Arc 2 Chapter 10

Captain Thul had been right, they had been separated.

Not at first, the Duros had welcomed them inside, gave them a place to eat and rest for the night, but in the next few days, and after some basic proficiency tests, they started to get divided up. Jorel was thankful that his Jedi training let him pretend to be an acrobat with ease, and without calling upon the Force. There were a few times he instinctually reached out to it, but thankfully let it go before he moved, and gave himself away.

The more difficult aspect of pretending to be ‘Force-blind’, as Er’izma called it, was to slow down his reactions to things. While he could react with almost supernatural speed, and sometimes did without meaning , there were other times that, trying to compensate, he had slowed himself down too much. It was never enough to mess anything up, but he did miss a couple shots on the little shooting range the rebels had set up, which, combined with his unfamiliarity with blasters, got him a reputation as ‘a bit twitchy’, his earlier instant-reactions dismissed as luck, luckily.

Using a blaster, too, was something he was getting used to. He was able to listen to the Force, let it guide his aim, a little, but while given time he could make all of his shots, not hitting the center on purpose, trying to do so quickly was inconsistent at best, which further sold the story of ‘running away from the circus for love’ that Thul had assigned him.

Speaking of which, Hisku had been. . . touchy, the first few days. Not in a ‘touchy-feely’ way, Jorel wasn’t sure she could do that, but she’d been more than a bit irritable, only relaxing a fraction when they’d gone back to their room, though not by much. They were sharing a bed, technically, one with an invisible line down the middle, each person to their side, and Jorel, trying not to sense her emotions with Force Empathy, was still getting an idea of what was going on with her.

It was actually odd, as while he could still easily turn a blind eye to the emotions of the others around him, at times he couldn’t help but get a faint sense of what she was feeling. What he was reading was a tumultuous mix of nervous/unsure/isolated that had no real source he could determine, and that he was trying to help with, but he didn’t quite know how. Being nice, and subtly asking had been met with coldness and terseness that, even for the Sergeant, had been unusually harsh.

After the third day of testing, they’d just had their first ‘mission’, which had only been moving to their new base, carrying needed supplies. His attaché had been prickly the entire way, but had done her job. In the location, hidden in a forest, they’d dropped their personal affects in their room, helped unload everything, been showed around, and given some time to kill before dinner. Without anything to do, the Sergeant had instantly retreated to their assigned room, and he decided he needed to try something a bit more direct.

“Hisku,” he’d said, taking a seat on the bed, patting the spot next to him.

“What?” she’d snapped, standing, refusing to sit. It was only when he closed one eye and waved a hand, the signal for ‘I’m going to do a Force thing’, and then patted the bed again, that she, scowling, sat down next to him. “What?” she repeated a little quieter.

Jorel held up a finger, asking her to wait, as he tried something that Er’izma had been working with him on before they’d been deployed. This technique was, like most things the elder Jedi Knight instructed, something that was a basic technique twisted and reformed, and which required skill to master.

It wasn’t quite a barrier, not strong enough to have a truly physical presence, and not tough enough to stop more than a strong breeze. It wasn’t quite telekinesis either, not holding or moving anything, but able to be flexed and shifted in a way that a barrier couldn’t. In battle, it was useless, as it wouldn’t stop any attack, but this wasn’t a battlefield technique, it was one meant for ‘diplomacy’. That was because it was a technique meant to stop sound.

Er’izma had spun it as a way to communicate during any kind of negotiation without being overheard by any third party, but this sort of situation was, in a way, even more suited to it. Focusing, the Padawan formed the permeable shells around them, constructed in a way not to seal themselves in, stopping air from flowing, that was a different technique he was still working on, but to make any sound have to bounce back and forth so much that anything less than a full-throated yell was the most indistinct of whispers, twisted and distorted so much that, even if it was overheard, it would be useless, the organic and ever-changing nature of the shells such that any ‘cipher’ that could unscramble things would only catch a few words before the eavesdropper needed an entirely new one.

