Chapter Text
Cassian’s hands are shaking so badly, he’s relieved Jyn is the one working the controls to retrieve the plans.
Behind the blast doors, the muffled sound of blaster fire rings out—closer now.
Cassian crushes the urge to run to K’s aid. They all knew what kind of mission this was when they signed on. It was never a question of if they would die—only when.
Suddenly, the power cuts. Terror grips him. What if it was all for nothing?
“CLIMB!” K’s voice snaps through the comms. “Don’t worry about me. Rebel reinforcements have arrived.”
There’s no time for relief. They scramble up the data tower, dangling thousands of feet over open air.
Jyn clips the plans to her belt just as an Imperial appears in a nearby doorway, leveling a blaster at her.
Cassian is already firing—he drops one trooper—but more are coming. Too many. He and Jyn have no cover.
Snap—sssshhh. The sound is soft, but the flash of light is blinding. The blaster, the hand that held it, and the trooper all tumble into the abyss—severed clean in three pieces.
It’s a Jedi. Or someone crazy enough to wield a stolen lightsaber—a surefire death sentence from the Empire.
Cassian isn’t one to judge when it comes to Imperial death sentences. But maybe he is going mad. He thought the Jedi were all massacred when the Empire rose. Only whispers of them remained—myths, spoken even more cautiously than rebellion or freedom.
Yet even after a hard blink, the glowing white plasma blades don’t disappear. In fact, within seconds, they’ve sliced through the rest of the Imperials like wet paper.
The man—Jedi or not—wields a blade in each hand. He looks human, maybe Cassian’s age, with short red hair.
Cassian and Jyn are already climbing again when the Jedi shouts for them to move. His appearance doesn’t change the mission; if anything, it underlines its importance. The Rebellion is willing to sacrifice possibly the last Jedi for these Death Star plans.
With each new level, the Jedi clears their path.
Finally, they reach the roof and the antenna.
Jyn is the first to the top. She manages to upload the plans and realign the antenna in record time—
—but once again, she’s staring down the barrel of an Imperial blaster.
This time, there’s no Jedi. No Cassian.
“It’s too late,” she says. “The plans have already been sent.”
“The shields are still up!” the Imperial snaps. “Nothing’s getting through.”
It is poor timing for the imperial's statement and relief fills Jyn as a huge explosion lights the sky overhead and the shields drop. Now no matter what comes next the sacrifice was worth it. Jyn knows she is about to die but she smiles.
Green ignites behind the imperial and suddenly blood splatters his front as the blade of a knife protrudes from his torso.
He slumps to the ground dead revealing Jyn rescuer. A woman of similar age and height but that is where the similarity stop. She is clearly not human. Her skin is grey a shade lighter than her grey hair. Dark symmetrical tattoos or markings line her face and fingers. She wears a leather jacket and holds a metal staff in one hand and the bloody dagger in the other.
She nods at Jyn. Sheaths the dagger and turns to pull first Cassian then the jedi through the opening Jyn had previously come through.
The woman speaks with a heavy accent as she grasps the jedi's hand pulling him to the roof.
"You are always falling behind. One of these days you must keep up."
The jedi just grins goofily up at the woman.
"We appreciate the help, but we need to get out of here" says Cassian after checking that Jyn is ok.
They all make it to the beach before they see their doom blotting out the sun.
Jyn and Cassian drop to their knees on the sand.
"Your father would have been proud of you" Cassian says. Jyn smiles at him reaching out her hand to his -there is no escape for them but because of what they have done here there is hope for others. She does not regret the decisions that led her here.
There is nothing they can do death will rain from above.
However, they are not alone.
The first time Cal slowed time, his master had been gunned down by his clone troops. He hadn’t known it was possible at the time, if he had discovered something common or discovered another weird and rare Force ability like his psychometry. Once again making Cal a freaky genetic mutation even among the freaky genetic mutations of the galaxy. Although he hadn’t given it very much thought at the time. It was all too likely that it might even be a dark side power, given how much fear and horror had been coursing through his veins as little eleven-year-old Cal tried in vain to protect his master and himself from being murdered by people he thought of as friends.
Then he hadn’t touched the Force in six years until that day he had tried and failed to save Prauf.
