[Video]

[out_of_order]

Hey guys! Got some good news for you.

[Cal smiles as he turns the communicator's camera about to show the Replicator sitting on a worktable within the salvage shop. BD-1 stands on top of it, poking a foot at the light indicators.]

Finally got this thing fixed. It's running apart from the main power grid though, so the output might not be as much as it was before, but it's working now. I can have this thing moved back to the um... "Whale Comb Sent Her" unless anyone has any suggestions for somewhere else.

Comments

[out_of_order]

It had just been easier to trust people here because most of them weren't from where he'd come from, and there were no expectations, no misinformation or reasons anyone would look at him sideways or come after him. It was starting fresh. But then the past followed him here, proving Cal couldn't step away from things. Then again, the storm had been proof enough of that.

Looking at Tony, he smirked a bit as the man tried to state his case. Tony was someone he'd come to trust, and so he made no attempt to explain traditions and meanings that had little place here. The man knew his way around technical things, and Cal was interested to see what sort of design he'd come up with for a lightsaber hilt.

"I'll ask him," he promised. That was the least he could do, anyway.

He'd thought that they were getting past the heavy topics. The question caught him off guard, and there was obvious hesitation in answering. "...my master saved me. He died trying to protect me when we were trying to get to the escape pods. I couldn't do anything to help him." Cal's gaze drifted towards the ground as he spoke. Those moments were always so fresh in his memories. "He'd overloaded the reactors on the ship to mask our escape in the explosion. My pod landed on Bracca, and that's where I stayed until recently. At first I waited, thought maybe the Council would send word or something, that we'd regroup and do something. That never happened."

He shook his had. "I'm not sure how Ben survived. I didn't want to ask. It's been longer for me and it's still hard to recount." He'd only gotten the impression that it had been a similar story with him, and with all Jedi that day, once the clones had gotten the order. "The clones... I think they became the start of the Imperial Army. Some of the Purge Troopers I've come across were clone troopers, trained specifically to take down surviving Jedi."

[in_extremis]

The answer about the clones was much broader than the one Tony was looking for, but he muttered, "Purge Troopers..." with a nod of understanding, gathering what that 'purge' must have been for and the wider implication of what the Jedis lives must have been like since this betrayal. No wonder Kenobi had been so weird about it.

Cal's caution around telling his story had Tony cringing cautiously away at first, not sure he was prepared to handle any emotional fallout he had just incurred, but even that brief recount resonated with Tony in a way he wasn't sure he could properly relate--was it even the same, watching Yinsin die for him, after everything he already did for Tony?--so he leaned closer instead to slide a commiserate hand up Cal's back. He knew what living with that guilt was like, anyway, and how many of his choices were informed by it, like being prepared so it couldn't happen again. "This thing'll be done in no time, you'll be embarrassing Jon again before you know it," he promised, twisting another piece of the lightsaber in his free hand.

[out_of_order]

There really didn't seem like anything to be said. The guilt would always be there, but Cal knew that he couldn't let it keep eating at him, and he'd been reminded by Echo of all people not to take the sacrifices of those lost for granted.

Actions spoke when words couldn't be found, and even as Tony pushed on in his usual fashion, getting some distance from the subject was an appreciated one. "What, that's not your job?" he laughed. "Thanks Tony. I look forward to seeing what you come up with."