Hisku, having been given a bug-finding device integrated into her issued ‘momento’, a pendant that was ‘given to her by her father’, had scanned their rooms and found two devices. They’d left them in place, the Captain having been clear not to disturb any bugs they found, but they were audio only, and thus this would be enough. “Alright,” the padawan said quietly, once he was sure he had it. It wasn’t perfect, and required half his attention just to keep it running, unlike his master who could create and maintain them effortlessly, but it was enough. “We can’t be overheard. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” she replied instantly, adding, “stop reading me.”

The Jedi gave her an unimpressed look, standing firm. He’d tried to be gentle, but had only been rebuffed. “If nothing’s wrong, there’s nothing to read,” he informed her. “And I don’t need to read you when I can literally see somethings wrong, and hear it, even if you weren’t practically screaming in the Force.”

She started to respond, but he cut her off. “I know it’s not me,” he guessed, but, from the surprise on her face and in her Presence, he’d guessed correctly, “but it’s getting to the point that it’s threatening the mission.”

The girl flushed with anger at the, admittedly, low blow, but if it worked, it worked. “I can carry out my duties!” she practically hissed, glaring, radiating offended anger, though, below that, was an undercurrent of fear that was absent in her overt reaction.

Jorel folded his arms over his chest, asking neutrally, “And those duties are? Because how you’re acting is being excused as nerves, now, but that’s not going to last much longer. People are starting to settle in, except for you, and some of the others are starting to notice. I try not to read you, Sergeant, but I’ve been watching the other ‘recruits’. So tell me what’s wrong, or I’ll try to get Xatra to talk with you, even though I’m not supposed to know her,” he threatened.

The leader of Delta Team, the Zabrak explosives expert, had ended up in the same base as they had, along with a few others of the Flock. Even from his room, he could track all four of them, though for a moment he got the vaguest feeling of someone else. He wasn’t sure if one of the other rebels was Force Sensitive, which was just more of a reason to keep his uses of the Force subtle, but that didn’t matter now. He had no idea how he’d approach the other woman, but, if he needed to, he’d come up with some excuse.

His threat raised Hisku’s hackles even higher, as she informed him coldly, “Doing so would go against our orders.”

“No,” he replied simply, channeling his mentor, “it wouldn’t.”

The Chiss woman glared at him, but he said nothing more, waiting. Finally she sourly questioned, “How?”

Jorel waited a beat, glad his play was working, but making sure not to show it. “My primary mission is to keep the both of us safe. General Er’izma said so, Sergeant Hisku’biatha’pusi. Even to the point of compromising the mission that Captain Thul gave us, Sergeant. I’m trying to do both here, but if I can’t help, I will find someone who can.”

The other girl, who, despite her appearance, Jorel had to remind himself was younger than him, stared at him hatefully, whispers of the Dark in her faint Presence, before he felt something. . . give, and she looked away. “I didn’t want this,” she murmured, too faint for someone unassisted by the Force to hear.

“. . . okay,” Jorel nodded, starting to understand. “We’ll leave tomorrow.”

Her head snapped up, as she stared at him, shocked and confused, “What?”

“We’ll leave,” he said, hands open. “We’ll sneak out, so we don’t compromise the mission. We’re at their base, they’re not going to let us go, but I’ve worked on my stealth. We’ll steal a landspeeder and run tomorrow night, and make our way to the capitol city, and back to the Flock.”

“But, the mission-” she started to argue, and he cut her off.

“Comes second,” the Padawan stated calmly, completely honest, trying to somehow project that to the girl, to help her understand. “And, if we do this right, it’ll still be done without us. I don’t know what’s wrong, Hisku, and I want to help, but if I can’t, it’s not worth hurting you over. We’ll head back, and I’ll ask my master not to send us out on these kinds of missions. There’s a lot of ways to be a Jedi, and I’ll learn infiltration when I’m a Knight.”

