Gavyn shuddered awake, as if from a bad dream, but he couldn't recall a single thing about it. Next to him, Ace didn't stir. A faint smile flickered across Gavyn's lips, and he rested his cheek against Ace's head, closing his eyes with the intention of slipping back to sleep. After a moment, Gavyn could still sense something eating at him, still not right. Tyro.

As soon as the thought crossed his mind, there was a buzz at the door. This time, Ace was awake in a flash, guard up, and wide-eyed. He made a habit of sleeping in the Jedi's room, but it didn't change the fact that the wrong person walking in could spell disaster for the two of them. Rumors were one thing, getting caught red-handed breaking both the Jedi Code and the GAR regulations was another.

Gavyn put a hand on his shoulder. "Shh. It's just Tyro." He reassured. Ace's expression of panic was immediately washed away by his expression of disdain.

"Of course it is." He muttered, falling back to his pillow, and pulling the covers up over his shoulders. He curled up, back to the door, with every intention of tuning out this little disruption. Gavyn wanted to curl up next to him, and promise nothing in the world could ever replace him. That was exactly what he knew he could not do. Loving him the way he did was already against the code, he couldn't let passion sweep him away on top of it.

Gavyn pulled on his closest, identical Jedi-issue pants, and flipped the switch to open the door, closing it behind him, to give Ace his privacy. He was surprised to see Tyro in such a state, on the ground, and wondered that he might have pushed the boy too hard. "What is going on?" He asked. If Tyro wasn't in his quarters, asleep, he would have good reason.

Tyro unfolded himself, scrubbing the tears from his face with his sleeve. There was so much at stake here he had to get Gavyn to listen, he needed to be composed. Gulping, he tried to swallow his anxiety along with the sour, acidic taste in his mouth..

"Erm..." he sniffed… "I...er...the force," Tyro coughed as his voice cracked. "I had another vision."

He looked up at Gavyn, eyes flicking quickly across his face. What if Gavyn didn't believe him, didn't care? "Something's happened...this planet, lots of rivers, something about a flood. I know...I know it's vague but people were dying and I could feel it in the force and...I think it's going to get worse."

He sounded ridiculous. Taking a deep breath he tried to explain again. "I think...I think it's something my Master before...something he planned...or something...the vision I had last night had something to do with that…"

Prove it. "I can still kind of feel it in the force. I can try and figure out more if…"

He didn't wait for an answer, just closed his eyes and reached out. That's what Gavyn would tell him to do anyway.

Immediately the force smashed into him, the massive wave tumbling him roughly through the dark ocean of everything he had been fighting, the memories, uncertainty, guilt. He tried to push against it, learn something new, but it was stronger. Then it all came crashing down.

He opened his eyes with a gasp and a whimper before sinking down to the ground, hacking and coughing violently as if to expel the mouthful of vile sea water he felt he had just swallowed, but there was nothing left.

Gavyn scratched the back of his head, uncertain of how to handle the situation. He had never had force visions. His Master did not have Force visions- and if she did she never told him about it. Mai never had visions. They simply seemed to be a side of the Force that he never encountered. He was in tune with the way people were, in the living Force- not the enigmatic unifying Force. It was conventional wisdom to not chase Force visions, but Gavyn was only now seeing why that it was so strongly emphasized. How could you sense such destruction, and not act on it?

Unbidden, a disturbance in the Force shuddered through Gavyn. At first he got the impression that it was the same calamity that Tyro had seen, but the unsettling feeling was distinctly Mai. She was in danger. This was no Force vision, either, this was strong and clear through the living Force. Whatever was happening, was happening now.

"We need to inform the Jedi Council." Gavyn said, his head spinning. "I can sense it too." It was a disturbing thought, that Mai and Tyro's former Master might be involved in the same disaster. "Wash up and meet me on the main deck." Gavyn ordered.


Gavyn was just finishing setting up the conference, quickly Tyro took his place behind him.

The circle of council members flickered to life, casting a blue glow on the dim room. Tyro was grateful that they wasted no time getting to business. "You requested an urgent meeting Master Jervada?" Master Mundi spoke.

Tyro retreated into his own thoughts, trying to get his story as organized as possible as the Masters covered the basic formalities. "..visions you say?" Tyro caught right before Gavyn stepped to the side, leaving him to address the council.

