Carry On

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

A transport from Dac made the run to Ossus every Thursday. There were never more than a dozen or so passengers on the journey. The occasional Alliance military officer or two, but the Jedi Sanctuary was never in big demand for military oversight. A few were pilgrims. People who heard about the Jedi rekindling the spark in the darkness, and hopeful for finding something meaningful from them in the galaxy around them or maybe even in their own personal lives.

Cirrsseeto couldn't figure out which group he belonged to. Technically he was on leave, and was wearing civilian clothing. Still, in his experience there never really was such a thing as fully taking the uniform off. You could feel it's weight, especially around the shoulders. Made you have to remember to stand a little taller to balance it out. If you didn't, you let everyone else around you see exactly how heavy your baggage was. That peculiar vulnerability was guarded miserly by the Cizerack. Even so, he could feel the cracks in his fortifications at times. Even if nobody else could, they felt magnified to him.

The trip was about ten hours of fitful sleep. No one should be expected to sleep in a seat that could only recline twenty degrees. Further, the tell-tale high frequency trilling from aft quarters bugged the mechanic. The hyperdrive motivator had an imbalanced coil. Within spaceworthy spec, but it irritated him that somewhere there was a mechanic who was okay with it playing that slack. So sleep didn't come easily. Maybe one hour of quality shut-eye in ten, which was borderline criminal for a Cizerack. Still, that old familiar weight at his shoulders kept the grumbling to a minimum. When at last the transport arrived on Ossus, Cirr simply popped a few painkillers, slipped on a pair of shades, and debarked onto the tarmac. The sun was already up at midday, casting baking heat onto the arid landscape. Standing a distance from the transport with his duffel, Cirrsseeto wasn't in any hurry to get anywhere immediately. He took in the view of the growing Sanctuary One settlement.

How things had changed.

[Kazahan]

How things had changed.

Kazahan stretched languidly as he watched the various civilians walk past, matching the stares of some of the more unabashed ones with curious amusement. Sanctuary One (the Trianii found the idea of Sanctuary One being a sanctuary somewhat laughable, but needs must as the body wills and all that) had grown immensely in a short time. The influx of people was now down to a trickle, due mainly to the fledgling Jedi Order being swamped with hopeful students with no real method or program for cycling the unfortunate rejects with no exploitable skills away in the early months of high recruitment. Now they tested at Dac, and a small — small, meaning single digits — number of other Alliance systems before sending the few applicants that made the cut on to Ossus.

So here he was, as yet still an apprentice (he kept to himself his opinion that he found the term padawan to be somewhat ridiculous), watching the pilgrims whom he respected and the tourists whom he did not respect meander into the town from the lodgings that had sprung up by the starport. Some as he had observed earlier had regarded his largely unclothed (he wore loose trousers to satisfy the prudish and humanocentric morals of the majority) with bemusement and in some cases wariness. But all he did was stare back. Before this, he'd been a soldier; discipline of a sort wasn't difficult for him.

His curiosity was aroused by a Cizerack wearing civilian attire approaching with the latest group of pilgrims and military personnel. He looked tired. Most, if not all, of the Cizerack on this planet wore military uniforms. He moved like a spacer, though. A certain manner of gait that when ingrained could not be totally eradicated.

"This one welcomes you to Ossus," Kazahan said in his throaty tones, getting their attention. "If you are prilgrims, here to gain some measure of serenity in the teachings of the Jedi Order, place remain here. Trianii will come to you in a moment. Military personnel should have their documents out. This one will direct you where you must go based on them."

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Instinctively, Cirrsseeto had his leave orders in hand. Still, he neither gravitated towards the uniformed soldiers nor did he fall in with the pilgrims. He still wasn't exactly sure why he was here. Was it to see old friends? Maybe. There were still a few here, no doubt. But that wasn't the entirety of it, was it?

Cirr shifted his weight a little, as a frown crossed his expression. His leg ached. Well, what was left of it. Couched in it's unflattering prosthetic rig and smoothed over with a pair of slacks covering it from sight, Cirr had come to tolerate the discomfort as something he'd just have to deal with. At the end of each night, it felt good to remove the binding and harness work that kept his right thigh seated into the socket, but it was a feeling of physical relief taken with shame and depression - away from all other eyes. It took him months to be okay with the idea of sharing a bed with Lyanie, instead sending himself into exile on a collapsible cot, with a duvet thrown over to keep the sight of his own incompleteness from his eyes.

Cirr thought about Lyanie. Still aboard Novgorod, on maneuvers in the Gordian Reach. He thought about their fight the week before. There had been shouting, and it got too intense for comfort. He didn't have any good answers for her, and so the next day, he made up his mind about taking the leave that she'd begged him to take. It would do you some good, sweety. The way she'd said it though? It was like she was trying to convince herself of it. That leaving his two loves for a moment would make him fit to come back to them.

[Kazahan]

It was perhaps a minute or so before he finished with the soldiers and Alliance personnel. Finally, there were the pilgrims, who were more likely than not just gawkers wanting to catch a glimpse of Jedi. And there was one that Kazahan could feel. He was troubled, out of place.

