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Chapter Text

With a jolt, Omega opened her eyes and lifted her head, unaware that she had even been knocked out.

Well, she must have been knocked out, there was nothing else to describe the pounding in her skull, though that was second to the sharp, burning sensation emanating from her wrist and knee.

Slowly, she surveyed her surroundings.

Shuttle... She was sitting in a row of seats in the back of a transport shuttle, surrounded by stormtroopers in a similar state as her. Helmeted heads lulled to the side, some had cracks in their armor, others had dirt or blood staining the otherwise pristine white duraplast. Some had all of the above.

The one deviation from the soldiers was the man who was sitting across from her. The Twelfth Brother.

Blood was trickling down the side of his face, matting his red hair down, dripping from his chin onto his black armor and suit. Even if he had been conscious, the doctor doubted he would have cared.

They clearly had more pressing issues to worry about.

Something hissed above her, sending electrical sparks down onto the ground between her boots.

She needed to get out of here.

The doctor moved to lift the bracer that kept her in her seat, but hissed when she tensed her left wrist against the latch.

Gritting her teeth, she pushed through the pain and lifted it, immediately tilting and tumbling out of her seat, falling to the ground, her left knee flaring up, causing her to cry out.

Potential break, more than likely a sprain, will have to check for that, she mentally noted before grabbing the seat with her right hand, using it to pull herself up to her feet without putting much pressure on her left leg. Holding onto the seat with one hand to keep herself balanced, she reached forward with the other, pressing two fingers against the neck of the stormtrooper that had been sitting on her right.

No pulse.

She swore and looked around.

Lambda class shuttle... capacity for twenty passengers, not including the two pilots.

"A-anyone alive?" She asked, looking for a response, voice shaking before swallowing and speaking again, louder this time. "Call out!"

There was a groan to her left, prompting her to look. The Inquisitor was stirring, the frown on his face deepening before he opened his eyes.

They were cloudy and unfocused as he inclined his head in both directions before slowly turning to her.

She made her way over, limping as she did and started to lift the bracer around him.

“What… happened?” he asked, voice slightly slurred, possibly concussed, before he closed his eyes, grunting, holding his head.

“I think we crashed, I don’t know how many survived,” she reported, before she started feeling her pockets, eventually pulling out a pocket torch she always carried with her. “Where does it hurt?”

She started to shine the light in his eyes, checking his pupil response before he grabbed her wrist in a crushing grip. “I’m fine,” he hissed before shoving her arm away.

Figures. A crash landing would only make his dour mood even worse…

“I need to see if you have a concussion,” she informed him, raising her torch again, but he shoved her away, causing her to put pressure she didn’t want to on her left leg, and she almost buckled under the pain.

“We need to get off this shuttle,” the Second Brother said, pushing himself out of his seat.

“What… What about… the others?” she asked between steady breathes, trying to keep herself composed despite the massive amount of pain she was in.

“They’re dead,” he said, deadpanned, as if it was obvious. He started to make his way towards the closed boarding ramp.

“Is that your mystic Force powers telling you that?” she asked sarcastically, limping after him as he stopped in front of it.

He inclined his head towards her, pulling out the circular lightsaber hilt, the insignia of the Inquisitorious.

“Yes.”

With that, he reached forward with his left hand, fingers curled like he was mimicking a predator’s claws.

Then, he started to close his grip, the metal of the boarding ramp started to screech in protest as it started to crumble, folding into itself like cheap aluminum before he pushed out, what was the ramp flying away from them, landing somewhere out of view.

“You coming or what?” he asked, strolling forward, jumping down from the shuttle.

Omega stared at where he disappeared before looking at the stormtroopers around her. She thought for a moment before moving towards the closest one, grabbing the blaster he was still holding onto, even in death. Fortunately, death made his grip rather lax.

“Sorry,” she muttered, pulling away. “I might need this more than you do.” With that, she made her way over to the opening, and frowned when she saw it was a drop. A small one, but a drop regardless, nothing she could simply step down from.

With a sigh, she gritted her teeth and lowered herself to the edge, legs dangling over the drop before she pushed herself down, making sure to stick the landing with her right leg, but the unbalanced nature of it all caused her to stumbled, attempt to catch herself with her left leg, which did not hold her up at all as she fell face-first to the ground.

