Trying to evade the Stormtroopers wasn't easy while Zeb was leading a panicked, crazy, screaming Lasat by the hand as they dodged blaster fire. He had half a mind to clobber Drebbo over the head and carry him like a sack of jogans. Kallus looked like he was about three-quarters of the way there, himself.
The trio ducked in and out of the city ruins, running and firing answering shots at their persuers as they went.
"Will you please stop shouting!" Kallus finally snapped, while they were huddled behind the remains of a wall.
"Drebbo is trying!" the Lasat answered, covering his ears with his hands and trembling. "But Drebbo is very, very scared!"
"Right on both counts!" Kallus replied.
"You know, that's really not helping!" Zeb exclaimed. "We gotta get out of here! Any ideas?"
"Ooh! Drebbo has an idea! Drebbo knows where we can go!"
"That doesn't help if we can't get there," Kallus carped, still firing off shots from his blaster, "we need to get away from here safely, first."
"Okay, Drebbo has part of an idea?"
Kallus let out a frustrated sound, somewhere between a sigh and a growl.
"Well, I've got something," Zeb said, his bo-rifle nearly ablaze, "but you're really not gonna like it."
"Anything is better than being shot at!" Kallus shouted back.
"Are you sure?"
"Zeb!" Kallus' tone was positively parental, like he was about to tell the Lasat to do as he was told or go sit in a corner.
"All right, fine, just don't say I didn't warn you." Zeb shoved his bo-rifle into Kallus' right hand, leaving him to use his blaster with his left alone. "Cover me!"
Kallus redoubled his fire, now letting loose on the Stormtroopers with both weapons. The returned fire lessened somewhat under the volley and Zeb took the moment to dash for a nearby ruined wall that lined the outer edge of the transportation hub. Reaching into a storage compartment on his belt, Zeb pulled out several small, round detonators. One by one, he armed them and then set them at the base of the wall, dodging fire as he went. Once the last of them was deposited and waiting, he skidded around and dove back into the meager cover being used by his comrades. He reclaimed his bo-rifle from Kallus and then hauled Drebbo to his feet.
"Get ready to run," Zeb ordered, "Kallus, we need a retreating action."
"That isn't going to get them to stop firing at us!" Kallus protested.
"Just do it!"
Zeb bodily grabbed Drebbo under one arm and held his bo-rifle in the other. The smaller Lasat screeched and wiggled in terror, but it was only a token resistance. Kallus, too, was on his feet and they both started to retreat toward another piece of cover, firing the whole time. A few of the Stormtroopers found the lull in the exchange of fire this caused and got a little more bold, advancing on their position. But soon they would come to an open square with no cover to speak of for a very long stretch. It was closer than Zeb wanted, but there was little choice.
"Run for it!" Zeb shouted, pressing down on the triggering device for the explosives.
Zeb had barely taken two steps before they went off with a tremendous bang. The shock wave was upon them only a breath later, sending them flying, rock and metal following them as the ruin blew sky-high. Zeb lost his grip on Drebbo as both of them and Kallus flew through the air, uncontrolled with the blast. The ground hit him hard and he rolled for a few yards, hearing his companions making similar landings. As soon as he could, he covered his head to protect it from the pieces of stone that were raining down upon them.
When all was silent again, Zeb tentatively looked up. He spotted Drebbo first who was already pushing himself up, swearing a blue streak. Zeb looked about and found Kallus a couple yards away, just beginning to stir, shaking his head as if to clear it. Zeb climbed to his feet and covered the distance just as Kallus was beginning to push off the ground.
"You alive?" he asked.
"I loathe you," Kallus moaned, foggily recovering his wits and stiffly recovering his strength.
"Yeah, loathe me later," Zeb commanded, grabbing the back of Kallus' jacket and pulling him the rest of the way to his feet. "Let's go."
"Drebbo didn't like that," the other Lasat whined, walking over to Zeb and Kallus on unsteady legs.
"Just tell us where we're going," Zeb snapped.
"Drebbo shows you the way," he replied, sounding punch-drunk, "but Drebbo has a very big pain in his head."
"Drebbo," Kallus carped, "is a very big pain in the-"
"Enough of that," Zeb interrupted, pushing the both of them on the shoulders to get them moving, "just walk."
It took the better part of twenty minutes for Kallus' ears to stop ringing. And when that stopped, it still did nothing for the various aches all over his body. To make matters worse, they had taken so many turns in their trek through the city ruins that he was beginning to think that Drebbo was leading them around in circles. Zeb had taken on the onerous duty of trying to keep Drebbo focused on... whatever their destination was. So that left Kallus on lookout. His senses were on overdrive, alert to every sound and shift in the scenery.
