The rest of the day passed in a blur.
Leaving the tavern and then the village, Cal had been mindlessly shuffled from one meeting to the next, from some over-formal reception in Plateau City with the major that should have been there to great him in Trilla upon arrival, to a tour of the town, to a hotel where he would be staying.
Exhausted more by the pomp and circumstance that he hadn't found on Bracca, Cal had thankfully little time to dwell on his chance call with Cere; he'd had even less to consider the full implications of what he'd done in that rebel hide out.
He'd barely even noticed BD's more-careful-than-usual observation of his activities.
But now it was just the droid and Cal alone in the hotel room. Cal stepped out of the fresher, ready for a deeply needed nights sleep. BD perched on the low table next to the bed, carefully checking today's series of events against what little was left in his long-term memory.
Not minding BD too much, Cal pulled a shutter across the window to block out the light of the still-risen sun that shined even during the summer nights, plunging the room into darkness. Feeling his way to the bed, Cal unceremoniously plopped onto its over-plush surface.
"I could almost get used to this," he told the room through closed eyes.
BD looked toward the source of the sound, Cal almost impossible to see in the darkened room.
Finally in a place where he might find a moment's rest, Cal instead found himself dogged by the day's events.
"I think this is goodbye," Cere's final words stabbed at him through the gloom.
Restless, he rolled onto his side, only to find BD's glowing visual receptor peering back at him.
"You thinking about something, buddy?" Cal hoped that the droid's answer might distract him.
The little droid's hushed reply did anything but.
Cal blinked against the dark, wondering if BD could see his thoughts. It certainly felt that way under the droid's unwavering gaze, "I… I wasn't really thinking about it. He just- I just had to stab him."
BD remained silent.
"We've done worse," Cal wondered why he was so defensive, "Remember that time we threw the Ninth Sister off the top of the Life Tree?"
BD did, and he knew it wasn't the same as killing in cold blood. A hushed whirr told Cal as much.
"But it is," he failed to see the deference, "In every way that matters, at least. What's his name is dead, and so is the Ninth Sister."
The little droid knew that, but he wondered if the rebel had met a needlessly cruel fate.
"I don't think so…" Cal readjusted his head on the pillow, "You know, you never asked me these kinds of questions about all the stormtroopers we killed."
He heard a slight ticking of BD's antenna rocking upward, followed by a low whistle.
"Neither did I," Cal admitted wistfully, "neither did I… but what do you think about them now?"
Not fully understanding what Cal asked of him, BD gave a confused chirp.
"What do you remember about the Empire?" He tried again.
BD strained for a moment, digging deep through his data logs and struggling to come up with much. Beside the new files, he only had fragmented recordings and disparate ideas. Struggling to string along a coherent story, BD told Cal that he knew the Empire only meant them harm, but he wasn't sure why.
His turn to hum in understanding, Cal was silent for a long while.
And then he asked, "are you sure?"
More sharply whistling this time than the last, BD understood what Cal said, but couldn't fathom why he said it.
"Just hear me out," Cal curled slightly on the bed, "I've had an awful time. Just really, really, terrible, but… We were dangerous, back with Cere and Greez and Merrin. The troopers shot at us on sight, but we cut people in half. Daily, sometimes. We were criminals; we acted like it, so that's how the Empire treated us."
BD tried to give Cal's words a fair chance, but some things weren't adding up. Still, he stayed quiet, the ever-vigilant friend.
Cal stopped, wondering is he really meant the words tumbling out of his mouth, "do you think we did the right thing?"
BD let out a chirp.
"With the holocron," Cal clarified, "It's just…"
A conversation, seemingly a lifetime ago, with Jorge picked at Cal.
"… Do you ever wonder if… ah, never mind."
BD put a foot onto the bed, stepping forward as he all but demanded that Cal finish his question.
"Fine, jeez," not sure if even BD were a safe person to wonder out loud too, Cal was careful as he asked, "Do you ever wonder what would have happened of we let the empire have the holocron?"
BD pulled his foot back.
"Before you freak out," Cal spoke quickly, "I've just been thinking… Yeah, the Empire tortured me. And yes, they did the same thing to Trilla, but… We both grew up in the Jedi order. That's the only reason they hurt me. If I had just been here from the start then… maybe…"
He shook his head, almost changing the subject, "So many of these stormtroopers I've talked to see nothing wrong with the Empire. Some of them act like the Empire saved their lives, and they've been treated well. As well as they can be. They all have homes at least, families that they still know. And now that I've been… working for them -I guess- I've been fine."
Cal breathed deep, feeling a heavy sense of judgement come from the droid.