After that, he never thought much of the ability as being unusual, too busy with not dying and protecting his small family. He guessed he could have asked Cere at one point, but the topic hadn’t come up. The power didn’t feel inherently dark, as after the first instance he had used it multiple times without the dark emotions that had caused the first manifestation.
It had gotten stronger with time though, allowing for several minutes of nearly paused time in an emergency, which had come in very useful in several situations. Like that time Merrin had asked him to … anyway. His master would definitely not have appreciated that use of the Force.
As the horizon ignited, he knew it would not be long enough to save them. Not all at least. However, rebellions are built on hope.
“Merrin, teleport yourself and them off-planet now! I will slow it down as long as I can.”
“I do not have the power to teleport off-planet and even if I did, I would not leave you.”
“You have to try.”
“Ok.”
At the very least, they will die as they meant: fighting for survival. But at least at the end, they are no longer alone.
Cal forces his hands out in front of him, gritting his teeth with the strain as time slows. It is almost beautiful as slow mushroom clouds of red and orange fires bloom ever closer and debris drifts like falling petals.
Merrin’s eyes flare a dangerous green, hands igniting in flames. Mother, sisters help me, she thinks, but Dathomir is light-years away and she is cut off from her source without the red planet. Even if she were home, she had never heard of a ritual powerful enough to transport four (she would never leave her Jedi. She would be far more likely to sacrifice the other two hangers-on, no matter how much Cal would complain later). But it mattered little, for no ritual would have been powerful enough to transport even one off the doomed planet. But she was going to die anyway, might as well die trying. And maybe Cal was right, maybe her magick was one and the same as his Force and her mother and sisters were much closer than she had thought.
The Jedi and the witch pull in power. More power than they have pulled in the rest of their lives. Green flames dance around the small group. Time slows to a crawl around them. Blood runs freely from their noses as their bodies break from the strain.
Cal will not let Merrin die. Maybe it is against the Jedi code, but he loves her, and so he pours everything he has and more into giving her enough time to escape.
The thing is, when you slow something enough, eventually it stops.
Then it reverses.
Combine that with the most powerful teleportation spell the galaxy had ever seen.
Well, the Force didn’t know why they were so surprised they got the results they did.
Maybe this time balance would be found. Maybe the Force’s new champion was a better selection than last time. One can always hope.
Cal is pretty sure he must have died and gone to hell.
He is surrounded by nightmares with white plastoid armor, identical T-shaped visors, and raised blasters.
“What have you done with the commander?” The trooper’s voice is tinny through his comm.
Cal feels dazed. At least this nightmare is different than his usual ones that feature the Bave and his master's death. He is clearly planet-side. He reaches down, ignoring the trooper, and scoops a handful of dirt from the earth. It is warm and dry. He lets it run through his fingers. He sways, his vision going a little hazy around the edges. He doesn’t remember feeling this tired before in his life, and that is saying something after having worked as a scrapper once for four days straight with no breaks - other members of the shift had died.
“What have you done with the commander?” the clone repeats, whose yellow armor matches perfectly with Kerr from the Iron Battalion.
You killed him, his mind supplies, but that isn’t right. Master Tapal was the general… Cal frowns. As a padawan, he had been the commander. Was this some kind of messed up Force vision before death, trying to teach him some kind of wacky moral lesson on how much he had changed that he was no longer recognizable? Maybe? But it still felt weird.
The more important question was: where was Merrin? Would he ever get to see her again? Did Nightsisters go into the Force like Jedi? He had to hope that was true. There was no alternative that didn’t lead to despair.
He took more stock of his surroundings, looking desperately for short grey hair and tattooed skin.
No familiar witch met the wandering green eyes, but the lush vegetation and landscapes reminded Cal of that one short mission to Naboo he had gone on when he was a ten-year-old padawan. It had been a trial run for the unusual young padawan, meant to keep him relatively safe and far from the front lines. Strange, he thought, why would he dream of Naboo? Nothing particularly traumatic (especially on his life scale of trauma) had happened here.
He takes a step to start looking for Merrin (only clear thought) and suddenly finds himself on his hands and knees as the world spins around him.
