I had plans on completing this before the Finale, but life isn't always like that.
Obviously this story will take a different turn from canon, so what happened in the Finale will likely not happen in this story, but I'll be honest, there may be a little influence. So, whether you loved or hated it, prepare for change. Also, thanks for all your reviews and sticking around with the story! It's getting good folks. I'm finally getting to the parts I'm excited about.
Riggeth chuckled a bit awkwardly, his hand reaching for his weapon, grasping at the barrel before releasing it and having his hand fall to his side. It didn't take an ISB agent to realize that he was buying time to answer. Whatever it was, the lasat found it difficult to say, at least to Kallus. He took quick note of that, which Riggeth probably noticed, and sighed before turning away, his back facing Kallus.
"I was….how you say...a lost soul." He answered, purposefully avoiding a direct answer.
It was time for Kallus to be impatient. "How do you mean?"
Riggeth turned around, having legitimate trouble trying to explain himself, which only made him more suspicious in Kallus's eyes. It had the man slowly start to assume the worst of him. In truth, Kallus did have some reference level as to what Riggeth had been up to in the past, but not that far back.
"You see...Zeb and I didn't run in the same circles...if you catch my drift." Riggeth used his hands to draw two invisible circles in front of him to illustrate his point, hoping that Kallus had caught on to what he was really saying, or if he really was as oblivious as any other stormtrooper in the Empire.
He wasn't ISB for nothing, and Kallus had shown that just by the way he looked at him. He had dealt with a lot of common criminals before in his time, and usually they came in plenty of variety, so to speak. He imagined that he had interrogated someone like Riggeth before, though not to this extent. Kallus used to have held all the cards before, but now, he wasn't sure if he had any cards to speak of.
"Meaning, Zeb was on the side of the law...and you were..?" Kallus left Riggeth space to fill in. The Lasat begrudgingly confided in him.
"Not on the law side." Riggeth replied with a sheepish grin. It was an unsettlingly ordinary kind of expression for Kallus to experience from him. He felt his shoulders slacken, and a smirk formed across his face.
"Well surely this wouldn't matter to Zeb seeing is that you are both guilty in the eyes of the Empire." Kallus said matter-of-factly. He too was a criminal, as well as every other rebel in the galaxy. However, it was a different matter for Lasats. They were criminals by appearance alone. It was one thing he was hoping to change when he became Fulcrum, if not a main reason.
"I wouldn't say that. Guardsman are kind of uptight. He might not like me much." Riggeth said, scratching the ground as he passed by Kallus. The sky had gotten darker, and the heat was off them for now. They would be moving out soon to get to the imperial outpost, but Kallus wasn't keen on stopping their conversation just when it got started.
"I believe you already know that he's the one that made me switch sides in the first place. Sure, he wasn't gracious about it, but it wasn't any less than what I deserved." Kallus stated. He heard Riggeth chuckle softly at that, and he cooled his temper.
"It's not what you think." Riggeth said, scratching three claw marks against the rocks, probably as a marker for where they've been, in Kallus's assumptions.
"Then what?" Kallus asked. The air went quiet for a while, and Riggeth rested a hand across the rocks, looking over into the distance. He wasn't even sure the Lasat heard him, until he answered a moment later.
"It will be dark soon, let's head out." His arm pushed his weight ahead, and he lead the way through the tall grass, ears laid low as if he was in the midst between walking and stalking. Despite Kallus's annoyance for not getting anymore clear answers out of him, he was sure that the truth would come to light soon enough, whatever it was that Riggeth was keeping to himself.
Zeb spotted a small crowd huddling around where the radio was. At first, he thought it might have been from rebel base, but Hera had already made it clear before that Mon Mothma would be of no help once they landed. He grit his teeth a little, thinking about Hera and how if they only had the means of more troopers willing to fight, they might have had a better chance. He'd never have doubted his family for a second, his experiences with them were telling enough, but he couldn't help but feel a small bit of disdain for the rest of the rebellion turning a blind eye to them after sacrificing so much back.