The Chiss woman struggled with herself, almost pushing out the words, “No. I can do it. You don’t need to. . .”

Jorel opened his hands. “Then talk to me. I know being my attaché isn’t what you expected, but I thought-”

“No!” she cut him off, wincing at the loss of her normally solid emotional control. “No. It’s not that. It’s. . . I’ve. . . you know how the Ascendency works, right?” He nodded, remembering their conversation with Vickin, as well as Er’izma’s explanation of that pure meritocracy. “Everyone, everyone tries their best. You don’t lie. You don’t spy. You don’t do any of this!” she nearly shouted, and Jorel did his best to keep his technique up, letting her vent, the first time he’d ever seen her so emotional. “Those that are sent out do, but only to help, but I never wanted to be one of those! I just wanted to do my best! Not this!”

Then why didn’t you say so? Jorel wanted to ask. If this was such an issue, they could’ve just told Er’izma ‘Thank you, but no’, but he could barely feel the Force gently warn him not to say that. He kept his Master’s warning not to trust the Force too much in mind, but he was a bit at a loss on what to say, so he let it guide his words, like he let it guide his aim. “And then it was discovered you were Force Sensitive,” he noted, neutrally, though sympathetically.

When he’d first been taken as a Padawan, he wouldn’t’ve been able to see the downside of having access to the Force, but, with time, he was coming to realize more and more that the galaxy wasn’t exactly how the Temple had described. He’d disliked the Temple Masters, and thought they were wrong, but before he’d left he’d just been angry, but was now starting to understand why.

Hisku was looking down, expression hidden behind her bob of dark hair, but her emotions of guilt/loss/shame were clear as she nodded. “I. . . I was worried about what would happen to me, but. . . living on Ha- working for General Er’izma, it was like being in the Ascendency,” she said, quickly correcting herself, a flare of fear at her slip, but Jorel said nothing. Relaxing a smidge when he didn’t press, she continued, “It was a little more lax, and there were a lot more aliens, but I passed basic, I worked hard, and I got promoted. And then. . . you happened.”

The Padawan wanted to remind her that he’d offered to find another attaché, but he didn’t need the nudging from the Force to hold his tongue this time.

“And that was. . . different, but, but there were people doing that job in the Ascendency,” she said, the words almost spilling out of her, showing her thoughts. Absently she ran a hand through her hair, messing up her normally neat locks. “But then there was Dell, and, and that should’ve never happened. But then things were getting better and then we were assigned here!”

Jorel felt that last sentence was important, and ran it over in his head a few times as Hisku fell silent. “Sergeant,” he said slowly. “When Er’izma-”

“General Er’izma,” she corrected automatically.

“When General Er’izma gave us this assignment,” he continued, “it was an offer, not actually an order. We could’ve said no,” he stressed. It’d been obvious in the man’s Presence, but, without an ability to sense the other man in the Force, she might’ve missed it.

The Padawan smiled, “I was actually considering doing just that, after Thul told us what we’d be doing, but I thought your uncomfortableness was having to pretend, to be, you know,” he said, motioning between them. “My master asked me if I was ready to pull us out if that was needed, because, well, I’m a Jedi. And, more than that, he’s been training me, and read my file. He knew I could handle it, so was just asking about the important part, but he might not’ve known that you weren’t ready for this. And it’s okay that you aren’t,” he reassured her.

He was a Jedi, after all, and Jedi were supposed to help other people, and understand them. To be honest, it was a bit of a relief, really. He was doing this, but the destruction of Kernast, and the death of everyone still there, had shook him a bit. Starship combat was one thing, the deaths distant, and almost all enemy combatants, but this was quickly turning into something els-

“No,” she said, her voice soft, and a little strained, but full of resolve.

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“. . . No?” he echoed.

“No, I. . . I can do this,” she stated. “I. . . I’m sorry, Jorrel. I. . . I haven’t been acting correctly,” she told him. “Have, have you done something like this before?” she asked, looking up at him.

