Captain Stairns stood above the old communications terminal. Working furiously to triangulate the location of the receiver they dialed, a long moment passed where the line crackled with static.
But, eventually, there was a small click as Greez answered "Raymond, you got the whole crew online, talk to us."
Cal's throat tightened with a strain that carried down into his chest and made it impossible to breathe.
Trilla had no such troubles, "I'm afraid Raymond isn't available to take this call."
Shock and then palpable dread bled through the machine, a heavy silence growing beneath the voiceless static. Cal took a step closer to the machine. Almost outside of himself he didn't register the movement, Captain Stairns' concerned look, or even BD's weight on his back, until he loomed over the terminal.
"Trilla." The tired strain to his former mentor's voice pulled at Cal. With what, either anger or regret, sadness or contempt, some mixture of them all or some unnamable desire to return to a gentler past, he had no idea.
Sensing and acknowledging none of a struggle that she remembered far too well, the Second Sister replied, "And company," her faceless helmet turning towards Cal.
A silence even more wounded than the first lingered for a long moment.
Then Cal spoke, his voice was rough, pained in some way that only made him upset with himself, "Cere. Greez… Merrin…"
The grief that spilled out of the communications terminal and into the ruined rebel's hideaway was thick enough to cut. Oily, the wretched sensation of it clung to Cal and almost compelled him to shut the machine off and flee.
But, before he had the chance to act on impulse, Cere spoke once again, "Cal... We'd heard you were on planet."
"That's not surprising." He swallowed, gesture useless against a dry mouth and throat. "Raymond tell you that?"
Unease mounting, tension threatening to pull her to shreds as they both avoided any talk of actual substance, Cere tried to remain calm with a simple, "Yes."
Putting a few obvious clues together, Cal looked over at the dead man leaning against the wall, "About him… I'm sorry."
He wasn't.
But it seemed like the right thing to say.
To him, at least. To Cere it was bone chilling, "…Cal, what did you do to Raymond?"
Words caught in his throat, not because they were too terrible to say, but because he wasn't sure how he would handle Cere's reaction, Cal said nothing.
Sure that she could work with the awful emotions running high from both sides of the line, Trilla came up with a plan. Glancing at Stairns, Trilla found that he had at least found the sector where the Mantis was hidden. Deciding that was good enough for them, she turned towards Stairns, "The room, captain."
Looking down at his mostly completed work, but knowing better than to defy the Inquisitors, Stairns reluctantly followed the Second Sisters' command.
Jolted out of silence by the reminder that Cal was there with Trilla and who-knew how many other imperial troops, Cere slowly repeated her question, "Cal, what did you do to Raymond?"
Standing deathly still, and trying to keep his focus on the room around him, Cal breathed deep. Holding onto the sound of the staticky communicator, BD's ever-present weight on his back, and even Trilla's domineering presence, he answered, "I killed him."
Cere said nothing. A shocked but hushed "what!" came from Greez, sounding like he stood a few steps cack from the microphone.
"He, uh… He said some things he shouldn't have." Cal wasn't sure if he were defending himself or simply explaining what had happened.
"Don't sell yourself short." Trilla's sure voice cut in between Cal and Cere's pained words, "The rebel claimed not to have the information we were seeking, so he was disposed of. Isn't that right, Cal?"
That's one way of putting it, He glared at the Second Sister, but muttered, "Sure."
Obviously shaken, not only by the news, but by the resignation in Cal's voice, Cere began again, "Cal, you can come back from that, it's not too late."
He'd tried to tell Trilla that same thing, that lifetime ago during their battle in the Fortress. He knew how this was going to end, "Let go? I can't just let it go, not now."
"Even after everything you've done-"
"After everything?!" He wanted to yell, to hold onto some of the vitalizing rage that would have wiped away the tormenting betrayal that caused him to speak in a hiss, "After everything, you left me at the Fortess."
"We tried to come back for you." For the first time in a long time, Cere spoke with conviction.
"That's not what Trilla said."
"Any you believe her?"
