#✧˖° re: cal kestis. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

stardustloki · 1 month

Text

Rising

A few months after Order 66 finds former Jedi Padawan Cal Kestis hiding on Bracca. He's fine, if you ignore that he works for a vicious scrapper gang and the fact that everyone he's even known is dead, betrayed by the clones he'd trusted with his life.

While searching a Venator for valuable scrap, he discovers a kid being attacked by an out-of-control clone and jumps in to save her.

Or: The Bad Batch came to Bracca in the episode where they got their chips removed. What if they'd met Cal, and found family had ensued?

Characters: Cal Kestis, Omega, Echo, Tech, Wrecker, Hunter, Rex

Tags: Tech Lives! Fix-it, Found family, Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse (the scrapper gang was not kind)

Read on ao3 here or under the cut.

Cal shivered as he wove the skiff between piles of scrap. If he focused hard enough on piloting the juddering machine, something that worked only slightly better than the husks of dead ships surrounding him, he figured he might just have a chance of distracting himself from the gnawing hunger that clawed deep in his gut. It was worth a shot anyway.

The rain came down in a light drizzle that had long since wormed its way through his layers of ragged clothing and soaked him to the bone. He wiped some of it out of his eyes before letting out a hacking cough into his elbow. The fact that his throat felt tickly and raw, that his coughs had become more and more frequent, probably wasn’t a problem. He hoped.

Still, he steeled himself and pressed on. He could hear his master’s voice in his head, urging him not to give up. He’d always valued and praised resilience, and Cal couldn’t help but feel he’d be even more bitterly disappointed in him if he stopped now. Cal had got through much worse in the Clone Wars, had slogged through thick mud and blasterfire while exhausted, hungry and drenched.

But back then he’d had the Force to rely on, his master, the clo-

Cal shook his head to clear his thoughts, re-focusing his mind on his objective: a Venator Class ship, one that had only been partially stripped before more interesting scrap came along.

Dudge hadn’t been pleased with him today (not that he ever was), and had claimed the parts he’d brought back would be worthless to the Guild. Still, he’d offered Cal half a ration bar out of the ‘kindness of his heart’. After he’d finished wolfing down the few bites, looking down at the floor and not making eye-contact with any of the other members of Dudge’s sniggering scrapper gang, Cal had gritted his teeth and hadn’t dared tell him he was full of bantha-shit, that he’d been the one to send him there, that the others had barely brought back more than him.

He still had the bruises from the last time the gang had decided he was too mouthy for his own good.

Cal knew, smarting with an angry humiliation that he couldn’t seem to get rid of and Master Tapal would have strongly disapproved of, that if he’d used the Force he would’ve fought better than the rest of the gang combined, they would never have been able to hurt him in the way they had.

But Cal hadn’t been able to use the Force, he couldn’t, not then, not ever. For one, if anyone saw him strike and dodge with unnatural, inhuman speed, they would immediately inform the new Empire. He would be murdered, just like every other Jedi had been.

For the first few weeks he’d hoped feverishly that what had happened on their ship had been an isolated event, that he’d just have to lie low, blend in, make sure he didn’t get sold to Separatists, and someone from the Order would come pick him up. He’d known it was a false hope though, known it with a deep certainty that he hadn’t wanted to face, and this had been proven through a grainy holonet report from their new Empire, showing the unmistakable image of the Temple engulfed in flames.

Cal had watched the staticky image as the calm voice of the news reporter had informed him that the Jedi threat had been eliminated and the galaxy would be safe once again. He’d stared, transfixed, as his world ended for the second time in as many weeks, not even aware of where he was until Rov had hit him round the head for slacking, and changed the channel to show some Outer Rim podrace, like the fact everyone he’d ever known had been slaughtered wasn’t even important. Apparently it wasn’t, for most people.

Cal didn’t know how he’d managed to finish sorting the scrap that night, nor how he’d got through the next day, or the one after that, but somehow he’d managed it. The thought of disappointing Master Tapal had probably helped some. He kept going because he had to, there was no other option.

The news did, however, make something else make sense. It also linked to the second reason Cal knew he couldn’t use the Force to defend himself. Every time he’d tried to access it, he’d been met with an overwhelming howling grief and emptiness, a void that screamed with an aching loss. At first, Cal had told himself that it was the Force reflecting his own emotions back at him, a signal that he should process the loss and betrayal of that evening, and accept that his Master was now one with the Force. Now, he knew better. Now, he knew that the emptiness was because everyone was dead.

So that was why he wouldn’t be using the Force, not anytime soon.

And this was why he was out here, occasionally hacking up his lungs under a never-ending haze of rain, instead of curled up in a corner of his gang’s home - one of the smaller empty ships that littered the surface of the whole planet - sleeping fitfully against the sounds of laughter, fighting, loud music and drinking, the parts that made up his Master’s lightsaber still hidden carefully underneath his clothes, his padawan beads tucked carefully away on a cord beneath his collar.