Pain breaks through the cotton that fills his brain and he glances down at the source. A sun-inch jagged piece of metal debris has made a home in his left side right below his ribs. It is interesting the way it flickers and the blood very slowly oozes around it. There isn’t as much blood as there should be. It is in stasis, he realizes. Somehow, he slowed time around the wound itself. Now that he consciously recognizes what he is doing, he can feel the sap of power.
But why would he be doing this in a dream?
For the first time, he touches the Force since the vision has started, and with growing horror gets his answer by the billions of life forces that he can feel.
This is real.
Which means, his heart soars, everyone is still alive.
His master, the Jedi, Prauf, Cere, Merrin… but his family won’t know him. Won’t recognize him. A familiar pain - he is once again alone. But if he can save them all, stop the Empire, does it really matter? At least they will be alive. But the task feels impossibly large and lonely. What could one half-trained Jedi possibly do against the Sith? Also, he glanced down at the wound. He might not live long enough to find out.
The clones were clearly talking to each other over their helmet comms as they surrounded the stranger. One of them—code name Muscle, Cal’s memory supplied—made a rude gesture, circling his finger near his ear to indicate what he thought of Cal’s mental state.
He blinked—and suddenly Muscle was beside him.
"If you harmed the kid, I’ll arrange for a little accident off the record myself," the clone hissed, roughly cuffing Cal’s hands behind him. Cal was too busy trying not to puke from the pain to respond.
"Hey, Captain, he’s got a lightsaber."
"Is it Cal's?" the captain asked, worry clear even through the helmet.
"No—much too large. It’d be longer than the little midget’s arm."
"Is he a general from a different division?"
"No other generals are currently in the Naboo sector."
"Sith assassin? Like that bald lady or the ones with too many arms? Or do you think we got Dooku?"
Cal couldn’t decide whether to be more offended at being mistaken for Dooku (he wasn’t that old) or at being called a midget.
"Hang on, I got an idea." Helpless with his arms tied behind him, Cal could only watch as one of the clones snatched up his lightsaber—and nearly impaled them both when both ends ignited.
"Oops. Double-ended. Well, it’s not red, so not a Sith. But I’ve never seen white lightsabers before either."
"Oops? You nearly took your leg off, bantha fodder for brains. Besides, dimwit, Grievous is on the clanker's side, and everyone knows he had a full rainbow of lightsabers he collected from dead Jedi. So where’s the kid?"
The end of the statement was punctuated by a savage kick to Cal’s injured side that nearly made him vomit.
Cal quickly rejected the idea of telling them who he was. They wouldn’t believe that the 25-year-old, six-foot male with jagged facial scars and a week’s worth of stubble was the ten-year-old, squeaky-voiced padawan they were looking for. He didn’t know where younger Cal had gone anyway. He wasn’t sure what would be worse: if the younger version ceased to exist when older Cal took his place—or if they’d swapped places and he’d been blown up on Jedha.
"Someone needs to inform the general his kid is missing..."
Silence followed—a loud, tense lack of volunteers—until the comm crackled to life with Master Tapal’s voice.
"Report. I can no longer feel or contact Cal. Has something happened?"
"Yes, sir. The commander is MIA. We have captured a possible lead to his whereabouts."
"Trooper, I will interrogate the prisoner. Have the rest of the men start a search grid immediately."
"Yes, sir."
—
A standard half hour later, Cal was face to face with a ghost.
A big, purple, pointy-eared, eight-foot-tall ghost who looked ready to fight. Honestly, it wasn’t that different from the few times Cal had seen his master as a Force ghost. It had always been a 50/50 split between tough love and outright battle. The strange part was, he seemed smaller now. Cal knew it was because he nearly reached his master’s eye level. Master Tapal was no longer the larger-than-life figure who had once been invincible in his young padawan mind.
Tapal had never been the mushy sort. But he’d been the closest thing young Cal had ever had to a father.
The difference now was that he was alive.
Cal was so very grateful.
And he was going to keep it that way.
—
The Lasat master glowered at him from behind the interrogation table.
Cal prided himself on his pretty solid mental shields—multilayered, tough enough to keep out Inquisitors and Sith. He even kept a layer of Huttese rap running on the surface, much to his old master’s annoyance.
"Your shields are impressive. You've clearly been trained—likely Force-sensitive."
Cal tried for a neutral expression.
"If you won’t cooperate willingly, and since your shields are strong enough to keep me from confirming the truth of your statements, we will have to resort to more... unpleasant methods."