The Padawan shook his head, slowly. “No. Dealt with pirates, once, when I was young, but otherwise I grew up in the Temple. We had a couple guided tours outside, but nothing happened. Everything else I’ve done, I’ve done with you.”

The Chiss woman looked at him incredulously. “Then, how can you be certain you can do this?”

“Because I’m a Jedi,” Jorel shrugged. “And I have to. And if I can’t, I know I can get us out. I don’t like it, but it’s what I need to do to help.” He chuckled, “If being a Jedi was just doing what you wanted, well, we’d be Sith.”

She frowned, “But you’d leave?”

He nodded, “Because that’s what I’d need to do to help. Simple as that.”

“Simple as that,” she echoed skeptically. Hisku shook her head, sighing, “I. . . thank you, Padawan Jorel. I, I’ve been neglecting the mission. In the future, I, I’ll express my concerns,” she promised.

“And I’ll do my best to listen,” he smiled.

The girl nodded, pausing, the edge of her mouth quirking at a humorous thought. “As you endeavored to listen to my greater experience with respect to the working of the Flock and the Dove, I shall listen in kind,” she stated with formality, but good naturedly. “How should we progress?”

Again, the Jedi didn’t need the Force to warn him that teasing her right now was not the correct action, and that honesty was the way to go.

“First of all, know I’ve got your back,” Jorel stressed. “With the story we’ve presented, being nervous and on edge when you’re on your own, that’s understandable, and when we’re on our way to do something, but when I’m there with you, you need to relax, a little. Know that I’ll be there, and we can evac if need be, so as long as you don’t call me ‘Padawan Jorel’, you’re fine.”

She considered that, finally nodding. “Understood.”

“Now onto displays of affection,” he said, making sure to sit up straight, not touching her. “Captain Thul helped us out there. We need to do something, but it doesn’t have to be too much. They can assume that we’re doing stuff in our room, but out of it we need to be a bit more, uh, handsy.”

“Handsy?” she echoed with dread.

“Handsy,” the Jedi nodded. “Having me put an arm around your shoulders or a hand on your back if we’re next to each other. Occasional hugs. Maybe holding hands in times of stress. I can start it, if you want, just don’t pull away like you did before. And, if we’re in the same room, we should sit together. But nothing more than that,” he reassured her.

Hisku frowned, and was silent for several long moments, before, taking in a deep breath, she nodded, letting it out in a sigh. “I. . . I can do that. But, I haven’t. Won’t it look odd if I start?”

“That. . . that’s a good point,” he admitted, trying to figure out what to do. “I, tell you what. I’ll, I’ll head back over to the common room. You, you come in after a few minutes, don’t fix your hair or anything. Say you’re sorry, give me a hug, and go back to your room. We’ve honestly been fighting, so that’ll show that something happened, and they should buy it. Sounds good?”

Her brows knit in concentration, before she nodded. “I can do that. I am sorry Pada- Jorel. It is my job to assist you, and I have been failing in that duty.”

“Everyone makes mistakes,” he shrugged. “Trust me, I know. But, let me help you help me, okay?”

She nodded, and he stood, making sure to mess up his clothes a little, the way someone who’d been in a fight might be. He’d not actually been in that kind of a fight, but he’d seen a couple holovids, so he could guess.

Smiling to her, he dropped the Sound Baffle, relieved both at no longer having to hold up the technique, and having finally made some progress with the girl. The Jedi walked out, and headed down the hallway, entering the common area where the rooms emptied out, taking a seat among the others, several of whom looked up.

“You look better, kid,” Bratan, one of the rebels, noted.

Was it that obvious? Jorel wondered, but it helped sell what he wanted, so he nodded, getting an approving nod in return. He waited, just hanging out, until he felt Hisku approach.

“Jorel?” she asked hesitantly, as he’d made sure not to turn around, to try not to give away that he could sense her.

He turned around then, standing, “Yeah?” he asked. Looking at her, her clothing was messier than it’d been when he left, her hair even worse. It was almost too much, though that might’ve just been because he was used to her normal regulated self.

