Astera:
Flashing messages popped up on the datapad's screen once again, none of them good. I groaned and set it back down on the display table with a little too much force, covering my face with my hands. None of us had the expertise to really use the data we'd collected like Tech could, and without him, we were getting nowhere. I'd been limited to manually checking every recorded planet in every system in the sector we knew Omega was in now, and I'd found nothing.
'When have we ever followed orders?' I fought the urge to glance at his smashed goggles and closed my eyes instead, focusing back to our most recent visit to Pabu in an effort to distract myself. The three cadets we'd rescued had been in a state of shock the second they'd stepped off the ship and encountered the peace of the planet, and we'd decided to stay a day or two to help them adjust to their new life.
At least I've been able to give Cleex another lesson too. His training was going well, or about as well as it could be considering we only stopped around Pabu every so often. I'd more or less given up on trying to teach him only how to use the Force correctly after the first couple weeks, when he'd pestered me to no end to learn how to use a lightsaber. He had been right about Eriadu after all, however regretfully. It would be a waste of his talents to leave him at that. He still couldn't be a Jedi, but I'd bring him up to be as close to one as I could.
Narri had told me almost tearfully that he was finally starting to make friends - now that he'd learned to properly harness his abilities, he was less afraid to speak to the other children on the island, actively showing them what he could and even creating new games to play with them. In return, they'd all worked together to create him his own Padawan braid, made from scrap beads they'd likely pilfered from their own families. It was nowhere near traditional, but the kid wore it religiously, despite my best attempts to tell him he didn't need it.
I yawned again, rubbing my face and blinking sleepily at the display in front of me, the words starting to blur together the longer I stared. It had been another of those sleepless nights, and keeping awake for nearly two days was starting to wear on me. I needed a break, but it felt wrong to even try to rest when Omega was still out there. Maybe I could just put my head down for a few minutes...
"Astera!"
I jerked upright, nearly knocking the datapad to the floor as I rubbed at bleary eyes and squinted at a concerned looking Hunter, his hand around my upper arm. "What?"
"You haven't been sleeping again, have you?" It wasn't a question. I just shrugged it off, stifling another yawn.
"Sleep's not important. We need to find Omega." That was only half the reason and he knew it. But I wasn't really in the mood to talk about it again, quickly shifting my attention towards Wrecker and Omega's Lula in his other hand. "What's with the doll?"
He glanced at it with a sigh and held it out almost sheepishly, scratching the back of his neck. "Can you try again?"
"Hunter... I tried every day for weeks when it first happened. It's the same thing every time. There's too much of Wrecker to get anything from it."
"Please."
I looked at him for a long, agonising moment, but took the Lula from him when he offered it again, crossing my legs as best as I could in the chair and inhaling in, then out, before my mind reached into the doll in search of the wisps of its owners.
Grey sky, Wrecker in the cockpit, smoke rising into the air, blinding white light, the Marauder, blue fur. All I could catch were the briefest of flashes before the scene would shift again, the Force echo in the doll too caught between Wrecker and Omega to settle fully on either of them.
My temple pulsed sharply and I winced, pulling my mind free before the pain could intensify. The first time I'd tried tracking Omega, I'd stayed too long out of sheer desperation to find her and nearly fainted from the effort. Hunter had broken me out of my trance before it was too late, but not before I'd given myself a wicked nosebleed that hadn't stopped for nearly five standard minutes. I would have kept going if it meant I could catch a glimpse of anything helpful, but Hunter had decided it was too much of a risk to keep at it for so long at a time. Since then it had only been fleeting attempts every so often, each time turning out exactly the same as it had before.
"Nothing." I shook my head regretfully and handed Lula back to him. "It's still too fast to make anything out. I'm sorry."
He sighed and set the doll back into its original place, propped up against the gunner's chair where it would stare at us all day long. "It was worth a try."
My mouth twisted, and almost impulsively I reached out to touch the dark tattoo on his face, delicately tracing the shape of the skull with my fingertips. His eyes closed with a low sigh, leaning into my touch as I flattened my palm against his cheek. "We're gonna find her. We won't give up until we do."
"That could take years." His voice was rough, rougher than I'd ever heard it before. "And I don't know how long Wrecker and I have. We age just like the regs do. We don't have a lifetime."
"Even if it takes that long, I'll keep searching for her. I promise."
Hunter made no reply, only covered the hand still on his face with his own and gently lowered his mouth to mine again. He didn't have to say anything. His kiss was all the response I needed.
No sooner than I'd drawn away from him did Wrecker appear in the doorway, mock groaning as soon as he saw us with a roll of his eyes and a teasing grin. "Do you have to in front of me? This is a small ship!"
I hurriedly stepped away from Hunter, cheeks flaming hot like I was a child caught doing something wrong and arched my eyebrows at him in an attempt to maintain nonchalance. "Something you need to tell us, Wrecker?"
"Yeah, actually, there was." He hesitated, rubbing the back of his head and searching for the right words, before finally just putting it bluntly. "I think we got a message from the kid."
I straightened, all embarrassment forgotten by the implications of his news. Beside me, Hunter did the same, brushing past me to grab his brother by the shoulder. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah, I'm sure. It's all in code, and she's the only one other than us who knows them."
"What did the message say?" It was suddenly very difficult not to leap at him and demand answers - I forced my trembling hands to smooth over my pants to recover some semblance of calm.
"She wants us to meet her on that moon in the Ryloth system. Where we met the Syndulla kid."