When she lifted her head, she saw that the Second Brother was staring at her from a short distance, one hand resting on his hip, an eyebrow raised in a semi-blank, entirely judgemental expression.

She pushed herself back to her feet, blaster still in hand before she limped over to where he was clearly waiting for her.

“Spit it out,” she snapped, bracing herself for whatever biting comment he had to say.

He stared at her for a second before looking at the shuttle.

“Somehow, I think I still prefer you over those bucket-heads.”

“Oh, careful, Inquisitor. I might think that was almost a compliment.” She pushed past him and surveyed their surroundings.

It looked like they had crashed on top of a plateau that gave way to a large mountain, just a few feet from a massive drop. Omega tried not to think about how close they had to plummeting down into the unknown. Bare, craggedy cliffs of baked red earth stretched as far as the eye could see, spiraling up to the dusty purple sky where a red sun bared down on them.

“I don’t think we’re on Tantiss anymore,” Omega muttered, turning back to the Second Brother.

“Definitely not…” he muttered before pointing off into the distance.

She followed his gaze until she caught the object of his focus. Tilting her head upwards, she saw that, on the ridge next to their plateau, was a massive mountain with the image of three faces carved into it, the base of the landscape forming into a rancid-looking swamp.

It was clear that this was the mark of something ancient, some civilization that had settled and thrived, but that posed a new question.

If there were people, once, where did they go? Were they still here?

“Do you know where we’re at?” The Inquisitor asked.

Omega thought for a second, examining her surroundings with a new, scrutinous eye. The arid geological features narrowed the field, certainly, but it was the monumental carvings and red sun that tipped her off. She knew of several planets that boasted such features, combined with what she knew to be their charted flight path, she came to the name of one planet that was the most probable suspect.

“I believe… we are on Dathomir,” she guessed.

“Dathomir?” The Second Brother repeated.

She looked at him. “I read about it, once. Home of the Nightsisters… or, it was, at least. Until the genocide committed by the Seperatists, during the Clone Wars. I’m surprised you’re unfamiliar with it, Inquisitor, as they were a clan of Force-Wielders. I figured it’d be your area of expertise.”

She could see him working his jaw, grinding his teeth as he bit back some retort and instead, turned his attention back to their surroundings.

“It is… unique, in the Force. Cold, like the Dark. But… different, somehow.”

That made absolutely no sense to Omega, so she kept her mouth shut.

“If there are no more Nightsisters, then I suppose there is no one to ask for help,” he continued, “So we’ll have to figure out how to survive on our own until a recovery team arrives. I’ll gather kindling. See if you can scavenge the ship for any supplies that may have been on board. With luck, the shipping crates held up better than the crew.”

Before she could say anything, he started to walk away.

She looked back to the shuttle, thinking about the soldiers, still in their seats; nothing she could do for them. And how difficult it had been for her to climb out of the damn thing, and now he wanted her to gather supplies.

With time, she supposed it would be feasible to accomplish the task. But it was going to hurt like a bitch.

The Second Brother was slowly becoming convinced everything on Dathomir wanted to kill him. 

First was the environment itself. The structure he found himself in, just beyond the small plateau was falling apart. The ground itself giving way to the gorge below. The rotting wood supports creaking in protest as they bared his weight, and sudden drops that, had he not been paying attention, surely would have led to him being injured at best, having to rely on the doctor to come rescue him at worst.

Next was the flora, most of it poisonous, based on looks, and would provide nothing to eat while they were stranded, making the doctor’s ability to scavenge the shuttle that much more important.

If all that wasn’t enough, there was the ravenous fauna who’s territorial rage was basically triggered at the mere sight of him. Already, a large predator that almost gored him with its sweeping claws; ambushing him in a long, leaping attack, and that was to say nothing of the several large spiders that spit poison, bit at his armor and clothes, then erupted more poison when he struck them down with his red blade, the substance sizzling on the dry stone ground.

He had no reason for exploring the ruins as he did. He had only meant to gather kindling and to bring it back to the shuttle.

But then there was… something about this place. Like a voice calling to him from around the corner, he felt a compulsion to follow, to see what was just beyond, leading him further and further away.

It was the Force, he knew, pulling him into the ruins. Compelling him to tune in to the Darkness that lingered around these strangled cliffs like a heavy fog.