The Order had taught him it was wrong to be attached to objects, and Cal had understood, had agreed, still did. But no one in the Order had ever had to deal with the loss of every single other person like them before. At first, when he’d cut off and burned his padawan braid, he had been able to convince himself that keeping the beads was sensible, he’d be picked up by the Order soon after all, but now there was no denying that he was keeping them because they were one of the things that kept him from feeling so achingly alone.

In any case, he’d risked a glance through Dudge’s holopad when he knew the man was distracted, and had found this wreck listed. Provided no one else had ransacked it these past few weeks, it was said to be practically intact, even having supplies still on board. He had to believe that when he came back after a completely independent mission, loaded with stuff that would make the gang heaps of money, that they would respect him more, they wouldn’t treat him like the dirt under their boots, or a kowakian monkey-lizard that knew a few tricks, that, having proven himself, he would be allowed to eat more of their food.

Part of him, the rational part, laughed at this thought. Despite how much he’d cut himself off from the Force, he could feel flashes of their emotions, was sometimes assaulted by their thoughts via his psychometry when he had to touch things without his gloves, and he knew they enjoyed the status quo, liked having someone to kick around and blame their problems on, it brought them together, made the gang operate that much more smoothly.

However, he didn’t exactly have any other options. Sure, he could leave and join another scrapper gang, but they were all the same really, would all treat him the same way. Better the nexu you knew and all that. There was no getting around the fact that he was 13, and scrawny for his age. He didn’t know enough about scrapping yet and wasn’t tough enough to make it on his own. This gang taught him about how this world worked, and protected him from other, nastier groups, and in return Cal would do the things they couldn’t.

He would climb cables high over cavernous drops, his weight far less likely to snap them than an adult would be, no matter how exhausted he was, though if he passed out or slipped he’d be just as dead as they. He could also slip through small gaps and into crevices when they told him to. At this thought, Cal kept his eyes ahead as the Venator came into view, not looking down at the itching, scabbed-over gash on his leg, where he’d caught it on a sharp piece of metal when twisting himself through one of these gaps. It hadn’t been bad enough for bacta, they’d said as one of them threw a pack of bandages at him. They’d given bacta to Ham though, who’d got a cut not nearly so bad.

He coughed again, trying to muffle the sound into his arm. Anyone who saw him would know he was alone, they didn’t need to know he was ill too.

His first stop, he decided as he swung his ship towards a gap at the base of the mountainous hull, would be the infirmary. There might be some medicines there they could keep or sell, and maybe some bacta if it hadn’t already been taken. Briefly, he considered trying to keep some for himself and build up a stash of his own, but it was only a moment’s thought. He didn’t like hiding things on his person - if he gave them any reason to be suspicious and search him for stuff he was meant to be sharing with the group, they’d be sure to find his Master’s saber, still recognisable despite being broken down into more easily-concealed parts.

After bringing the skiff to a standstill, he jumped through the hole in the side of the ship, heart jolting as he skidded on the damp metal, almost toppling over the edge of the walkway and into the hangars below.

Dropping to his knees as he stared down at the shadowy abyss, Cal allowed himself a moment to centre himself, to calm his racing heart. This wasn’t meditation, this wasn’t the time or the place, and he wouldn’t touch the Force like that if he could help it, but it would have to be good enough. After a few moments, despite the vestiges of adrenaline still coursing through him, Cal hauled himself to his feet and set off towards medical. There was no time to lose.

Something that he’d had to keep hidden from everyone he’d worked with, not that they really paid attention to him if he were honest, was the fact he knew how Venators were laid out. It was all the same, ship to ship, completely uniform. At the start, he’d wondered if scrapping them would bring back memories he’d rather forget, but as time had worn on he’d realised it didn’t really make a difference - he would think about that day, and all the days before that, when the clones had been pretending to be on his side, forever, no matter where he was. Perhaps this way he’d even manage to accept everything quicker?

It was a nice thought.

In any case, it meant that he had no problem navigating this one. However, the more he wove along the shadowy corridors by the dim light of his glow-rod, his footsteps seeming to echo in the otherwise silent ship, the more he got the feeling he wasn’t alone. As the oppressive feeling of being watched bore down on him, and he slowed his steps, he tried to figure out if it was justified - a warning from the silent Force, or just the simple knowledge that on a ship this size, there was no guarantee he was alone - or just another example of how jumpy and paranoid he’d become these past few months. Still, it didn’t hurt to be cautious.

Cal found himself feeling very glad of his decision when, not a few minutes later, he heard the hum of a machine up ahead. He paused, considering, feeling himself swallow as his mouth went dry, straining his ears - yes, those were voices. Now, the question was whether he should sneak off in the other direction, ransack other areas of the ship while he still could, or whether he should press on, risking another scrapper gang catching him trying to take ‘their stuff’.

It should have been an easy decision, there should have been nothing to it, but as Cal stood there, limbs shaking slightly, pressing his arm hard into his mouth in an effort not to cough and give away his position, he knew what decision he was going to make. So, he pressed on, as quietly as possible, listening intently as possible until-

There was a deep yell followed by a crash.