"Well, you do not appear, young one." Yoda's empathetic voice caught him off guard. He had for a moment forgotten about his own troubles in the weight of the situation. He pushed them from his mind once more and got straight to business.

"The force showed me something, a vision," he started.

"We have not heard any reports from you regarding visions before," Master Kenobi observed thoughtfully, "Is this your first one?"

Tyro wanted to jump into the details of what he saw but it was up to the council to lead the meeting. "Including the ones from last night, yes Masters," he nodded uneasily. He hoped this would be his last. Visions were...scary to see the least.

"What was the nature of this vision?" Master Mundi prompted.

"I did not think I was the type of Jedi that the force showed visions to," Tyro pondered aloud. "It didn't seem like the visions I have heard of other Jedi having. Whatever the force was showing me is happening now. It was more a part of the living force rather than the unifying force. When I came out of it I could feel the loss and turmoil in the living force, I still can."

The room grew silent as the council pondered this information. It seemed more respectful than anything else.

Finally Master Mundi spoke again. "Tell us what you saw."
Tyro took a deep breath and started from the beginning, explaining everything he saw and felt from the force. Reiterating the story reminded him of the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, his pounding headache, the fatigue and anxiety that seemed to have seeped its way into his bones. Gavyn had not yet heard most of this, there hadn't been time. He had listened though, and the council seemed to be listening now.

"Can you think of any reason the force might have shown you this?"

If nothing else he was sure that the force was doing what it was for a reason. The council would know this too however. He considered, for a moment, if he should share his suspicion. They would not take kindly to it. This wasn't about how anyone felt though, any information that might provide a clue was relevant, lives were at stake.

"The night before I had similar visions. More vague, nothing like this, but I could tell something, many things, were wrong. Before that though, it just showed me memories with my old Master." The room seemed to tense, even over the holocom. Expressions hardened, darkened. "There was this sense that they were all connected."

Again a heavy silence fell, but it held none of the respect and thoughtfulness of before. Expressions soured, eyebrows raised. Tyro knew the looks well. This was something they had not wanted to hear.

"Are you sure this was a part of the vision?" Master Kenobi broke the silence at last.

Tyro nodded. The flood gates opened. The Masters began speaking amongst themselves, voices curt, tense. "Are we supposed to just take his word on the matter?"

"I don't want to say that it is he who can't be trusted, but we know the uncertain nature of visions."
"Do you not think it is odd for him of all people to see this? Why this planet, why now before anyone else?"

"He can't be trusted."

"How do we know he is still not a pawn to his Master," Mace's deep voice spoke resolutely.

Only Master Yoda was silent, holding his gaze knowingly. It had been that way a few months ago too, during the trials for his former Master. Tyro's expression softened slightly in return.

The words stung, but Tyro knew they were wrong. He wanted to tell them they were being unfair, this was not about him. There were people dying out there and they wanted to argue about whether or not he could be trusted? It was ridiculous.

He knew he could say none of that though. To go against the council was forbidden. Arguing with them now would only further push them to disbelieve him.

"Masters," he interjected "might I-"

"Padawan Reval we have heard your piece."

With a deep breath he straightened out his posture, bowed, and stepped back.

As Tyro stepped back, Gavyn took a step forward. "Council, regardless of these visions, I also felt a deep disturbance in the Force. If the information Tyro has is true, then there could be a great deal of people at risk. I believe that my former Padawan, Mai, is one of them." He hesitated to add the detail, not wanting to appear concerned out of attachment. He cared for Mai, but she was a connection to this puzzle, not an excuse to neglect the duties to his legion.

"With your permission, I'd like to contact her, and see what the situation is." Gavyn finished.

Obi-Wan spoke up first. "That is probably the best course of action. The sooner we can get some solid facts, the better decision we can make."

"Contact me when you have more details." Windu added. He was Gavyn's main contact point in the Council when it came to matters of deployment. Gavyn bowed in acknowledgment as the hologram flickered away.

As soon as the council was out of sight, Gavyn dug in his tunic, pulling out an old communicator. He hadn't worn it since getting a republic-issue comlink, embedded into his armor. This was an old Jedi device, but he knew that Mai would still have hers. You didn't travel the galaxy with fewer possessions than you could count on your fingers, and idly throw one aside. "This was linked with Mai's communicator. It was relatively short-range, only good in the same system." He offered it to Tyro. "Maybe you can make it go longer? We don't even know which planet she's on."