He should have ignored it, should have just gathered kindling and returned to the doctor before she tripped on her coat and shot herself with the blaster or something. But he was no one to ignore the call of the Force.

Eventually, he made it through the cliffs and found himself at the maw of a structure. Two stone statues stood on either side, as if they were guarding it. They did not look like the Zabrak species he knew occupied the planet… he didn’t know what species they were, actually.

It didn’t matter, he supposed, strolling in.

The meanings of these ruins were lost now. With what the doctor described as a “genocide”, there was no one left to pass on their stories.

Wasn’t he familiar with that?

Still. Even if he did not understand it, he was drawn to the monument in the middle of the small cavern he found himself in. Kneeling at the base of the stone structure, he brushed his gloved hand along the inscription, written in a square-ish alphabet he could not read.

He felt the hair on his neck stand up, prompting him to look around, but still, there was no one.

It was strange… the place seemed abandoned, but…

Wind rushed past his ear, and he jolted, standing to full height, drawing his hilt, igniting it as a cloud of green smoke condensed before him, and from it, emerged a woman adorned in blood-red robes, a scowl on her face as she focused her sights on the Inquisitor, as if he was prey.

Laughable, wasn’t it?

“You trespass… Jedi, ” she remarked, the disdain in her voice obvious.

The Second Brother couldn’t help but make a face at the accusation. “I’m not a Jedi,” he said before looking her up and down. “But you’re a Nightsister… I had heard you were all gone.”

“Not all of us,” she immediately retorted.

Figures. That was the last time he trusted the doctor to give him any information on Force-Sensitives.

“If you are not a Jedi, why do you wield the weapon of one?” She pointed to his saber.

He looked down at it, the crackling red, letting himself hear the screaming of the crystal inside.

“To hunt them,” he answered, simply, looking back at her.

If the Nightsister was shocked by his answer, she didn’t show it. “Dathomir is forbidden to outsiders. You will leave at once.”

“Would if I could, but unfortunately, my ship crashed,” he started, casually, not sure how well she was going to respond to his scenario, true as it may be. “Trust me. I don’t want to be here anymore than you do. But if you give me a couple days, me and my… associate will be out of your hair when we contact a rescue team.”

The Nightsister raised a brow. “You mean to bring other outsiders here?”

“That is the only way off this rock,” the Inquisitor relented.

“No. There are other ways to rid you from Dathomir.”

He did not like the sound of that, the sentence only made more ominous when she waved her hand and two Zabrak males appeared in a green smoke, similar to how she had emerged earlier, both of them brandishing heavy-looking weapons with spikes on them.

The Second Brother immediately held his lightsaber in front of him as the Nightsister disappeared.

Figured she wouldn’t fight her own fights, but it did not matter.

The Inquisitor made quick work of the grunts, even if their weapons were enchanted by the Nightsisters sorcery to be resistant to his blade, their brutish and slow attacks were no match for his elegance and dexterity, and soon, he was alone with the carved remains of what were the Nightbrothers.

He extinguished his blade and brushed a few strands of hair that had fallen into his face back into place.

He was alone physically… but he could still feel the presence of that Nightsister, like she was a shadow in his peripheral. He wouldn’t doubt that she was watching him, somehow, with the powers of her magick.

“If you attack me again, I will strike you down,” he called, voice echoing off the cavern. “Leave me and my associate be, and I will leave you be.”

There was nothing to indicate that she heard him. Nothing to indicate whether or not she agreed to the terms and conditions he had just set.

The Second Brother did not seek a fight unless it was necessary. It would be a waste of energy and time to hunt her down. No, instead, he could focus his efforts on leaving this hell-planet and keeping the doctor alive.

With a final glance around, he turned on his heel and departed the cavern the way he came, heading back to the cliffs to collect some dry wood he had spotted earlier.

Chapter Text

Sometimes, Omega wished she would be wrong just once in her life.

It was only when the red sun had started to set that the Second Brother had returned, arms full of kindling. She herself had not been useless, having gathered a decent amount of supplies.

But now, the dusty purple sky was fading away, revealing the real vast infinite darkness that was above their heads, the first of a million stars winking at them from above, the rest of the planet fading into darkness by the time the Inquisitor had a fire going. The metal hull of the ship reflected a dancing orange and it was against this impression of the flames that his silhouetted form moved against, picking through the crates she had painstakingly managed to drag out of the cargo hold.