“You are in violation of Order 66.”

A child screamed.

That was a clone’s voice, that was-

Cal couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t escape. He was trapped on the Venator. He-

It took him several seconds, as terrified shouts and ringing blasterfire filtered through to his brain, to realise that he wasn’t back on his ship, and he hadn’t been plunged into a psychometric vision.

A child screamed again.

This was happening, here and now, and someone was in danger. He had no back up, no weapons, no skill with the force worth speaking of, he’d gotten his master killed (he’d have lived if Cal had been better, stronger with the force, or hadn’t dropped his lightsaber, wouldn’t he?) and his body was screaming at him to run. But, at that moment, he was probably someone’s only chance of survival.

He sprinted towards the sounds of the fight, skidding round corners and leaping up shallow flights of stairs with a speed he hadn’t known he still possessed. It had gone quiet now, perhaps the fight was over, perhaps he was too late, but he had to try anyway.

He stumbled into a new hallway and almost tripped over a piece of torn metal, only managing to leap over it at the last second. There were three armoured bodies in the hallway, scattered amongst the debris. Did that mean the kid had escaped?

“Conspiring with traitors makes you guilty of treason!”

Okay, well, it didn’t look like it. Cal set off down the corridor in a dead run, heart hammering in his chest. If he was too late- he couldn’t be too late- he couldn’t be too late-

“Please, stop!” The kid’s voice rang out, and Cal skidded into a doorway to see a girl huddled on the floor, pointing a shaking blaster at the armoured figure towering over her, as huge and terrifying as the clones he saw in his dreams. “I don’t want to hurt you!”

The clone snatched the blaster out of her hands before she had time to shoot. Not that Cal thought she’d been going to. Master Tapal had cut through the clones as they’d needed to but… they’d been Cal’s friends, his mentors, his older-

He had no lightsaber, no one to help him, but, Cal realised as the soldier lined his baster up while the girl pleaded that they’d been friends, he still had the Force. Not even thinking about what he was doing, Cal reached into the screaming void and shoved the soldier with everything he had.

He went flying, slamming into the wall and rolling down onto the floor. The girl scrambled forwards and grabbed the blaster from where he’d dropped it, before turning her wide brown eyes to him. She looked weirdly familiar somehow.

“Come on. We need to go, now!” he told her, reaching out a hand.

“No way, we need to help Wrecker.”

Cal gaped at her as she shot a worried glance towards the downed clone. She had to be only a year or two younger than him at most, and yet he was pretty sure that was the stupidest thing he’d ever heard. They needed to move, and quickly - people didn’t tend to stay unconscious for long unless there was something seriously wrong and he didn’t want to spend any seconds longer with ‘Wrecker’ than he had to. Preferably, they really needed to get off this planet considering he’d just used his Force abilities.

“He doesn’t care about you,” Cal snapped. “He just betrayed you and tried to kill you. We gotta go or next time he’ll succeed.”

“He does care about me,” the kid hissed. He wondered if he had the strength to just pick her up and haul her with him whether she wanted to come with him or not. He grabbed the wall as a wave of dizziness washed over him. That was a no, then. “It’s not his fault he was brainwashed!”

“She’s right,” the voice of a clone came from behind him, and Cal swung round in alarm, almost tripping over his two feet. He hadn’t heard anyone behind him, hadn’t even been thinking about his surroundings, and now he had another traitor to protect them both from.

It wasn’t difficult to recognise the man as the famed Captain Rex, with his distinctive blond hair and blue pauldron. As he thought this, he stepped automatically in front of the girl, holding his hands out in front of him, hoping that he’d still have enough force energy left to fight as he wished more than anything his Master’s lightsaber wasn’t concealed in different pieces.

“He’s got a control chip inside his head, we were trying to remove it when it activated and he attacked us.”

“I don’t believe you,” Cal told him steadily, or, as steadily as he could manage right now anyway. The clone was lying, as per usual, stalling so he couldn’t get away. Besides, even though Rex’s blaster was trained upon the other clone, he knew he could move it to shoot both him and the girl in a moment.

Rex’s expression was tired and full of grief. More pretending. What did he think that would achieve? It was as if the others hadn’t spent their time playing cards with him, telling jokes, making sure he got the best ration bars, before suddenly turning on him and trying to kill him and his master out of nowhere. No, Cal wouldn’t be fooled again.

“I know you don’t, kid,” Rex said, and Cal almost snapped ‘don’t call me ‘kid’’ but his words were taken from him by another coughing fit, worse this time. “That sounds serious, do you have any medicine?”

“Like you care, you know what I am,” he managed to get his reply out through gritted teeth, even as his lungs burned and his eyes watered involuntarily.

“That you’re a Jedi?” Rex asked, and Cal nearly flinched to hear the dreaded words said after so many months of relative safety. Still, at least now he knew for certain. “Yeah, I got here in time to see you throw Wrecker into a wall. That doesn’t mean I’m gonna hurt you, I got my chip taken out months ago, and the others definitely won’t after we’ve got theirs out too.”

