Gatz had been resolved in his action: to finally prostrate himself before Kragan Garr. After everything he’d been through, all he’d lost, selling his home, starving himself, ruining a friendship with someone who was both his idol and basically his best friend, and three long weeks of evading bounty hunters… well, he’d been at rock bottom. As low as he’d ever been in his life.
At some point, the idea of giving himself up to Kragan had seemed like a good one. Gatz was tired of running. Tired of being afraid. He’d been sleep deprived and starving. He’d been beaten and nearly killed by bounty hunters. Frankly, things couldn’t have gotten much worse. And finally, he’d decided there was no point in being afraid of the inevitable: torture and death at Kragan’s hands. He was just going to turn himself over, and be done with it.
Thank the Force his droid was a mutinous little shit.
The moment R4 had boarded the ship once more, groceries trailing behind him thanks to Valery Noble ’s charity, he’d made a beeline for the navicomputer. Gatz hadn’t thought much of it at the time, opting to actually unload the hover pallets of supplies. But by the time he was finished, his astromech had locked the navicomputer, set course for New Cov, and it was literally the only system Gatz could make a hyperspace jump to.
Valery had given them coordinates to a hidden Jedi Temple, but between being rebellious and furious that he no longer had a choice in his own destination, and having serious issues with the Jedi Order as an organization, Gatz had refused to set down there. So, much to R4’s ire, he had set them down in a random location in the jungle.
Which, by the way, was extremely hazardous. Like, both the flora and the fauna wanted to eat him, hazardous. Still, as long as he remained inside his ship, he was safe. And, hidden as he was on a dangerous and protected world, Gatz was finally safe from Kragan’s bounty hunters. For a time, anyway. He was sure there’d be someone smart enough to track him down, and dumb enough to actually show up eventually.
But as angry as he was about his whole situation, and as broken as he was after his argument with Valery, a few hours on New Cov had given him something he’d been sorely lacking since he’d tweaked Kragan’s nose for the first time: stability for more than a handful of hours.
He was fed, he was relatively safe, and he could finally think about something other than his impending doom. He'd quickly come to the conclusion that he was a damn fool to ever actually think of giving himself up to Kragan. But, mostly, he thought about how useless he felt. How he couldn’t defend himself. How he had to keep relying on Valery’s charity and aid. As grateful as he was to her, he was also furious with himself. All he wanted to do was protect people like she did, but he couldn’t even protect himself. The last three weeks had proven that, clear as day.
But, in the midst of their argument, she’d also said something that had stuck with him: that the only person who was holding himself back was himself.
And she was right. He’d given up on his Jedi training, the Order, and the Council at the ripe young age of nine. It was for a good reason: he’d seen something that had shaken his faith in the organization. But he’d also let his abilities, as limited as they were, and his connection fall into disuse in the fifteen years since.
His connection to the Force allowed him to perceive the world, and protect himself, in ways that others just couldn’t. Yet, he’d just let it fall to the wayside. Gatz was no Jedi, and he did not want to be one. His lack of faith in the Order was something he still felt as strongly about at twenty-four as he had at nine, and he was more than justified in that.
But he didn’t have to be a Jedi, or Sith, to maintain his connection to the Force.
It was with that knowledge (and with literally nothing else to do in the jungle) that Gatz climbed up to the top of his freighter, in the midst of a volatile world, and sat down. Drawing in a deep breath, he crossed his legs and closed his eyes. He listened for the sounds of the jungle: the rustling of leaves, croaks and howls of the wildlife, and the roaring rush of the nearby river.
They were not peaceful, not in a place as dangerous as this, but they were natural. They were the Force at work, the way it was meant to be.
And for the first time in fifteen years, Gatz let the flow of the Force around him lull him into a meditative trance.
