Private Loose Ends

[Valery Noble]

Onderon

​

Outfit: Factory Link | Wedding Ring
Weapons: Blasters | Lightsaber | Double-Bladed Lightsaber
Tag: Gatz Derrevar

"This Jungle is a lot less dangerous than New Cov," Valery said as their shuttle was coming down to land in the capital city of Iziz. Onderon was the planet where her life in this future had started — she had woken up here from stasis, and later returned to learn a lot more about what happened. Between a dangerous parasite, a clone and old memories she had shared with her husband, there was a lot to talk about for her, but only one of these things would have her focus today. The Clone remained a loose end of her last visit that she had never been able to address, but they finally could.

She just wasn't going to do it alone.

Knowing how much Gatz wanted to help her out for all the things she had done for him, Valery decided to ask him to join her. The mission had its risks, especially when it came to confronting the clone, but they had time to prepare themselves and Gatz's training had been going well. He was ready, and she really hoped that he'd be in his element during this mission.

"We'll have to walk for a little while to get there, but it's going to be worth the trouble. You might even get to see where I woke up from stasis," Valery said with a chuckle, as the engines powered down.

"You ready to go?"

 

[Gatz Derrevar]

Ship: The Red Night
Weapons:
Tag: Valery Noble

"I see." His voice was flat, lacking inflection of any kind.

For weeks now, Gatz had simply been monotonous. He carried neither joy nor sorrow with him, neither anger nor fear. He was empty, dull, and bland. Jokes did not escape his lips any longer, but neither did tears fall from his eyes. He showed interest in nothing, but neither did he complain about anything. The last few weeks had been nothing by study, train, eat, and sleep. No time for leisure. No desire for it either.

And no time to grieve over what he had lost.

He acted the part of a machine, not a man. An automaton focused solely on the training offered to him by Valery, even if anything resembling excitement over her lessons had long since faded away. But the training had become far easier, and he had progressed far more. It was incredible, how knowledge was so much easier to process when emotion no longer warped his understanding—when he denied, rejected, and ignored how he felt.

He was studious, but not eager.

He was focused, but not driven.

He was a student, but not a friend.

The shuttle hit a pocket of turbulence as they descended, making the whole vessel shudder. Any other time, Gatz would have muttered something about the skill of the pilot, or the quality of their vessel. Today, he simply said nothing. He sat there, absorbing Valery's words, but reacting to none of them—his expression was impassive and eerily blank.

Even so, in the back of his head where he still felt the smallest amount of emotion, the idea of seeing where Valery had woken up did interest him. He stifled that feeling immediately though. It would do nothing to accomplish Valery's goal today.

"You ready to go?"

He had no blaster resting in his holster, no lightsaber hanging from his belt. Not even a red leather jacket these days—though that probably would have just made him sweat in Onderon's humid jungles. But Valery was the teacher. He the student. If he had none of these things, and she'd still brought him along, it was because he didn't need them, or she didn't want him to have them.

"I am." He said simply.

 

[Valery Noble]

Onderon

​

Outfit: Factory Link | Wedding Ring
Weapons: Blasters | Lightsaber | Double-Bladed Lightsaber
Tag: Gatz Derrevar

Valery nodded, then stood up and withdrew one blaster from her hip, before doing the same with one of her lightsabers, "Take these, just in case," Valery said, and it wasn't really an offer he could reject. The Force was their guide through the jungles, and if they listened carefully enough, they wouldn't run into trouble along the way. But they'd also have to be prepared for the unexpected, which meant that they needed to be able to defend themselves.

Gatz had been more than capable with his blaster, but after training for a quite a while with her, he could easily hold his own with a lightsaber as well. A few jungle creatures on Onderon weren't going to be a challenge, and even if the clone turned out armed, Valery felt confident enough that they'd be alright.

Cloning a person didn't really transfer skill and experience, and certainly not equipment. The last time she had seen the clone, there was that raw power in the Force, but it was uncontrolled and she had no lightsaber.