“We’re defective,” a voice came from behind Rex, before another clone stepped into view, his long hair and half-tattooed face making him look very different to any of the clones that had served on his ship. Fantastic, now he was even more trapped. “When Order 66 was issued, our chips didn’t work properly and we refused to execute the padawan we were with, we let him escape. We didn’t understand why all the regs had gone mad until recently.”

“You’re saying all the clones just got mind-controlled?” Cal scoffed.

“When they were developing the Kaminoans put a chip in their heads,” the girl said from behind him. “They said it was to reduce aggression, but really it was so that when the time was right, it would force all my brothers to get rid of the Jedi, even if they never would have wanted to.”

And Cal didn’t want to believe that, couldn’t believe that, because if he believed that then-

Hang on…

“Brothers?”

He took a few steps to the side, turning so he could see both the clones on one side of his field of vision, and the girl on the other. She had deep brown eyes, tan skin, and hair the same colour as Rex. Oh. He should have listened to the part of him that had thought she looked familiar earlier. They were all clones then - had this been a trap all along?

“I’m defective,” she told him, shooting him a sunny grin.

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” the tattooed clone snapped out. Cal glanced between them warily, noting the stern expression on his face, and the hurt one on the girl’s.

“But you guys say you are all the ti-”

The clone on the floor stirred and everyone’s attention snapped back to him.

“We’ve gotta take the chip out now ,” Rex said. “Kid, come with us when we take the chip out, we’ll prove to you that we’re telling the truth.”

“Besides, if the Empire finds us we’re just as screwed as you are,” the clone behind him added.

Cal wasn’t quite sure why he agreed, he told himself that it was just because he was looking for a better moment to run, but he did agree. So, several minutes later found him sat on a box in the opposite corner of the operating room to Wrecker, wrapped in a blanket that Omega had managed to find for him when she noticed how much he was shivering, while a clone called Tech explained the procedure. Like Wrecker, Tech also looked strange for a clone, though where Wrecker was much larger, Tech was ganglier. He wondered if this was why they were considered ‘defective’.

As the extraction began, Echo - pale and ill-looking, with a strange contraption around his head, still a little unsteady on his feet despite the stim he’d been given after he was stunned - handed him his canteen of water. Cal had seen the clone empty a sachet of something he’d got from one of the cupboards into it, and peered at the liquid suspiciously.

“It’s to help you feel better,” Echo said, showing him the packet the powder had come from. Cal read it, eyes narrowing, even though he had to pause halfway through to cough.

“But why?” Cal asked, clutching the canteen with aching arms.

“You’re not well.”

That was true, he reasoned as he shivered again, but Tech had said that the machine was advanced enough to clear the air around itself and prevent any pathogens from reaching Wrecker, so him being ill wasn’t causing them a problem.

So, was Echo trying to poison him, or was he actually trying to gain his trust in order to trick him again?

Or, a small voice inside him said, is he just being kind?

Most of Cal wanted to scoff at this, but a small part of him hoped.

In any case, he thought as he stared at the medicine, it might help and, if it doesn’t, they were probably going to kill you anyway.

He took a sip.

They waited a long time for Wrecker to wake up. In this time, Tech let him look at the chip he’d watched extracted from the clone’s brain, then, Tech showed him the analysis of it.

Orders to be activated by the Supreme Commander (Chancellor). Good soldiers follow orders. Executed Orders: 66 - The Jedi are traitors to the Republic. Lethal force must be used to remove them, and all those who attempt to violate this order, to ensure the safety of the Republic. Non-Executed Orders: 1 -

“This is real,” Cal said quietly, holding the datapad with shaking fingers. “They didn’t betray me.”

“Well, technically they did,” Tech said, Cal’s head shot up to stare at him. “They just didn’t have any choice in the matter.”

“The Chancellor did this,” he spat, anger rearing up inside him, licking like fire through his body. “He did this. He killed my people.” And he’d suspected the Chancellor had had a hand in it, ever since he’d seen the news report, but this was different. “Why would he do this?”

“The Jedi would probably have tried to stop him becoming Emperor, logically he would have wanted to stop that.”

Cal nodded, before handing the datapad back, and dropping his head into his hands, still shaking with anger, but also another emotion that was gradually threatening to engulf him. He wasn’t going to cry, he wasn’t .

The night wore on as Cal sat silently in the corner, resisting all attempts at conversation as he tried to sort through his whirling thoughts. The scrapper gang would have been so proud at how good he was at shutting up right now. He shuddered as he thought of them, he should really be getting back now, preferably with some of the medical supplies, before they realised he was missing with one of their skiffs and made him regret it, but somehow, given everything he’d learnt this evening, this hardly seemed important.

At some point, Hunter left and returned with refilled canteens. Again, Echo added the powder to one of them and gave it to Cal, an action that would have been completely unremarkable before ‘Order 66’ but now felt so alien to him. He was grateful for it though. He could feel the exhaustion like a vice around his body, but the coughing had let up some, and he imagined his temperature had gone down.

