Chapter Text
"I'll be in the back if you need me," Galen left the cockpit before Cal and Merrin joined Juno up front for the take off sequence.
"Who is this?" Cal asked, pointing to PROXY, which sat in the fourth seat in the Rogue Shadow's cockpit.
"I am PROXY. I was programmed to kill my master."
"Excuse me?" Cal backed away.
"Don't worry, PROXY is mostly joking," Juno tapped a few controls and flipped two switches on her sensor array. "That program was also scrapped months ago."
"That does not help," Cal continued to stare the skeletal droid down. On his back, BD-1 curiously popped its antennae out and scanned the opposing droid. "What else do you do?"
"PROXY is still able to access most Imperial Records and be used as a...distraction," Juno finalized the pre-takeoff sequence.
"How so?" Merrin waved her hand, along with a green sheen of Magick, over the droid, who watched through yellow photoreceptors.
"PROXY, access the Imperial Profile of Cal Kestis."
"Accessing Record." Immediately, tiny projectors activated across PROXY's metal frame, projecting the near exact likeness of Cal Kestis.
"According to Imperial Records, Calvin Kestis was a Padawan at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant."
"You never told me your name was Calvin," Merrin quipped. Cal scrunched up his nose in disgust with no verbal reply, listening intently at PROXY's description of him.
"He was assigned to Jedi Master Jaro Topal and proceeded to battle alongside the 13th Battalion of the Galactic Republic Navy in the Clone Wars. Thought eradicated by Order 66 -" PROXY's voice modulator skipped and the likeness of Cal blinked away for half a second. The 'story-mode' cut out and the voice ceased to parody Cal's, instead returning to PROXY's robotic tone. "Affiliations include Terrorist Cell Leader Saw Guerra. Imperial Casualties - two thousand three hundred and five. Total Cost affiliated with casualties - forty-five million credits. Imperial Bounty - thirty million credits; stipulation: alive. Last known location: Koboh. Additional information must be requested through a fixed Imperial Database with clearance level TOP SECRET/Special Program."
The holoprojectors clicked off and PROXY's skeletal frame collapsed at the waist for one moment before straightening out. It's photoreceptors seemed to blink innocently as it watched the emotions cross Cal's face.
He had killed over two thousand people. Yes, enemies. Even three days ago he would have quipped about it needing to be higher. But...Jedi were supposed to uphold life. Marek's appearance and questions about the Jedi and their philosophy had formed a wrench in Cal's heart and hit nerves he had long thought were cauterized and desensitized by growing up a child soldier turned terrorist. For his cause, he was still doing what was right. He had no remorse about that - about taking care of his family, friends, and trying to free the galaxy. He just wanted a world, no, a galaxy, that was free from dealing with pain and death and killing. He'd still do whatever it took to get that. He'd do whatever it took to get that.
He buried his face in his gloved hands and breathed deeply, his shoulders shakily rising.
The others were quiet as the roar of the ship's engines grew. BD-1 beeped quietly in his ear and Cal simply nodded, his breathing beginning to steady.
The tunnel of Hyperspace soon enclosed the ship, casting light and dark hues of blue throughout the cockpit. Juno spun around in her seat.
"Autopilot is on. I will leave room for a parsec jump so we can scan for Imperial ships and sensors when we exit hyperspace. Now, how much of an Imperial presence - realistically- should we encounter?"
"At least one Star Destroyer. Until the attack, there were mainly small scouting parties while the primary force focused on mounting excavation projects across the desert." Merrin said.
"Do you know what they were searching for?"
"No. Cordova had mentioned that it was possible they were looking for Jedi artifacts, but unsure as to why."
"Cordova?"
"Eno Cordova, another Jedi Master. He's...dead," Merrin replied quietly.
Cal abruptly stood and left the cockpit. The Rogue Shadow's interior appeared smaller than the Mantis - which seemed wrong due to the fact it was a Transport ship. Marek must have been hiding somewhere this whole time.