He was just barely within the reach of the fire’s light, on the border to where it suddenly dropped into the pitch black shadows, while Omega herself sat as close to the fire as she could without burning. She clutched her wrist and tucked it into herself, trying not to visibly reel in pain as both the wrist and her knee sent waves of throbbing, the sensation making her feel as if she actually was on fire. Like the flames next to her, the pain occasionally subsided for a few seconds before returning with a vengeance, jolting her; nothing she could do to alleviate the feeling except try to remember to breathe through it all.

Most of the cargo containers had remained intact, the Second Brother planning on retrieving the rest of it tomorrow, but the emergency rations meant to last two squads for one week could now be nicely divided among two people for 30, maybe longer if they stretched it out.

Omega concluded that it was probable that the medical relief supplies they were transporting were also still intact, the Brother focusing his search on those specifically.

She only hoped she pulled the right crate out. She was holding out for the finding of a decent pain medication, or… really, anything that would numb her.

She wished she could help catalog the inventory, but after all the strain she had put on herself, all she could do right now was sit in pain, and listen to the crackle of the fire.

The day had been arid and dry, sweat had beaded on her skin just standing in the sun’s rays. But the night was different, and a biting chill swept over the plateau, causing her to shiver before she pulled her lab coat tighter around herself for warmth.

The Second Brother walked over to her then, a sack slung around his shoulder.

“Here.” He said once he was vaguely close enough, throwing the sack towards her, narrowly avoiding the fire and her injured leg.

She shot him a look before gingerly pulling it closer to her, dragging it across the rocky surface.

“Hopefully, there’s something in there that will make you useful, Doctor,” he remarked, sitting down on the other side of the fire, a ration bar in hand.

She only sneered at him in response before she started digging through the bag. There were about a half dozen standard medical kits issued to a paramedic trooper, which was useful, as they tended to have healing stims or bacta in some form. She dug through the first pack and was relieved to find a stim. It wasn’t as effective as bacta, but it should be enough to stop the throbbing.

Now, she just had to… inject it.

This was where Omega faltered. For all her talents as a doctor, a scientist, her specialization being in genetics and cloning, when it came to needles, administering injections… She could never do it with a steady hand, if she could do it at all. It was the one failing that Dr. Hemlock had never been able to train her out of.

"Do you need help?"

The Inquisitor must have noticed how she froze, stim clenched tight in her hand, hovering over her arm, but his voice immediately snapped her out of her thoughts.

"I can do it, just give me a second," she bit out. The thought of admitting to needing this kind of help from him was mortifying, it was daunting. She’d never hear the end of it.

She readjusted her grip and let out a breath before she plunged the needle into her arm, the stim formula automatically dispensing from the canister.

An immediate wave of relief washed over her, the throbbing from her knee subsiding to a dull ache, the pinpricks from her wrist disappearing entirely.

“I would have thought Hemlock’s prized pupil would be able to inject needles like a second nature,” her unwanted companion remarked.

Omega didn’t answer, she didn’t owe him anything, much less an explanation, but she did shoot him another sharp look over the fire and began to dig through the rest of the bag, mentally taking inventory.

“I examined the interior’s damage,” he spoke while she remained silent, “The comm relay is busted, and most of the controls are fried, but I can probably repair the computer enough to send out a distress beacon.”

“An Imperial beacon?” she asked, counting out the rolls of bandages.

“No.”

“Oh, so we can get picked up by any number of pirates instead of actual help?”

“Pirates don’t answer distress beacons, but even if they did, we could just hijack the ship.” The Inquisitor leaned back in the sand.

“Easy for the one with a lightsaber to say,” she muttered before she started packing the supplies back up. “Did you find out what even caused the shuttle to crash?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t see carbon scoring or scorch marks on the exterior hull, so I don’t think we were shot down. Maybe just some systems error knocked us out of hyperspace.”

“Incredible,” she remarked. “I can’t imagine who’s going to be more pissed about such a minor thing stranding us on a haunted planet. The doctor or the Grand Inquisitor.”

The Second Brother actually snickered at such a notion. “Definitely the doctor,” he replied. “I am only one of twelve inquisitors. Didn’t Hemlock personally hand-pick you to be his assistant?”

“More or less,” Omega replied, leaning back.