Hunter had also brought ration bars. Cal was given three. He stared at them on the box next to him.

“But I didn’t do anything to earn them,” he said before he could realise what a monumentally stupid thing that was to say, and cursed internally, sure he wouldn’t have said something so idiotic if he hadn’t been so exhausted and, despite the medicine, more than a bit ill. Here he was, arguing that he shouldn’t be given food - imagine if he’d said that to Dudge.

“You don’t need to earn food,” Omega’s confusion was clear in her voice, even if Cal wasn’t looking at anyone right now. If they decided to take them away from him, which they might now, would he be able to shove one in his face before they did?

“True,” Hunter added, “but they can be a good reward. Thanks for saving Omega.”

Cal was pretty sure it was only his Jedi reflexes that allowed him to catch the fourth ration bar that Hunter had just sent sailing across the room at him, and prevent it from hitting him in the face.

He stared down at it. It was one of the green ones, his favourite flavour, the one that he’d always swapped with Zip. And suddenly he couldn’t take it anymore.

He’d promised himself he wouldn’t cry, at least not until he was alone, promised himself he’d deal with his emotions in the way of a Jedi, a way that would have made Master Tapal proud, but as his emotions engulfed him he found that he was doing it anyway.

“But I don’t deserve it, I don’t!” his voice cracked. “Because we killed them, we killed them all but they didn’t even want to betray us, they didn’t have a choice!” He was breathing heavily, his hands clenched into fists. “We blew up the ship to stop them killing us but we murdered them all instead!”

And then he waited, gripping his arms tight around himself, head down and watching his tears drip into his lap, waiting to hear the sound of a blaster being clicked off safety over his shuddering sobs. The sound didn’t come.

“So did I,” said Rex, quietly.

“What?” As Cal’s head shot up to look at Rex he was surprised to find that it was Echo who had asked the question, not himself.

Rex’s arms were folded, expression set, and he stared off at the opposite wall. “When Order 66 happened, someone I was with managed to get my chip out. We managed to get off the ship, even with all my brothers trying to kill us, but we took the only escape route off. My brothers were all on the ship when it crashed into the planet.

“So I know what you’re thinking,” he continued, suddenly fixing his gaze on Cal’s. “You’re thinking why is my one life more than their hundreds? And it’s worth it because they were trying to kill you and, coming from someone who remembers what it felt like to have their chip activated, they weren’t really themselves anymore anyway. And, every clone on that ship would have gladly given their lives to save yours, just like I know every single clone in my battalion would have died for… uh… someone.”

“It doesn’t make it right,” Cal said, thinking of the fiery explosion that Zip and Den and Song and Lazer and-

“No it doesn’t,” Rex agreed. “But save your anger for Palpatine.”

“Who were you with?” Tech asked.

“Uh… no one important, just a natborn.”

Oh, when Cal had thought the clones had deliberately betrayed them, he’d thought that the clones in his battalion tending to be terrible at lying was just an act. Now he knew it wasn’t, and that it seemed the trait was universal, he almost felt his lips quirking into a small smile despite everything. Almost.

“A Jedi, perhaps?” Echo asked.

Rex’s hesitation before denying it was enough.

“I’m not the only one,” Cal breathed, relief and hope filling him as he almost started sobbing again. He wasn’t alone, he wasn’t alone, the Force might be howling with emptiness and grief but at least one other Jedi was alive.

Rex’s expression was far from the stoic one he’d used to try and reassure Cal mere minutes ago, worry and guilt plain to see.

“You can’t tell anyone,” he ordered, but there might have been a hint of desperation in his voice. “The Empire can never find out.”

“Yeah, because we’re such close buddies with them,” Echo said sarcastically. “We tell them all our secrets.”

Rex slumped back against the wall, grimacing.

“Can I meet them?” Cal asked.

“I don’t know, I don’t know where they’re hiding. We separated to make it harder for the Empire to catch us,” Rex said, but there must have been something in Cal’s expression that made him soften because he added, “I’ll look for them for you, and let you know if I find them.”

And then Cal did start crying again, even through the hot flush of embarrassment, because it was the happiest he’d been in months.

As the night drew on into day, Wrecker woke up (completely different from his murderous rage of earlier, and extremely apologetic), and the others took it in turn to get their surgeries, Cal could admit to himself that he didn’t really have a proper reason for still being here. The clones definitely weren’t keeping him hostage, and he definitely didn’t need to protect Omega from them. In fact, the only reason why he was staying here was because (despite everything that had been revealed and the fact that he was around clones) it was the safest he’d felt in months, and he knew with a bone-deep certainty that Dudge and his gang were going to be extremely disappointed in him. It was stupid sticking around here, and he knew it, they would only hurt him worse the longer he put things off and failed to return with their skiff.

Rex left later that morning, off on a mission he wouldn’t disclose, but before he did he brought back a roll of heavy-duty waterproof material, and unfolded it in front of Cal. He frowned in confusion as Rex lowered the poncho over his head.