Galen sat on the fuzzy blanket gifted to him by Leia and Breha Organa within his mediation chamber on board the Rogue Shadow. It took a long time for him to decide on bringing the blanket out of the drawer he kept it in. But sitting on the cold floor with nothing around him only reminded him of training with Vader. He had settled in his power and knew that if he wanted to continue to keep the power of the Dark side, he would have to dive into it. But that was not his goal at the moment.
His goals seemed simple enough:
Learn what the Light side of the Force was.
Understand how to use it.
Compare the Dark Side and the Light, and see if they could be used together, or had to stay entirely separate techniques.
Fall back into that world between the Star and Black hole, and be able to control the Force as it is an entity, not just part.
He remembered trying to see the future once, falling right into the Force. He wondered if he had truly fallen into the Light side, as Kestis would call it.
He rubbed the corner of it between his thumb and forefinger, letting the feeling drift his mind away.
"So this is where you've been hiding." The door slid shut after Cal entered the room.
Galen's eyes followed the redhead as he walked around the room - it had been emptied while on Alderaan and once again looked exactly as empty he kept it before his first mission to find Kota.
Cal joined him on the floor. "Nice blanket."
"It was a gift."
"You're using it to meditate?"
"Trying to," Galen frowned.
"Of course; it's easy when you're comfortable," Cal scoffed, looking at the blanket again. "The true testament of being a Jedi is still being able to refrain from the Dark even while in the worst situations."
"You don't seem to be doing great in that either."
Cal raised an eyebrow, affronted. "Yeah, well...."
"So why not make it easier when you can?" Galen immediately followed up.
"...Complacency."
"Is that what you believe, or is that what the Order taught you?"
Cal stared at him, his jaw tensing as if he wanted to answer, but couldn't.
They sat in silence, the hum of the hyperspace engines distant.
The place it all went down. They landed in the main hangar of the hidden base within the sandy mountains of Jedha. Cal disembarked first, dreading every step he took. Instantly, he saw the blue hue of an Echo at the stormtrooper dummy Bode taught him to shoot at. He bypassed it and exited the hangar before any of the others could catch up.
Juno wandered over towards the collapsed opening in the side of the hangar and craned her neck to look up above. "AT-ATs," she pointed at the carbon scoring on the floor and ceiling.
"Yes, an entire battalion or more swarmed this base that night," Merrin said, also looking around.
"Was it compromised by someone? Your operation here, the location? If you hadn't pointed the hangar out, I wouldn't have seen it."
"Yes. Someone we thought was a friend...he was an ISB agent."
"ISB?"
"You sound surprised."
"Last I knew, they were still building up their intelligence network, I did not think it would have grown this quickly."
"The Empire is spreading like mold on a carcass."
The women fell silent for a moment, the weight of reality settling on their shoulders.
"Come, let me show you the archives, as well as where the Anchorites were last seen." Merrin led the way, following where Cal and Galen had wandered.
Cal entered an empty room after jogging up the ramp from the hangar. A long tunnel carved into the rock ran alongside the wall to his left upon entering the new passageway, with a singular sphere lodged within the tunnel next to the doorway he entered from.
Forgetting the locking mechanism, Cal rushed forward. As the gate in front of him didn't open as he neared, he turned around once, twice, and then noticed the tunnel and sphere. With a sigh, he took a few steps forward then Pushed the sphere from its lodging. It sunk into a circular cavity within the tunnel to the left of the gate, allowing the mechanism to unlock and the gateway to open vertically.
Galen entered the passageway just as the gate opened.
The room beyond appeared as if a maelstrom had spun through it. The corners of the high ceilings held darkness, as the circular skylight had been partially covered with debris and some of the lights ceased working due to the damage. Several bookshelves that had once stood tall on either side of the room lost many of their contents and spilled the guts of electronics on the floor. One had been burned, the other had been cut through by lightsabers. The holobooks and tablets had either been sliced, burned, or strewn about by either blunt force or the Force. Footprints settled in the dust from machines, both human and non.
"Vader was here," Galen commented as he opened his eyes after taking a deep breath, feeling his surroundings.
"How did you know?"
"His presence leaves scars," the dark-haired man craned his neck to look at the many stories above. Then he focused on the ground and the contents scattered beneath his feet. "Who was he after?"
