"I have placed inside this Vault a Jedi holocron containing a list of names and locations of young Force-sensitives throughout the galaxy."
"The fate of the Jedi Order lies in your hands."
Those words ran through Cal's mind over and over again as he made his journey back to the Mantis. The little droid now sitting his back, BD-1, was who Cere needed him to find. Now that he had, the weight of Eno Cordova's words was crushing his chest. He'd managed to remember a glimpse of his training with Master Tapal, allowing him the ability to wall run and shorten his journey to the ship.
When he returned, he saw Cere waiting for him on the ramp. As he approached, her expression became hopeful as she said, "You passed the test."
BD looked over his shoulder at Cere, Cal grinning at the little droid as he spoke to the former Jedi. "So, you knew about BD-1?"
She chuckled, gesturing for him to follow and saying, "Come on board. We'll talk inside."
Y/n heard the doors opening again from the medical cot, and stood up to greet Cal back from his journey. She didn't expect to see a little droid jumping from his shoulder as soon as he came back on board. "Oh, BD-1, this is Greez and Y/n. Hey, guys," Cal smoothly said.
Y/n's grin widened as BD-1 scampered up onto the common room table and hopped on the sofa, Greez letting out, "What is that??" BD let out a few beeps, Greez's eyes widening once he realized the droid was on his couch. "Get off my sofa! Get! Get off my sofa! Get outta there! Get out!" Greez exclaimed as he ran the little droid back to Cal's legs.
"That is BD-1," Cal answered his first question. "He's with us."
"I don't care who he's with!" Greez bit back, looking from Cal to his precious sofa. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to get oil stains out of potolli-weave fabric?!"
As Greez tried to scrub it out with his hands, Cal carelessly said, "Not really."
"Well, I think he's wonderful," Y/n spoke as she knelt down to the droid, mostly to get on Greez's nerves. BD-1 placed his head under her hands for her to pet his head, causing her to laugh at the movement. "Oh! It's nice to meet you, BD."
Boo-bee-boop
"He said-"
"'Nice to meet you, too'," Y/n finished for Cal, looking up at him with raised brows. "I know Binary. In the lower levels of Coruscant, you kinda have to."
Boop beep-bo trill!
While BD-1 was just happy someone else understood him, Cal's thoughts caught onto what Y/n had said. She was from the lower levels of Coruscant? He wondered if perhaps she was anywhere near the Jedi Temple while he was still a Youngling, or even during his training as a Padawan.
"I hope you found something better out there than this droid," Greez scowled as Y/n stood.
"Oh, calm down, Greez. He did," Cere silenced the Latero. She looked to Cal, who sat on the stairs leading to the kitchen. "Tell us, Cal."
Y/n sat down on the couch beside Cal as he began, saying, "The Vault was built by an ancient civilization called the Zeffo. A Jedi named Eno Cordova hid something inside of it."
"What did he hide inside?" Cere anxiously questioned him.
"A holocron from the Archives," Cal paused. "It contains a list of Force-sensitive children."
Y/n's eyes widened at the words, while Cere gave a breath of disbelief. "The next generation of Jedi. I knew it!" She stepped away with a smile on her face, wider than one Y/n had seen from her in a long time. "Ah, Cordova, you old fool!"
"You knew him?" Cal asked.
"Yes," she grinned, looking back to the Padawan. "A long time ago. I was his apprentice. Cordova was a loner. That little droid and I are probably the only ones that know about Bogano."
"Present company excluded?" Y/n questioned with a cheeky grin.
"Hold on, wait a minute, wait a minute. A holo-what?" Greez spoke up, his face scrunched into confusion.
"A holocron. It stores information but only accessible to Jedi," Cere explained, and stepped away from the conversation. "Hang on, I think I have one around here."
"I thought all the holocrons were destroyed after the Emperor took over the Temple," Y/n voiced, following Cere into the kitchen.
"Wait, you know what a holocron is?" Cal asked her, his brows raised in surprise.
Y/n remained silent for a moment, shifting from one foot to the other until she said, "My mother worked in the Temple before the Purge."
Before Cal could question her any more, Cere returned with the holocron in her hands. The light blue of the box shined lightly in her hands as she gave it to Cal. "Use the Force," she told him, and sat down at the dinner table.
Cal glanced at the spectators around him before closing his eyes and focusing on the holocron in his hand. The feeling of the Force flowing through his veins became more and more familiar with each use, and sure enough, the tips of the holocron clicked open, spread, and allowed the message within to be relayed as it hovered in the air.