For now, he'd assume Hera was safe. She may be in the hands of the enemy, but he took strange comfort in knowing the Empire would use her as bait instead of simply killing her off. They were predictable like that, especially when they were keen on squishing the remaining rebel cells.
He approached the group of rebels, his ears listening in closely, picking up the scratchy transmissions of an imperial fighter, calling in coordinates to base about an unexpected attack from the Ghost itself! Orders were being made to scour the skies and grasslands of Lothal in search of the runaway craft. Zeb almost couldn't believe it. He didn't know whether Rex and Kallus were stupid or brave. Hera did leave her ship with them after all, and if they planned a rescue mission at the expense of her precious ship, they may be in more trouble with her than the Empire.
Zeb, however, felt elated at the news. They truly weren't forgotten by the rest of the rebellion. Rex and Kallus still had their backs! He quickly turned and ran down one of the tunnels that traveled through their new place of operations, searching for the others to inform them that the Ghost was attempting to help in their mission!
The closer Riggeth and Kallus got to the imperial outpost, the more time Kallus had to doubt their plan. The odds of their success may even be less than the odds of being discovered when he became a rebel informant. It would just be the two of them, on a base crawling with stormtroopers. When the platform and bright light poles came into view, Riggeth began to lower himself to the ground. Kallus bent his knees to mimic Riggeth's movement. He found his own stalking ability to be lacking. He was not equipped with the kind of natural mobility of of his Lasat counterpart, and by the end of it, he was crawling on all fours to avoid detection in the tall grass.
It wasn't his proudest moment.
They managed to get behind a steely barrier around the outpost, and peeked behind it to see what they were up against. Kallus took note of the rotation of the officers on duty, while Riggeth stared straight at their target. The control panel. It was small, with only three people operating it at a time. If they didn't want to make a scene, they could just wait around the building, then force their way in when there were minimal eyes to see them. The only thing they'd need to look out for was the troops inside making a commotion, but that was the exciting part for Riggeth...the act of surprise.
"Got your comlink?" Riggeth whispered. Kallus looked at him oddly.
"Yes?" He answered.
"Great. Turn it on and toss it in the fields, it'll cause some interference." Riggeth offered his hand to grab for his comlink.
Kallus hesitated. It was his only way of contact with Rex, and he didn't even know where the man was now. He didn't want to miss any of the man's future attempts of communication, but then he began to think that Rex would not risk something like that on a mission. He slowly reached in his pocket and retrieved the comlink.
"Come on, we don't have all night." Riggeth hurried him, and Kallus placed the comlink in his clawed hands. He pulled out just in time before Riggeth's fingers clenched around the comlink, tossing the thing far off in the distance, where it caught the eye of one of the wandering scouts on patrol. Riggeth lead the way to the control building, sneaking around the shadows, his movements making absolutely no sound.
Kallus realized the Lasat was not sloppy. He was well experienced, and crafty. Despite his trigger-happy demeanor, Riggeth was well adapted to the silent-stalking of a midnight predator. He was subconsciously studying the Lasat's every move, and his way of attack. Kallus wouldn't have come up with the idea of a comlink as a distraction. He probably would have waited patiently to move at each troop's rotation, and maybe even disguise himself as one of them. It was probably one of many tricks Riggeth had up his sleeve. Thoughts like those only pulled at Kallus's curiosity.
Riggeth and Kallus took to opposite sides of the Panel walls, Riggeth taking out the remaining trooper outside the threshold, and Kallus using that time to step in through the automatic door and stun the three men inside before they could even register what had happened. Riggeth crept inside with the body of the stormtrooper he had just dispatched, and looked among the unconscious forms that Kallus managed to deal with himself. Riggeth stared at the bodies, caught them slowly breathing, then pulled out his blaster.
"I stunned them already!" Kallus shouted in surprise, his arm reaching out to push away Riggeth's gun. The motion had happened before he had been able to process it, but quickly retracted. Riggeth glared at him with a steely expression.