Cal didn't know who to believe, "No. Yes? It doesn't matter. I'm still here and the only one that came back was BD."
Hearing his name, the little droid hazarded a peak over Cal's shoulder, but deemed it better to stay silent.
"We haven't left you behind," Knowing her words were little more than wishful thinking, Cere was desperate as she said, "You can come with us. You too Trilla. This can stop. You two can just walk away."
With that, Cal felt a familiar twist of anger. Comfortable in the way that all the worse things were, it grew with each word as he answered "No, I can't. I can't just walk away. It's not that simple!"
"It can be!" Cere shouted, instantly reeling herself in as she continued, "you have a choice, I'm begging you -both of you- make the right one. You don't have to come with us if you don't want to, but leave the Empire behind."
All of Cal's hairs went on end. A perfectly innocuous comment, Cere thought she was doing good by insisting Cal and Trilla move on, that they be free and flee from whatever life they'd been given.
Though the meaning was noble, the way she said it picked at Cal. Like a burning acid it tore through his skin and burned him in the most sensitive way.
Just leave it behind. He fixated on the thought. Just leave them.
The Empire wasn't his friend. But it had been all consuming. Stormtroopers or officers or busy engineers had been just feet away from him for months. Some of them better, some worse, each watching him constantly.
Jorge had been kindly, as close a thing to a friend that Cal had found sense the Mantis.
The crew he'd rescued had been grateful, returned to their duties and families.
The troopers he'd fought alongside with on Kashyyyk, the ones that had guided him on Bracca, they'd been there for him. Through all the kinds madness he'd waded through, through all the kinds of madness that Cere and Greez had stayed hidden away from, safely cloistered on the ship as he did all the work.
What ever he'd needed, where ever he'd been, the Empire was there too.
They fixed BD.
All consuming, ever-present, oppressive, and endless. He hated the Empire, loathed it with every fiber of his being.
But he was a part of it. Willing or not, he belonged there.
He owed them.
And he couldn't stand Cere's final words, "I don't leave people behind."
"That's not what I-"
"I don't care what you meant," Cal let out a hissing sigh, "Hey, Greez?"
Stiffening in shock the lateron quietly answered, "…yeah?"
"Sorc's dead." Cal flatly replied, "Pretty sure I killed him a few months ago."
Both Trilla and Cal sensed a shock over the machine as Greez let out a wounded, "oh… why… why you telling me that, Cal?"
He wasn't sure, "I just wanted you to know."
Greez's only reply was confused silence.
"And Merrin?" Cal tried to wipe some of the strain from his voice.
The nightsister refused to answer, on guard while she waited to see what her former friend would say.
Cal knew she was listening, "You were right about the Jedi."
She'd called them liar and thieves, near mad warriors that spread destruction in their wake. It had taken Cal far too long to admit it to himself that truth.
Remembering what felt like a lifetime ago, after their final battle with Malicos, Merrin couldn't let that comment go unchallenged, "And you were certainly right about the Empire."
Cal called the empire evil, hellbent on exterminating anyone who might stand against it.
He looked down, just barely catching sight of Raymond's limp body as he did, "I guess I was."
Not knowing what to make of the comment, Merrin remained silent.
Leaving Trilla the chance to speak again, "Now that you've gotten all that off your chests, why don't you tell us about this Jedi?"
Answering without actually answering, Cere replied with a brash, "I'm not letting you hurt them."
"That's what you said the last time." They could all hear the rolling of Trilla's eyes, "and the time before that."
Cracking ever so slightly Cere said, "Trilla, don't taunt me! Over my dead body will the Empire do this to another Jedi."
Feeding off of the pinpricks of rage that bled through Cere's voice, Trilla replied, "That can be arranged."
Reeling from what was a perfectly predictable death threat, Cere regained control of her tone just in time to reply "We're done here. And, Cal?"
He paused, looking at the machine.
"I think this is goodbye."
Guts twisting with some unnamable blend of emotions, he replied, "For now. I'll see all of you soon."