It was all because of Nala Se, she supposed. Her former ward being brilliant, but stubborn. Hemlock tapping the pulse of the Kaminoan, separating Omega from her, giving the young clone to Emerie instead. No one expected her to thrive under her sister, not even Omega herself, to the point where Hemlock made it a point to personally guide her, lifting her higher than the Kaminoan could ever have achieved.

Despite the title, the Inquisitor did not pry for further details into her ambiguous answer, the same way she didn’t attempt to find out more about his induction into the Inquisitorious.

All she knew was that, much like her own placement in the Advance Science Division, it was… less than voluntary, at first. Until it gave her a purpose. Gave her a sister…

“How long do you think it’ll take to fix the computer?” she asked after a silence had fallen between them.

The Second Brother made a wavy gesture with the moisture pack he had grabbed from their acclimation of rations. “A few days. It’d be faster if we had a droid, the scomp link is the most efficient systems connector, but…”

Omega gave a small nod. “And… what about the crew?”

She had, despite the Second Brother’s insistence, checked to see if they all had really perished, or if there were any survivors that had been unable to communicate.

Unfortunately, it was not the case. It was only the doctor and the inquisitor on this stars-forsaken planet.

“What about them?”

There was some bite to the Brother’s voice, condescending, almost, and it made her shift in her spot.

“Well… can we really just leave them?” she started. “Shouldn’t we… you know? Give them a burial?

The Second Brother gave something of a huff and took a long drink of water before he decided to give her any response.

“They knew what they signed up for when they enlisted. Besides, the Empire will give them something more proper than we could manage when they find us; if that eases your conscience, Doctor.”

Omega fell silent again, working her jaw as she forced the words to roll off her shoulders. Instead of looking at the Inquisitor anymore, she turned her attention to the abandoned settlement she knew was just beyond their small plateau. It was… weird. She could… almost sense something dwelling among the ruins, but that would make no sense. There was no one left here. And if there even was anyone, she imagined the Second Brother would have dispatched them quickly with his blade the second he came across them.

Well… she was fairly confident the Brother didn’t come across anyone. He was vague when she inquired about it earlier, when he came back. Only saying that there was “nothing” and left it at that.

“We should get some rest,” she said, eventually, standing up and walking over to where the bedrolls were stored.

“Why? It’s not like we have a big day tomorrow,” the Brother remarked with sarcasm, dodging without even looking when she threw the roll right at his head.

Despite the commentary, he mimicked her actions as she laid out her sack and climbed into it, zipping the roll up when situated, and, like her, was eventually lulled to sleep by the sound of the wind rushing through the distant canyons, and occasional bird shrieking into the abyss of night.

“Adolescent human female… Origins… uncertain.”

“Our squad’s nothing but trouble. For your sake, keep your distance. Got it?”

“Change takes getting used to. You’ll see, just give it time.”

“She serves no purpose other than being the Kaminoan’s pet.”

“We’re sisters, Omega.”

“I can keep you away from Nala Se; from the tests and the machines that I know scare you. You can have a future beyond what the Kaminoans intended for you, just like Emerie. Don’t you want that?”

Omega shot up from her bedroll with the sound of her heart drumming in her ears, almost loud enough to drown out the dreams.

No… Not dreams. Her head pounded from a different pain than a crashed shuttle. A throbbing in the front of her skull, just from memories, it seemed.

She looked around, the fire long dead like everything else that was on this planet, the only light coming from the embers that she could make out, the moon that shone bright, casting their surroundings in a faint, silver glow.

Taking a few deep breaths, she ran a hand through her hair and laid back down.

It was strange.

She hadn’t dreamt about Experimental Unit 99 in… so long. She barely even thought about them, since they left Kamino.

No, that was wrong, too. She did think about them after that. For a long time, even after she realized they were never coming back from Onderon. Even after seeing the AWOLs on their files. Even after she was transferred to Tantiss.

She remembered wondering about them. Not knowing what became of them left a lot of room for her childish imagination to run wild, and then, during those very first, very lonely nights on Tantiss, she would fantasize about what it would have been like if they came back for her.

But not anymore.

She had grown up, but more importantly, she had grown up with a sister, Emerie, and her mentor, Hemlock. She didn’t need the “Bad Batch” anymore, she wasn’t that little girl anymore.