"So, this clone we're going after is a difficult one for me to confront. Her appearance is of an old friend of mine — one of my two best friends from the Old Republic days, even. But the scientists in this facility hadn't just experimented on my while I was in stasis. They did something to her as well, and it made her feel a lot darker, chaotic and dangerous." She frowned as memories resurfaced for a moment.

"I don't know what she'll do when we find her, but it's nice having someone with me. Last time, I couldn't get myself to stand up to her, and Kahlil had to step in."

 

[Gatz Derrevar]

Ship: The Red Night
Weapons: Valery's Blaster | Valery's Lightsaber
Tag: Valery Noble

Gatz regarded the weapons offered to him with lifeless eyes.

"Very well."

But he offered no argument. Gatz took the blaster pistol, and slid it into his empty holster. Usually he kept his holster unbuttoned, just to make it easier to pull his blaster. But he wouldn't risk damaging Valery's blaster by having it bounce out while they were trekking through the jungle, and so he secured the strap.

Then he grabbed her lightsaber, and immediately felt feedback. The hurrikaine crystal within recoiled at his touch, tugging and pulling at him to reunite it with Valery. Gatz recalled feeling a similar sensation when he'd wielded Capris' lightsaber. The bond between crystal and Jedi was strong, it seemed. Especially between a special crystal and the most powerful Jedi Master in the Order. Still, he showed no reaction, and clipped it to his belt.

Valery went on to explain who or what they were tracking down. She revealed that they were chasing a clone of her friend. Before, Gatz would have offered sympathy, and his heart would have bled for her. The reveal that she had been experimented on would have enraged him. Now, not even the slightest hint of emotion stirred within him—he was cold and devoid. But that was what he had to be, if he was going to meet Valery's expectations for his wellbeing.

There is no emotion, there is peace. Gatz felt no peace, even after weeks of shutting out all feeling. But he'd get there eventually, he was sure.

He understood why he was here now, however: emotional support, when Valery inevitably struggled to deal with the clone. If he'd been capable of feeling bitter, Gatz might have found that laughable. And then he would have felt guilty for feeling bitter in the first place. And then he would have resolved himself to support her however she needed him to, whether through talking, or a hug, or bad jokes to make her laugh.

Now, Gatz merely regarded it as a lower priority task. The clone was more important.

"She was experimented on," Gatz said flatly, "what was done to her? Physical enhancement?"

 

[Valery Noble]

Onderon

​

Outfit: Factory Link | Wedding Ring
Weapons: Blasters | Lightsaber | Double-Bladed Lightsaber
Tag: Gatz Derrevar

"We're not sure," Valery said, having noticed the rather distinct change about him all of a sudden. But this wasn't really a good time to get into that, so she moved on and started guiding him through the spaceport. Iziz was quite a beautiful and unique city, with its large palace and buildings with blue roof tops. Around the city was a massive wall, likely to protect it against the jungle and whoever wasn't supposed to be there.

Their objective was several miles beyond the wall, within a mountain range.

"When we found her in the old stasis facility, she ended up causing a partial collapse of the roof and got away. But it could have been anything," Valery said with a sigh. "They used me to test out a parasite they wanted to spread to kill Force Users. They could have done something similar to her, but who knows." They likely hadn't tried to kill her at all with their experiments, or the entire purpose of cloning would have been a waste.

Unless they were trying to clone Force Users for their experiments, to see if they'd succumb to things like the parasite.

"We'll find out soon enough, though. We're going back to the facility."

 

[Gatz Derrevar]

Ship: The Red Night
Weapons: Valery's Blaster | Valery's Lightsaber
Tag: Valery Noble

If Valery was perturbed by him, she said nothing. That didn't surprise Gatz. He'd been like this for weeks now, and no one questioned it. Not one person asked if he was alright. He knew exactly why that was, but it wasn't important anymore. Other people weren't important anymore. Other people only hurt him. They died, leaving him alone. And those that remained didn't care what that did to him.

Not one person asked what he was doing for the holidays. Everyone he cared about knew his situation. But not one of them decided to check up on him, to see how he was doing, to see if he was okay. To see if he needed anything, even just a friend.