"I see that. So, do you want them to wake up from their nap later, and report back to their base? Or do you actually want to make sure we see your friends alive?" Riggeth growled. Kallus took a step back. He never acted like that before, not even when Riggeth fired at those two scouts, or when Rex shot down a tie fighter. For so many years, he had been able to separate himself from his troops because if he got attached like last time...
He didn't know why this felt different, but seeing the imperials already unconscious, who had likely done mundane work like patrolling, and staring at a blue screen all day….it seemed like unnecessary casualties. He's the last person that should make that kind of judgement, but how different was this from-
"BAM! BAM! BAM!"
Riggeth's blaster sounded off three times. Kallus flinched at each shot, looking away. He felt yellow eyes on him. Riggeth hadn't even looked at his targets to make sure he shot them. When Kallus saw for himself, they were all dead with a single, stinging bolt. That moment, he almost forgot they were on a mission, as Riggeth adjusted the control panel to help get a transmission through to the rebellion without getting detected.
Kallus could smell the burnt flesh and smoke from the troopers' bodies, something he had been able to ignore before, but now, made him slightly nauseous.
"You know the channel. Find it." Riggeth stepped aside and placed Kallus down in a seat. He moved robotically, entering in the number for the communication frequency the rebellion intrusted on to him. Riggeth watched his fingers observantly as Kallus managed to get through to the transmission, and signal for the rebels.
He leaned into the mic, and sent his message.
"This is Kallus, to the rebels of Lothal. I've come to assist. Please transmit your location so we may find you."
Kallus leaned away, waiting patiently for a reply. He hoped it had gotten through, that someone on base had caught it. He couldn't shake the creeping sense of dread that the message had been noticed by the Empire, and now they were in for an ambush to demolish the outpost before they could make their escape. However, those feelings always held some real weight. They were always in danger of being caught, or killed. It was a necessary risk. He had done his fair share of those before. He just hoped, and that's all he could do.
Riggeth rested one of his hands on the chair, listening to the soft static of the communications line. It brought forth a flashback of memories, where he was sitting in his room on Nar Shaddaa, biding his time, and checking Saw's comlink channel. He had gone off air for quite some time. A month to be exact. It was like the man to disappear for a time, but this had been the longest after Riggeth had left. He was hoping he'd get a message in that he was needed, but the only thing he got was another note from Orarsa.
He didn't really have time to explain his actions to her before she went on a death crusade after him. He wasn't really afraid of much, not even death, but Orarsa was pretty scary when she was mad. Scary enough to try to avoid her every chance he got. But, despite the threats, and that he could change his comlink at any time, he decided to keep it, because even her words of malice were enough to keep him sane while he was out alone.
His ear twitched when the line caught some interference, and then a spark of a deep voice starting to answer back.
"I'm submitting coordinates to an old base of operations. We'll meet you halfway. May the force be with you."
That was Kanan's voice. Kallus hummed in relief. Out of all the Ghost crew, Kanan had been, by far, the most accepting...aside from Chopper. Garazeb was complicated. There was still ground for each of them to cover, but he felt like they were on pretty good terms for now. Kanan's voice resounded in his head a few times. The attraction he saw between the man and Hera, the pilot, was not lost on him. The fact she was now in the hands of the Empire, was probably the hardest for the Jedi to take, but he masked his distress well.
In fact, he had always been pretty good to making a stressful situation into not the worst possible situation they could be in. Kallus assumed this was one of the reasons that the rebels were able to throw themselves headfirst into a mission. It annoyed him, yes, but damn if it didn't work out in the end. It always worked out in the end. He hoped this time was no exception.
"Let's beat it." Riggeth said, pushing Kallus out of his chair, and planting a small gadget on top of the control panel. Within seconds, the unit short circuited and fried, totally useless to the imperials now.
Riggeth, once again, lead the way as they escaped the outpost undetected, though Kallus supposed they wouldn't be for long. Someone was going to have to check in with security, and when nobody did so, they would be caught. Though, with the pace they were going at, they'd be long gone by then.