She was Dr. Omega Karr, one of the most regarded and respected personnel in the Advanced Science Division.

So why couldn't she sleep, now, thinking about them?

She stared up at the stars, none of the formations or constellations familiar to her as she had never visited this system before, but she found them beautiful, all the same. Maybe the Batch was somewhere among them.

Her mind was buzzing as she traced the star’s patterns with her eyes.

Her heart, though calmer now, was still heavy in her chest. Like she was… sad. She felt like she was missing something that she couldn’t replace, mourning its loss. It became hard to breathe, without this nameless thing that she never had, her breath loud in the night, so much so, that she was afraid of waking up the Second Brother, who was already tossing restlessly in his own bedroll.

What was this thing? What had she lost?

She closed her eyes, hoping to trick her mind into thinking it was still tired and able to sleep and live without this nameless thing.

Things were fuzzy, to her. Relaxing, slowly drifting off until she suddenly felt like she was falling, whole body lurching until she shot up again, heart thrumming as loud as ever as she reassured herself she was on solid ground even if she couldn’t see it, that she was not falling .

A haunted rock. That’s what this planet was, a haunted rock. Once, Omega would have dismissed the idea of ghosts or witchcraft, but after spending so much time with the Second Brother, she had started to believe more and more in the impossible, started believing in the Force.

She was about to turn back over, determined to salvage what sleep she could when, in the darkness, when it all came to life.

Around her, fires on torches were ignited, illuminating the world around her, revealing that she was not on that plateau, but in some kind of cavern, monuments carved into the walls of figures with long frowns and plain robes.

Fumbling, she instinctively reached for the blaster that she was sure had been next to her as she turned in her spot, looking to the right, where the Second Brother had been, but there was no one, not even the fire that had kept her warm.

“Inquisitor!” she hissed, glancing around, weary of speaking too loudly and attracting unwanted attention, but also needing to know that she wasn’t alone. “Kestis!”

No response, not even when his forbidden name echoed off the stone. No blaster, either.

Omega was alone and defenseless.

Defenseless? Maybe.

Slowly, she crawled out of the bag and rose to her feet, feeling along her belt. She had a scalpel. A small blade, not even longer than her finger, but still, it was sharp, and she knew how to use it.

“You’re not like the other one.”

Omega whirled around at the sound of the voice, holding her scalpel in front of her as she turned to face the speaker.

A hunched figure in a long, black cloak stood before her, at the entrance of the cavern. His body was turned slightly away, but his eyes were staring right at her, vivid, even in the low light. Most of his face was obscured by the hood he wore, but she could see the beginnings of straggled white locks at the edge of his waxen face.

“Who the hell are you?” she asked, taking a step back, not lowering her makeshift weapon.

The man took a small, cautious step, holding out his gnarled lands before him in a calming gesture. “A… a wanderer,” he said, “I wander this galaxy, studying a great many things.”

He spoke light, calming, friendly even, but Omega knew better than to lower her guard.

Hemlock had often told her the deadliest poisons tended to look like the sweetest flowers.

“Why have you come to Dathomir?” she asked.

The wanderer hummed. “I could ask you the same thing,” he replied.

Omega shifted a bit from foot to foot. “My ship crashed. My… friend and I, we’re fixing it.”

“Oh…” the wanderer shuddered, looking away from her. “Sounds like quite an ordeal.”

She didn’t say anything as he looked around the cavern for a long second before back to her. “I came here to study… extinct cultures… dead philosophies…”

“The Nightsisters?” Omega guessed, unimpressed.

“Oh yes… another tragedy,” the wanderer nodded knowingly, taking another step towards her. “Nearly all of them were wiped out, save for one. She was only a child when they attacked. She had to watch her whole family perish.”

Omega frowned, the gears in her head turning. So there was someone here… someone who knew the planet… may be able to help them.

“Where is this Nightsister?” she asked eventually.

The wanderer turned away from her. “It would be unwise to seek her out. Sister Merrin does not take kindly to strangers, as your friend discovered earlier.”

Omega tilted her head. “The Second Brother… met Sister Merrin?”

“Oh, did he not tell you?” The wanderer seemed to shrink in on himself, even if he didn’t sound particularly bashful over the revelation. No, in fact, he seemed almost pleased . “Yes, earlier today. I was watching, from a distance. She ordered him to leave, under the assumption that he was a Jedi… but he isn’t, is he?”

