DEFECTED | cal kestis [1]✔️

iv. you want the estimated or actual number?

Returning to the Mantis and telling Cere and Greez about Cordova and setting coordinates to the planet Zeffo, Cal went to find TN. He figured she would be in one of the rooms or possibly in the lower hold which could be accessed from his room.

BD-1 opened one of the doors leading to a room. Inside was dark and not occupied. The droid opened the other door and ran in, beeping and trilling. Cal followed and slowly walked into the room. It was unoccupied but the shower compartment in the back told him TN was in here.

"Beeop!" Look at this!

Cal looked to his droid and noticed a Stormtrooper helmet resting on a chest beside a messy desk. Walking over, he picked up the object and sensed the memory attached to it. He let the Force show him and listened to the memory.

Please! Don't kill me!

You're a Jedi and a pest to the Empire.

NO!

Another memory came to him when his hands skimmed a scorched part on her helmet. The sound of a lightsaber could be heard and a little girl's cries made his chest tighten.

Get away from me! I don't wanna die!

This...This is wrong...I'm not--AH!

Opening his eyes, Cal looked at the helmet again. He did not know whether or not to be sympathetic or angry toward the girl he was going to apologize to. The Force Echoes were enough to make him change his mind, but he remembered the hurt and the anger she had toward the Empire.

She was made to be expendable. She was made into a mindless soldier to the Empire and raised to think the Jedi and Rebels were nothing but rats and vermin.

But she helped in killing Jedi, a part of Cal thought bitterly.

The door to the shower compartment opened and TN walked out. She jumped back, a small shriek escaping her lips as she looked at him. She gripped the towel wrapped around her so it did not fall from her body. Subconsciously, Cal started to look her over. Her skin was a nice tan, small pale scars spread across her shoulders, and he could make out the faint scars on her collar bone and her neck. The way it looked reminded him of a lightsaber injury.

"What are you doing in here?! And put that down!"

She walked forward and snatched the helmet out of his hands and put it on her desk, her towel slightly coming down from her chest. Blushing a dark pink, he turned around and looked elsewhere as TN grabbed a long sleeve shirt and black leggings from a bin in the far left corner. She then grabbed a beige vest and walked behind a changing sheet.

"I came to apologize." Cal forced himself to say and looked at the ceiling. "What I said to you earlier was--"

"I don't want your apology. What you said to me is true." TN cut off, her voice wavering from being annoyed. She emerged from behind the sheet, now dressed and her hair was pulled back in a bun.

"But I could have worded some of it better?"

"Again, I don't want your apology."

TN walked to her desk and picked up the Stormtrooper helmet, her fingers gliding over the painted over scorch mark. She remembered that young Jedi attacking her then being killed by a Purge Trooper.

"How many Jedi did you kill?" Cal asked, his voice quiet.

"You want the estimate or the actual number?" She asked him, not looking up from the helmet. Cal could sense the pain and guilt radiating off her as she set the helmet down and stood, immediately falling on her bed.

"You killed that many?"

"I only killed them when the lives of my team were threatened. As for capturing and sending them to the Empire...it's not a pretty statistic."

"How many?"

"Thirty-three, and that includes Younglings and Padawans. Now go away before you decide to insult or blame me for something which happened while I was training at the Academy."

TN turned away from him and buried herself under the blankets on her bed, ending the conversation between them. BD-1 beeped to her and hopped down from Cal's shoulder. The small droid nuzzled the girl in a comforting way before hopping back on the boy's back, Cal walking out of her room and into his.

He needed to meditate and figure out how to work or, at least, tolerate TN-0237. But the more he thought about it, the the more the odds of working together looked extremely low and to the point of catching fire.