Ilyana steps up to the doorway to the common area as Adia rushes past her through the galley, down the short stairs and across the room to embrace her mother who had been talking to Cal and Cere near the holotable. Merrin is giving Greez a hard time in the galley as she helps him prepare their food. None of them have yet noticed Ilyana standing in the doorway.
The scene before her should have been comforting, welcoming; but it carries with it the sense of a dream, something she's looking in on from the outside rather than something she is a part of. To go so suddenly from that detention cell back to this place has left her rattled and not entirely convinced that she is truly here, as if she might wake from this dream at any moment to find herself back in that cell.
Adia says something to her mother that Ilyana cannot hear from this distance, but causes Cal and Cere to look up at her standing there in the doorway. Cere remains stoic while Cal breaks out into a huge smile.
"You're up!" He says enthusiastically, "We were beginning to think you'd be asleep for days."
"How long was I asleep?" She asks.
"About ten hours," Merrin answers.
"Dinner isn't ready yet," Greez interjects, "but I thought you might be hungry when you got up so..." he trails off as Merrin hands her a piece of bread, still warm from baking. When the smell hits her, Ilyana realizes she is famished and within seconds the bread is gone.
"You may want to slow down with that," says Cere but Greez is already handing her the rest of the loaf. Ilyana takes a seat at the table and begins tearing off pieces. With each bite, the dreamlike quality of the moment fades and the reality that she is actually back on the Mantis sets in, allowing her to begin to relax again. Merrin offers her some water and takes one of the other seats.
"When was the last time you ate?" Merrin asks, taking a piece of the bread herself.
"I don't know," Ilyana answers, then remembers Odoan handing her a dried piece of food from a ration pack back in that long, low building. Odoan... gone. Executed by the Inquisition along with the others. "I don't know how long I was on the cruiser."
"What happened down there?" Cere asks and Ilyana stops eating, her mind drifting back to the battle.
"Have some more," says Merrin, nodding to the bread to pull Ilyana back to the moment at hand.
"You seem to have been successful," Ilyana says, nodding toward Adia and the others know it is not the time for those questions.
"It was close," says Cal, as he starts across the room toward the galley, "Purge Troopers were closing in on them when we got there."
"I'm sure a few Purge Troopers wouldn't give you much trouble," Ilyana says.
"In my experience, Purge Troopers are nothing but trouble," Cal says, throwing Ilyana a pointed glance. Ilyana squints back at him for the implication as he steps up to the table but when he reaches for the bread Greez slaps his hand away.
"I made that for her," Greez says admonishingly.
"Okay," Cal says and starts to back away but as soon as Greez turns back to his cooking, Ilyana tears off a piece and stealthily hands it to Cal. Unfortunately, she is still a bit shaky from her ordeal and as she does so she accidentally brushes her hand against his. A blush rushes to her face and she pulls her hand back quickly, bringing it to her forehead to partially obscuring her face. She stares at the bread, hoping Merrin did not notice what just happened, but as much as she tries to hide it, Merrin saw it all too clearly. She also saw something Ilyana did not: as Cal walked back down the stairs he hesitated and looked back over his shoulder toward Ilyana and was blushing just as badly. Merrin could not help but chuckle at the sight.
"What do we do now?" Oloona asks.
"We train Adia."says Cere, "She becomes a Jedi."
"I don't know," Cal says, shaking his head, "The Empire has its sights aimed on us. We can't guarantee she'll be safe here."
"This isn't like the kids on the holocron, Cal. Those kids are still hidden but the Empire already knows about Adia. They're already coming for her. We have to teach her how to defend herself."
"True," Cal says, looking over at Adia, "which is why we need to find somewhere she'll be safe, somewhere she can be hidden."
"Cal," Cere pleads, "the Jedi Order is the best chance for the galaxy to be free of the Empire but there's no future for the Order without younglings. We can't turn away every opportunity we get. We don't have that luxury."
"Cere, she's six. Can we really ask her to fight the Empire?"
The ship is silent with tension. The rest of the crew have gone still, listening, waiting to see what they will decide. They know that this is a discussion between Jedi for the future of the Jedi. It is also the first Ilyana has heard about the fate of the holocron and it brought her an odd sense of closure.
"I don't want her to fight," Oloona says, breaking the silence, "I just want her to be a child, to be safe."
"Then that's what we'll do," Cal says decisively.
"There is a rumor," Ilyana says before Cere can argue further, "that all Purge Troopers are assigned to investigate; a standing order essentially. The intelligence division suspects that there are people, possibly organized but maybe not, who are sympathetic to the Jedi and help them and other fugitives escape the Empire. Perhaps, if they exist and can be found, they could help hide Adia as well."
"Why didn't you tell us about this sooner?" Cere asks, stepping toward Ilyana aggressively, her suspicions raised again.