To see if he didn't want to be alone over the holidays.

They were all preoccupied, not sparing him a single thought. Because nobody cared enough to ask. He'd bled for them. Done everything any of them had ever asked of him. Saved them. Saved the people they cared about. And still, nobody cared enough to ask. He was stranded. He was alone. And the only way not to feel that pain, was not to feel anything at all.

He was utterly empty, only a shell of a man. But the people around him didn't seem bothered by that.

So a shell he would be.

Gatz said nothing, as Valery led the two of them through the spaceport. He marched at her heel, face unmoving, as they pressed their way through the crowds. He heard the regret in her voice, but offered no consolation. Gatz just absorbed the information she gave him, about their target, and her capabilities. About their destination, which seemed to be the ruined facility that Valery had woken up in.

And had been given parasites in. That made Gatz pause for a moment.

"Master Noble... should you be quarantined?"

 

[Valery Noble]

Onderon

​

Outfit: Factory Link | Wedding Ring
Weapons: Blasters | Lightsaber | Double-Bladed Lightsaber
Tag: Gatz Derrevar

Valery shook her head, "No, the parasite died long ago, and that was all they did to me," she said before finally turning Gatz with a raised eyebrow. He hadn't ever really called her Master Noble, and while she might want him to call her that if they were in a very formal setting, this definitely felt odd to her. Of course, she knew their last conversation had sparked a bit of friction, and he was going through a difficult time now, around the holidays.

But she didn't want to abort another mission over it, if she could help it.

"Gatz, what's up with you? You've been acting very strange," she said, around the time they reached the massive gate of the city. Beyond it was a bridge that crossed a river that ran around Iziz, and beyond that were the jungles already.

If they were going to talk about anything unrelated to the mission, it would have to be now.

 

[Gatz Derrevar]

Ship: The Red Night
Weapons: Valery's Blaster | Valery's Lightsaber
Tag: Valery Noble

Valery turned to him with a quizzical expression. Was it only now that she thought to ask? But then, Gatz supposed that made sense. This was a dangerous mission. Considering how Hoth had ended—and by that he meant never happened—it only made sense that Valery would check in on him now. There was a reason to, now:

To ensure the success of the mission, of course.

"It bothers me greatly that my closest friend doesn't care that I'm going to be alone over Life Day. My birthday. None of my friends do."

Gatz admitted it freely. He had long since learned that there was no point in lying to Valery. The only person who could sniff out his falsehoods better than her was Briana, and that was only because she knew he was going to lie before he ever opened his mouth. The meld. Which was cheating, in a sense. So the queen of catching him in his lies, Valery would remain.

"But you requested that the self pity stop. So it has." That same flat tone, lacking all life, lacking speaking to Valery as if she were a stranger, "it will not affect the mission, Master."

For once, Gatz was certain of that. From Briana, he had finally learned how to compartmentalize. He was less emotional than a droid now, and while he lacked all humanity, he was focused. The Jedi of old had rejected emotion, or so the history books said. Passive monks, feeling neither joy nor sorrow. It was a terrible way to live, and Gatz knew that even now.

But it was all he had left, when even his closest friends didn't care enough. At least this way, he would finally be useful to them.

"There is a clone to track, is there not? Talking would be a distraction."

 

[Valery Noble]

Onderon

​

Outfit: Factory Link | Wedding Ring
Weapons: Blasters | Lightsaber | Double-Bladed Lightsaber
Tag: Gatz Derrevar

"It bothers me that you still don't seem to have much faith in your close friends after they've spent so much time and effort trying to help you," Valery said with a raised eyebrow. "Of course, I care, and I never said that I don't think it's awful what you've gone through. My point is that there's only one way for it to change, and it starts with you. Friends can support you, and we will, but we can't fix this part of your life for you."

With that said, Valery accepted that he wanted to just focus on the mission, and she'd allow that. She turned around and walked across the bridge towards the jungle. With every step, there were fewer and fewer people to run into, and soon enough, they were entirely alone amidst a colorful jungle.