Cal looked down at it. It smelled like sweat and the ozone of discharged blasters, or, in other words, he realised, it smelled like the clones. He gripped the edges of the fabric and bit his lower lip as his eyes started to prickle - after everything, he was still comforted by something that reminded him of them. It was clearly much too big for him, but it was thick, would keep him warm and dry despite his ragged clothes. He hoped that the gang wouldn’t sell it for credits - even if it was too big to be practical when climbing about on wrecks, it could still keep him from spending his nights shivering with cold. More importantly, it might keep him from feeling so alone.

“Why are you giving this to me?”

“Because you need it, kid.” Rex shrugged. Cal was surprised to find himself hugging him. He thought Rex was pretty surprised too.

After he’d left, Cal continued to be excellent at putting off the inevitable, and clearly very lacking in self preservation, because he started to help the Bad Batch - that was what they said they were called - strip the ship of its most valuable cargo. Of course, he’d take some of it back to Dudge, but, in his defence, he hadn’t been threatened once and the Batch had so far given him a total of 7 ration bars in less than a rotation (he’d now stashed 5 of them in the pockets of his poncho), so working for them was a lot more rewarding.

Of course, nothing good lasted on Bracca, and they ended up having to fight off the Empire. At least, it seemed, they were there for the Bad Batch, not because they knew he was a Jedi. He also managed to make himself useful, fighting off a bounty hunter and stopping them from stealing Omega.

Later, he stood in the cockpit, gripping his poncho tight around him, and watched in awe as the stars streaked by as they flew through hyperspace, relieved that they’d all managed to reach the ship before the Empire got them. There had been a part of him that had never expected to see this sight again, and he revelled in it, revelled in escaping the junk planet, escaping Dudge and his friends (even though they had been helpful to him), coming down off the high of surviving a run-in with the Empire. But he could also admit to himself that he was afraid. He knew what to expect now, on Bracca, and no one had cared who he was, no one would come looking for him there, he was less sure of how to survive out on his own somewhere else.

“Where will you be dropping me off?” he asked, when even the stars couldn’t distract him enough. He should probably start planning after all.

“Aren’t you staying?” Omega asked from where she was snuggled into Wrecker.

“Why would you think that?” Cal blinked.

“Having a Jedi around would be very useful, and you don’t exactly have anywhere else to go,” Tech said from his seat next to the controls.

“What he means is that we like you,” Wrecker added, as Omega kicked the back of Tech’s chair.

Cal stared at the others as they confirmed that they would be happy for him to stay with them, unless there was somewhere else he would rather be. Well, at least Bracca had taught him how to make himself useful.

Making himself useful, it turned out, involved a lot of things it hadn’t back on Bracca. It involved getting your own hammock instead of finding a place on the floor, eating three meals a day and sometimes snacks (even though he hadn’t always been able to manage the meals back at the beginning), getting bacta for the injury on your leg, having different sets of clothes that fit you and getting your boots patched if they got a hole in them.

It also included watching holos with Omega, and teaching her how to braid her hair (there was more of it than used in padawan braids, but it was the same principle). Importantly, it also involved putting their combined talents of gambling and force intuition together to fleece people out of even more money. With Wrecker, he learnt about mantell mix and how to create the best explosions. With Tech, he learnt how to fly and fix the ship. He had knife throwing competitions with Hunter (who maintained that using the force was cheating). Echo helped him learn mando’a, like the clones he was friends with in his old battalion had been doing, and told him stories about the crazy stunts Masters Skywalker and Kenobi and Padawan Tano had committed.

They tried new food together, they played card games, they practised sparring and shooting, they ribbed each other, at times they argued (and Cal eventually learned to stop his heart racing when this happened). Of course, people also shot at them, they regularly had run-ins with the Empire, and barely escaped with their lives, and one one memorable occasion being useful meant they went to Coruscant to help Rex, but whenever Cal got separated from them, they always came back for him.

So, when Omega first introduced him as her brother, it probably shouldn’t have come as a shock. Because he hadn’t been being useful, he’d been being a part of their family.

He’d had six beads in his padawan braid. He put them on new cords, gave one to each of his siblings, and kept one for himself. Was this attachment? Probably. But Cal didn’t find himself worrying too much anymore.

He’d never expected to find himself at home on a ship of clones, if it had come to him in a force vision on Bracca he would never have believed it. But somehow it had happened, and, despite everything that had gone so horrifically wrong, Cal wondered if he might, overall, be happy.

About a year into knowing the Bad Batch, Cal found himself gripping the edge of a rail car as icy wind whipped around his poncho and the ominous sound of the Empire’s fighters pierced the air. Earlier, when Cal had looked towards the rocky ground, so far away it was barely visible through the clouds that covered most of it, he hadn’t been afraid. He’d lost his fear long ago on Bracca, and there was a certain confidence that the Force gave him whenever he was faced with long drops, as if they would never be a problem for him.