"This is Master Obi-Wan Kenobi," the hologram inside began. It was a man in Jedi clothing with a beard and short hair. "I regret to report that both our Jedi Order and the Republic have fallen."
Cal closed the holocron, the memory resurfacing of that day. The box fell into his hand as Cere said, "With that list of Force-sensitives, we could rebuild the Jedi Order and defeat the Empire."
"Okay, no problem. Let's get it," Greez spoke easily, raising his hands in a 'let's do it' fashion as he went to start up the ship.
"I highly doubt it'll be that easy," Y/n stated and the others caught the doubt in her tone.
"Y/n's right," Cal said, stopping Greez in his tracks. "The holocron is hidden deep inside the Vault and to get it we need to follow Cordova's path. He mentioned something about the planet Dathomir and a Zeffo homeworld."
"Alright, well, where are we going? I'm just asking 'cause I was thinking of maybe making some food," Greez questioned innocently.
Cal ignored the statement, looking to Cere as he said, "Look, before we do anything, I need to know something." He set the holocron down on the table as he looked her in the eye. "How come you're no longer a Jedi?"
Cere's gaze turned downward, unable to meet his own. "I had an experience that... changed my perspective. So I... cut myself off from the Force."
Cal sat beside her, pondering her words. "But you still want to rebuild the Order?"
"I believe that rebuilding the Order is the best chance we have against the Empire," Cere stated in certainty. "What do you believe?"
Cal tilted his head in thought, looking from the other two back to Cere. "I believe I can't keep hiding from the Empire, so I don't really have a choice." His words ended with an ironic chuckle.
"Cal, as long as you're alive, you will always have a choice," Cere told him. "Are you with us?"
The young Jedi gave a glance to BD-1, who nodded up at the attention. Looking back at the others, Cal said, "We're in."
Twee-de-do!
"Dathomir or Zeffo, it's your choice," Greez told the boy, stepping away to man the ship.
Cal stood, making his way over to the holotable in the center of the ship. Above it, three planets were showcased for him to pick from. One was, of course, Bogano, while the other two were Dathomir and Zeffo. Given the stories he had heard about Dathomir when he was a youngling, he didn't think he was quite ready to head to a planet so deeply rooted in the dark side of the Force. Making his decision, he chose Zeffo to start.
Y/n had come up to join the others in the cockpit, but something on Cal's arm caught her eye. "Hold on, Cal," she stopped him, the Jedi looking to her quizzically. She took his arm in her hand, seeing an ugly, large red cut above his wrist. She gave him a look that said 'really?' and said, "Cal, this is a serious scratch. Why didn't you tell me?"
"Y/n, it's nothing. I'm fine," Cal brushed it off until she stood in front of him with her arms crossed. "I had a bad run-in with the oggdo. BD's healing stims took care of it."
"Looks like it," Y/n sarcastically mumbled. "At least let me bandage it. I don't want it to get infected and lose our only Jedi. Those stims are probably the only reason you're still alive."
Cal shook his head with a disbelieving look in his eye. "I appreciate your faith in me."
"Oh, come on. Just let me clean it up and put a bacta patch on it. You'll be good as new for whatever is waiting on Zeffo," she insisted, her face stern as she looked him over.
"Fine," Cal let out a sigh.
She took him by the arm to lead him back to the medical cot where all her supplies were. She motioned for him to sit, and he watched as she rummaged around the multiple boxes in the walls before pulling out two gloves and putting them on. She sprayed a small amount of liquid onto the wound before gently dabbing it down with a cloth. Her eyes glanced over to just under his forearm and caught sight of a tattoo that went up the underside of his arm. "What's this?" she questioned, her finger gently tapping the ink.
Cal looked down to see what she was referring to, and said, "It's an employee tag for the Scrapper Guild on Bracca. Every scrapper has one." He shifted a little in his seat at the touch. Any time he had an injury on Bracca, most of the time he would have to take care of it himself. The gentle touch Y/n had when merely cleaning the smallest wound was foreign to him now. There was a reason he had so many scars from accidents around the scrapyard.
"They really make you feel like you can't leave, huh?" Y/n questioned, finishing up cleaning the wound.
"Yeah, I guess so," Cal commented with a nod. He pursed his lips as a question came to his mind. "Hey, earlier you said your mother worked in the Jedi Temple." He saw her still for a moment before turning to collect a bacta patch from her supplies. "Where did she work?"
