Purge (Star Wars)

Kyber

Merrin stands in the doorway to the cockpit smiling at the scene unfolding before her. Adia had insisted on being the co-pilot for the trip to Daiyu so Cal, having given her his chair, is now trying to answer her questions about the control panels and displays that surround her. However, each time he begins to answer one question, he is only able to say a few words before she asks another. After several minutes of this he has to hold back his laughter at each new question. Cere is in her usual place at the communications station trying to filter through the Imperial transmissions they had intercepted and stored before jumping to hyperspace, but all she has been able to accomplish so far is stifle her own laughter. Greez, on the other hand, isn't even trying to hide it but bellows each time she cuts him off.

After a while Cal turns to Cere, "When you told me I would be tested as a Jedi, this is not what I expected."

"There are few things in the galaxy that test one's patience as much as children. You're doing very well," Cere offers as encouragement. Adia reaches back behind the chair and tugs at his sleeve to get his attention and when he turns back to her, the questions start again.

A quiet metallic thump comes from farther back in the ship and Merrin turns away from the others to see what had caused it and notices Ilyana standing in the hallway to the crew quarters. The hatch to the garbage chute is open in front of her and she is removing items from a satchel then dropping them into the chute one by one.

"What are you doing?" Merrin asks as she approaches Ilyana.

"Just getting rid of some things," Ilyana answers as she pulls another item from the bag and Merrin sees the distinct features of her black and red Purge Trooper armor as she drops it in the chute.

"Your armor?"

"What's going on up there?" Ilyana asks, trying to avoid answering any questions.

"Cal is attempting to teach Adia about the ship," Merrin answers.

"She reminds me of someone," Ilyana says with a smile.

"Who?"

"I don't know. I think someone I knew... from before but I'm not sure."

"Your family perhaps?" Merrin offers.

"Maybe." Ilyana becomes still and her gaze shifts past the chute to something beyond, something not there, "Sometimes I think I can see them out of the corner of my eyes, like a shadow standing next to me and if I could catch just one clear glimpse it would all come back. Their names, their faces seem so close but when I turn to look, they're gone."

"I know what it is like to lose family, but I cannot imagine what it is like to forget them as well."

"Well, it doesn't really matter anymore," Ilyana continues dismissively in an attempt to hide what she's feeling. "They're gone and there's no way to get them back. So I have to let them go." she says looking down at the remaining pieces of armor in the satchel and thinks of all the time spent working, bleeding to earn this armor, yet how much she hated every moment she wore it. Merrin watches her quietly to give Ilyana a moment with her thoughts but just as Ilyana is about to speak again, Greez's voice breaks in over the internal comms.

"We're getting ready to land. Hold on," he says, pulling Ilyana out of her thoughts and back into the moment. She unceremoniously drops the remaining pieces of armor into the chute, closes it, and ejects the contents into their hyperspace trail.

"Time to move on," she says bluntly as the ship drops out of hyperspace.

"What about you?" Asks Merrin as they both grab nearby handholds to steady themselves as the ship drops into the atmosphere of Daiyu.