The doorway into the mantis slid open with a pneumatic hiss. Kata stepped through and saw Cal sitting crosslegged in the aft section of the Mantis, where he had made his sleeping quarters. Kata had no idea how he managed to sleep next to the engine, but he assured her it was something you got used to.
She could see he was meditating, and she was about to leave when, without opening his eyes, he spoke. "You are anxious, nervous, and afraid?" his tone shifted as he spoke each word, carrying more of his own subtle worry for her.
Opening his eyes, he looked up at her. "What troubles you, Kata?" he asked. She couldn't see it, but behind Cal's voice, he was wondering about how much he must have sounded like Master Topal. He was seeing more and more of his former master in him as he grew into his relationship with Kata.
"I had a question," Kata answered, her voice small and frail.
"Well, sit and ask it then; perhaps I have the answer," Cal replied, motioning her to the space on the other side of the narrow catwalk that Merrin used when she needed her own meditation. Once she was set, Cal asked her. "Now then, Kata, what troubles you?"
Kata looked down at her twiddling hands. She was scared deeply and was trying to find a way to rephrase a question that would warrant her fear without giving it away. For a moment Cal thought to reach out through the force to comfort her as Maser Topal had done for him countless times. But he chose against it; Kata was no Jedi, and while he was confident she would manifest some power in the force in time, he wasn't going to go prodding that matter just yet.
Opting to instead directly reach out, he rested his hands over her own, waiting for her to look up at him. When she did, she saw the same boundless compassion that had always been there for her. Cal wasn't her dad, but he hadn't let that keep him from loving her like he was.
"I want to know why you and Merrin killed my father?" she blurted out, not able to keep her voice from fraying and cracking at the end, clearly terrified of whatever reason her two biggest heroes might have had for killing the original hero of her world.
She saw in Cal's eyes a flash of raw pain unlike any she had seen before, then saw as his jaw locked for a moment, then sat back. Kata shook her head, standing up. "I'm sorry that was a stupid question I-"
"Kata," Cal said, his voice now carrying a cold and somber term that she only heard when he was being either very stern or very serious; either way, it made her freeze mid stride. "Please, sit."
Kata knew he had asked her, but when Cal spoke like that, it was important, so she listened, stepping back and sitting down, trying to hide her nervous shaking as Cal took a deep breath and centered his balance.
Letting that breath out with a sigh, he began. "Kata, you are not a little girl anymore, so don't feel like you are intruding to ask me to explain that day," Cal said, reaching out to hold her hand. When he did she returned the motion as he said. "Kata, Merrin, and I have worked very hard to shield you from the ugly and bitter part of what we have done," he explained, aware that nothing he was saying was news to her.
"I want you to understand that I have never forgotten any of them. Not a single stormtrooper, bounty hunter, or fallen Jedi has falen by my hand without being burned into my memory. But of them all, there are three that are far more vivid than the rest."
"One is an inquisitor and Fallen Jedi named Mesana Tide, another is a Fallen Jedi named Dagan Gera, and the final is Bode Akuna. Kata, your father was a very dear friend of mine. I met him during a bar fight that I regrettably started. He saved me from that night and managed to get me back to the mantis alive."
"He was working for the ISB at that point, but I didn't know that. He and I got along well enough, and I brought him into my crew of rebels."
"You were a rebel?!" Kata exclaimed honestly shocked that the peaceful Jedi she had known for years now had once been a Rebel.
"Technically, I still am, but that is beside the point. Your father infiltrated my crew and managed to tip off the ISB with enough intel to get us caught. Thankfully for me he helped me escape in the hopes I would lead him to Cere and her enclave of anchorites."
Cal had to pause for a moment, feeling the rage he had over the deaths of Cere and Cordova flare up before he calmed himself and returned to his answer. Opting to speed through parts he didn't want to live through.
"Your father was… a morally complicated man. I cannot lie to you and say he was good, but I cannot lie and say he was evil. I can say he did things that were wrong because of how much he loved you, and I can't say that I would be willing to do the same."
Taking a mental note to address the fact that he was really was beginning to see Kata as his daughter Cal continued.
"He learned of Tanalorr, and he believed he could hide you there to keep you safe. He knew that others knew of it too so." Again, Cal paused, having to choose his words right. "He made sure that none of them were alive and able to follow him."
Seeing Eno Cordova die before his eyes again and feeling the pain of losing Cere made Cal's wrath flare up again as Kata recognized the flash of anger. "That was when I met you. You were there to kill him?"
"No," Cal said sharply before rethinking his answer. "Well, not entirely. I won't lie and say that I would have done it in a heartbeat if given the chance, but that wasn't what I was there for."
"The map," Kata interjected.
"Yes, the map to Tanalorr."
"My dad got so many people killed for that!?" she asks, stunned at the thought her father could do something so evil and selfish.
"Yes, but it wasn't that simple."
"HOW!?" Kata shouted the horror that her father would do such a thing, and the thought that Cal didn't condemn it scared her more than the initial question had.
"Kata, please, sit," Cal said as Kata realized she had stood up during her outburst.
Once she was seated, Cal explained.
"Kata, your father was once a Jedi, you already know that. What I haven't told you, and what he never told you, was that he allowed his love for you to blind him, and he allowed the fear of losing you to poison him."
"I know you felt that something was wrong with him when we found you on Tanalorr. Cal explained. "He had allowed his fear to fester, and it turned into anger and hate. Kata, I know that you don't fully… wait a moment," Cal said before grabbing the small tank and hose he used to water the terrarium. Pointing the hose into the shower he pumped the handle before he let it spray.
"Think of the force like the water in his hose; the hose is my mind, and my hand is my emotional self-control. As long as I keep my emotions under control and my mind strong I am fine, but what happens if I lose control?" he asked.
As Kata answered, she understood the example about halfway through: "The hose would spray everywhere wildly, making a big mess…"
"Your father let go of the hose, and in the end, he wasn't able to get it back. I know it is hard to understand, but the man I killed on Tanalorr wasn't the man you knew, not anymore. Bode Akuna was twisted into a venomous shell of suffering and hate by the dark side. A fate I came very close to sharing." Cal stopped there, remembering the moment that he was pulled back from the edge of plunging into the dark side's murky abyss of power. When all the chips were down it was Kata and Merrin who managed to keep him from falling. It was the strength of their love for him that had held him down in that dark moment.
"I-I understand," Kata said, leaning forward to hug Cal, seeing the hints of tears in the older man's eyes as Cal relived the moment he shot his best friend, then took a step closer and did it again. "I am sorry you had to go through that, but I remember my father how he was, and I KNOW my daddy was a good man and that he would never have wanted to see himself turn into what he was that day," she said, breaking down halfway through and sobbing into Cal's shoulder as he did the same.
Feeling Cal reach a comforting hand up to hold her back, Kata felt her new father's pain, but she knew what he needed to hear now. "I know that if he could, he would forgive you for what you did, and he would ask for you to forgive him, even though he wouldn't think he deserved it." feeling the hot tears getting the better of her again, Kata buried her face back into Cal's shoulder as Cal sat there holding her back and finally letting himself fully greave the loss just as she was.