Cal swallowed. Master Tapal wouldn’t actually torture him, would he?
The massive Lasat nodded to a trooper, who moved behind Cal.
"Generally, I prefer to avoid such methods. But my padawan is missing, and I will do what is necessary to keep him safe."
A sharp sting. Pressure at the back of Cal’s neck. Something was injected.
Oh good, Cal thought. You're really doing a fine job. Though he knew he was being unfair to his old master.
"Do you know where my padawan is?"
The world went warm and fuzzy. He couldn’t remember why he hadn’t wanted to talk to his master before. What a great opportunity to finally talk to someone he’d missed so badly.
"Yes," Cal said easily.
Oh no. Truth serum. This was bad.
Tapal leaned forward, studying him. Something about this human—especially his Force signature and those green eyes—seemed familiar. But he could have sworn he’d never seen this man in his life.
"Where is my padawan now?"
"On Naboo."
Master Tapal gave a frustrated growl.
"Anger is unbecoming of a Jedi Master," Cal muttered before he could stop himself.
"Where specifically is my padawan? Is he in danger?"
"He’s somewhere you won’t find him. As for danger—well, I mean, he’s always in danger. So that’s more of a relative question. He probably won’t die immediately."
Well, this isn’t painting me in a flattering light, Cal thought. The more I talk, the more it sounds like I kidnapped my younger self.
"Where is he?"
Through gritted teeth, Cal muttered, "In this room."
"Dose him again. He must have built up resistance to the drug."
"Sir, that would be above the recommended safe dose for a human."
Well, so much for Cal being out of immediate danger.
"Dose him, trooper."
Another sting in his neck. Moments later, Cal had trouble forming thoughts. Why was he listening to Huttese rap again?
"Now—where is my padawan?"
"Here. And on Jedha. Maybe. If Jedha still exists," Cal said absently.
"Sir, Jedha is on the other side of the sector. There’s no way the commander could’ve gotten there already."
"Start tracking all flight logs to Jedha. Immediately."
"Yes, sir. But... we may have overdosed him. He also said ‘here.’ The info might be unreliable."
"I’m aware. We’ll work with what we have."
Tapal turned back to Cal.
Cal smiled loopily.
"Who are you working for?"
Oh good. An easy one, Cal thought.
"No one. I’m completely alone."
It was a sad thought. If he weren’t so detached, he might’ve felt it more deeply.
The answer only seemed to frustrate the old Jedi Master further. If his padawan had been kidnapped, then someone had to be working with this man.
"What is your mission?"
Cal considered the question for a moment.
"Save my family. Then, if I can, save some of the galaxy. It’s too big a job for any one person to save all of it. More likely I’ll die trying. But it’ll be in that order."
He shrugged, clearly too drugged to put much emotion into the answer.
Well, that wasn’t very helpful. Saving the galaxy could mean a lot of things—some good, some bad.
Still, if he had a family, he wasn’t a Jedi. And he had a lightsaber. That wasn’t generally a good sign.
"How did you get that lightsaber? Where were you trained in the Force?"
The man frowned, confused. The answer should have been obvious.
"Ilum. And the Temple. Where else?"
That simplified things. A rogue Jedi would be in the Temple’s files. All Tapal needed was a DNA sample.
"Hey, I have a question. Why are we on Naboo?"
Tapal raised an eyebrow. Was the man asking why his troops were here? He wouldn’t say, of course. And if the man was asking why he was here, the serum might’ve been too strong.
"Never mind. It had something to do with the senator, right?"
That was alarming.
He and his padawan had been assigned to protect the Naboo senator for the past week due to the Confederacy’s heightened interest. What did this mercenary want with her?
The Jedi Master stood, heading for the door. He needed to check on the senator.
"Take a blood sample and send it to the Temple for DNA matching," he ordered the trooper as he passed. Then, he paused. An obvious question he hadn’t yet asked struck him.
He turned back.
"What is your name?"
No response.
The strange man had passed out—face smushed against the table, mouth slightly open, ginger hair sticking up in odd angles.
Master Tapal shook his head. For the briefest moment, the man reminded him of how Cal used to fall asleep at his desk late at night when he was supposed to be studying.
He needed to find his padawan.