"There was nothing to tell," Ilyana replies with sincere disappointment that she cannot offer more, "all we had were whispers, rumors, nothing concrete, nowhere to start. Our orders were to stay vigilant, on all of our missions, for any evidence of such activities. " Ilyana continues, awkwardly shifting her gaze between Cere and Cal. She has the undeniable feeling that she has stepped into the middle of a long debate and is unsure of how to continue.
"If there is no proof that these people are out there. How does this help us now?" Merrin asks, redirecting the conversation.
"I don't know that it will but you're on a different side of this than I was. People might be willing to talk to you when they would have just run from me."
"Cere," says Cal, "can you reach out to your contacts to see if anyone knows anything?"
"Okay," Cere says flatly. She holds Cal's stare for a moment, their disagreement far from over but put on hold for now.
Cere had only just turned and taken a step towards the cockpit when Oloona spoke up.
"What is she talking about?" Oloona asks, the faint sound of fear causing her voice to tremble. "She said 'our orders' that 'you're on a different side'. Who is she?"
Cal turns to Oloona and calmly explains, "She used to be a Purge Trooper but she defected. She's helping us now."
Panic rises on Oloona's face and she pushes Adia behind her as if to shield her from an attack that was not coming. "She's one of them !" Oloona shouts.
"Not anymore," Cal continues, trying to calm her.
"They destroyed our village, they hunted us and now you want us to trust one of them?"
Ilyana drops the bread she had been holding and looks away, her hunger immediately replaced by a sour, sick feeling in her stomach.
"I don't want her near my daughter!" Oloona continues, and quickly ushers Adia toward the crew quarters, skirting past Ilyana as if she might attack them at any moment.
No one moves until the sound of a closing door echoes through the ship, then Ilyana rises without a word and heads back to the engine room. She does not return for dinner.
"This is gonna be a long trip," Greez mutters.
The Mantis is hazy as if a fog has rolled through it. The crew speak without making a sound, but their feelings radiate from them. Greez and Adia glow with joy, a warm yellow refracting off the fog in a halo while Oloona is surrounded by a murky green haze of suspicion and nervousness. In her quarters, a shimmering blue embraces Merrin as she practices her craft. Whenever she connects to her power, even when she burns hot with her fire, her harmony with it reflects in the Force as peace. Now, that power and unity bursts forth from her like a quasar. The Jedi on the other hand emit anything other than harmony. The color is muddled and continuously fluctuating with the conflict between them: tension, love, sadness, hope.
Slowly all the lights of the crew dim and fade away and Ilyana is plunged into darkness, but not a heavy oppressive darkness. A darkness, like space where the light of a trillion stars surrounds her and the Force flows through each one of them. She travels for a time in the void until the sound of the galaxy begins to grow in her mind, a rhythmic hum that grows stronger and stronger, all the life moving together as one in the Force. Then she hears it, the voice, speaking over all the other beings.
Ah, there you are again.
Where do I find you? She asks in her mind.
You are already on your way. The Force will bring you to me.
"Hey," Cal's voice cuts through and she is back aboard the ship again. Ilyana had been sitting on the edge of her cot, eyes closed and a hand outstretched towards a small piece of metal floating in the center of the room. But now she sets it down gently onto the pipes running along the wall opposite her cot as Cal steps off the ladder.
"How's it going?" He asks, leaning against the pipe opposite her.
"Better," she answers with a nod. For the first couple days after her experience with Seventh Sister, Ilyana had not been able to reconnect to the Force but as her strength returned so did her connection.
"Are you hiding down here?"
"No, not hiding but I figured I should give them some space," she says, referring to Oloona and her daughter.
"I'm sorry. She shouldn't have said that about you."
"Don't apologize. She wasn't wrong."
"Yes she is. You're not like the others."
"But I am, Cal. I may have had different reasons for what I did but I inflicted just as much terror on people as any other Imperial. I brought just as many people back to the Fortress as any other Seeker. I did what was best for me even knowing their fate."
Cal's face darkens and he drops his head with a sigh.
"You said it yourself when we met, I could have gotten out. I knew of more than a few rebel groups I could have reached out to and while I didn't turn them in, I didn't leave with them either."
"Why didn't you leave with them?"
"I thought I had a better chance of reaching a Jedi if I stayed. Or at least that's what I told myself," she says then shakes her head, "Maybe I was just afraid. The Empire was all I ever knew."
"I guess there's a lot about you I still don't know," Cal says, gloomily.
"And most of it I'm not proud of. I know what I am, Cal. I have chosen to be something different moving forward but no matter what I do, I cannot undo what I've already done."
Cal sits quietly for a while, thinking. She can only imagine what's going through his mind and braces herself for what he'll say.
He takes a deep breath and finally speaks, "We all have things in our past we're not proud of but it shouldn't stop us from becoming who we want to be."
Ilyana rolls her eyes at him and laughs, "Don't ever lose that."
"Lose what?"
"Your persistent need to have faith in people and the steadfast belief that things can get better. The galaxy can use more of that."