“I, I’m sorry,” she said, and her honesty about it, even if it wasn’t about what others thought it was, was obvious. “I’ve been. . . kind of a schutta,” she admitted. She took a hesitant step forward, obviously unsure, so he opened his arms and she stepped forward, hugging him.

“It’s okay,” he told her, loud enough for the others to hear, holding on to her as she tried to immediately pull away, which would’ve been far too fast. She got the message, and held on for a longer moment, pulling away when he let her go. She nodded, turning back around, and heading straight for their room.

Jorel was well aware of the eyes on him, but still jumped when one of the others, someone he didn’t know, came up and slapped him on the back, hard. Jorel could’ve taken it easily, but, with his build, probably shouldn’t, so stumbled forward a step.

The Twi’lek man who’d hit him laughed. “Ha, women, right? All they need is a bit of screwin’ to calm ‘em-”

The Jedi went with the suggestion the Force provided and slugged the man right in the jaw, with just a touch of Force Control to enhance the blow. The green-skinned man dropped like a sack of grain, knocked out cold. Talking more for the benefit of the others, who had frozen, the Padawan stated coldly, “Don’t talk about her that way.”

Xatra, from her place at the bar, called over, “I don’t think he heard ya kid, but fair enough.”

Jorel looked up, and realized he probably went too far. “Oh, um, whups.”

Bratan laughed, shaking his head.

“Nah, Tul’gopo’s a kriffin’ idiot. You’re good.”

The next few days, things had calmed down. Hisku had ‘mellowed’, though both of them had gotten a bit antsy, waiting for something to happen, but the pace of Er’izma’s operations, where they were constantly doing something, be it travelling, resupplying, negotiating, or fighting, was apparently the exception, not the rule.

They’d done a bit of training, the Jedi getting a bit more used to blasters, but that was it. He was well aware that most Jedi wouldn’t touch the weapons, the Temple Masters having referred to the weapons as ‘skill-less’ and ‘uncivilized’, but, again, Jorel found they were, if not outright wrong, then not exactly right. They did require less skill than lightsabers to use effectively, but that didn’t mean they required no skill.

He’d been getting better, but the longer nothing happened, the more he wondered if he’d done something wrong. It was only the fact that Xatra and the others from the Flock seemed completely at ease with things that reassured the two of them.

Finally, they got an actual mission, which was a relief, even though it also meant that they’d almost certainly be killing people. Everyone was gathered together, and the leader of their cell, a man named Stelog Waleye, waiting for them in front of a projection. The human had dark brown hair and dull grey eyes, a hardness to his features, and, to a much, much lesser degree, his Presence. He wasn’t Force Sensitive, but he had a stronger identity in the Force than most of the others, save the members of the Flock in attendance.

“Our target is a military supply convoy,” the rebel cell leader said, a droid displaying a map on a wall. “Most of the convoys that run are for normal things, things we could get anywhere. But this one’s carrying munitions,” the man smiled. “We’ve got blaster pistols, but rifles, grenades, and missile tubes? Those we need.”

“But, why not just use ships to move things?” a woman asked, frowning.

“Logistics,” Jorel replied absently, freezing as the others turned to look at him. He’d gotten into the habit of answering obvious questions with Er’izma, and hadn’t realized he was doing it until it was too late.

Waleye smirked, nodding the Padawan’s way. “What makes ya say that?”

Oh kriff me, he thought, trying to figure out how to fit it with his ‘backstory’. “Well, um, you all know I used to be part of a circus, right?” he asked.

“No shab?” one of the others asked, laughing when Jorel nodded.

“Well, there’s a lot that goes into it. You had performers, like me,” the Padawan lied, “but also animal acts. And then we had things like bearded Twi’leks.”

Tul’gopo frowned, “We don’t have beards.”