"Jedi Master Cere Junda," Cal responded after a moment. He ground his teeth as he approached yet another blue-hued Force Echo. Bode's voice filled his mind with words about the Empire and reinforcements.
"Who was she, to you?"
Cal brought his fist to his forehead and gently tapped as if cracking off frost to allow his brain's inner mechanisms to begin working again. "A friend. A mentor."
"She fought well," Galen responded, his boot brushing over a cauterized gauge in the stone.
The women finally entered; Juno looked around wide-eyed, taking in the beauty and destruction as Merrin swaggered straight to the corner of the room, where the fires and sabers left one holotable untouched.
Juno steered herself back towards Merrin and the two men wandered over.
"We had beacons for each respective hideout we occupied here on Jedha," the Nightsister began as she pulled up a holographic representation of the globe. "It appears that five of the nine are still emitting. It also seems that the main planetary port has remained entirely occupied by the Empire."
"How does this affect the Hidden Path?" Juno asked, scrutinizing the globe and the signatures emitting on it - red for friendlies and green for the Empire.
"If only five of our safehouses are operational, we probably lost several informants and could have lost several families we were trying to relocate. Some of these places had local drives transferred by humanoid or droid carriers. In the grand scheme of the Path, this is not severe, unless our main communications location was struck, which," she turned the globe, "is still intact."
"Do we need to go to each location to get all the files and information?"
"That would be best."
"Hmm." Juno bit the inside of her cheek. "This is larger than I initially thought. It seemed as if it were only the Anchorite people affected by this attack, but it is likely planetary. We may be able to provide aid, but not transport this entire operation off world. I don't think, since it appears that a majority of your operations even based on this planet are still intact, that it makes sense to uproot the node here. Anyways, we don't have a planet that isn't touched or threatened by the reach of the empire, or its paid thugs." She didn't see the look Merrin shot at Cal, but Galen did, his eyes following the Nightsister's and Cal's response by grinding his jaw and looking away.
"Do you know why the Empire is here?" The dark-haired man asked as he mentally filed away what that look from Merrin could have meant.
"Looking for Jedi Relics, we believe," Merrin replied.
"Hmm."
"What?" Cal asked.
"You didn't feel it?"
"Feel what?"
"Who's not open to the Force now?" Galen quipped. "This planet is a desert; there are not a lot of living things here. Yet, it is filled with the Force. There is something here."
"I knew this planet was strong with the Force," Cal defended himself.
"Yes, but did you ask yourself why?"
"We were more focused with...other things at the time."
"We thought that they were just trying to dig up the Hidden Path, or simply destroy anything related to the Jedi," Merrin interjected. "What do you think they are after?"
"I'm not sure but I know I felt this before."
"What is 'this'?" Cal asks, with finger quotes added.
"This...weight...in the Force. I'm not sure, but I want to find out. Where were they grouped?"
"Mainly at old Jedi Temples and other sacred places," Merrin replied.
"Alright." Juno finally took the lead with an authoritative voice. "You two go in search of what the Empire is really doing here. At the same time, visit these sites," she pointed out the three other Imperial markers on the globe. "Visit these sites and download as much of the information stored on the local drives as possible. If there are holotablets, gather as many of them as you can carry. Try to be quiet; we do not know what the Empire, more specifically, Vader, will do if he finds out that Galen is still alive and fighting. And if you do find trouble, or it finds you...take them out."
"There are Anchorites here as well, I will introduce you and they can tell us the state of the rest of the network as individuals and how the Imperial occupation is affecting the population here," Merrin added before the group broke.
Galen nodded, and Cal, although narrowed-eyed, nodded as well.
Juno grabbed Galen's hand and gave it a squeeze. "Be careful."
"I will."
Merrin jabbed Cal's chest. "Don't die."
He winced from the pain that screamed through Dagan's wound. "Of course."
Cal began to jog through the remainder of the hidden base, eventually running up a ramp and into a hangar holding spare parts for speeders and land cruisers.
"These don't work," he said, gesturing at the ones that appeared to be intact. "Trust me; I tried. We'll have to take a ride on a Spamel. Follow me," he said, already running out of the door.