Kallus thought it wise not to slow down until Riggeth did, even when the lights of the Outpost began to fade. It wasn't long before the faint sound of a siren went off, which gave a surge of energy into both men as they kept running out of sight. Kallus looked back, which he shouldn't have done, as he began to see police gunships start to take off in different directions, one heading unnerving close to them. It would catch up soon, no doubt.
"A gunship is heading our way! We won't make it to the base, we need to hide!" Kallus shouted to Riggeth, but noticed the only cover they'd have is behind the sloping rocks, which there wasn't much around. Riggeth didn't look as skittish, as he began looking around himself. Their hearts stilled as a light began to show up from the corner of their eyes. A bright one.
Kallus watched in dismay as a stormtrooper on a speeder bike began to close in on the both of them. They targeted Riggeth with no intention of slowing down. Kallus pulled out his weapon, but forgot that he still had the puny stunner from before, but tried his best to get a good shot in before the stormtrooper hit them. He missed every shot, but luckily, so did the stormtrooper, as Riggeth dodged the front of his speeder, and tackled the stormtrooper off it.
They both went flying, and the speeder, without its owner, began to disappear into the shadows.
"Go get our ride!" Riggeth shouted at Kallus as he strangled the trooper. Kallus nodded, and chased after the speeder bike. As he ran towards it, he couldn't ignore the loud and incoming whirring of a gunnership coming closer and closer. This time, he didn't look back.
He saw the bike began to slow down, and had luckily not driven itself into a rockface. He started to pant as he reached the bike and cautiously swung his lead over the seat, and stepped on the pedals. As he turned the boke around to pick up Riggeth, he began to think about the kind of endurance he had back when he was an imperial. Sure, age was a part of it, but no doubt he had less ground missions when he became part of the rebellion. He probably could have spent a little more time exercising in his free time.
Riggeth avoided the spotlight of the gunner ship, having already taken care of the stormtrooper, and made a show out of jumping on the back of the speeder as Kallus maneuvered his way towards him. He swerved the bike back around, just before the gunship could catch them. What it did catch, however, was the lone body of the stormtrooper Riggeth took care of it. It was a small distraction that help aid them in their escape, enough to stay off their trail.
Once again, they managed to get off the Empire's radar, for now, as Kallus rode them out to the old rebel base. Time was of the essence, but he also didn't want to risk catching anymore attention, so he lead an imaginary goose chase to any imperial stragglers that would attempt to catch them, before making a shortcut to the base. He had expected Riggeth to oppose, but the lasat stayed silent. He probably had the same idea.
While that was true, Riggeth enjoyed speeder bike rides, so the longer he got to stay on one, the better.
It was deadly quiet when they reached the old rebel base. It looked like there had been an attack there, and heavily searched. There were scorched tarps, metal scraps, bent metal carriers, and blaster marks covering just about every inch of it. Kallus tried not to think of the casualties that took place there, but Riggeth could smell them.
Kallus switched off the ignition, then stepped off the bike, followed by Riggeth. They would have to lay low for a while, and weight for the rebels to find them. Kallus hid the bike as Riggeth got himself comfortable on top one of the steel boxes turned over, likely used for cover during an attack. Kallus noticed him pull out a lighter and light something in his hand. His paranoia made him stiffen at even the glimmer of something that could catch any unwanted attention, while Riggeth seemed unconcerned over the fact they had just managed to escape another attack.
Kallus walked over, and saw the oddly colored smoke waft into the air. It looked more like colored dust than smoke. Riggeth caught his curious look, and tipped the cigar towards him. Kallus declined, but asked, "That's not a death stick is it?"
Riggeth chuckled, amused at the imperial's total incompetence of a popular drug, and the fact you DON'T smoke a death stick.
"It's a Sivican cigar, nothing special, but it calms my nerves. Could do you some good." He smiled, sucking in another breath. Kallus would bet that there was more to the cigar than just "calming nerves", but he wasn't going to press him about it. He turned away, thinking that they would soon be picked up by the rebels, and he wouldn't have to worry about putting his life in the hands of someone who may or may not be getting high right now.