“Most of you don’t,” Jorel smirked, “which is why people will pay a few credits to see one. But, it’s a lot to move, and ships like,” he glanced at Hisku, “ours are only good for, um, specialty goods. High value, low-space items.”

The Jedi frowned as he corrected, “were good for. Right. Either way, when I was with the Circus, we’d travel with landspeeders, and had a couple of large freighters that’d swing by and move us between planets when we’d taken our act across one world and needed a new market. So, um, that’s why they’re using landspeeders. Because ships are expensive.”

Waleye nodded. “Took ya a while to get there, kid, but yeah. Also, ships are easy to spot, landspeeders aren’t. So, here’s what y’all are gonna be doin’.”

The plan was pretty basic. They knew the convoy’s path, and the time it’d leave, so they’d lie in wait. Thankfully, Jorel and Hisku would be driving the Rebel’s landspeeders, since the military landspeeders had trackers built in, and the time it’d take to disable them wasn’t worth the risk of reinforcements arriving.

Next day, they’d lain in wait, and the others had attacked the convoy while Jorel and Hisku stayed out of the fighting, along with two others. The Jedi could feel the deaths of the soldiers ahead of them, but waited until they were called, pushing the floating vehicle forward and through the trees, along with the others.

When they four of them had gotten there, bodies were scattered about the road. Most of them were uniformed, but Jorel could spot a couple of their own among the dead. None of the Flock, a quick mental scan showed them to be unharmed, but the man he’d talked to while waiting for Hisku, Bratan, was on the ground, unmoving, his neck a blackened, burned mess.

Not all of the soldiers were dead either, though the Rebels were going around, shooting every uniformed figure that wasn’t moving, just to make sure. Jorel almost laughed, oddly grateful for his earlier experiences, which let him push the Dark of the death around him out of his mind and move his speeder up to one of the others. Getting out, he made sure to step around a body to start transferring boxes.

It was easy enough, though, when he got to a heavier box, he started to move it with the Force, carefully putting it down and looking around. Phew, he thought, no one saw me. Calling someone over to help, it was only a few minutes work, and the speeders were loaded up, only for Waleye to call the drivers over.

Jorel was confused, as the need for speed had been made repeatedly clear during the planning stage. “Um, Sir?” he asked as he jogged up to the front, Hisku falling into step beside him. “Shouldn’t we be leaving?”

“We will, in a mo’,” the dark-haired man said, as Jorel turned the corner around the lead speeder-truck, and saw that four government soldiers were on their knees, hands bound behind their backs, two rebels with blaster-rifles trained on them, and the leader of the cell standing in front. “Somethin’ we need to handle first.”

The Padawan tried not to freeze. Did he realize we’re imposters? he wondered. He thought he’d been doing a good job, and Hisku had been getting better, but, if not for that, then why? However, as he looked at Hisku, and the two other drivers, all four of them young, and the four un-helmeted soldiers, he had a sinking feeling.

“Yer good, but yer unbloodied,” the cell leader said. “You’ve all been given pistols, now it’s time to use ‘em. Each pick one, and get yer first kill in.”

One of the soldiers looked up. “We surrendered!” the man declared, panicking.

Waleye glanced his way. “I’m sure the people o’ Kernast woulda surrendered, but they didn’t get much of a choice, did they?” The Rebel turned back to the drivers. “Yer either with us, or against us. We took ya’ in, now it’s time to-”

As one, Jorel and Hisku, having been warned of this kind of thing, pulled their pistols and fired. Neither of them were unaccustomed to death, for better or worse, both having killed their way out on Dell. They both tried to be merciful, their shots taking their targets in the head, death instantaneous.

Jorel still winced, feeling the Dark of their violent deaths, one of which he had inflicted, spreading out in the Force, while Hisku’s expression was cold and controlled. The other people he’d killed had been bad, had been pirates, and criminals, but these had just been soldiers. Then again, while it had been his people that’d destroyed Kernast, it was on the orders of the government, and, if the rebels had gone after him for it, he’d understand.

