Cere sat in the cockpit.
Her turn to keep watch, she preferred her usual place at the navigator's chair rather than the pilot's seat. Eye's half open and in a state of semi-meditation, she listened to the endless droning of imperial chatter.
Focused on the mindless babble between an Imperial garrison in Plateau City and a cruiser near the edge of the system, Cere almost didn't catch a small movement that came from beyond the viewport.
But she did, and when she turned to look at the disturbance more fully, her heart skipped a beat.
Like an omen on death, a bulbus probe droid with its dangling insect-like arms hovered at the edge of the clearing.
"Guys!" Cere suddenly half stood from her chair in surprise, shouting as she went, "We have to go! Now!"
.***.***.***.***.
Only moments after he ended Trilla's call, Cal arrived at the landing platform near the edge of town.
Abuzz with tense energy, he found two TIEs and the lambda shuttle that had brought them to the town. Seven of the eight purgetroopers sat in the shuttle, one presumably in a TIE.
"Get in the shuttle." Trilla told Cal, standing atop the other fightercraft and ready to drop into the pilot's seat, "move in after I down the Mantis."
Clenching his jaw at the idea of listening to Trilla, he hesitated.
Climbing into her own ship, she didn't have time for the debate, "We have less than six hours before they have an easy escape. I'm sure they'll try to flee Kaller before then. Move."
Watching the Second Sister drop into the TIE and close the hatch behind her before he had time to reply, Cal stuttered a step before rushing into the lambda shuttle.
.***.***.***.***.
A horrible jolt and thud rippled through the Mantis, quickly followed by a chorus of screaming alarms. Fin swiveling and keeping the ship from dipping into an uncontrolled spin, Greez had barely managed to clear a canyon wall before the two TIEs that had chased them almost around the entire planet came screaming across the horizon.
Having tried desperately to make it to a window of escape from Kaller's gravity well, the Mantis' every attempt to break the atmosphere had been interrupted be the pursuing TIEs
And now Greez was left to yank the yoke to the side as the Mantis buckled midair, barely managing to thread the craft between a narrow mountain pass.
But he knew he couldn't keep this up. Loosing altitude by the second, his only hope was to drop the Mantis somewhere the TIEs couldn't follow.
"We're going down!" Greez shouted the words no pilot ever wants to utter, "Hold tight!"
Looking desperately along the mountain range and sensors, he found an awful maelstrom
Dropping onto a half rock half ice ledge, the long ship skid forward, flinging mud and stone and slush up in waves to either side. Merrin clung to the center table, Cere nearly tumble from her seat. Greez only managed to stay in place for how desperately he gripped the ships wheel.
When the Mantis finally ground to a stop, a bone shaking rumble that they all thought was the crashing ship continued, seeping into a tenuous stillness that blanketed the cockpit.
Beyond the viewport was nothing.
Almost nothing.
A white wall seemingly solid, but really a constant flow of ice and snow rushed mere meters from the window. Tenuously perched, the Mantis had been but a second away from tumbling down a ledge and into an avalanche coursing its way down the mountain side.
Pulse fluttering at the realization, Greez quickly searched the ship's systems, "Rear thruster's down… A fuel line blew, we've got replacements."
Knowing they couldn't be seen for now, Cere stood from the navigator's seat, "I'll get the tools."
A distant shrieking engine cut through the rumbling snow.
Nodding in agreement, Greez didn't dare acknowledge that they might not have time for that.
.***.***.***.***.
The Mantis sputtered and popped, thick black smoke bleeding through green-red sparks that hissed out of a rear thruster.
Standing in the cockpit, all but leaning on the pilot's shoulder, Cal watched the ship disappear into a flurry of ice and snow that cascaded down the mountainside.
"Follow them!"
Taking a rushed look out the window and then across the dash board, the pilot found no way to trach the stealthy ship through the icy mists, "There's too much interference, I can't get a lock on their location."
Holding in a snarl, Cal took a step back.
Cere and Merrin's presence both shining like a nearby beacon on the planets surface below, he was sure that he could find them himself, "Put the shuttle down."
"Sir, the snow is unstab-"
"Just drop me off."
Knowing that was a terrible idea this high onto the mountain side, but that disobeying a direct order would only be worse, the pilot did as he was told. Bringing the shuttle to hover slightly above a solid patch of snow, he didn't have time to tell the inquisitor what he was doing before Cal left the cockpit himself to lower the shuttle-door and jump onto the snow below.
Pausing only for a moment to orientate himself, Cal made off in the direction of the avalanche.
High above the tree line, the ice had mostly persisted even against the summer suns' constant heat. Half melted into an unstable slurry with occasional solid chunks of ice, Cal found that he picked up more slush on his boots with each step, being slowed to a pace that was as infuriating as the rest of the situation.