Hunter glanced at me almost automatically, the hopeful look in his eyes perfectly replicating my own emotions. It had to be her then. Only Omega would know to choose that moon as a remote meeting place.
"It's her," I said softly, my voice nearly breaking on the second her. After all this time, we'd found her. Or more accurately, she had found us. The specifics didn't matter. We were finally going to see her again, after all these months.
The smile pulling at the corners of Hunter's mouth was real, the first one I'd seen him even try to make since she'd been taken. "Well, then what are we waiting for? Let's go get her."
*******
My earlier exhaustion had been completely erased in the wake of knowing we were about to see Omega again, and now it was nearly impossible to keep myself still as the ship hurtled through hyperspace. I was sitting down, getting up to pace the ship for several lengths before giving up again and taking a seat in a new spot, all in the span of a few minutes. The wait was killing me, but I was sure that my incessant restlessness was about to drive both Wrecker and Hunter mad.
Though there was no other ship on our radar when the Marauder finally shot out of hyperspace, and nothing when we settled at the coordinates she'd sent us. Despite the message coming from her, it looked like we'd arrived before she had.
With nothing else to do but wait, I forced myself to perch cross legged at the edge of the gunner's mount, meditating in an attempt to calm my jittery thoughts. It was barely working - my mind would always wander back to her no matter how many times I refocused on my breathing.
I felt the ship enter the atmosphere before I saw it, abruptly jolting out of the tentative trance I'd finally achieved after what felt like hours and hopping off the gunner's mount to head for the cockpit. The landing ramp was already lowered, all we had to do was watch the ship land.
It wasn't until Hunter's fingers interlaced with my own that I realised I'd grabbed for his hand, unconsciously seeking his support as I'd done a lot over the last few months. Our gazes met and he offered me an encouraging smile, one I tried my best to return.
Wrecker was the first one to get up and go for the exit when the other ship settled on the moon and its own landing ramp lowered, planting both hands on his hips and laughing uproariously when he spied the young girl already waiting on the surface.
"Now there's a sight!" He disappeared from the landing ramp, nearly sprinting across the moon's surface in his haste to get to her. Every single cell in my body wanted to run out the ship after him, but I forced myself to hold back - Wrecker needed his moment with her first.
Even so, I could only resist the urge for about a minute or two before I squeezed Hunter's hand and let go, moving for the doorway as well. It was more than difficult, but somehow I managed to keep my pace at a very controlled walk, stopping a few steps away from the bottom of the ramp to watch Wrecker engulf her in a huge hug with folded arms and the first genuine smile I'd had in months.
"I wasn't even sure your message was real." I couldn't see his face, but judging from the thickness in his voice, he was either already crying or trying to hold himself back. Omega squeezed her eyes shut and wrapped her arms around his neck even tighter
"Wrecker!" She sniffled as he set her down, wiping at her eyes with a weak attempt to smile. "I knew you'd show up."
"Come on, Wrecker." I couldn't help but call over, injecting a little light amusement into my words for her sake. "Let the rest of us get a chance to see her."
She glanced over Wrecker's shoulder at the sound of my voice, and her eyes somehow lit up even more, glistening brightly through the tears as she broke into a run for me. "Astera!"
I managed to hold myself together until she wrapped her arms around my neck so forcefully I actually stumbled back a step. Then the block I'd so carefully constructed around my emotions was cut down in one fell swoop.
Years. It had been years since I'd last let myself cry, and it was all undone in a second when my arms went around her, tears slipping free and falling down my cheeks despite my best efforts to will them back. She was crying again too - my blacks were rapidly becoming damp at the shoulder - and she was squeezing me so tightly I could barely breathe, but I could have cared less. What mattered was that she was back, with us, and I was never letting her go again.
"Omega, your hair." I smoothed a hand over her head, the blonde locks now so long she had to keep it tied back. She finally pulled back enough that I could see her face, and all I could think of was how much older she looked. How different she was from the always grinning, implicitly trusting child that I'd first met on Ord Mantell. And so much of it had happened because she was taken from us. "When did it get so long?"
"Guess you'll have to teach me to braid it now." She smiled through her own tears, brushing some away with a weak attempt at a laugh. "Then we can match."
"Don't make me cry again." Even so, I couldn't help my own small laugh and drew back, keeping both hands on her shoulders as I checked her over. "How did you even find us?"
"We crossed the galaxy four times looking for you." Wrecker added, coming up behind her and wiping away at tear tracks shining clearly on his cheeks. Already crying then.
"Five." Hunter appeared in the doorway of the Marauder, descending the steps until he was hovering at my shoulder with a proud expression. "But you're the one who found us."
She didn't say anything this time, just threw herself into his waiting arms with tears filling her eyes for the third time. Wrecker punched me in the arm with another laugh, and this time I couldn't help but chuckle, folding my arms and watching their reunion with a smile that now seemed permanently fixed in place.
"We missed you, kid." Hunter told her with a small smile, Omega scrubbing furiously at the dampness staining her cheeks. "We never stopped searching." He paused briefly as the thought occurred to him. "But... How did you escape?"
Omega grinned almost sheepishly at him. "I had help."
"Help?" I questioned - the back of my neck prickled and I turned before she had the chance to answer, Wrecker doing the same beside me and Hunter slowly getting back to his feet. I could feel his presence before he'd even descended the ship's steps, muscles tensing and brows lowering as the expressions of both the clones around me drew tight. Omega glanced between us, her forehead creasing as she observed our reactions, before turning that same look on him, like she was worried about what he would do.
Crosshair paused at the bottom of the landing ramp, gazing at us enigmatically from across the distance.