"I'm just glad he's on our side." Private Brint pulled a box off one of the many wire shelves in the basement.
A short inspection revealed the room to be empty, though they had found a few suspicious pieces of equipment. A slightly closer look found weapons and rations hidden away between the family's belongings, so the troopers had been left to find and catalogue all the rebels' contraband belongings.
"Speak for yourself. I'm not in the business of shooting people in their own home," Private Platt replied, fishing out some pieces of what looked like an inquisitor's weapon before carelessly tossing them into a box.
"We didn't go that far, it's fine."
"Yeah, didn't go that far this time. But what about next time?"
"Next time, we hope that the rebels are as cool headed as the one upstairs," Corporal Deffo spoke up, "and if they're not, then we deal with it."
Recognizing when they were being told to cut the chatter, Platt offered a quiet, "yes, sir." before going back to their task.
The basement troopers didn't have to wallow in silence for long, with Sergeant Kendima coming back downstairs, this time with the Inquisitor in tow.
The troopers tried not to react, keeping their heads down as the young man ran a gloved hand over some of the wire shelves. He'd occasionally pause, hand placed on some innocuous object, standing still enough that they would have grown worried if he were anyone else.
Sergeant Kendima kept at a respectful distance, occasionally questioning whether or not the Fourth Brother had found something. Private Platt wasn't sure what history the sergeant had with the Inquisitor, but the older man treated the younger well enough; still guarded and speaking with a careful tone reserved for his superiors, but with a familiar air.
The Fourth Brother came to crouch over the pile of evidence that Platt had collected. The private tried not to appear like the curious onlooker he was while he watched the inquisitor pick up the strange kit.
A twitch pulled at Cal's features, "Yeah. She was definitely here. Has been for a while" He returned to standing, leaving the lightsaber maintenance kit in its place.
"Good to know that Lohma and company haven't been lying to us." Jorge offered.
"I'm a little disappointed, but not surprised."
Worrying what the answer might be, Jorge still had to ask, "How do you mean?"
"They all sold Jenussa out the first chance they got."
Jorge unfurled a blanket, a small blaster tumbled out of it, "Isn't that exactly what we wanted?"
"I guess. It's just kind of sad, you know?"
No, I don't. Jorge almost spoke
But Cal went on without prompting, "I mean, she really trusted them. And they just Sawd her out." Something sour tugged at Cal's features; an old fear, well-remembered and made more potent for how true it had been, "Back when I was like her, I didn't trust anyone. I knew better. For a while at least. But then I trusted Cere. I made a mistake, the same stupid mistake she just made."
Jorge didn't like the way this was going, carefully, he added the found weapon to their growing pile of evidence.
"You know, I just thought it was Jedi that betrayed people." A rain slicked platform, a friend that had died for him tore through Cal's memory. "I thought there were still a few good people out there. Maybe there are."
Approaching the pile of evidence, Cal heard distant echoes radiating off the weapons. Shouts of rushed battles. Vibrant shocks of fervent, near delirious joy at hard won fights. A few were crushingly heavy, almost blood stained to Cal's eyes.
Some of them were frighteningly silent
"But you won't find them when a Jedi's around." Cal kicked at the pile, "Jedi are like a rot, leave them around long enough and they'll make everyone around them worse."
While the trooper couldn't find anything to disagree with, he was left with a shiver at tone Cal was using, "I'm sorry you had to go through hell to figure that out."
The Inquisitor shrugged, "Thanks Jorge, but it's nothing that I didn't do to myself."
.***.***.***.***.
Time had slowly ticked by in the farmers house, the first sun having sunk below the horizon, and the second sitting so that only half of it still lingered above the horizon. Night fall would be half an hour away, though the calm rolling country side seemed colder. A frightful place of endless shuddering grass, not a single light dotted the darkened horizon, the Imperial black out still gripping the sector.
Inside the house was dim, only a few deep reds making it through the living room's wide windows. Some of the troopers had preemptively turned on the infrared in their vizors.
Agent Manse, however, was left to quietly watch over their prisoners.
They hadn't said a word. At first because of the Fourth Brother's frightful presence, and then because of a typical rebel stubbornness. Manse had tried multiple times to get them to talk sense the inquisitor disappeared down stairs. At first trying a gentle approach, he'd been shut down by Mia's harsh rebuke.
Then he'd tried to threatened them. Not with violence, but by subtle suggestions of what misery would befall them all if they chose not to cooperate. That had worked a little too well, with the farmer nearly shutting down and becoming catatonic with dissociation. Manse had to stop that before he ruined his chances completely.
That left the silent treatment. A mostly silent treatment at least. Manse watched them, as unflinchingly as he could, interrupting the silence every few minutes or so with a probing question.
And it was while he considered his next question that something finally happened.
A flicker of movement from beyond the window caught Manse's attention. Scarcely a second after looking up, the front door trembled before being roughly pried open.
Room stirring, Manse raised his blaster toward the two children on the couch. Raising his free hand to his mouth as an order for silence, he looked into Mia's eyes, and then at the nearly catatonic farmer.
The half of the troopers left up stairs with him silently raised their blasters, each taking aim at a different hostage while Manse moved his weapon over the quickly opening door.
"Dad! Dad, come quick! Saw needs-"
Door just wide enough to see into the room, the weequay boy froze.
A teen, if that, his voice caught in his throat as he peered into his own home.
Imperials.
Nearly half a dozen of them, each with a blaster firmly set on his family. Mia sat on a chair. Normally cool, she had a fiery look about her, something that demanded action but knew doing so would mean death.