Irritated by everything at once, by the snow, the heat, the glistening snow, and by the uncertainty of what he would do when he finally caught up to his old crew, even by BD's normally reassuring wight, Cal trudged up the mountain slope, at times climbing when the incline became cliff like.
On edge, seething with rage and searching for his former crew, his senses were sharp, almost hungry as he trudged through the rocky outcroppings.
So it came as a surprise when he found someone else; Not but ten meters away, and tucked somewhere within the cliffs
Stopping on a stony outcropping, half way up the cliffside, Cal felt himself staring daggers at the sudden presence.
Kanan sensed someone angrily trudged through the snow. This high into the mountains, and this near to one of the avalanche paths, he was sure that they were up to no good. Cautious and a little bit on edge, he had stepped behind a boulder with a creeping sense that the intruder knew he was there.
Having come to a stop, Cal looked directly at the source of his concern. A seemingly dead area of stone and snow, the ripple in the Force was unmistakable now, practically a wave vying for Cal's attention and almost a threat.
Knowing only that it wasn't Cere or Merrin – they were further up the hillside – Cal kept himself ready to draw the saber hanging on his belt, "Hey! Behind that rock! Who are you?"
Cursing at the fact that he had been found Kanan considered his options. Scaling the cliffside higher may be too slow – especially if this stranger was one of the fallen Jedi Cere had mentioned. Running down hill would just take him toward the stranger.
"I know you're up there!"
And hiding wasn't an option.
And waiting wasn't an option for Cal. Hearing the rumbling of the avalanche higher up the mountain and knowing that he would be within line of sight of the Mantis once he came to the top of the cliffs, he wondered if this probable-Jedi hiding in the rocks would try to stop him.
Only one way to find out. Cal told himself as he again began scaling the cliffside.
Trivially easy, he had made it half between the top and the hiding person to stand on another ledge that looked down on the other person's hiding place. From his vantage point he could only see that they had brown hair, and were wearing some muddled green outfit.
Kanan, having heard none of Cal's movements form the rumbling of the snow and ice above, was left with little more than a feeling of being watched to clue him in on the other man's movements.
Hair standing on end, he looked up.
Barely ten feet away, clad head to toe in Imperial black, was a young man. Bright red hair the only shock of color in the black and white landscape, Kanan looked directly into his eyes. Adrenaline spiking, he was careful not to acknowledge a shocked fear.
Though he hadn't asked for a description, a terrifying realization tore through Kanan's mind Inquisitor.
Even more terrifying, Kanan had assumed them to be former knights, not simply former padawans, the same age as him.
Knowing the man below him to be a Jedi, Cal had no idea what he planned to do as he asked, "Are you who Cere was looking for?"
Stopped in place, and looking at the long saber hanging from the Imperial's belt, Kanan almost cursed at himself for being too afraid to carry his own, "I don't know a Cere."
They both knew that was a lie.
Cal glanced up. The sound of the avalanche above still raging, "Are you trying to get to the Mantis?"
"Nope." Kanan didn't offer an alternative explanation, in part because he owed the imperial nothing, but also because he was haunted by an odd unease.
Feeling something like fear waft off the Jedi below, Cal but his hand over his saber, but didn't draw it yet, "Who are you."
"Kanan." He tried to speak with confidence.
But Cal heard the lie, and he thought he heard something familiar in the way that it was said. Looking doubly intently at the odd force-sensitive man, Cal saw a flicker of something he thought he recognized, "Wait. Caleb?"
The former padawan rooted himself in place, fighting against the urge to run from his old name. And as if a veil had been lifted, Caleb suddenly recognized the inquisitor, "…Cal?!"
"What are you doing here?" Cal scarcely believed his eyes, like seeing a ghost, twisted by time and not quite like the person he remembered.
Caleb thought much the same, "Running away from you, apparently."
"Cere tell you to do that?"
Caleb grew quiet, at once wondering what his old classmate knew of the mysterious Jedi woman while also knowing that the truth would only be a painful one. Deciding to confront neither of those things, he answered with a guarded comment, "No, the gear on your shoulder did that."
Taking the comment like a slap across the face Cal stilled himself, voice dropping with something dangerous, "Are you trying to restart the Order? Is that what's going on?
Calen didn't have that luxury, "I'm too busy just trying to stay alive." A painful truth gripped the sarcastic answer, and it felt heavy as Caleb said it.
The double meaning wasn't lost on Cal, "It's going to have to stay that way."
Caleb looked at his long-ago friend, confident and sure, not hiding in the shadows like him, but made every inch a ruthless imperial for it, "It looks like it will."
Looking up at the top of the cliff again, Cal decided that Caleb was no threat, busy running for his life and either smart or fearful enough not to try and bring the Order back from the dead, "It's better this way."
Knowing better, but tasting something bitter at the comment, Caleb looked up, "Really?"