He felt fear now. Because Tech, his brother Tech, who he always competed with to see who would fly the craziest stunts, who knew facts about seemingly every planet in the universe, who forgot to eat when he was engrossed in an engineering project, who helped Cal upgrade his Master’s lightsaber whenever he couldn’t sleep, his brother Tech, was hanging from a grappling line attached to a rail car that was only being prevented from tumbling into the abyss by the fact that it was still just about connected to the one he was currently standing in.

There had to be a way out of this, didn’t there? There had always been a way out. They’d made miraculous escapes, defied death countless times, but there was a feeling in his gut that told him no, this time there was no way of stopping the inevitable, that all of them could very well be facing their last moments here.

A stormtrooper’s shot landed right beside his ear. Without thinking, Cal turned, and took three of his own shots. He had already turned back to Tech by the time the three stormtroopers he’d hit had fallen to their own doom.

Their own car jerked downwards as a shot hit their railcar and Cal stumbled. Through the crackling of the comm he could hear Tech telling Wrecker that there wasn’t any time, that he needed to sever the hinge connecting their cars together. Cal felt his mouth go dry, he couldn’t watch this, couldn’t watch Tech lift his blaster, couldn’t-

He reached out into the Force.

The Force reached back.

And Cal was still on the railcar, and above the screeching of blaster-fire, he could hear Tech’s words, “Plan 99,” but he also wasn’t there. Instead, he was aboard the old Venator, in a training session with his Master.

Master Jaro Tapal looked at him, exuding confidence and reassurance. “You must ignore all distractions, ” he told him.

“Yes, Master,” Cal said, as Wrecker screamed,

“Don’t you do it, Tech!”

“Your lightsaber lies out of reach, but you remain connected through the Force,” Master Tapal told him.

Tech sighed. “When have we ever followed orders?”

“The force is within you, around you, connecting you,” Cal heard his younger self say.

“The Force is within you, around you, connecting you,” he repeated.

Cal didn’t hear the blaster shot, but he heard the metal breaking, heard Wrecker’s scream.

Then he opened his eyes, stretched out his hand, and threw his connection to the Force wide open, all focusing on one man. He pulled backwards.

And, as the railcar fell, tumbling away into the mist, Tech rose, flying up towards the rest of the Batch.

#summerofbadbatch2024 #week 6: battlescars #altprompt: it's not what you think #week 9: hold still #cal kestis #captain rex #tbb omega #tbb echo #tbb wrecker #tbb hunter #tbb tech

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kanansdume · 9 months

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Hello! Your pro-Jedi posts are so precious in mostly anti-Jedi rhetoric circulating around fandom and canon (sadly). So I wanted to ask: have you read a novel Ashoka by E.K.Johnson? If you haven’t, I hope you don’t mind some spoilers and a small rant.

I didn’t expect a lot while getting to it, but it still rubbed me wrong. Cannot remember specifically, but the general idea was ‘The Jedi were so trapped in the past and dogmatic, so they’re partially to blame for their downfall’. After reading lots of Jedi-defending meta, it just hurts.

One moment I remember most, though. After Ahsoka and Bail Organa save population of a small planet, occupied by the Empire, Bail calls her a Jedi.

Ahsoka: I’m no Jedi.

Bail: But you act like one.

And I’m just: yes! Yes, you do act like a Jedi! You meditate the Jedi way, you think the Jedi way – how come you’re not a Jedi? Only because you weren’t knighted? Meta-speaking, Kanan, Ezra and Luke also weren’t fully trained by the community, but they still are Jedi. Especially in a non-Jedi Imperial world. And non-Force-sensitive population in-universe won’t see the difference between a fully-trained Jedi Knight and an almost fully-trained Jedi Padawan – they’re still ‘Jedi’ to them.

I felt like this novel enforces the current idea that Ahsoka is better that ‘those stupid old dogmatic Jedi of the Prequels’. Sorry for the rant and thanks for reading.

Thank-you, I'm glad you've liked what I've managed to contribute to the pro Jedi fandom!

As for the Ahsoka novel, I haven't read it (but I don't mind spoilers since I don't ever plan to). I read like the first two thirds of Queen's Peril and then got bored and then I started hearing some pretty nasty things about E.K. Johnston and have refused to ever pick it back up again or ever read another of her books. So I'm not at all shocked that she's part of the Jedi critical crowd. It's even LESS shocking that it came out within the Ahsoka novel, just given the way Ahsoka as a character has been going for YEARS. It sounds like it's handling the issue in the same basic way a lot of people have done, nothing unique there.

If I'm willing to try to re-interpret the "I'm no Jedi" stuff into a more pro Jedi version, Ahsoka doesn't see herself as a Jedi because, unlike all of those other characters, Ahsoka LEFT the Order before it was destroyed and before she officially completed her training and never rejoined it. Kanan never left it at all, it was just destroyed around him (the same is true for Cal Kestis from the Jedi games). And he does TECHNICALLY get Knighted by Yoda during Rebels and takes on a Padawan, hallmarks of a Jedi Knight. Ezra and Luke never had an Order to join to begin with, so their willingness to identify themselves as Jedi isn't dependent on having officially joined the right organization so much as it is about having learned from someone else who identifies as a Jedi and being told their training is complete. Both Ezra and Luke kind-of reach that point with Kanan and Yoda, so they never question their identity as Jedi.