"I don't want to talk about her," Y/n snapped back, still not facing him.
"I know you still don't trust me," he started, and she finally turned back to face him. "But if you want me to trust you, this is a two way street. And I don't mean to... pry, but I just- I'd like to know."
Y/n tapped her finger for a moment, letting a sigh escape her as she approached him with the patch. "I guess it's better I tell you now than later," she muttered, and Cal's expression changed to that of confusion. "My mother is the dean of medicine for the Empire, one of their top ranking officers. But before that, she was a doctor for the Jedi."
Cal tried to keep the surprise in his eyes to a minimum at her words. Her mother working for the Empire and being one of their highest officers was a shock to his core. He didn't want to make her talk about the Empire more if she didn't want to, but his confusion coursed through him as he asked, "I thought the medical bay was just droids?"
"Not everything can be handled by a droid," she replied as she began peeling the patch from its film. "Droids work too quickly. Their scans barely touch the surface of what could possible be wrong with someone. They don't look at all the symptoms, and never give a full observation." She brought his arm closer to her as she applied the patch. "My mother saw this, so she saw to it that they had people working in the medical bay just as much as droids to assure good service. Now, she does the exact same thing for the Empire."
Cal could hear the venom in her tone while she smoothed the bacta over his wound. It stung a little at first, but soon it was replaced with a soothing, warm sensation. "I'm sorry," Cal spoke up when Y/n threw away her gloves. She gave him a quizzical look, urging him to continue. "About your mom. It... can't be easy."
Y/n shook her head, but her eyes held little remorse. "Don't be sorry. She chose her path, and I chose mine. If anything, I should be the one saying that." Now it was Cal's turn to seem confused. "She's serving the very order that destroyed yours, one that she dedicated her life to."
"Like you said. She chose her path, you chose yours," Cal stated while giving her a tiny smile.
A sense of comfort passed between them, but it was broken when Y/n cleared her throat slightly and said, "We should probably get back up there before Greez yells at us."
Cal gave a laugh at her words, standing and adjusting his arm. "Yeah, probably." Cal motioned for her to go by first, walking behind her as they reached the common area once more. Something on the wall by the kitchen caught his eye. It was a long trough filled with dirt, but no plant life was sprouting from it. "Hey, Greez. What's this thing?" Cal asked, making his way towards the cockpit.
"What? You've never seen a terrarium before?" Greez called back as Cal came into view.
"Sure, but don't they usually have plants in them?"
Greez gave him a side eye as he said, "Well, I've been a bit busy hauling you around the galaxy. But, you know you could pay me back with some seeds."
"I thought you hated nature," Cal commented as he sat in the co-pilot's seat. When he saw Y/n's playfully raised eyebrow at him taking her seat, he merely gave her a shrug back, grinning widely.
"When it's out there, you betcha. But when it's behind a comfortably thick wall of Umbaran glass? That's perfection."
Cal gave a light sigh, saying, "All right. I'll see if I can find any."
"Greez doesn't like it when things get out of his control," Y/n spoke up from her seat behind the Latero.
"Hey, don't you go complaining when we've got a lovely array of flora sitting safely and securely behind that glass," Greez said as he pointed a finger in the air. As he lifted up from Bogano, a silence came over the ship. Y/n had her blaster in her hand, working on cleaning up the different parts, when she hard Greez break the ice with, "Must be hard watching all your friends get gunned down. I mean, ya know, purged, or whatever."
"Greez, seriously?" Y/n spoke up as Cal put his head down. BD-1 gave a saddened boooop.
"What?" he asked, looking back at the droid and the doctor. "It helps to talk about it? Right? No?"
Y/n sighed with a shake of her head as Cere answered instead. "Yes. It was difficult, but you must cope, not forget. We must remember the mistakes of the past and change things going forward to make sure they never happen again." The pointed way she spoke made Y/n feel Cere aimed that answer to Cal, not Greez.
"Sounds like you're not too sure everything is gonna work out."
"How can we be?" Y/n answered instead. "I mean, we're trying to do something that hasn't been done for thousands of years. Building an entire new order isn't going to be easy."
"That's why adaptation is important," Cere spoke up once more as they entered hyperspace. "Whether it's a course of action or an idea, we all have to be ready to change."
They all knew Cere's words rang true. The journey they were setting on, Cordova's path, was going to change the course of their lives forever. To live with it, they needed to adapt and change with it.