Galen followed, not hearing Cal chuckle to himself.
"Alright," Cal said as he stopped. "We are going to be riding one of these!" He opened his arms wide and dramatically gestured to the Spamel - an enormously tall, grey creature with four long, thin legs and short, thick neck. He couldn't help but smile, seeing Galen's eyes widen at the sheer size of the creature. His smile dropped as he noticed the man's tremors stop, the man's body on alert.
"It won't fight us?" Most large creatures he interacted with had a habit of already being controlled by someone and led to quite the fight.
"Not unless I tell it to," Cal responded, already approaching the creature. He extended his hand to it, which responded by lowering its head to Cal's level. After the first touch, the creature knelt down. Quickly and nimbly, Cal jumped and swung onto the creature's back. The creature stayed kneeling.
"Come on, we don't have all day."
Galen frowned, but, less nimbly, jumped up onto the creature's back, behind Cal.
"Don't make this awkward," the redhead commented, as the creature rose to its feet.
"Don't worry, I want that less than you," Galen replied, dryly, his hands gripping the ridges of the creature's back rather than Cal's waist. They sped across the desert with no sandstorm in sight. Several creatures roamed around - they even spotted two Imperial patrols, but Cal kept the creature on a straight course toward the ruins.
Galen's eyes widened and his grip tightened when BD-1 popped out of Cal's backpack. He squinted his eyes shut as the droid scanned him and beeped several times. It tilted its 'head' to the side and scanned him again.
"What?" Galen asked the droid, exasperated.
It responded with several beeps and squeaks.
"Do you understand that thing?" He asked Cal.
"That *thing*?" The redhead frowned, only one angry eyebrow visible to Galen as he turned around ever so slightly. "Look. I already don't like you. If you insult BD-1 again, you're gone."
"Well excuse me, I've never had a good relationship with tiny droids - or droids in general. PROXY is the only one I remotely like."
A few moments passed.
"Is it true that PROXY is programmed to kill you?"
"He was. Nearly got me a few times." Galen smiled to himself. It'd been a while since their last good run. Maybe he would take a break from trying to learn how to 'let go' with the Force and simply spar his droid until one of them ended up defeated. He almost wanted to see if he could have its original primary protocol reinstalled, but that curiosity quickly got pushed to the backburner of his mind.
The pair fell silent, again. The wind howled against their ears and, without the Force, both men likely would have been blinded by the sand.
"How did you learn to control creatures like this?" Galen finally asked as they reached shelter behind a towering red-and-yellow rock formation.
"One day I needed a winged creature to help me cross a chasm. Something Cere once said helped me understand how to tap into the Force and control a creature."
"What did you have to do to control this creature? How are you telling it where to do?"
"Once connected to the creature, you guide it."
"You are not forcing it to move, it is simply...following directions?"
"Yes. I made a connection with it, told it that I am not a threat and that I need its help. It's similar to reigns on a Nekko. I could bend its will, as creatures are much easier to control than other humanoids or more sentient species, but usually you don't need to."
They continued on. Eventually, the outline of carved stone stood out among the natural rocky faces.
"Alright, we'll get off here." Cal directed, and both of the men slid off the Spamel. Cal patted its head twice. "Thanks, buddy."
Quickly, the creature stamped off, clearly sensing danger.
The redhead pulled out his lightsaber, as well as a secondary one from a pouch Galen hadn't spotted before. The Jedi snapped the two sabers together to form a staff. He swung it around twice, frowned, and detached the pieces.
"I'll do that later," he mumbled to himself, putting the two separate sabers on his belt. "You good with jumping and climbing?"
"Yes," Galen said, hiding his jealousy of the saber's customization behind his crossed arms.
"Good. We're going to do a lot of it before we even see the extent of the temple. It's likely this place is crawling with Imps."
With a nod from each man, they ran off - Cal in the lead.
His climbing hook was needed for gaining the height, or so he thought until Galen landed right next to him without any mechanical assistance.
"How-?"
"You rely on the Force how you always rely on it. I will do the same." If Cal was put off by the use of the dark side...then he was a hypocrite and not the type of teacher Galen wanted or needed.