The troopers in white glowed red in the evening light. The ISB man at their center did the same. His clean white tunic covered by the illusion of blood.
He was human. They all were. But his clearly visible face made the fact so much harder to ignore.
The feeling of a pit opening at the bottom of the boy's stomach, "Dad?"
Lohma shook his head, unable to summon so much as a sound.
Manse didn't care, "What was that about Saw?"
Fear doing his thinking, the boy shifted his weight onto a rear foot.
Manse readied his weapon.
Then there came a slight thud as someone walked up from the basement.
Cal arrived in the living room, well aware that something had happened to bath the place in a noxious tension. Breathing the uncertainty in deep, he didn't bother to tell anyone to lower their weapon.
"Hey, kid?" He looked at the newly arrived boy, obviously family to those on the couch, "did you come home alone?"
"He has information about Saw." Manse answered for him, blaster still level.
Hm. Cal considered the room, closing his eyes and rolling his shoulders as he peered past the emotionally loud living room, he caught a trace of someone in the front yard.
Cal's eyes snapping open, the front door suddenly flung wide.
Several things happened at once.
The Fourth Brother went charging across the room, senses sharp and trained on the faintly familiar presence in the front yard.
Manse let off a shot, startled by the sudden sounds and movement around him.
The boy quickly dove to the side at the sudden commotion, getting just barely grazed by the plasma beam.
Half the troopers turned to the door; the others took a step closer to the hostages.
Cal didn't mind any of what happened behind him. Rushing into the yard, he found two speederbikes, one of them occupied by a familiar heavy frame.
"Saw!" He shouted at the armor clad man.
Doubled over and barely managing to stay on his speeder, the rebel clutched at his side
"Jedi?" Knowing that voice, the bald rebel struggled to look up. Familiar face peering back at him, the first thing Saw noticed was the man's uniform. Imperial-cut chest plate over a drab tunic, Cal wore an imperial gear on his shoulder and over-polished boots on his feet. Saw didn't suffer traitors to live long enough to learn what they looked like after crossing over to the Imperial side, but he knew danger when he saw it, "Oh, jedi, what have you done?"
"Get off the speeder Saw," Cal didn't even think to answer the man's question.
Knowing an Imperial and a lost cause when he saw one, Saw spared a short glance at the house. An orange shouldered stormtrooper lingered in the window, half hidden with their blaster resting on the windowsill.
No hard feelings… the rebel half-heartedly thought as he came up with a hasty plan, "It's been a long time."
Cal noticed the glance, moving one hand over his saber, the other reached forward slightly, ready to reach out against whatever panicked plan Saw had, "I'm looking for Kori Jenussa. Get off the bike, tell me where she is, and this doesn't have to get ugly."
Pain blooming from the blaster wound in his side, Saw made a show of slowly turning in his seat, "Is this how you talked to the Imperial's on Kashyyyk? Or were you on their side even then?" Huffing slightly, Saw had his back to the speeder's controls when he finally came to a stop.
"Get all the way off the bike," Cal knew better than to relax, "We're not on Kashyyyk anymore. I'm looking for Jenussa, and you're getting in my way."
"What makes you think I know where she is?"
Uh… Cal didn't look back at the house, but he did have to admit that Saw probably came here because he thought the Jedi was here.
"Hm?" the rebel waited for a response, hand moving to his side to put pressure against the wound there.
"Well, she knows where you stay!" Cal lamely came up with, "or, she knows which people need help after you've left them behind."
Drooping slightly, Saw's hand slid off the injury at his side before he slowly righted himself, "Are you trying to find and kill the Jedi, or talk me to death?"
Biting his tongue and realizing that he hadn't had a plan at all when he ran out here, Cal grumbled as he began walking toward the injured rebel.
He only made it one small step when Saw made a sudden movement.
Moving in spite of the wound, the rebel threw a grenade from the hand that had just been clutching his side.
Swiping a hand toward the grenade, Cal sent the thing harmlessly flying to the side. Set on a short timer, it still rocked the yard with an explosion. Ears ringing and eyes watering with dust, Cal was slowed for the split second it took for Saw to lean back, hit the speederbike's accelerator, and shoot off into the fields.
Coughing and cursing himself for not just attacking the rebel outright, Cal took a hasty step. He didn't have a plan, not a good one at least, as he approached the other speederbike.
"Do you know how to drive this thing?" He asked BD.
Giving a chirp and a whirr, the little droid recognized the model.
"Good enough," Cal slid into the seat. Catching echoes of past riders as he fiddled with the switches, he operated off a half-remembered muscle memory that wasn't completely his.
Climbing off Cal's back and into his lap, BD braced his processor against Cal's belly while one of his legs reached forward to plug into a half dusted-over port over the speeder's engine.
Machine roaring to life, Cal spared a glance back at the house. Seeing Jorge in the window, he shouted, "Stay here! I'm going after Saw!"
And then the speeder shot off.
Crashing through the fence and sending splinters of dried wood into the air, Cal barely managed to stay on the thing, let alone steer as he went streaking through the fields. Aware that Saw had run off to the east – into nightfall – the inquisitor made a few wobbly attempts at turning the speeder before realizing he had to lean into the machine's movements.
Only half sure of what he was doing, and letting BD man the accelerator, Cal went speeding off into the night. Not sure of where he was going, the inquisitor was guided mostly by a fresh sense of adrenaline and pain from the fleeing rebel. But with the empty fields stretching out in every direction, Cal knew it wouldn't be long until he found Saw again.
Then he'd be free to continue his search for the Jedi.