Already turning his back on the familiar face, Cal began the final stretch of the climb to the top of the cliff, shouting over his shoulder as he went, "It is. I'd hate to see you again."
Caleb watched the former padawan go. Balling a hand into a fist, though even he wasn't sure why, "Likewise."
.***.***.***.***.
"Hit it!" Greez shouted, three arms filled with a burnt hose and mangled durasteel, the other clinging to a small tool box as he and Cere stumbled back into the ship.
Sitting ready at the pilot's seat, Merrin worked off of shaky memory to try to lift off.
Engines groaning, and the sharp scent of burning rubber filling the Mantis despite the repairs, the ship rocked and almost toppled to the side as it lifted from the ground.
"I think it's working." The nightsister spoke as Greez scampered into the cockpit.
"Good enough," he shouted, dropping the supplies and rushing to swap positions with Merrin, "Cere, navigations. Merrin, do whatever it is you do, we could use that cloaking trick again."
Knowing that now was no the time to say it wasn't that simple, Merrin turned to simply get out of the other two's way.
But before she made it out of the room, she was stopped by a sharp panic that suddenly burst into existence from Cere. looking to the older woman, Merrin found her looking wide eyed through the viewpoint. Following her line of sight past Greez, who had taken to frantically working through a series of launch procedures, Merrin found the source of Cere's shock.
Almost choking on the words that made her guts sink and twist, while being so vile as to almost make her choke on them, Cere was nearly outsider of herself, "It's him."
.***.***.***.***.
Cal crested the canyon, finding torrents of ice and slush rushing by less than a meter away. Across a wide river of frozen slurry were another set of cliffs, these being much lower and topped with the damaged Mantis.
Looking into the avalanche, Cal found a few scattered boulders, apparently barely standing in place against the crashing ice. Cursing himself for wasting so much time talking to Caleb, Cal made a quick step in the shot clear area before taking a long leap to one of the stones peaking above the torrent of frost.
Wet but not frozen, the stones were just stable enough for Cal to land before jumping to the next.
A dangerous amount of focus taken up by the Mantis, Cal barely noticed as the ground shifted, this time sweeping stones along the cascading torrents of snow.
Jumping from moving point to stationary ones as quickly as he could drive his exhausted legs, Cal was forced to stop when the outcropping of solid granite he landed on shifted under his weight. Pausing slightly and adjusting to the motion, he only just regained his balance in time to see the Mantis' fin swivel over the cliffs edge as the ship rose into the air.
Peering into the sky, he heard nothing of the ship's rumbling thrusters, their sound swallowed by that of the avalanche. He felt none of the relief, the sense of home that the silver-white ship had once carried with it.
But he did feel a twist in his gut, a gnawing sense of betrayal as the yacht lifted from the ground, damaged engine causing it to wobble into the sky.
Worse still, he was left with a clear view into the cockpit.
All three of his former friends, his found family, rushed around the little room. Each of them in their usual spots, it seemed that they had adapted to his absence flawlessly, preforming as if he had never been there at all.
A tiny speck of black on a shifting sea of white ice, the crew saw him too.
Fully clad in an Imperial uniform, he was unrecognizable as the hopeful scrapper they had pulled off Bracca. Hair brushed back, cloths un-frayed, he looked like a clinical version of himself, molded and pressed into whatever form best suited the empire. Different but the same, still had BD with him. The little explorer droid also damaged and partially rebuilt within the empire, he seemed a perfect metaphor for what they had done to Cal.
The Mantis rose into the sky. Too far to jump, even for him, Cal was left to watch them flee.
He was left to think.
How many close calls had they escaped? How many times had he been stumbling into the ship; clinging to the center table as the Mantis lurched to the side during a hasty take-off; peering out through the cockpit window at some danger that they narrowly escape?
And now he was on the other side of the glass.
Flurries of ice and snow kicked up around the stone, landing against Cal's boots and legs. Clad in a heavy imperial uniform the pinpricks of ice didn't bother him much, instead melting in place and feeding into a distant numbness.
With out fanfare, the Mantis slipped out of view, it's silver-blue body disappearing into the dull sky.
Leaving Cal alone in the snow.
For a long while, he waited for the scream of a passing TIE, or a telltale explosion. But neither came.
What did come was an undeniable rage.
They left him. Not just at the Fortress, not just as a metaphor. The looked him in the eye, and fled onto the sky, just as they had time and time again while he had been by their side.
What part he might have played, what motivation or fear he gave them, he didn't care.
Lost in a downward spiral, a few things because clear.
Not only was his old life gone, killed by his own hand, but any hope that he might espace the life he lived now was also gone.
Fled into the sky, fearful of what he had become.
He belonged here. Abandoned in the middle of a storm. In the midst of the Empire.
He belonged here . It was an obvious truth. And now he had no choice but to finally accepted it.
