Star Wars: Skywalker's Rebellion

Chapter Twelve: Trekking and Tracking

Cade followed behind Nyna Calixte cautiously, never letting his hand stray too far from his lightsaber hilt. But the older woman didn't try anything. In fact, she never even turned back to make sure Cade was still there. They walked for hours in a single direction, without stopping even once to get their bearings. After awhile, Cade grew suspicious of the woman again.

"How much further?" Cade asked.

Up ahead, Nyna shrugged. "Not far."

"How do you even know where my friends are?"

"It's really not hard to detect life on this planet," Calixte replied. "There's not much of it, so it's distinguishable and easy to find."

Cade continued to follow the woman, but only because he didn't have a choice. He knew he wouldn't be able to find Wolf and Shado by himself, so Calixte was his only option. Once he was reunited with Wolf and Shado, they would ditch the Imperial Agent and get back to Ossus. If it had really been months, then Cade hated to think what was going on in the galaxy.

So he continued to follow Nyna Calixte, his mind clinging to the hope that he would soon be off this dreadful planet. But it seemed like that was going to happen later rather than sooner, because they had finally arrived at their destination. And it didn't look promising.

They had arrived at a large, unimpressive excuse for a building. The whole structure was made of combined trees and hardened clay and mud. The "windows" were just holes that looked like they had been punched through the walls. Cade realized that the building was so big that he couldn't see around it when he stepped to the side. It struck him as weird that such a desolate planet would even have a building, but the exterior certainly fit the standards that the planet's environment had set.

"Here?" Cade asked Nyna, who was staring down the entrance with a calculating look in her eyes. "It can't be here."

Nyna walked over to Cade and pulled a small device out of her pocket. It showed a small screen with green dots scattered across it. Nyna pointed to an area where some dots were blinking in front of several other dots. Those were the only dots around, other than a clump of them in the corner of the screen.

"You had a tracker all along?" Cade asked. "Why didn't you just show me?"

"Because I needed you to trust me," Calixte said. "If I had showed you it before, you wouldn't have had to take the chance on me. Besides, you could have just stolen it from me and ran."

Cade thought about this and nodded slightly. She was right. "Okay, so that's us and my friends," Cade pointed to the other dots. "But what about the clump of dots in the corner?"

"I don't know," Nyna said. "Maybe Imperial forces, or Jedi looking for you? Doesn't matter. They won't last long on this planet."

"I've been here several months, apparently."

"Not if I hadn't helped you, you wouldn't be," Calixte pointed out.

Cade didn't have a response to that, so he turned to the entrance to the giant building. "Ready?"

"Lead the way, S—," Nyna Calixte's eyes widened. "Lead the way, Jedi."

Cade nodded and drew his lightsaber, but Nyna shook her head and Cade returned it to his pocket. He understood Calixte's plan. They would be better to sneak it, and not announce their presence until they were sure they were safe.

Cade inched carefully into the large building with Nyna right on his heels. He felt himself thinking back to when he entered the cave and encountered Darth Krayt. It seemed like forever ago, but it should have felt like yesterday. Maybe he had been out for several months. That was scary. What was his father doing? Why hadn't he looked for Cade or something? Why did he have to be rescued by an Imperial agent rather than his own father or anyone in the Jedi Order? What if Darth Krayt was right? Maybe the Jedi really didn't care about Cade at all. The One Sith seemed like a closer family than the Jedi. What if Cade really was on the wrong side?