Unlike the one on New Cov, it wasn't all green and brown, but lively blues and purples were everywhere too. Still, tension remained in the Force as well.

This jungle also wasn't entirely safe.

"I'm going to show you where I was recovered from stasis, and hopefully, we'll be able to find her from there."

 

[Gatz Derrevar]

Ship: The Red Night
Weapons: Valery's Blaster | Valery's Lightsaber
Tag: Valery Noble

Valery's words sobered him, somewhat. By now, Gatz knew how her idea of caring worked. She fixed problems, not people. She cared that he was going to be alone on Life Day, but she didn't have the slightest idea as to how to actually comfort him over that. The solution to being alone to her was to just invent himself a family like she had. And sure, long term, that would work.

He wanted something that was going to help him this Life Day though. Gatz understood that Valery wanted him to treat the illness, not the symptoms. But the symptoms had to be dealt with too. And all he wanted was to feel like somebody cared about him on that day.

"I don't want to be alone on Life Day." Gatz finally admitted. "I'm not asking any of you to fix my dead family. I just don't want to be alone on the one day I shouldn't be. All I wanted was for one of my friends to care enough to say 'hey Gatz, why don't you stop by for a little bit. Just so you aren't alone on the holidays.'"

Valery said friends could support him. But he'd seen no support in this. No one had bothered to say 'hey, we know the holidays are going to be rough for you this year. Why don't you stop by for dinner?' Or 'hey, we don't like the idea of you being alone. Come spend a little time with us on that day.' All the things he'd offer all of them, if they were in his shoes.

But what did it matter? They'd made their choices. Isolated he would remain.

He sighed.

"Forget it. It doesn't matter, and neither do I. There's a clone loose, probably ruining someone's day. Let's fix that."

He followed Valery in silence after that, focus attuned to the Force as it flowed through the jungle around him. It wasn't nearly as dangerous as New Cov, but there were probably Nexu stalking the undergrowth. As upset as he was, Gatz still wasn't looking to get mauled by a jungle predator again.

 

[Valery Noble]

Onderon

​

Outfit: Factory Link | Wedding Ring
Weapons: Blasters | Lightsaber | Double-Bladed Lightsaber
Tag: Gatz Derrevar

"I would usually love to have you over this time of year, as I do with all my friends, but you don't always make it easy. Last time we talked, you made it a point to say that you have no one. That you're always alone. It doesn't really make me want to invite you over to be around my family, when you make me feel like the time I've spent with you doesn't matter to you."

"I understand that it's not the same as having a family, but in one breathe, you act like I've been a terrible friend, or added nothing to everything that has been happening. Then in the next, you're upset because I haven't invited you yet." She paused for a moment and frowned before she turned her gaze across the bridge.

Just for a moment, before she looked for eye contact again.

"I'd happily invite you over, Gatz, but I don't want to feel like what I've done so far just doesn't matter to you."

 

[Gatz Derrevar]

Ship: The Red Night
Weapons: Valery's Blaster | Valery's Lightsaber
Tag: Valery Noble

"If what you've done for me didn't matter to me, I'd still be shooting people over spice, Valery." But there was no heat in his words, "not pursing the life of a Jedi, in spite of all the pain doing the right thing has brought me."

And doing the right thing had only ever brought him pain, this last year.

On one hand, he wanted to be angry with her. She knew he was lonely. She knew he had no one. And because he often felt stranded, her idea was to punish him by ensuring that he'd be alone on the one day he shouldn't be? It was like she was trying to isolate him. Keep him away from people. Keep him beaten down, stranded in his own solitude.

Briana Sal-Soren would never do that to him. Maybe he was looking up to the wrong Jedi.

And yet, on the other hand, Gatz couldn't bring himself to dismiss how Valery felt. She was right: he did have someone in her. She did a lot for him. Spent more time with him—and helped him far more often—than she should. He had thought following in her footsteps, and staying away from a life of crime would be proof of what she meant to him. That she inspired him to be better was proof of his appreciation.