Tyro nodded slightly, taking the comlink from Gavyn. He turned it over in his hands. Gavyn's former Padawan, huh?

He plopped onto the floor, reached into his bag for the necessarily tools, and got to work. Extending the range of the comlink was so easy he could have done it in his sleep, which after two nights of not getting any, that might as well have been the case.

He brushed the hair out of his face for the third time and patiently waited for his hands to stop trembling before beginning again. He probably needed to eat something, or really drink some water, but he felt too sick still to even imagine it. The council meeting had only made things worse. How could they turn a blind eye to an entire planet's worth of suffering over their mistrust of him? Gavyn didn't seem to be able to take his word on it either.

Well, they weren't going to trust him about it no matter what he said. Clearly this Mai, whoever she was, was worth hearing out though. Tyro finished screwing the last piece into place with a quick flourish of his wrist and keeping his position on the floor, wordlessly held the perfectly modified comlink up for Gavyn.

"That's it?" Gavyn asked, tentatively taking the comlink. It didn't look any different. He thought Tyro would need to make it bigger or something. He hadn't a clue where the boy picked up this kind of thing.

Gavyn pressed a button, illuminating it green. "Hello, Mai? This is Master Jervada". He listened for a response, for a few seconds. And then a few more. "Are you sure th-"

"Gavyn?" A young woman's voice answered.

"Mai!" Gavyn was surprised with how much emotion swelled inside of him. "It is good to hear your voice. Where are you?"

There was crackling "-Jovan III." More crackling. Gavyn shook the comlink. "Levi collapsed. Another- help." The crackling faded.

Gavyn turned to Tyro. "See if you can find any instances of a Levi on Jovan III. Clicker, set a course."

Tyro snapped to attention at the sound of the woman's- Mai's voice. Feeling the destruction in his vision was one thing, but this was actual proof it was happening now.

"Jovan III?" Tyro repeated quickly whipping out his datapad and entering the name of the planet into the Jedi library's database. "That's nearby. Agricultural, lots of man-made infrastructure to assist in the process…" he felt a wave of nausea as he scrolled down far enough to reach the pictures. He had never been to, never seen this planet before, and yet they matched his vision exactly.

"Erm," he swallowed, scanning the rest of the article. "Levees...levees..." he didn't like what he was seeing here. "Master...the entire planet is terraformed with levees. It's their primary irrigation system. Some of them are over a hundred meters high." He held up the datapad for Gavyn to take.

Gavyn took the datapad as Tyro handed it to him like it was radioactive. He tapped the closest Clone Trooper and offered it to him instead, he'd know what to do with it.

It was nothing to go off of. They couldn't search an entire planet, there had to be a way to pin this down. The vision he suddenly realized. If he could track it, or at least what he felt in the living force, that could tell them where.

He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, and reached out into the force in the direction of that sinking turmoil and loss. It found him first, grabbing onto him, pulling him in. A dark maelstrom of danger, fear, suffering, anger, death. Was this still the living force? How…? The horror of it all threatened to overwhelm him, but if he gave in now he would never be able to pinpoint its origin. He pushed deeper, and deeper until-there!

Suddenly he was back on that planet. Dirty water flowed around his knees filled with debris and sewage. His eyes watered at the smell of it. The sound of frenzied splashing, sloshing. In front of him people hurried in a direction that workers in vests were ushering them to with glow rods. "Go! Go! Go!" One of them looked uneasily back. Tyro followed his gaze. Behind him rose a sloped wall, hundreds of meters high. Cracks spiderwebbed along its surface, water dripping, no, flowing between them. He didn't have much time.

Quickly Tyro looked around for anything that might be considered a landmark. Nothing. Wait, no. If this was a vision, then who said he had to just stand here? If he could get high enough, he could see...He turned to the levee, looking for a way up. No...he didn't have to climb either. He could just...jump, no, fly.

Before he had another chance to give any more thought to the strange vision-logic, he was in the air. Below him the planet grew smaller until at last he identified a hemisphere, a region. What would roughly be the coordinates. Then he was back on the ground.

It was different this time, as he found himself turning involuntarily to look at the towering wall behind him. The vision had grabbed control of him once more and was showing him something not the present, but...the future now? The ground rumbled, the wall bowed, and with a deafening sound water exploded outward, slamming into him, and then everything went black.