He’d still defend himself, but he could admit that he wasn’t blameless. Master Er’izma had been clear that, in war, losses were inevitable, and stepping back, letting the others do his dirty work. . . it wouldn’t be Jedi. I need to make sure that this is worth it, he thought, schooling his own features.

Waleye glanced at the two of them, eyebrows raised. “Not bad,” the man said, nodding in approval. “Now you two.”

The other drivers, an orange-skinned Twi’lek girl and a blonde human boy, exchanged looks. Hand shaking, the girl pulled out her pistol, and, closing her eyes, she tried to fire, missing completely. Opening her eyes, she bit back a faint ‘no’, and tried again. This time she caught the third soldier, who himself was shaking, in the gut, sending him backwards with a scream of pain.

“Good,” Waleye said, nodding to one of the rifle-wielding rebels, who shot the wounded man, killing him. “But practice. You want kill shots like these two. You’re last, son.”

The blonde rebel looked at the last soldier, who was silently crying, the pants of his unform darkening. The teen looked at the soldier, barely older than he was, and shook his head. “No. No, I won’t! I. . . I can’t, and you can’t make me!”

Waleye sighed, and looked at the boy. Jorel expected to feel Darkness in the man’s Presence, but there was nothing other than sadness, and resignation. “You sure about that, boy?”

The Jedi felt twin urges in the Force. One told him to interfere, to do something to help, but the other, paradoxically, told him to do nothing. Jorel wasn’t stupid, he could see what was coming. There was a reason that, if Hisku needed to leave, they’d do so under the cover of darkness.

Is this a crossroads? he wondered.

He’d read about them, in the archives. Moments where Jedi were presented two different paths. Neither choice would be wrong, that much was clear, but they would result in two very, very different outcomes.

Trying to reach out in the Force, he attempted to catch a glimpse with his Farsight, like Anaïs sometimes could. Some of what would result from his choice was obvious, he knew acting now would almost certainly mean they failed their mission, but he and Hisku would survive. He knew that, just as he knew, according to the Temple, he had to do something.

But the other path, it would result in death right now, but. . . what would it mean in the future?

Both paths were cloaked in death, and full of the Dark, but. . . but one seemed almost hopeful, while the other, bittersweet.

He wanted to talk to Hisku, to try and figure out which one to go down, but, in that space between moments, it was just him, and he had to trust his instincts.

Jorel chose Hope, and remained silent.

“No!” the boy, maybe even younger than Jorel, practically yelled, sealing his fate. “This is wrong!”

Waleye nodded slowly. “If that’s the way you feel, I won’t make you,” he said, and the boy closed his eyes, sighing in relief.

Because of that, the boy never saw the blaster bolt that hit him right between the eyes.

The blond ex-rebel’s corpse hadn’t hit the ground when Waleye turned, shooting the last soldier dead in the exact same way. “Always hate havin’ to do that,” the Rebel Cell Leader sighed, holstering his gun. “C’mon you slackers!” he yelled to the others. “We’ve got what we needed! Time to get outta here ‘fore the rest show!”

The man took a few steps towards the three teens, and the Twi’lek girl took a scared half-step back. “You three did good,” he told them. “Doin’ the right thing ain’t easy. If it was, everyone would do it. Now let’s get home. I think we could all use a meal, a shower, and some rack time.”

Walking past the others, Jorel saw that the more experienced Rebels, the ones that’d already been part of the cell when they’d arrived, were all driving the landspeeders they’d arrived in.

In case we failed, the Padawan realized, reaching out to take Hisku’s hand, knowing eyes were on them. She tensed, and glanced at him, but accepted it, and, oddly enough, that did make him feel a bit better.

The three of them clambered into the back of the nearest landspeeder, Waleye and his two men going out of their way to get into another, and they were all carried into the forest, the opposite way they’d arrived, to throw off trackers, but on an eventual path back to base.

Jorel couldn’t help feel that, for better or worse, this was just the beginning.