It wasn't like he didn't thank her often, either. He tried to go out of his way to help her when he could. Kahlil. Eshan. Now. But perhaps he wasn't being blatant enough with showing his gratitude.

"I don't tell everyone they're like a sister to me, you know." Gatz started, before pausing for a few seconds, "it's not that I don't appreciate all the time you spend with me. It's usually when I'm at my happiest, even when I'm down. But when you're gone—and you're gone far more than you're here, because you have to be—I'm right back to where I was: alone. And obviously that's not your fault. And obviously I don't blame you. You have a life of your own, and a very busy one at that. But the times that you're around are blips compared to the times when I'm on my lonesome."

"That's why I feel so alone. But you're right that I don't have no one. I never wanted you to feel like you didn't matter. I just want to feel like I do. I'm sorry."

 

[Valery Noble]

Onderon

​

Outfit: Factory Link | Wedding Ring
Weapons: Blasters | Lightsaber | Double-Bladed Lightsaber
Tag: Gatz Derrevar

Valery was quiet while she listened, and only nodded after he finished speaking, "You do matter, Gatz, or else I wouldn't have spent the time with you that I have. Beyond my family, there are few faces I see even half as often as yours, and I do enjoy your company." She offered him a bit of a smile, then let out a soft sigh and turned back to the bridge. Last time they had a lead on the clone, a discussion had ended up in her cancelling their mission.

She didn't want that to happen again — it was time to go after this clone.

"Why don't we go get that clone, hm? We can talk more after the mission, but as long as you know that you matter to me, I'm feeling good about moving forward." She had the reassurance that she wanted, and she hoped that he had gotten his as well. Now it was time to complete this task, as friends.

"You ready?"

 

[Gatz Derrevar]

Ship: The Red Night
Weapons: Valery's Blaster | Valery's Lightsaber
Tag: Valery Noble

He mattered.

Gatz let out a shaky breath after hearing that. When was the last time he'd heard that? When was the last time he'd felt that? He wasn't sure he could remember anymore. Everything after his mother's death was cast in a haze of pain, from all the times he'd been hurt, to Klein's death, and to the last few months alone. He didn't have no one, but god did it feel like it sometimes.

But he mattered. He mattered to someone.

"Thank you."

A few tears escaped his eyes as Gatz let out another breath, more steady this time. His family was gone. There was nothing he could about that; nothing he could do to bring them back. But he didn't have to. In spite of all his loss, he still wasn't alone. Not really. Not ever. Not when Valery was but one phone call away. She wasn't of his blood, nor him hers. But that didn't matter. Some people were like family. That could be enough.

"You ready?"

There was still a clone afoot doing who knows what. Probably not making anyone's day better, and that meant that the two of them had a responsibility to fix that: a responsibility that he had chosen. Maybe that would turn out poorly, as these excursions of theirs often did. Maybe he'd get his ass kicked yet again. But even if things did go south, he wouldn't be alone.

That was enough.

"Yes," Gatz wiped away his absconded tears, and smiled at Valery, "I am."

 

[Valery Noble]

Onderon

​

Outfit: Factory Link | Wedding Ring
Weapons: Blasters | Lightsaber | Double-Bladed Lightsaber
Tag: Gatz Derrevar

"Good, I'm going to need your help here," Valery said with a warm smile before she turned around and picked up the pace a little. The stone bridge leading up to Iziz soon changed into wild jungles, and Valery's path quickly grew erratic. Not because she had trouble navigating, but because she was sensing ahead and changing directions to avoid trouble. Every jungle had its predators or dangerous creatures, and avoiding them was crucial.

They couldn't risk being harmed, nor could they allow themselves to be slowed down too much.

"So, this clone is Force-sensitive, but I actually don't know how well she can tap into it. Last time, she got away because an outburst caused a collapse of the room we were in, but I've not seen much of her abilities. She could have learned a lot more since then, too." She also could be armed to the teeth now, so they needed to approach this carefully.