The low light from the ship burned his eyes as he opened them, his head pounded. His breath came quickly, fogging up a small circle in front of him on the durasteel floor where he had collapsed. He had what they needed though; the coordinates to where the levee would break next. They could still stop it. "Thirty two point nine seven zero five by seventy nine point fifty fifty six."


By the time Gavyn turned back around, Tyro was already deep into meditation. An unpleasant feeling rippled across his skin. Tyro hadn't gotten a handle on meditation yet. He needed to master meditation in a closed environment before he started tapping into the Force's power again.

As Gavyn expected, Tyro's body rejected it. He caught Tyro's head before it hit the ground, and rested it gently. The clones in the command center had stopped milling about, watching the state of the Jedi from the corners of their visors. When Tyro woke up, he mumbled some gibberish numbers, and for a brief moment, Gavyn wondered if these Force visions were driving him mad. He furrowed his brow, and dismissed it.

"Tyro, you can't just keep using the Force like it is one of your gadgets." Gavyn scolded. There was no reason to dip himself into deep meditation right now, particularly with the way he'd been reacting to it lately. "Your instincts would have served you just fine."

"Thought I was supposed to be meditating," Tyro replied, venturing a glance up to his Master's face. "Been trying it all night, finally worked, kind of." From the look on his face, Gavyn was not pleased. Suddenly there was a flash of something...a stutter in his vision. A sense of foreboding. Something about Gavyn? Did he just black out again? Or maybe it was just this headache.

"We have to tell the council, right? Those coordinates, and you found...Mai?" There was another flash. A woman. She seemed familiar, as though he had seen her in a vision earlier? He blinked quickly, trying to clear his eyesight. There were no women here, this was not just his headache acting up.

A chill passed through him. There was definitely something wrong. "They'll probably believe it this time now…" The cool floor felt good against his headache, but it was...cold. He curled up slightly against it. He probably looked so stupid right now, lying dramatically on the floor like this in front of everyone. He could see himself, standing there, in front of everyone as they screamed and ran. He held up his hands to stop it...except this time he was confident, there was no other way.

"Those coordinates check out, Sirs." The clone's voice snapped Tyro back to reality. What was happening? He shifted uncomfortably, tried to push himself up, orient himself.

Death. Failure. He sloshed through the thigh-deep water. "Master?" he called out. Louder this time. Bodies, people, livestock, floated past. In the end he had only saved himself. If he had just gotten what Gavyn had been trying to teach him earlier…

He drew his knees up to his chest, curling into a ball, feeling sick again. Another flash of something. He didn't even care anymore. Gavyn was saying something, on the ship, in the vision, he had no idea. He tried to grab on to Gavyn, but he wasn't supposed to right? He clutched his own head instead, it did nothing to help the headache. He just wanted it to stop. "Make it stop!"

Gavyn bristled as Tyro clutched himself in agony. The clones, polite as ever, were pretending they didn't see or hear him, but Gavyn could sense their discomfort. Tyro didn't understand, it wasn't that he should not behave this way, it was that he could not. He was a commander. It was his duty to lead these men, and how was he to lead them when they saw him break down into pieces like this? How were they supposed to have faith in the Force when it's stewards were consumed by it?

"Dismissed." Gavyn ordered. They hesitated a moment too long. "Dismissed." He emphasized loudly. The clones quickly gathered their work and marched out of the room.

Gavyn tried reaching out with the Force to quell Tyro's fears. It was too turbulent, he couldn't get near it without feeling the dark swirls of the Force surrounding him. After everything, Tyro was still a very powerful young Jedi, but he had no control. No peace. His power was going to consume him if he did not learn how to let it pass.

"Only you can make it stop." Gavyn insisted. "You are letting the Force manipulate you."


Somewhere over the crash of the waves and the roar of the storm there was a voice. Tyro looked around. Nothing but black swirling, turbulent water against a black sky, punctuated with violent crescendos of lighting, shocking white caps of storm waves. The voice though, it was a direction, a way out of here. Tyro swam towards it with all his might, pushing against the force of the storm, the powerful rip current beneath him pulling him back. He swam harder still, feeling the strength drain from his body, his limbs growing weak. Then he looked up. He hadn't moved. He couldn't fight it. It was getting him nowhere.

But the voice was telling him he had to make it stop. That the force was manipulating him. Earlier Gavyn had told him to let go. He didn't know what to do. Gavyn, that was right. "Mas-" the water flooded into his lungs, drowning his words. He hacked and coughed, thrashing to keep his head above the waves, trying desperately to expel it.