"I've been more than fine, actually. Sure, I'm angry. Constantly. But… I'm safe. I have food," he pulled at the covers, "a soft bed. I'm angry, but I'm not afraid. And I'm angry at Cere, and at the Jedi, and… I think I'm mad at the Empire, but I don't actually know anymore."
"I just don't know…" Cal looked up at BD, unsure of when he had even looked away.
Though he couldn't see the gesture through the dark, BD did hear Cal's voice trail off in an odd way. Hazarding a step forward onto the oversoft bed, he tried to gently tap a foot onto Cal's shoulder.
Smiling in spite of himself, Cal was thankful for BD at least, "Thanks for listening to me, I needed to get that off my chest."
.***.***.***.***.
Three days after the call with the Mantis crew, two thirds of Sector 27 had been scanned.
With the communicator as old as it was, and with Cere's technological trickery, narrowing the signal down to a single sector had been the best Stairns could do.
But it seemed good enough, as Trilla closely studied a holographic map. Roughly known geographies of unscanned areas appeared a dull red. Those places recently investigated by a probe droid appeared a blue, details of what laid there much more apparent on the map.
Sparsely populated like most of the planet, the number of places in the sector the Mantis could be hiding were vast, but they were shrinking. Trilla tried not to focus too much on the date, each passing moment bringing the planet closer to being out from between the two suns; bringing the Mantis closer to a chance of escape.
It's only a matter of time now, Trilla tried to remain calm as she watched some red sections turn blue with the newest remote update from the probe droids.
It had only been a matter of time for quite some time.
Carefully concealing a nervous energy that she would never acknowledge as such, Trilla tried not to let the suspense of what would happened get to her. But, she had been here before, and some part of her was sure that she would be here again.
Against her better judgement, Trilla looked at the most recent navigational assessment.
86 standard hours until off-world flights could resume.
Probably less than that, for the desperate.
It was only a matter of time.
.***.***.***.***.
Blazing white sun in the middle of the sky, a few clumps of ice still defiantly clung to life beneath the shade of the tall kallnut trees. The stream that Merin and Cere had followed to the village had swelled to a modest river, some four meters across and very fast moving.
Having traded turns in the cockpit for the last few days, Greez sat in the pilots chair, communicator turned up so that he could hear Imperial chatter without being bound to the navigator's seat.
Peering out of the viewport to the bright and melting forest, Greez had no idea whether it was day or night.
But he did know that they weren't expecting company, at least not in the form of an elderly kalleran lady leaning heavily on a cane.
Making eye contact with Greez, she shook her hand and yelled something that didn't make it through the ships walls.
"Hey, guys?" Greez yelled back into the ship, tuning the volume down on the comms as he did, "Can I get a second set of eyes on something?"
Appearing not long after Greez's request, Merrin stepped into the cockpit. Glancing out of the window, she let out a surprised, "Is that Miss Korin?"
"A friend of yours?" Greez asked, even more confused.
"No. She almost shot me last time we spoke." Merrin explained before adding, "let her in."
Opening his mouth for a confused, what?! Greez through better of it before lowering the ramp with a resigned, "Sure. We've done crazier things."
"Thank you, Greez." Without spending more time on an explanation, Merrin left the cockpit and then the ship to go speak with the elderly lady.
Hot even in the shade, the forested planet almost managed to reminded Merrin of Dathomir as she descended the ramp. And the elderly lady with a prickly disposition that watched her almost reminded Merrin of the elders she had known as a child.
"That's far enough!" Miss Korin hollered while Merrin was still twenty feet away.
Deciding that the woman was far less threatening without a blaster, but still doing as she asked, Merrin came to a stop before asking, "Would you like to talk inside? It is hot out here."
Miss Korin rooted herself in place, her weight pressing her cane through the mud, "I'm not going into anyone's rust bucket."
Sure that Greez would object to someone calling the Mantis such a thing, Merrin didn't address it, "Than what have you come here for? It is a long way from your hut."
"Old and frail ain't the same thing!" And I'm here to give you folk a message."
Curious from the moment she had seen Miss Korin, Merrin paused, intentionally making herself focus on the forest around them. Sensing no one in the trees beside the two of them, nor any true ill-will from Moss Korin, Merrin asked, "Why are you delivering a message? Surely who ever it is from could have come here themselves."
Miss Korin scoffed, "Do you have any idea how hard you people were to find? It took me three days, though it probably only would have been two if I weren't needing to avoid all the probe droids."
"Probe droids?"
"Scores of them. Didn't think we had this many on planet."
I shouldn't be so surprised. "Very well. What do you have to say?"
"Be at my hut, day-noon tomorrow. There's someone that wants to talk to you people." Her contempt was obvious, especially on her last words, "Against my better judgment."
Now deeply reminded of her village elders, Merrin suppressed an odd feeling as she answered, "We will be there."