Valery glanced over her shoulder and gave it some more thought, "That reminds me. Where we're going in the mountains is rather... unstable. If there's a risk of collapse, we'll back off. It's not worth it to go after this clone if we get buried alive."

 

[Gatz Derrevar]

Ship: The Red Night
Weapons: Training Saber
Tag: Valery Noble

Gatz doubted that Valery actually needed his help. There was nothing he could do that she couldn't, unless it involved technology in any form that wasn't a starfighter. Really, he suspected this was more of a test for him than it was a mission she required help with. Still, that suited Gatz just fine. He was still helping her, even if she didn't really need it. That was enough to soothe his guilt over accepting so much help from her.

For now. He still had a long way to go until he repaid his debt to her, even if she didn't believe he owed her one.

He followed Valery through the jungle quietly, just as focused on their surroundings as she was. Her senses were far more attuned than his own, though, evident in the way she repeatedly altered their path to avoid danger before he'd even sensed anything himself. If he'd come out here alone, he probably would have walked right into a Nexu within the first five minutes.

Well, he would have sensed it in time, actually. But he likely would have gotten close enough for a predator to catch his scent and stalk him. Point was: Valery was the only reason he'd avoid getting mauled by another jungle predator today. Maybe.

"Why would the clone come back here, if this is where she was experimented on? What's the point in that?"

Learning that the clone was Force-sensitive was a bit of a shock. Gatz didn't know clones could be Force—wait. He knew clones that were Force-sensitive. Gatz had never really thought of Kahlil and Aris as 'clones' but, well, they were. So, just like that, his shock passed. And in its place came something unexpected: the realization that he didn't like referring to a person as 'a clone.'

"Hey Val? Can we stop calling her 'the clone?' We wouldn't call Kahlil or Aris that. I think it's only right that we use her name, even if she isn't exactly friendly."

So, this woman could maybe use the Force to an unknown degree of skill. Really, it wasn't all that different from the Sith Knights he'd faced. Just this particular Force-sensitive threat had a face that Valery had an attachement to.

"Wait," Gatz was hit with another bomb, "the mountains are unstable? Like the whole mountain range? Man, you never bring me anywhere nice..."

 

[Valery Noble]

Onderon

​

Outfit: Factory Link | Wedding Ring
Weapons: Blasters | Lightsaber | Double-Bladed Lightsaber
Tag: Gatz Derrevar

"Well, she technically doesn't have a name," Valery said with a raised eyebrow, while she turned to look at him "Not one that I know of, or otherwise I would have used it. Kahlil and Aris have their own names, and not the name of the original either. So, we're not going to name her." If she is to be named, it would have to be something she chose herself. Last time, their encounter had occurred right after the woman escaped from her cloning pod, so there hadn't been time for anybody to figure out what her name would really be.

She had been nameless. Perhaps that was different now, as she assumed many things would be, but there was only one way to find out.

"Wait,"

Valery stopped, looked over her shoulder and tilted her head a little, "I should have worded that better, but no. The mountains themselves are stable. The facility was built within a tunnel, a passage through the mountains, and it's that passage that got unstable after she partially caused a collapse," Valery explained. At the time, it had been Kahlil who kept them from being buried alive, because she had been too overwhelmed by what was happening.

This time, she had to stay focused.

"That's also why I was there at the time, if you're curious. That passage was strategically important to control because it allowed troops to move through the mountains much faster without having to put them on ships that could easily be shot down. We were just... heavily outnumbered, and after I fought off a particularly large wave of imperials and Sith, I nearly ended up killing myself to protect my people."

"The stasis pod I was put in after that, was meant to keep me alive. The Jedi who knew I was in there just never made it back."

 

[Gatz Derrevar]

Ship: The Red Night
Weapons: Valery's Blaster | Valery's Lightsaber
Tag: Valery Noble

"Then I guess we'll have to ask for her name while she's trying to kill us."

He wasn't going to call her 'the clone.' Gatz refused to budge on that. It was dehumanizing, and he had experienced far too much of that himself to inflict it upon another. Sure, this person seemed to be a danger to everyone around them. But Gatz couldn't bring himself to talk about or treat her like an object instead of a person. He'd been the kind of man who did that, once. He wasn't going to be that man again.