They jumped, climbed, and bypassed sand dunes, manufactured sandstone structures, and natural plateaus before the first sign of Imperial occupation.
They had one last chasm to jump over before reaching the Imps.
Cal laid on the sand. "Ok BD, what do you see?"
The small droid appeared out of Cal's backpack much to Galen's chagrin, and scanned the area around. It made beeps and squeaks to which Cal nodded.
"Alright. We have at least two flamethrowers, four batons, and six blasters. Easy."
Without running, the Jedi lept from their position, landing on the platform and retracting the mechanical hook while calling both lightsabers into his hands.
Galen took several steps back then ran, jumped, and joined him. In that brief instance, two of the ranged troopers were already downed. Lightsabers out but not ignited, he decided to stand back and watch - he had only seen how Jedi fought in person against, well, him. He thought he knew how he mowed down Imps, but then again, he never watched himself fighting.
Cal moved with lightning speed - dashing across meters in seemingly one step, striking with precision.
One of the flame troopers only narrowly missed the red-head. Cal chopped the device in half, followed by the Imp holding it. He dashed to the right, crossing the entire span of the platform in two movements, stabbing one of the ranged troopers in the chest with both sabers. Two baton troopers advanced at the same time, one with a shield and one without. Cal parried the first baton and perfectly tore it from the man's hands on the third strike. Cal lurched forward into the first's shield after the second trooper bashed him from behind. The redhead sneered, kicked the feet out from the man behind him, and feinted stabbing the shield with one saber while slicing through the man with his other saber. The man who fell on his face didn't have time to scramble back to his feet before Cal slammed a saber through his back. Finally seeming to tire of chasing the men, he reached out with the Force and grabbed one after the other, stabbing them and tossing them to the side. The furthest ranged trooper fired several shots, which one finally rebounded from Cal's saber.
The platform fell quiet, save for the howling of the wind.
So, he mostly relied on physical prowess only heightened by the Force and his lightsaber techniques, Galen thought.
Interestingly enough, he still felt similarities between the man before him and the Jedi he struck down before - an easy connection to the Force. The heightened speed and strength appeared to be through an instinctual connection to tapping into the Force, rather than draining it. There was determination and skill - clearly defined from the emotional turmoil that bled into their own clash on Koboh days ago.
"You gonna help or not?" Cal stood at the opposite end of the platform, blue lightsaber blades humming. He barely had to catch his breath.
Galen sauntered over, his lightsabers still in hand but not ignited. "You seemed to be taking care of it just fine."
"You watching me?"
"So what if I am?"
"Alright, my turn then." Cal deactivated his lightsabers and stepped to the side, gesturing grandly. "After you."
Galen's brow furrowed but he stepped forward, his lightsabers still not activated. Although Juno's mission still whispered in his head, he was more curious about finding what created the Forceful connection he felt upon arriving at the planet and why it was familiar. He made his way along the mountain's ledge, mentally fortifying himself.
He fueled the Force and, in turn, the Force gave him strength. And that strength allowed him to fuel the Force. The perfect cycle.
He approached the gaping entrance of the temple and activated his sabers. He felt the devices hum to life and his own power seeping into the blades - the electricity that had caused his tremors now steadied his hands and strengthened his weapons.
The first to notice the orange-lightsaber-wielding maniac was a ranged trooper who died by his own rebounded shot. The others - one shock trooper droid, one flamethrower, three batons, and four other ranged troopers - immediately readied and fired their weapons. Galen lightly jogged forward, deflecting the many blaster bolts with both sabers twirling. He pulled one of the ranged troopers to him and crushed the man's windpipe, then continued to use his body as a shield as he slowed his gait. As soon as the flamethrower trooper ignited his weapon, Galen stretched out his left hand, unleashing a small maelstrom of cackling Force Lightning. The flamethrower levitated out of the dead man's hands and floated by Galen's side, spraying at the baton troopers, who hid behind their shields. As they cowered, Galen had the flamethrower focus on the shock trooper mechanically approaching. The three baton troopers huddled together, finally starting to peak out. A wide sweep of his right saber cleptd off one of the trooper's heads. The other two tried charging at the same time, sandwiching him between their shields and the shock trooper. He pushed the baton troopers back with a pulse of force lightning, dove under the feet of the mechanical shock trooper, and leaped up behind it, his lightsabers sliding through the metal from the bottom, up.