His body felt like lead, pulling him down. He was running out of energy, and he was no closer to finding his way back. Then it hit him. He was going to lose himself here.

A current wrapped around his leg and yanked him under. Back onto the surface of the planet, back into the visions. They had ceased to make any sense. He caught glimpses of the past, present, the future, many futures. He tried to pull back, to wrestle some control like he had before, but he didn't have the strength. His mind was racing, trying to think of any way out of this, but if he knew what to do he would have done it already!

Gavyn, he reminded himself. Gavyn was here, somewhere. Gavyn would know. "Master! Help!..." No, Gavyn couldn't pull him out of this, he had said that, but he had to have an idea… "Help me...I don't know what to do!"

This was in his head, and his connection to the Force only served to give him another sense to be confused about. Gavyn hauled Tyro from the ground by his tunic and sat him on the command table. He pulled a flashlight from his belt and shined it into Tyro's eye.

"Do you know where you are?" He asked. "Describe what you see. What you hear. What you feel." Gavyn ordered. It was an old Jedi training exercise- being mindful of your surroundings- that Gavyn had adapted to the battlefield. He found it kept injured clones alive, and focused until they could get to safety. Not to mention, it helped him identify what their injury was.

Gavyn pulled Tyro's lower eyelid down with his thumb. He moved the light, searching for a sign that Tyro was tracking it, or if he was looking past it, into whatever dark corner he chased the Force into.

It was dark. Black. No, not black...nothing. It was nothingness. But if there was nothing, then who, or how was he? Perhaps he was nothing too...except...that couldn't be right. He definitely was, and he definitely was here.

If he was here though...then so must be…everything. In the moment he thought it he saw what surrounded him for what it was. It was not an absence of...things...it was so many that it ceased to be comprehensible. It was all, and all was connected by...the force. Or at least some part of it...the part his mind could take in. There was so much here, planets and beings, space and time, power, harmony.

It was odd though, he could see everything, and yet he could do nothing. There was so much here, so much he was paralyzed with the weight of it all, the complexity. Time and space meant nothing here. Lives, eons, galaxies flashed before his eyes and he could take in none of it. It was so much, too much.

It all seemed familiar though. Something he had wanted? Here he could have knowledge, freedom. No, that was not right...something his Master...no former master had wanted. He did have a Master now though, but when-or where-now was, was impossible to discern out of all of everything.

But then, there was something he could pick apart from the rest. A feeling? A sound? Light. There was light here too, but just as much darkness everything was just..grey. This though, this was the only clear thing here. It was at last something he could focus on, an anchor.

He began to follow it, blocking everything else out. Colors, shapes, sounds blurred past him until at last a voice stood out above the rest. What did he see? He paused to look around. "A field. No, mountains. No, sand, an ocean floor?"

There was something wrong about this. Saying it out loud made it seem like it made a lot less sense. How could he be in all those places so quickly?

He followed further...what did he hear? "Birds? Running water?" The subtle constant hum of..."ship engines." Something rung true about that.

He heard a voice too. Felt the warmth of a large calloused hand on his face. Felt the cool metal of the desk he was sitting on through the coarse fabric of his pants. He felt cold.

He blinked, trying to see again, and winced at the light. He was inside on a "ship. Computers. Navigation screen." He pulled his focus back to fix it on the moving "flashlight."

Tyro took a deep breath, hoping it would stop his head from spinning. Letting it out he felt a wetness beneath his nose. He licked his upper lip and tasted blood. He wrinkled his nose, trying to squint against the brightness but someone was holding his eye open. "Master?"

Gavyn frowned as Tyro slowly narrowed down his senses back to the present. He was gone. Far gone. When Tyro finally identified the flashlight, Gavyn turned it off and returned it to his utility belt.

"That was very dangerous, Tyro." He warned. "You knew that you have having a hard time connecting with the force, and you went and threw yourself at it anyway." Gavyn rubbed his forehead with two fingers. Tyro was an absolute mess, he needed sleep, a shower, and something to drink, but somehow he wasn't taking care of that on his own. It was no wonder he was having so much trouble with the Force, he couldn't even take care of his own body. He had seen this in soldiers before after a battle. Gently, Gavyn took a seat next to Tyro on the command table.