Gatz allowed himself some small amount of relief in hearing that the mountain range itself wasn't unstable. Just the particular area they were going. Which... admittedly didn't really change much, because either way they were in danger of being buried by rubble. Unless Valery did decide it was too dangerous and called the mission off.

More interesting though was learning why she'd been in the facility in the first place. Sith marching on Onderon? Gatz couldn't remember that in recent history, but he wasn't exactly a history buff. But then he was reminded that Valery had been in that stasis pod for a very long time. Like, for millennia. She was talking about a war from the days of the Old Republic.

Actual, literal, ancient history.

"I'm sorry," he said after a quiet few minutes of trekking through the jungle, "I often get so stuck in my own loneliness that I forget that you woke up to a galaxy that had long forgotten you. I mean, everyone who has ever loved me is dead, but at least I'm in my own era..."

The sharp reminder that his family was dead would never not sting. He was, quite literally, entirely unloved. But that paled in comparison to being an ancient being in a modern day setting.

Didn't make him feel any better though. But they had a job to do, so he grimaced and kept pace with Valery. He could hurt later.

 

[Valery Noble]

Onderon

​

Outfit: Factory Link | Wedding Ring
Weapons: Blasters | Lightsaber | Double-Bladed Lightsaber
Tag: Gatz Derrevar

"A part of me hopes that she won't try to kill us," Valery admitted with a frown. "It's a stretch, but it's not impossible for her to turn her life around. She's not who she is because she wanted to be like this — she was created in a lab and experimented on." That was a dark reminder she needed to not forget. In her old days as a Jedi Shadow, it had been simpler, and every form of the Dark Side was simply to be purged.

But it really wasn't so black and white.

"Maybe we can make a difference for her." Their last encounter left little room to believe that she could be redeemed, but time healed all wounds, and over the last few years, a lot could have happened. Perhaps she wasn't anything like the woman that woke up that day on Onderon anymore.

The same way that Valery had changed immensely.

"It's alright," Valery said on the subject of her past. "It doesn't bother me anymore, and now in hindsight, I can only feel that it was destiny for that to happen to me. My life dipped down into a low for it, but now I don't think I could be much happier." She glanced over her shoulder at him and offered a smile, "Which is why I won't give up hope that things can change for you either." But that was something to focus on another time.

Right now, they were getting closer to the mountains.

 

[Gatz Derrevar]

Ship: The Red Night
Weapons: Valery's Blaster | Valery's Lightsaber
Tag: Valery Noble

"Well, in my experience everyone we meet tries to kill us. And usually they fail to kill you, and wind up fatally wounding me. So if it's all the same to you, I'm gonna keep my guard up while we ask for her name."

Gatz would have loved for one adventure of theirs to not end in a fight. But he knew better than to cling to false hope. His chest was a mishmash of grotesque scars all courtesy of the last year he'd spent following in Valery's footsteps. That was too painful a reminder to forget.

Things always ended in a fight. And Gatz would always be forced to solve his problems at the end of a blaster barrel.

As they approached the mountains, Valery gave him a little insight as to why she could be at peace after everything that had happened to her. Gatz wished that he could be happy for her. A good friend would have been. But he could only feel jealousy that she had a family and friends who actually wanted her around for the holidays.

"—but now I don't think I could be much happier.”

"I don't think I could be much more miserable."

Things could change for him? They had. Everyone died. That was the change he got; that was his reward for trying to do the right thing. He was left alone, and even his own best friend didn't want him around for the holidays. Bitter anger began to fill him, but Gatz quelled it before it could make him snap at Valery. She wanted the best for him. She was holding out hope for him.

She wasn't trying to rub salt in the wound, even if that was ultimately what she was doing.

"What should I know about this facility?" Gatz quickly changed the subject, before his emotions had a chance to rule him, "any defenses that might still be online? Has someone else decided to squat in it and call it home?"