prepare for being inserted surface-side like this, Czerka would have brought his still-tent: a tent designed with Core-level technology by Ghorfa designers to preserve the body’s natural moisture. Exhalation, perspiration, even the body’s natural secretions and waste was used by the tent’s low-energy devices to save water for cooling, and purified for drinking purposes. The tent was also light-weight and structurally sound: it could get buried in a sandstorm or a roving dune overnight, and the inhabitant would never know until they woke up from sleeping safe and sound.

Of course, it was also designed with Tatooine in mind. So if there was a krayt dragon, a sand ape, or something else dangerous nearby, there were proximity alarms to tell the inhabitant to get the kriff out.

This was all a moot point, though. When the ship was crashing out of hyperspace and ended up wherever here was, Czerka didn’t have the extra moment to grab said amenity.

He was a Republic Commando, though, and building a make-shift shelter was as easy as target practice.

“Your call, Commander,” he said, “you want to camp here for the night?”

“What do you think?” she asked, looking up into his helmeted face.

Czerka looked up the slope and then back down, “I can make a shelter, but if it starts down-pouring, it’ll be that much harder to make it.”

“Well,” Arya said, “we’ve been hiking for some time. Let’s settle down for the night.”

Czerka picked a spot to make a lean-to. Counter-intuitively, he chose a location that sloped more extremely than the area around it. Thankfully, he didn’t have to do this all himself: he had a Jedi. Using Force-powered telekinesis, Arya helped dig out a nice area for them that sat level against the mountain-side. Using her lightsaber, she was able to cut good-sized logs for them to use. Czerka stripped some of the trees of their bark and wove together bark-ropes.

This task he was even able to use the droid for once he explained what he needed done. The droid’s manipulators weren’t great for it, but once he explained the purpose, the droid managed to figure out a way to do it at an incredible speed.

Czerka roped together logs and stuffed the area between them with tightly packed mud. He covered it with leaves and other forest detritus. It wasn’t the water-tight seal of a still-tent, but it would keep them more dry than wet in the coming downpour. Using the droid’s weaving algorithm, they were even able to weave leaves into the ropes and build themselves a little curtain around the entirety of the structure.

It wasn’t quite finished when the rain started. Thunder cracked overhead. Czerka had never heard of a Star Destroyer snapping in half, but he supposed if one did, it would sound like the thunder over them at that moment.

He waved both the Jedi and the droid into the shelter and they hunkered down inside as the rain started to batter the mud-wood roof. From the relative safety of the lean-to, they worked on the leaf-curtains and Czerka was able to erect them around the shelter’s perimeter just as the rain became unbearably loud over their heads. Turns out even a thick roof made of the forest was a sufficient drumming surface for a heavy downpour.

The shelter wasn’t very tall. All three of them needed to crouch down to enter it, and they could only stretch out if they were lying on their backs.

“Great job, soldier.” Arya said. She took out her lightsaber and ignited one of the green blades. It revealed a shockingly spacious shelter built in a pinch, on an unknown planet, in an unknown forest, with an asset that may or may not try to kill them in their sleep. But it even appeared water tight. The little bit of moisture that seemed to seep in came mostly from where the curtains blew in the wind and the tiny gaps they formed.

“I tried.” Czerka said.

“We should try to get some actual sleep,” Arya said, “You know, the kind where one lays down as opposed to falls out of a crashing starship.”

When she doused the saber, they were thrown mostly into darkness. Only a token amount of light from the outside flashed into their shelter, and even then, the night was quickly descending, aided by the darkening storm. Bursts of white, yellow, and even green, started to flash into their little abode, along with a roaring crack above their heads.

But they were inside, and they were veiled in darkness. Czerka removed his helmet and put it next to him. He even started to remove his armor and check his body for injuries - something he should have done after waking up from his descent.

He was fine. The armor had a few cracks and was no longer structurally sound: a sign that it had done its job in the fall - taking the brunt of what Arya’s Force powers couldn’t, and so that Czerka’s bones didn’t have to.

“One of us should stay up,” Czerka said, “You know.”

“To watch the droid?” Arya asked. The rain was starting to batter the shelter so intensely, that Czerka could barely hear her. It was more an impression of her voice that a lifetime of speaking Basic interpreted into words.

“I’ll take first.”

“No,” Arya said, “I will. That’s an order.”

Czerka didn’t argue. He laid on his back and willed himself to sleep. His right hand laid next to his body, and he was just about to drift off.

Then he felt a pair of fingers over his right hand. His eyes shot open, completely awake in the darkness. Then a whole Mirialan hand covered over the tops of his fingers, and gently wrapped around them.

Czerka felt his heart start beating faster, and his blood pressure rise. He needed sleep. Once he let his body relax out of the katarn, he felt it just release and the tiredness overwhelm him.

But then Arya touched him, and he knew he couldn’t bear to miss a moment of it.