"Let us go then, to the dormitories," Kazahan said, and began walking. "There you will find your rooms and beds, a cafeteria especially for pilgrims, and many many tips on what to do while you are here. This one feels obligated to remind you that this settlement is still largely under construction. There are many areas where you will be forbidden entry, or where you may only go under guard or at certain times. These places are clearly marked, but do be warned: pilgrims have died because those warnings and stipulations were ignored. Do remember that."

Really, all Kazahan needed to do was to turn and point at the dormitories, because they were in fact situated right next to the landing pads; the warehouses that held much of the incoming freight were on the opposite side. But as the pilgrims grew bolder, they drew away from Kazahan and made their own way to the dorms. Kazahan's own manipulation of his demeanor to the other pilgrims certainly didn't have anything to do with it. Even if some of them did look to be running.

"This one would think that you were lost, but in truth Kazahan has never seen a lost Cizerack here on Ossus," the Trianii trainee said to the large non military Cizerack. He was the only Cizerack he'd ever seen not wearing a military uniform. "Though in the interests of making sure that the classes on diplomacy this one was given are not wasted, Trianii can show you the way to the Cizerack base, if you wish."

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

"What? Oh."

Distracted from his thoughts, Cirr finally caught the end of what Kazahan was saying, and waved him off politely.

"No, jI'm not wjith them. Alljiance Navjy."

Passing off his leave notice to the shirtless alien, Cirr looked past Kazahan at the settlement around him.

"Thjings surre have changed."

[Kazahan]

Kazahan perked up.

"Indeed!" he said. "Even in the time this one has been here, things have changed greatly. It is magnificent, is it not? Only months ago most of these buildings were not at all. To merely observe this would make this one happy, but to be a part of a people standing on their feet again, to contribute one's own strength and cunning to our survival is an opportunity. One that would be a regret if it were lost."

The padawan's tail flicked back and forth in excitement, but he calmed himself after a moment.

"Perhaps there is someone this apprentice can get for you? A master? Or perhaps you wish to be by yourself? Oh, this one's manners are atrocious. This apprentice's name is Kazahan. Welcome to Ossus."

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Cirrsseeto wasn't sure what passed for social graces among the Trianii. His experiences among the cousin races were next to nil. When in doubt, however, the old galactic standard of the handshake was always available, and the Captain extended a paw for the larger felinoid to grasp.

"Cirrsseeto Quez."

A polite smile behind his sunglasses, and then Cirr's attention shifted just over Kazahan's shoulder at a looming shape not to far off.

"jIs that the...Whaladon?"

[Kazahan]

"Hmm?" Kazahan turned, and blinked, still shaking Cirrsseeto's hand. The Whaladon had been there so long it had become like a building to him, something easily missed. But he did remember being rather impressed with it when he first arrived on the planet. "Yes. Do you know it? This one finds it hard to believe that it housed all the Jedi for years. It must have been difficult."

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Cirrsseeto's eyes took on a distant quality to them, still holding Kazahan's hand and looking past the tall alien's shoulder to the object of his attention.

It must have been difficult.

It was easy to take the journey in his mind's eye. Of endless convoy runs there and back again. The stink of old engine grease and bad food and too many bodies pressed together. Master Chief Kochanski never leaving her bunk door locked. Ben's fretting and whiskey-enabled confessions. Abarai's focused determination in lifting a ramshackle set of weights. Lyanie's warm expecting breath in the access corridor, playful and full of trepidation in their perfect moment. Days when he didn't wear a uniform. When people called him Lieutenant and he hated the sound on his ears, because he remembered recent days where he was just Cirr or Big Guy. The sensation of hitting hyperspace a moment before danger, and how it made you feel alive and invincible against odds too great to calculate. Difficult days made beautiful by the erosion of time. Labors of love. You only remembered the good, because it outweighed the pain.

"jIt was."

A labored smile worked onto Captain Quez's face. Was he the same person he was remembering? He felt older, though it hadn't been that long ago. What he'd lived through, what he'd experienced. Most people could spend three lifetimes without the intensity of joy, heartache, love, and loss that he'd known. Had it slowed him down, carrying that weight?

Returning to the present from his mind's eye, Cirr released the Trianii's hand.

"But they djid the best they could. jIt had to be enough."

Cirrsseeto gave the entire town of Sanctuary his attention in slow sweeping gaze.

"jI neverr thought jI'd ljive long enough to see thjis happen."

[Kazahan]

"You are not old," the big cat said with an air of obviousness that bordered on sarcasm. "At least, this one does not think you are old. If you are, you age most gracefully. What is your secret?"

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

It was enough to break Cirr out of his reverie, and he turned his blue eyes back to the Trianii with an easy smile.

"Beljieve me, jit's not the yearrs, jit's the mjileage. jI used to help prrotect the Jedji herre...well, back when they werren't herre. Back on the Wheel."

A sound in the distance rang familiar to Captain Quez's twitching ears. The din of clashing lightsabers in training spars. He could well remember the days when Abarai Loki had scarcely two sabers to dole out for such frivolity, and his pupils trained with clashing wooden dowels.

"jIt's good to see all that trrouble payjing off."