"You don't think we can make things better?"
Ilyana looks down at her hands and shakes her head. "No. I've seen too much of what the Empire is capable of... I helped them do it." She looks back up at Cal, "I hope I'm wrong, though."
Call pushes off the pipe and joins her on the cot.
"You know, you give me too much credit. I had given up. I was in a dark place for a long time. It wasn't till I met my friends that I found hope again."
"But I can't imagine you ever hurting someone without reason."
"Maybe not without reason," Cal says, throwing her a half grin and a shrug, "but I lived on Bracca for a long time and that place could be a bit rough."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah. It wasn't long after I got there. I was at this bar, one of the few places to eat outside of the guild diners. It wasn't great but it was better than the diners."
Ilyana chuckles.
"This guy comes over and starts giving me trouble about being in his seat or something like that. I noticed other people in the bar watching. They wanted to see if I would just take it or stand up to the guy. So I took a swing at him. You should have seen it," he continues, waving his hands dramatically, "the whole bar was impressed. They'd never seen anything like it before!"
Cal pauses and half grins at Ilyana.
"You lost," she surmises.
"Badly!" he confirms, pointing at the scar on the bridge of his nose. "That's how I got this. I don't think anyone in that bar had ever seen someone lose so quickly."
Ilyana is unable to hold back any longer and laughs.
"Thank you," says Cal sarcastically, holding back a laugh of his own.
"I'm sorry," she says, getting her laughter under control. "So all that Jedi training never prepared you for a brawl?"
"Not at all! I was used to fighting with the force or a lightsaber but I couldn't use either of those without giving myself away, so. I did learn to keep my guard up though."
"That's important."
"On the bright side," he adds, "that's when I met Prauf. I guess he felt bad for me so he stepped in and looked after me after that."
Ilyana smiles, "That's a great story but hardly proves your point."
"True," he nods, "but you did laugh."
"Why did you really come down here?" She asks, smiling.
"If Cere gets good news back from her contacts, I want you with us."
"How does Oloona feel about that?"
"It doesn't matter." he says, taking her hand and squeezing it gently, "You're a part of this, you're the reason we found Adia. I want you there."
She nods her acceptance and he heads back to the ladder but before he can step on the first rung Ilyana speaks again.
"You destroyed the holocron?" she asks, causing Cal to come to a halt. In her time training with him, Ilyana has become accustomed to his presence in the Force. Usually it is even and controlled. Only when something is bothering him does it change, like a stone dropped in a still pool of water. She feels that ripple now.
"You still don't trust me," she says.
"No, it's not that," Cal says, turning back to her
"It's okay. I wouldn't trust me either."
"I do trust you," he insists, walking back to her and taking her hands, "I swear."
"You should know I was never assigned to hunt the holocron. I had only just finished my training and was away, following a lead when you infiltrated the Fortress. I only ask because so many Purge Troopers...," Ilyana pauses as Oloona's words rush back through her and she corrects herself, "well, so many of us were blamed when you stole it back. Many paid for it; an Inquisitor died for it." The look on Cal's face darkens again. "I'm not saying this to make you feel guilty," she adds quickly. "I just don't understand. After all of that, you destroyed it? Why?"
Cal releases her hands and leans back against the pipes opposite her cot. As he considers telling her, he realizes he has not yet explained to the rest of his crew exactly why he chose to destroy the holocron, just that he was certain it was the right thing to do, and he made a note to himself to tell Cere the next chance he had.
"I believed in the mission, at first," he begins, "but when I got the holocron from the vault I realized it should have stayed locked away, it wasn't the right time to use it. But by then it was too late."
"What made you change your mind?"
"When I was in the vault the Force gave me a vision. I saw myself training the younglings, but the Empire found us. My students were taken, they were hurt, and I..." Cal hesitates, even now the memory is difficult for him to relive and speaking it aloud even more so, "I became an Inquisitor. I knew then that using the holocron was the wrong thing to do."
"But none of that happened," Ilyana says. "Does that mean the visions are wrong, they can't be trusted?"
"No, just that the future is not set in stone. The Force was showing me what might happen if I continued down the path I was on. It's possible to change our path, but it's not always clear how to do that."
"They sound confusing," she says, scrunching her forehead.
Cal laughs and nods, "Yeah, it can be."
Ilyana hesitates then asks, "Is it always visions or can the Force present differently?"
"What do you mean?"
"The first time I connected to the Force, years ago, I heard a voice. Then when we were training back on Savareen I heard it again but neither time was there was an accompanying vision. Just the voice."
"Maybe it was an echo in the Force or a memory you lost; someone from your past?." Cal suggests.
"Maybe," she says pensively, "I feel like it's someone I'm supposed to know; someone I haven't met yet."
Cal thinks on that for a moment, "I don't know but my own training was limited. Cere might know more."
Ilyana sits back against the wall, "Maybe I'll ask her someday."