Chapter 10: Damage

Back at the landing pad Cal follows Ilyana up the ramp onto the Mantis. She pulls her staff down from the mount in the holotable room and goes directly to the workbench in the back without a word..

"How's it going with your Purge Trooper?" Cere asks as Merrin closes up the ship for the night.

Cal rolls his eyes, drops down onto a sofa and places the vibroblade on the table.

"That well?" asks Merrin.

"What happened?" asks Cere, joining him on the adjacent sofa.

Cal rests his elbows on his knees and rubs his palms in his eyes. "I'm not even sure," he says with a deep, exhausted sigh.

"Well," says Cere, "You picked a challenging apprentice."

"She's not my apprentice," he says, dropping his hands.

"Have you been drinking?" asks Merrin, noticing the slight flush in his cheeks that stands out all the more against his pale skin.

"Not enough from the look of it," Greez says over his shoulder as he walks past the others toward the cockpit.

"Did you find her target?" Cere asks.

"Yes," says Cal, leaning back against the sofa and resting his feet on the table. "But…"

"Boots off the table!" Greez scolds. Cal yanks his feet back again and drops them to the floor.

"But," Cal continues, "he's not Force sensitive and, unfortunately, we lost him."

"Lost him?" asks Merrin, taking a seat next to Cere. "If he's not what you're looking for, why do you still need to find him?"

"Because, force sensitive or not, the Inquisition will still come for him."

Greez groans from the cockpit, "Does that mean we're staying on this sandy dump?"

Cal looks Cere in the eyes, "We can't leave him. They'll kill him."

"Most ships don't stick around here very long," Greez continues. "People will get suspicious if we stay."

"Unless, of course, they already have a reason to be suspicious," says Merrin, referring to Ilyana.

Cal just shrugs.

"We can give it a couple days," says Cere, "but we can't stay for too long."

"If we move the Mantis outside of town, hide it in the hills somewhere, that might give us some more time," Greez offers as he joins them in the common area.

"That could work," says Cal. "It would also give us cover to see what Ilyana can do or what she might be capable of."

"And whether or not you want to take her on as your apprentice?" Cere continues to push.

Cal shakes his head, "I just need to get a better idea of what's going on with her, what she can do, and if she might be a threat to all of you."

"She's a purge trooper," says Greez, "of course she's a threat!"

"I agree with Cal," Merrin interjects. "Taking some time to learn what we are dealing with before continuing is wise."

"She drew her blaster on me! We know what we're dealing with!"

"I know, Greez, which is why we're taking precautions," Cere says, pointing to the rifle in the weapons rack they installed near the holotable, "and we will stay alert."

Greez shakes his head and throws his hands up, "Fine. Tomorrow we'll scout the hills for somewhere to settle down. By the way," he says to Cal as he shuffles towards his cabin, "you stayed out too late, your dinner is cold."

Cal steps through the entryway to the engine room to find Ilyana at the workbench bent over her electrostaff. He leans up against the guardrail to the lower level and crosses his arms. As much as he may not want to, he knows they have to work this out before they can trust each other in the field.

"About what happened in the cantina…" he begins.

"I know. You don't agree with my methods," she says.

"Well no, I don't but it's not just that," he pauses to take a breath. "Are you still angry with me?"

She sighs and stops working on the electrostaff but does not take her eyes away from it. "No," she says, shaking her head, "I'm angry at myself."

Cal takes a moment to consider his next words carefully; he does not want to fight again.

"They're not my methods though," Ilyana continues before he can speak again. "I spent years doing whatever it took to get out of the stormtroopers. So many of those things I regret and hate myself for doing. I didn't want to be one of them and I convinced myself that somehow I wasn't; that my reasons made me better than them. But you and your crew have made me realize that somewhere along the way I did become one of them. I guess I am just like the rest of my people after all. I never really had a choice."

"No, as long as you're alive you will always have a choice," he says, echoing the lesson Cere has taught him years ago when he was repairing his own connection to the force. "And now is the time. Do you continue as you are, with the way you know? Or are you ready to start a new path?"

She leans her hands on the bench and hangs her head, "I don't know any other way."

"Maybe not yet but you'll learn and you'll have to be prepared to continue to make that choice every day"

She stands silently for several moments, considering till she finally makes a decision and turns to Cal. "I can't trust myself, not yet but I think… maybe... I can trust you. I'll defer to your judgment."

"I don't want you to follow me blindly," Cal says with concern, pushing himself off the railing and standing next to her at the workbench. "I won't take the place of an Inquisitor."

"I don't mean it like that," she says, shaking her head, "I just need time to re-learn, to remember the person I was or figure out how to be the person I want to be. Till then, it's like I said back in town: These leads, they're your mission now. I will help to the best of my ability, I promise, but I will follow."

"Okay," Cal agrees apprehensively, "but eventually you will have to trust yourself again."

Ilyana nods.

"Look," Cal continues, "we're going to stay here for a few days till the kid comes back. Greez still has some work he wants to do to the ship. If you want, we can use that time to show you some of what it is to be a Jedi."

Ilyana nods, "We can give it a try."

"Okay, we'll start training tomorrow."

"Okay," she says then turns back to her electrostaff. Cal watches as she takes the nearby fusioncutter and finishes cutting along the center of the staff and with a loud snap, breaks it in two.

"What are you doing?" Cal asks, surprised that she would break her weapon.

"I found this coupler below," she says, showing it to Cal, "If I split my staff in just the right place and add this on," she uses the fusioncutter again to affix the coupler where the she had split the staff, "I now have a staff that can be separated into batons." She finishes the modifications, puts down the fusioncutter and demonstrates how the modification works. Cal watches curiously and takes a moment to think before responding.

"You found it below?" he asks, "You mean here on the Mantis?"

"Yes," she answers.

"So, you… stole it… from Greez?"

She stares at the staff, considering that concept for a moment; back in the Empire she had blanket permission to take whatever she needed to complete her mission but, apparently, that is not how things work here. Lost for a response she just shrugs in confirmation.

Cal laughs at the irony of the situation, "I won't say anything to him," he says as he walks out of the engine room.

"Cal," she calls to him before he steps through the doorway, "I'm sorry for what I said earlier. I was out of line."

"Don't worry about it," he says then leaves.

Ilyana stands alone in the engine room for a minute longer looking at her modified weapon, feeling both embarrassed and deeply appreciative if somewhat perplexed by the seemingly endless supply of patience he has for her. Patience is not something she received from the inquisitors.

If he is any indication of what a Jedi is maybe they really are different.