Jedi Fugitive (The Bad Batch)

83:

Astera:

Flashing messages popped up on the datapad's screen once again, none of them good. I groaned and set it back down on the display table with a little too much force, covering my face with my hands. None of us had the expertise to really use the data we'd collected like Tech could, and without him, we were getting nowhere. I'd been limited to manually checking every recorded planet in every system in the sector we knew Omega was in now, and I'd found nothing.

'When have we ever followed orders?' I fought the urge to glance at his smashed goggles and closed my eyes instead, focusing back to our most recent visit to Pabu in an effort to distract myself. The three cadets we'd rescued had been in a state of shock the second they'd stepped off the ship and encountered the peace of the planet, and we'd decided to stay a day or two to help them adjust to their new life.

At least I've been able to give Cleex another lesson too. His training was going well, or about as well as it could be considering we only stopped around Pabu every so often. I'd more or less given up on trying to teach him only how to use the Force correctly after the first couple weeks, when he'd pestered me to no end to learn how to use a lightsaber. He had been right about Eriadu after all, however regretfully. It would be a waste of his talents to leave him at that. He still couldn't be a Jedi, but I'd bring him up to be as close to one as I could.

Narri had told me almost tearfully that he was finally starting to make friends - now that he'd learned to properly harness his abilities, he was less afraid to speak to the other children on the island, actively showing them what he could and even creating new games to play with them. In return, they'd all worked together to create him his own Padawan braid, made from scrap beads they'd likely pilfered from their own families. It was nowhere near traditional, but the kid wore it religiously, despite my best attempts to tell him he didn't need it.

I yawned again, rubbing my face and blinking sleepily at the display in front of me, the words starting to blur together the longer I stared. It had been another of those sleepless nights, and keeping awake for nearly two days was starting to wear on me. I needed a break, but it felt wrong to even try to rest when Omega was still out there. Maybe I could just put my head down for a few minutes...

"Astera!"

I jerked upright, nearly knocking the datapad to the floor as I rubbed at bleary eyes and squinted at a concerned looking Hunter, his hand around my upper arm. "What?"

"You haven't been sleeping again, have you?" It wasn't a question. I just shrugged it off, stifling another yawn.

"Sleep's not important. We need to find Omega." That was only half the reason and he knew it. But I wasn't really in the mood to talk about it again, quickly shifting my attention towards Wrecker and Omega's Lula in his other hand. "What's with the doll?"

He glanced at it with a sigh and held it out almost sheepishly, scratching the back of his neck. "Can you try again?"

"Hunter... I tried every day for weeks when it first happened. It's the same thing every time. There's too much of Wrecker to get anything from it."

"Please."

I looked at him for a long, agonising moment, but took the Lula from him when he offered it again, crossing my legs as best as I could in the chair and inhaling in, then out, before my mind reached into the doll in search of the wisps of its owners.

Grey sky, Wrecker in the cockpit, smoke rising into the air, blinding white light, the Marauder, blue fur. All I could catch were the briefest of flashes before the scene would shift again, the Force echo in the doll too caught between Wrecker and Omega to settle fully on either of them.