The wind had let up a little bit, thankfully, letting Kallus leave the scarf off of his face. But the lack of swirling clouds of dust made the unforgiving sun that much stronger.
At long last, Drebbo led Zeb and Kallus to the remains of what appeared to be a destroyed market of some sort. The remains of market stalls were littered about, burnt out and faded with the dust and sun. Some of them even had what was left of their wares scattered around them in various states of disuse or destruction. In the center of the square there was what had once been a tall stone spire. It had broken off about two-thirds of the way to the bottom and toppled over, the top portion shattered into many pieces.
Something about the place made the hairs on the back of Kallus' neck stand on end. It gave him a chilling sense of deja vu. But he just couldn't put his finger on it.
Drebbo stopped close to the broken spire and looked about as if to make certain that everything was where it was supposed to be. Finally, he gave a sage nod, hands on hips.
"See? Drebbo found it," he declared.
Zeb and Kallus looked to each other in confusion, then cast about the empty square, looking for anything significant.
"Found... what, exactly?" Zeb asked.
"The place!" Drebbo said excitedly. "This place! Where the Bogan was screaming at that one." He turned his attention now squarely to Kallus, approaching the Human slowly, as if peering through a darkeness only he could see. "Where it echoed the words that it had carved in your heart. But the Ashla spoke, too. Faint, overpowered by the Bogan, but it whispered to you for the first time in so very long."
"What are you talking about?" Kallus asked, unable to keep to obstinant tone from his voice.
Drebbo came right next to Kallus, then, invading Kallus' personal space and bringing their faces only inches apart. His eyes were wild with excitement. "Boosahn Keeraw," he whispered.
At first, Kallus puzzled over the words, looking at Drebbo in utter confusion. However, it slowly trickled through his mind that he knew those words, that he had heard them before and had them explained. And then, striking like lightning and jolting him from his head down to his feet, he understood. Desperately pushing Drebbo out of the way, he looked around at the market again, bewildered.
"I've been here," he said, "this is where I was that day when... when I fought the Guardsman who gave me his bo-rifle."
"He begins to see!" Drebbo exclaimed.
"It was our fight that toppled that spire," Kallus went on, indicating the center of the square, "he had me against it and I only just managed to get out of the way of his strike before..." Shaking himself free of the memory, Kallus looked back to Drebbo and glared, hands clenching into fists. "Why would you bring us here, of all places, you wretched little-"
"Ah," Drebbo said, interrupting the tirade, as if speaking to himself, "Bogan is still talking. Stubborn thing."
"Karabast, we don't have time for this," Zeb muttered, "Drebbo, you said you knew where to go. What in the name of the Ashla are we doing here?"
"The Ashla!" Drebbo exclaimed. "Yes! The Ashla said Drebbo must bring us here. Well, him anyway." He waved a casual hand at Kallus. "He needs to remember. He needs to see."
"This is pointless," Zeb said with a roll of his eyes, "we gotta move on. Let's go."
"No!" Drebbo exclaimed. Defiantly, he sat down on one of the toppled pieces of the spire, crossing his arms indignantly. "Drebbo will not leave until that one sees! Until he sees it again!"
Zeb heaved a sigh, looking back at Kallus with impatience and a bit of an apology in his eyes. "Just... humor him, yeah? Look around and tell him what you see."
Taking a breath and counting to five to keep from throttling the smaller Lasat, Kallus paused, looking skyward. Finally, he gave another look around at their surroundings; market stalls, debris, the shattered spire.
"All I see is a battlefield," Kallus said, impatiently, "the broken remains of a very long and horrible day for everyone involved. Now can we please move on?"
Drebbo shook his head, sadly. "He clings to what the Bogan showed him that day," he said, "Drebbo didn't want this, but Drebbo has no choice, it seems."
What happened next came so fast that Kallus was never quite sure afterward how it had happened. In one quick motion, Drebbo lept to his feet, got right into Kallus' personal space again, and blew some sort of dust from his hand and right into Kallus' face. Kallus gasped in surprise, taking a couple of steps back, the dust stinging his eyes and irritating his throat. He coughed and tried to wave the dust away.
"What are you doing!?" he exclaimed, trying to clear the dust from his eyes and leaning against the still-upright portion of the spire. He coughed for several more seconds. When he was finally able to open his eyes again, he found his vision blurred. His head began to swim and try as he might he couldn't get anything to come into focus. Sparks danced at the edges of his sight.
"Hey, you all right?" Zeb's voice echoed to him from across a long expanse, sounding concerned. But when he looked up, it wasn't Zeb who he saw.