"Before...you asked why I thought Zeb wouldn't like me…" Riggeth started in rough voice.
Kallus stopped in his tracks. He hadn't expected him to bring up that conversation, considering he had been keen on ignoring it before their trip to the outpost. So far, it had become a pattern for Riggeth to turn over every perceived notion of the Lasat since they got paired up.
Kallus turned to look at him. Riggeth didn't seem to be there. His eyes had that far-away look to them, his only movement to tap the ashes from his cigar.
"We could have met...maybe once...Zeb and I. The warrior culture was all fine and good on Lasan, but we weren't free of corruption, the thing that poisons every inch of this Galaxy."
He took a deep breath as Kallus took in every word.
"Wish I could say I was good before the war, like Zeb, but truth is, I was rotten. You're ex-imperial, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about."
"Yes…" Kallus whispered in agreement.
"Anyway, I was hired to...uh, take care of someone in relation to some very popular Lasat."
"You were an assassin." Kallus remarked. This was much different than just the petty criminal Riggeth had lead on that he was.
"There's no point sugar-coating it I guess." Riggeth sighed, breathing in from his cigar.
"Did you succeed?" Kallus asked, almost feeling silly for asking.
"Yes...but I had to run. I got my money's worth, but there was no point spending it. Once I got to the outer regions, the money was useless." He looked irritated, like he was relving what it felt like from before. The way he talked, it sounded like he regretted it. The mission, more than the profession.
Okay, this would be a pretty good reason to believe that Garazeb, considering his line of work, would dislike Riggeth. However, it was easy information to cover up.
"So, you think Garazeb may have tried pursuing you?"
"Oh, you mean the Captain of the kriffing Honor Guard? The protector of the Royal Family? Yeah, I do." Riggeth sneered, but it looked like a sour smile.
There it was. More of the truth that the Lasat had attempted to hide. He knew of Garazeb, knew he was a Captain of the Honor Guard. Kallus couldn't gouge why Riggeth had gone through the trouble of letting him believe that he hadn't. At least he was being a little honest about it now. It was something that he thought about doing himself, but he didn't know if that would be a wise decision on his part.
Kallus and Zeb had not met during the war. They were likely stationed miles away from each other. There were many lives involved, easy to get caught up in the fray. Even now, he could barely remember all their faces. Zeb probably would have had nothing to do with him if it wasn't for his bo-rifle, the precious weapon he no longer had. His shoulders slumped at the thought of losing it on Thrawn's ship. There was no way he could have saved it, but it was the one thing that brought an understanding between the two foes.
"I...did some pretty awful things too. Things that were personal to him. I think...you'd be surprised with Garazeb." Kallus said, attempting the same kind of understanding with Riggeth. If Zeb could set things aside and leave room for change, he could do the same.
Riggeth glanced at him, then smirked thoughtfully. "You sure do talk about him fondly. Hell…" He tapped his cigar and puffed another stream of smoke from his lips. "I'll take your word for it Captain."
Kallus was satisfied with that, and pointed his nose towards the stars. Outside the city, it was a lot clearer to see the stars. He remembered back when he was stationed on Lothal, all those pretty blue night skies outside his office window. Considering the heavy smoke near the towns, there was likely less of those around.
He noticed Riggeth was also stargazing with him. At least they both could appreciate a lovely night sky, even when the tensions were high.
Riggeth suddenly snapped his head around at a noise that didn't reach Kallus' ears until he actually saw where it was coming from. The fur on the back of Riggeth's hackles raised high as he took cautionary steps back. Despite not knowing what had him spooked, Kallus crept beside him, looking where Riggeth was looking. He wasn't about to act brave with his meager stunning weapon, and anything that had the relaxed Lasat jumping to his feet was worth worrying about.
Then he heard it. Heavy footsteps. It didn't belong to anything human. It was getting closer. He could hear a low rumbling sound that shook his bones. It crawled up his spine, and he felt the ground began to thump like the beating of a drum. Suddenly, he saw it, the route of Riggeth's worry…
A giant wolf.