"I can't take you on a mission while you're in this condition, you understand that, right?" Gavyn told him empathetically. "You have some time though. I want you to focus on one thing: resting. Get some sleep. Clean yourself up. Have a good meal. Talk to me when we get Jovan III, and we'll see if you're feeling fit."

Gavyn knew the news was going to be tough for Tyro to take, but he needed to hear it. Above anything, he was still a General, and needed to look after the safety of his army- including Tyro.

Tyro flinched at his Master's reprimand, drawing his feet up onto the table with him. He wiped his bloody nose on his sleeve before smushing his face into his crossed arms in an attempt to stop the bleeding that he knew would not really work. He didn't feel like trying much else though.

What his Master said next stung. So that was it then? No more training, no more meditating. Gavyn was done with him. He pressed his face harder into his shaking arms.

"Are you going to send me back?" He ventured, voice small. He couldn't bring himself to look at the Jedi Master, keeping his eyes instead on the small scratches on the floor below. A Jedi was calm, a Jedi was not attached but… "Please don't send me away again. Don't leave me." The words tumbled out of his mouth even though his mind rebelled, this was all his fault, he didn't deserve it, he was useless, selfish, dangerous.

"What?" Gavyn asked, genuinely surprised. Send Tyro back? Like a belt that didn't fit or a datapad with a cracked screen? You didn't just give up on a human being. People were not objects to be used and discarded. "No, of course not." He said difinitively. Tyro probably needed to hear it, if he was considering it at all.

Gavyn turned towards his Padawan, curled into a ball next to him. He put a hand on the back of Tyro's head. "You're exhausted. I am not going to send you somewhere dangerous when you aren't fit. I don't want to lose you." He emphasized. "I wouldn't ask it of the soldiers. And I wouldn't ask you." Gavyn explained. He didn't want Tyro feeling like he was singled out for special treatment. Telling him to go rest wasn't coddling him. Gavyn went through that with Mai, and knew what it looked like. Here he was only looking out for Tyro's basic health.

"Listen." Gavyn continued. Maybe Tyro needed more assurances, since clearly his confidence was crushed by his difficulty meditating. "Why don't you spend a night in the medbay? Get some proper sleep. Some fluids. We'll see how you feel tomorrow, then decide." Gavyn smiled warmly, hoping Tyro would take the bait. Resting wasn't weakness. It was gathering your strength.

Sleep. Tyro didn't want sleep. He didn't want...visions. A chill ran down his spine. He shuddered as shadows of what he had just seen began to grow in his mind once more. The reassuring warmth and weight of Gavyn's hand kept him grounded though. "Whats wrong with me?" He looked up suddenly to his Master, eyes shining with tears.

"Nothing is wrong with you." Gavyn insisted. "This struggle is no more a part of you than a storm cloud passing through the sky. You cannot see the sun right now, but that will not last." Gavyn explained. He was glad that Tyro was talking to him at all about this.

Tyro held Gavyn's gaze, taking in his words. Uncurling slightly he scrubbed his face on his sleeve again and pulled himself closer to his Master.

"I will meet you in the Medbay at noon tomorrow. Make sure you get some sleep before then." Gavyn patted him on the head, but then hoisted himself to his feet. There wasn't time to waste.

He pressed a button on the console that opened the door. A handful of Clone Troopers flooded back into the command center, ready for duty, queuing up to Gavyn for question after question. Gavyn shot Tyro a stern look, to make sure he took off for the Medbay.


Tyro arrived at the medbay lobby, leaning dizzily against the wall, trying to catch his breath. Quickly his eyes darted around the space. The room was empty of anyone waiting, quiet enough that one could hear the low soft hum of the ship, the air circulating the vents, the lighting was dimmer for night time, it was, after all, the middle of the night.

"Good evening, how may I help you?"

Tyro jumped, spinning quickly around to notice the secretary at the desk. "Gavyn told me I should come here but it's fine I don't think I really need to I'll just be going now."

There hiss of the door opening again sounded behind him and Tyro looked back to see who it was. "Tracks? What are you doing here? It's the middle of the night!"
"Commander Reval," his friend nodded as he strode past.

"You don't have to…" Tyro stopped himself there suddenly realizing. What he had said to Tar earlier…

Tracks stopped, raising an eyebrow as he turned back.

Tyro froze, not knowing what to say, torn between his duties to the Republic and the Jedi Order, wanting to cry, and how much he just wanted a friend right now.

"Feel better Commander," Tracks nodded before turning back down the hall again.