In the space where Zeb should have been, the enraged and almost feral face of the Guardsman whose name Kallus had never learned roared at him, his weapon speeding in for the kill. With a yelp, Kallus vaulted to the side and saw the Guardsman's bo-rifle strike home on the spire, breaking it where it hit. It toppled to the ground and shattered.
But that wasn't right. That had been years ago.
Feeling sick, Kallus looked around desperately to find some piece of the present. The sounds of men in close-quarters fighting raged in his ears, metal against metal, fist against flesh.
"What did you do to him!?" he heard Zeb growl.
"The Ashla speaks to him now!" someone else exclaimed in reply. "But still he sees only what the Bogan showed him. He must see again, with the eyes of the Ashla! See what the Bogan did not want him to see!"
Phantoms danced across Kallus' vision, Lasat and Human in bloody conflict. Stormtroopers fought against desperate Guardsmen and all around men on both sides fell into gruesome death. Kallus stumbled backward as his opponent came at him again, reaching for his vibro-blade to block the Lasat's vicious downward strike. He got it in place just in time and they locked together, fire in both their eyes trying to burn through the other.
But no. This wasn't right. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. Terror closed around Kallus' heart, squeezing like a fist in cruelty. He pushed the Guardsman away and vaulted back up to his feet.
"This wasn't how it was supposed to happen," he insisted.
"Kallus!" he heard Zeb's voice drift to him again, heightened concern coloring his tone. But when he looked, he saw again the Guardsman. He moved to meet the attack and once again they locked together in combat. The fight continued to play out in front of his eyes, though he could not feel himself making his strikes or forming his blocks.
"Look again!" another voice called to him, seemingly from nowhere. "See things you did not see before!"
Oddly enough, the command sounded like really good advice. Kallus risked taking his eyes off his opponent for a second to look around.
"I'm the one you're fighting!" the Guardsman roared, pulling his attention back. "Don't look away from me!"
Kallus' eyes snapped back to the Guardsman, reading his movements, ready to meet his next attack. That was what he had said, that day. The Guardsman had demanded Kallus' full attention. But a question occurred to him then that he hadn't thought of that day.
Why?
The question whispered in his mind, gentle but insistent. He did not remember the question from that day. He had had eyes for the fight alone.
Why does he fight? Look!
And then Kallus saw it. His mind had replayed the moment so many times in his head and he had never seen it before. But there, in the Guardsman's eyes, amidst all the rage and hate, he saw it for the first time.
"You're afraid!" he said with realization. "But not of me. What... what are you afraid of?" He began to look about again but the Lasat struck out once more.
"Look at me, Imperial!" he snarled.
See what he is afraid of! his mind insisted again. See what you could not before!
Kallus had to answer the whisper. He had to heed its word. He had no choice.
He looked away from the Guardsman, past him, to the rest of the scene beyond. The Guardsman was still attacking, but it did not matter. Kallus let it come. Instead he looked beyond the Lasat, to the frightened people on the outskirts who were fleeing the scene.
"That's it!" he said with realization.
And the Guardsman's attack struck home, landing in his chest sharp and hot. The force of it was like being slammed into by a TIE-fighter. It sent him reeling to the ground, pinned there by his opponent's weapon. It wasn't how it had played out that day, but it did not matter. Instead, he watched as the fleeing civilians moved along the outside of the market. The one in the lead looked over to him in horror and sadness for a moment, before continuing on. She opened a hole in the ground and led the way into it, several more following behind her.
Kallus' gaze drifted back to his opponent once again. He was standing over him, looking down at him from a pale face that was covered in grime and blood, brown eyes locking on to his own, peering at him from beneath a mussed up fringe of blond hair. He looked confused for a moment.
Kallus grasped his weapon in one hand. "Boosahn Keeraw," he said to his opponent, holding his weapon out for him to take.
And then he was accepting the weapon from the Guardsman once more, taking hold of it in a baffled daze. He felt himself holding it up a moment later, in triumph. But his gaze was on the place where the hole in the ground had been. It had diseappeared, closed up as though it wasn't even there. He was vaguely aware of a desperate voice calling his name from somewhere far away and he felt hands on his shoulders, shaking him.
Pushing free of the hands, Kallus stumbled in the direction of the hole in the ground. He could hardly seem to keep his feet under him as the world swirled around his head. He fell to all fours upon a pile of debris. This was where the hole had been. He began to work quickly, pushing aside old stone and rusted metal. The hole opened before him and then he felt himself pitching forward, falling into it. The blackness pulled him down and swallowed him like a hungry beast.