The shield troopers kept coming, he flicked the shield to the side with the Force and stabbed the closest one in the left lung. He pulled the other chest-first onto the same blade that pierced his comrade. The one ranged trooper left tried to run, but Galen caught him with the Force, let him struggle for a few moments, then slammed him to the wall.
Cal watched the spectacle. The Sith Apprentice certainly lived up to the whispers he vuagely remembered from the Temple. Even if the results of both their skirmishes were the same - dead Imps -, the Force itself now felt jagged - messier. The Lightning felt straight-up evil. The hairs on his neck and arms stood on end being in the near proximity of the Dark side being utilized to the extent it was. While fighting the Inquisitors, until Trilla seemingly drained the Force from him and zapped his energy, nothing they did or used felt nearly as foreboding or powerful as Marek in that skirmish. The only thing that matched Marek's current weight in the Dark Side of the Force was....Vader.
He finally entered the room just as Galen deactivated his sabers. "How long were you trained by Vader?"
"He said I was just a boy when he took me in, but I do not know exactly how long it's been."
"So your whole life."
Galen shrugged. "I suppose. It's all I remember."
At the end of the room, a green forcefield hummed. The two men scoured the area for trinkets and any helpful devices or Forces, ultimately meeting back at the green barrier.
"I'll go through, see if there's a switch on the other side," Cal readied himself to jump through.
Galen looked from the left to the right of the forcefield's bounds and raised his hand. Lightning overwhelmed the electrical system and the barrier deactivated.
"Or I won't." Cal tried to not sound so disappointed as the other man walked through the now-unblocked entryway.
They walked several passageways with no sign of Imperial occupancy. When they stumbled across dimly lit rooms, both men entered, finally remembering their main objective.
"Wish she gave me the schematics of each place. If we go through all of these ruins we'll be here for days." Cal commented. He found a chest and opened it, finding some scraps that could be used for a new lightsaber hilt. He threw the pieces in his backpack while BD-1 scurried around, scanning the walls.
Galen raised some of the rubble and set it back down once satisfied nothing of value laid underneath.
"Come on, let's get through this place quick," Cal said as he already left the room.
If the labyrinth beneath the temple had been untouched, they would have had dozens of tunnels and rooms to trek and search through. However, two more turns and both men stopped dead in their tracks.
A cone-shaped chasm opened up half the mountainside and reached well beneath the foundations of even the temple's lowest points. Mechanical fingers had scratched and gouged at the rocks, leaving deep scars in the hard stone.
Cal's jaw tightened. Galen glanced over and noticed the man's fingers adjust even tighter around his lightsaber hilt.
"We didn't even slow them down," he muttered angrily to himself.
After another moment, the redhead finally uprooted his feet and took off in a run. He bypassed several flights of broken stairs by wall running - Galen did so less gracefully, utilizing his lightsabers to slow his falls when he nearly lost his footing. Finally, after finally spotting an unblocked room, Cal slowed.
"Are you afraid of your anger?" Galen asked; the Force around Cal had begun to feel like static - suppressed, but still active.
The Jedi didn't respond, his eyes and mind already searching the area around, ignoring the line of questioning.
"Every time I've felt your anger rising, you try to bottle it up., well, since the bar, anyway. You lashed out then, but since then you haven't."
No words, just a dirty glare. He continued to ignore the other man while searching the room. In the far corner, a grate already loose from the rock caught his eye and he Pulled it out of the way revealing a slender, tall crack in the stone - large enough for both men to shimmy through.
"Alright. I'll take that as a yes. You gave me advice yesterday, now I'll give you some. Give into your anger and you let in the Dark side. Give into your fear, and you let in the Dark side. Fear your anger and you let in the Dark side."
The redhead frowned and BD jumped out of his pack, running through the opening before the two men.
"Yeah, about as cryptic as you telling me to 'Let go'. I'll let you figure it out."