Ahsoka is in the VERY unique position of having not been a Jedi OFFICIALLY when the Order was destroyed, which leaves her in slightly more limbo than most others. She HAD the ability to rejoin it before it was destroyed, she just didn't, and now she has to kind-of move away from the idea of needing to be a part of the Order before she can call herself a real Jedi. She also never has a master tell her she's done with training. In both Kanan and Cal's cases, their masters died to protect them and so someone else (Yoda and Cere) has to step in to finish the job. For Ahsoka, her master is STILL ALIVE, he's just now a Sith and is trying to kill her. Nobody steps in to try to finish the job he started with Ahsoka (nor does Ahsoka really ever seem that open to it). This ALSO leaves her in a little bit of limbo in a way nobody else is.

So I'm generally willing to sort-of re-interpret her choosing not to identify as a Jedi within this context to make it less about feeling like she's better than all the other Jedi and more that she feels STUCK in how to get back to that identity in a way nobody else is. Just because she still meditates and tries to help people doesn't make her officially a Jedi when she intentionally left the Order for a reason. She chose to stop being a Jedi for a reason. In the Prequels Era, just being a kind Force sensitive person didn't make you a Jedi, so it works for me that Ahsoka would insist that she ISN'T one for a while, even when she looks a lot like one to an outside perspective. I could even see a more Jedi positive narrative taking the fact that she still acts and thinks like a Jedi in an interesting direction for her.

It's easier to utilize that interpretation in Rebels where Ahsoka is GENERALLY more positive about the Jedi and, despite not really identifying as one herself, she seems fine with getting lumped in as a Jedi along with Kanan and Ezra. She intentionally seeks Kanan and Ezra out for "Jedi stuff" once or twice during season 2. She ONLY brings out the "I'm no Jedi" line when Anakin throws the Jedi (and the fact that she'd left the Order) in her face during their confrontation before he's explicitly revealed to be Anakin (which means Ahsoka can still pretend he's NOT Anakin and be angry that this is the person who KILLED Anakin instead). She seems like she might be on the path towards becoming a Jedi again by following these two people who are slightly further ahead on that path than she is (and then she sees Anakin as Vader and she gets blown right off of that path all over again apparently). Ahsoka isn't the main character of Rebels and the entire narrative is about Ezra and Kanan coming together as teacher and student to become true Jedi by learning compassion and selflessness via sacrifice. Ahsoka can't overshadow or outshine the two main characters by making her seem BETTER than the two characters who are explicitly learning to become Jedi by emulating Prequels Jedi, which is helping her.

It's HARDER to utilize this interpretation within something like, say, the Ahsoka show, where it's absolutely clear that its take on the Jedi is NEGATIVE. Sabine calls herself a Jedi, other people call her a Jedi, but Ahsoka explicitly states that she doesn't want Sabine to be a Jedi AT ALL and never identifies as one herself. She calls the Jedi failures and implies that it's because they were elitist. She and Sabine constantly refuse to abide by Huyang's standard Jedi protocols and seem to see them as useless and old-fashioned. There isn't a SINGLE thing about the Jedi that is represented as positive in this show, which makes it decidedly difficult to pretend that Ahsoka is refusing to identify as a Jedi simply because she's in a particular emotional limbo about it that she needs to work out. Instead, Ahsoka refuses to identify as a Jedi because she associates being a Jedi with being an elitist asshole apparently and might only start reclaiming the title when she decides that she can sort-of... be a new kind of Jedi that's better than the old ones (not unlike what Baylan claims to be doing with Shin). It's DECIDEDLY anti Jedi in tone and I'm generally unwilling to try to rework the entire fucked up narrative of the show to try to pretend that it isn't. The Ahsoka show is an explicitly anti Jedi narrative and that's just... the facts of the matter. It sucks, but it's true. It's not worth me putting in any more work than that.

I haven't read the Ahsoka novel, so I don't know whether its tone is closer to Rebels or the Ahsoka show. If it feels to you closer to how the Ahsoka show landed, my advice would be to just purge it from your canon. That's the nice thing about Star Wars, you can pick and choose what's canon to you and what isn't. If it doesn't work for you, you can straight up pretend it doesn't exist. As far as I'm concerned, the Ahsoka show never happened. It's stupid and doesn't deserve to be considered within my canon. If, however, it feels closer to how Rebels ended up, my advice is to see if you can find some way to re-interpret some of the more Jedi critical pieces or just pretend THOSE parts don't exist and separate it out from the parts you DO enjoy.

#star wars #ek johnston #ahsoka novel #ahsoka tano #jedi #pro jedi #ahsoka critical #ahsoka tano critical #star wars rebels #anti ahsoka show #ahsoka show critical #ahsoka show

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