"Wait, Tracks…" Tracks turned back, his expression even. Now was his chance to say something...but Tyro didn't know what to say. He dropped his gaze down to his bare feet.

"Can't sleep." Tyro looked up to see Tracks standing next to him. "It gets bad some nights. That's why I'm here." Tracks answered.

"You too?" Tyro's gaze flicked up to Track's.

"Sometimes the stuff you've seen, stuff you've done builds up." Track's gaze grew distant. He stood there for a moment, lost in thought before pulling his focus back to Tyro. "Your mind holds onto it, turns it against you, soon the clink of a fork or a spoon in the mess hall sounds like a droid, soon you're not eating, sleeping."

"Because every time you close your eyes it is there waiting for you again. Until it's there when you're awake too, just waiting for the right moment to remind you it's not gone." Tyro finished. "Gavyn says it gets better though...in time."

Tracks nodded knowingly. "I think so," he agreed with a tired smile. "It's not easy though. It's a different kind of battle than we face out there, but you still have to fight."

"The first room on the left is open, I've commed the doctor on duty for tonight, he will be by shortly," the secretary at the desk informed him. Tyro looked uncertainty down the hall.

"Go on kid, let the doctor help you," Tracks nodded at him.

Tyro smiled back, appreciating the title change at least here and now. "Thanks Tracks."


The door to his quarters slid shut behind him, and Gavyn breathed a sigh of relief. He still had a few hours until the main shift started, since Tyro had woken him in the middle of the night. Not that the concept of night and day meant a lot in space. In the dim light of the room, he saw Ace move under the blankets. Gavyn hadn't meant to disturb him, but he couldn't help but smile at his comforting presence. Gavyn tossed his roughspun tunic over the chair, but as he settled down to catch a bit more sleep Ace stirred, sitting up attentively.

"I take it was no big emergency?" He asked, cocking an eyebrow. Tyro seemed to need supervision for everything. Including sleeping, apparently. "Or did you just need to read Tyro a few nursery rhymes?"

The sudden meanness caught Gavyn's attention. He flipped over to look at Ace with furrowed brows. "He was having Force visions." He corrected sternly. "We set our course for their origin, once we confirmed the disaster. We'll reach the system in 30 hours, so try to get some sleep while you can." Ultimately, it was Tyro that alerted them to the threat. He needed training so that kind of instinct didn't take so much out of him, but there was no denying that he was a powerful Jedi.

Ace simply huffed, which rattled Gavyn even more. He hadn't seen Ace like this, not irritable about one of his own teammates before. Gavyn sat upright, looking at Ace with an expression of genuine concern. "What is bothering you?"

That was not a question asked of clones very often. In fact, Ace had never heard it until he met Gavyn, and he was ill practiced at identifying the source of his feelings because of it. The clone struggled visibly, until he finally landed on. "I just… still think he's a liability. I mean do we really need a kid to take care of on top of everything else."

Gavyn listened carefully, resisting the urge to interrupt. "First, Tyro is my responsibility, no one else's'." He chose to have a Padawan, he was going to take care of him. "Secondly, you have to admit that he can handle himself." Most of the time. "He was the one who rescued you from the speeder crash,."

Ace squirmed, and looked away. That seemed to touch a nerve, and Gavyn realized what he was missing. "Are you angry with me for not being a part of the rescue mission?"

The last thing Ace wanted was to be angry at Gavyn. He'd rather be angry at Tyro, and blame him for it. His frustration was just from burying his disappointment that Gavyn couldn't be there for him when he needed him most. In that eerie way he did, Gavyn seemed to read his mind better than he could read his own.

"You know I would have been there if I could, Ace." Gavyn didn't have the words to even express strongly he felt. He brushed Ace's chin with his finger. "Duty." He reminded him. It was the code word for their agreement, duty always had to come first. A soldier and a Jedi, they had no room for sentimental heroics for each other. There were going to be times that they got pulled apart.

"I know." Ace agreed quietly. More and more, he was getting sick of duty. That was the only thing he had ever been given in his life. Gavyn was the only thing that was his and only his. Not the result of some order, some manufacture, or some predetermined plan.

Planting a gentle kiss on Ace's forehead, Gavyn curled back up under the covers. "Get some sleep." He suggested softly. Ace eased his head onto Gavyn's shoulder, and closed his eyes. There wasn't much sleep to catch for either of them, however, with thoughts rattling about in their heads.