Chapter Text
When Master Qui-gon Jinn left the wartorn planet Melida/Daan, he took with him his fellow, Jedi Master Tahl, and his Padawan learner’s lightsaber.
He did not take his Padawan learner.
Critically, he also did not take Master Tahl’s lightsaber.
The aforementioned Padawan, lately General Ben Kenobi of the Young — that was right, wasn’t it? he wasn’t General of anything else yet — gaped for only a moment at the crystal. This was, he reflected as he hurried to wrap it in his cleanest bandage and stow it in his most secure pocket-bag, a discovery that could turn the tide. In armed conflict a trained Force user could be dangerous; a trained Force user armed with the weapon they knew could be devastating. It should have been hard for Ben to take up Master Tahl’s kyber, but it was no more resistant than the telltale bits of warped metal that peppered the small crater. Whoever had tried to use the crystal had done so without care or understanding, probably having tried to pry it open to see how it worked. A partial human silhouette still covered their face with an arm, distorted to Muun-like proportions against the curve of the room’s interior. They just had to have been trying to extract the kyber and power cell to put them towards a more destructive purpose. Good job. It wasn’t surprising that they would, only worrisome. If the Melida Elders — who had to have kept the lights on in this building so long for a reason — were trying to innovate new weapons, that was a concern. Generation after generation of war meant loss of knowledge, which meant the remaining population had no clue how to replicate the bombs that had leveled entire cities in the past — regardless of how much they’d like to.
The kyber crystal chimed a mournful agreement against his shields. It was a passingly familiar feeling; the kyber had been in his periphery quite often, and he in its, because of Master Tahl’s closeness with Master Jinn. She had always been kind to him. Her crystal resonated with the same kindness underneath its grief. That was alright; better, even, because Ben was always sad these days, too. Familiarity and fellow-feeling would hopefully be enough for him to rebuild the saber and wield it.
Hidden by the dinge and the dark, Ben knew, it shone blue like an eye-searing speeder headlight. He would do what he could to clean it up — he was forced by circumstance to use a crystal that wasn’t his, but he’d do it respectfully — but it would have to wait until they were underground. If the Elders knew they were here, they would die.
They went back to base earlier than planned so he could 'get his Jedi on' and as much as he had to roll his eyes at Neild's phrasing, he wasn't wrong. Ben hadn't been much of a Jedi, recently. Which wasn't totally his fault, even if he probably should be better prepared than he was. Touching the Force on Melidaan was always intense. It felt a lot like sticking your entire head in a pot of boiling water; alright if he touched it shallowly, just waved his hand over it to sense an approaching patrol or something, but more intense and it grew overbearing and hard to breathe. Immerse himself entirely, and he’d cook or drown or both. Still, it must be done.
Cerasi had ordered everyone clear of this part of the tunnels, despite the hopeful curiosity of the youngest Young and the jaded desire for distraction among the normally-Young. He couldn’t deal with the press of everyone while he reached for the crystal over the background radiation of Melida/Daan’s Force-well. It really did feel like a gravity well, dragging him in, dragging him under, unless he fought tooth and nail so that it only bent and stretched and spaghettified him. Through this overwhelming gravityheatpressuretimetimetimetimespacedenseheavypull, he extended himself further; one bit towards his body, keeping it floating crosslegged out of reach of the rats, and the other bit towards the little light that glimmered beside his Body.
His Body curved around the crystal and the saber components he’d been able to find. To bulk out the selection from the blast site, he’d added an aluminum can, a couple wires from dismantled traps, a synthleather belt that was too bloodstained to tell which side it might’ve been scavenged from, and no few bits from a couple old speeders that had long outlived their usefulness since no one imported fuel here anymore. With one last Breath in through the Mouth, out through the Nose, he Let It Consume Him Whole.
When he came back to consciousness, it was to a small grubby hand poking him in the cheek and another larger, similarly grubby hand rubbing circles into his back. Wash water was reserved for wound care and their hands before the daily meal, so grubbiness was a given.
“Ben, are you back with us? I’m sorry but we need you awake.” That was Cerasi. The circles pressed down harder and he hissed out acknowledgment between aching teeth. He hadn’t broken any, thank the Force, but he’d be paying for how hard they’d been clenched for a while. “You did it, Ben, and I hope you’re okay to use that new saber of yours. We’ve got trouble.”
Dawn over the lake was a riot of colors. Atmospheric particulates from the night before (and from what he could tell, the day before, and the night before that, and so on) deepened the reds and oranges until the were nearly painful to look at, and it was the stinging of his eyes even behind their lids that forced Cody awake. He was, he thought, not quite in his right mind. He had hazy memories of having been on a different war-torn planet, in a different battle, in a different body, maybe? He had certainly fought last night, at least, going by the head wound and the muck on his gloves; better not touch the wound before he could clean up. Helix would kill him. His enemies would kill him. He had to move.
It was strange. Sense-memory said that the plastoid he was in should be different, too big. It was missing lots of things. He was missing lots of things. They matched. He had a rifle but no charges. He had a commission but no charges. Where was base camp? He was behind enemy lines, probably. He was twitchy. He was CC-2224, Marshal Commander of the 3rd Systems Army. 7th Sky Corps. 212th Attack Battalion. Lots of numbers. Shouldn’t be. Names were better than numbers. Like Kote. That was a dangerous name. Sometimes names were numbers. Or the other way. Head wound. Find cover.
Commander, contact your troops. Tell them to move to the higher levels. No. That would get them killed. The General wouldn’t order that. Not if he could see how unstable all the structures around were. No, he’d go down. The antenna on his pauldron was bent and the end was frayed. He needed to be reachable. To give orders. To receive orders. To follow orders. He was a good… a good. A good man. A good soldier. A good Commander, even when he was alone. Not that alone. Someone was coming. Someone small. Child. A civilian?
Find cover, Kote.
Kote needed to bring the cadet with him to cover. Alpha said so. He staggered on into the sun.
It wasn’t warm, the sun. It wasn’t that bright either — but it let him see even with the double vision coming and going and the ache where his wrists and ankles were rubbed raw. He stumbled and caught himself on a piece of ‘crete. There was something, shiny metal and round, in the crevice between his chunk of ‘crete and the other one, which didn’t look nearly as comfortable. But it was important that he get the thing. Mission critical. He crawled.
The mission critical thing was karking ugly as hell. It looked like a shelf-stable tin of beans that had been stretched out and welded shut. It rattled when he shook it. Fine then. It had a hook made out of fine metal wire bent over and twisted around over and over and he hooked it to his jumpsuit.
The General was closer now. He was filthy and skinny and wild-eyed and said something that sounded like a glitchy intercom in Kote’s head. He couldn’t let the kid know he was too loud or the longnecks would know. But if the General didn’t shut up their cover would be blown and he’d be killed and the General didn’t have his ugly karking joke of a lightsaber but Kote did. He pulled it from his waistband, pressed it into Kenobi’s hand, and was out before he hit the ground.