Omega took a step back. “He’s far more dangerous than a Jedi,” she warned.

The stranger hummed, unbothered by it. “Yes, it would seem so.”

"Speaking of which, he's going to notice I'm gone soon, and he's a pain in the ass to deal with when he's angry, so if you don’t mind, I'll be going," Omega started to head for the entrance of the cave.

“Yes, good idea,” the Wanderer agreed, “Your friend will grow worried if he wakes up and discovers you gone.”

He sounded like it was talking to empty air more than he was talking to her, but still, she found herself muttering “He’s not my friend” under her breath as she left the cave, stepping out into the open.

A strong gust of cold wind smacked against her face, stinging her skin, making it burn.

“Kark,” she whispered, pulling her tattered lab coat closer to herself. Not only was it cold, it was pitch black. She was barely able to make out the silhouettes of the rocky formations and craggly trees in the moons’ light. She had half a mind to go back and take a torch off the wall, but she did not want to face that weird, creepy old man again. The thought of it made her skin crawl and stomach churn, a sensation not dissimilar to what certain higher-ranking Imperial officers elicited from her. The older men, the prideful admirals and Moffs that didn’t fear Hemlock. The ones who could get away with lewd mutterings as they passed her in the halls…

She started walking.

She didn’t know how to find her way back to the camp or if there was anything waiting to eat her in the dark, but she did know that the wanderer was not to be trusted, and that was all she needed to brave the unknown with just her scalpel and wit to protect her.

Omega wasn’t sure if she was afraid of dying. She’d seen enough corpses to not only be aware of death, but to fully accept it as a fact of life. She’d even go as far as to say that she was… friendly, with death. Practically so. All this said, she wasn’t sure if she’d ever thought long on the fact that she herself could die. The shuttle crashing made her aware of this fact, sure. Yet, here she was. Against all odds, Omega was alive.

She looked up at the sky. Dathomir had four moons, she knew, and right now, she could see two of them. Based on their positioning in the sky, she wasn’t too far from the camp…

The hairs on the back of her neck stood up just then, and she whirled around, fully expecting to see someone standing just behind her, but… no one. Not even a figure in the darkness to be seen, no silhouettes, no trick of the eyes…

She was just psyching herself out. Yeah, that was it. Dathomir was filled with unresearched flora, maybe one of them had a toxin that stimulates the amygdala or induced paranoia. If that was the case, she’d have to come back here and study it to make notes to take back to Dr. Hemlock. She might as well do something productive with her time while she was stranded here.

Letting out a breath, she shrugged off the fear and turned back around, intending to continue her trek when she suddenly found herself face-to-chest with…

Omega had to crane her neck and back up a few steps to see the horns of the zabrak male towering over her, heavy weapon in hand.

She couldn’t even scream, the shock had taken her breath away as he took his weapon into both hands, raising it over his head.

Her senses came back to her just then, right before he brought it down.

She dove to the side, narrowing avoiding being bludgeoned to death then and there, the ground cracking where the blunt head of the mace had slammed into the stone

Her mind went into overtime then, neurons firing faster than light, adrenaline pumping thoughts to her brain.

A zabrak male had a similar anatomy to its human counterpart save for several notable features. First being the carnivorous diet. The next being a naturally higher muscle mass that fed into both an increased metabolism and running baseline temperature. The last was the horns. An adult male zabrak had no nerve endings in their horns, making them tactically advantageous in fighting maneuvers that literally used the head.

Weak spots. She needed her mind to tell her the weak spots. All she had was a tiny scalpel. She couldn’t stab somewhere at random, for if she plunged the small blade into the wrong spot, she’d only tickle him at best, or piss him off at worse.

He swiped up with his mace, making her jump away, her back hitting a solid surface. She looked back and saw herself cornered against the side of a cliff.

Upon this realization, the zabrak let out a low chuckle as he stepped towards her, staring her down.

Still, her mind was working overtime.

Pectorals were too thick to pierce, his arms were too high to confidently get a good angle on any of his major arteries…

His legs were exposed, a pair of tattered, cloth shorts and a belt with a miscellany of supplies hanging from his waist were the only clothing he adorned.

She had an idea.

He raised his arms once more, bringing his weapon high over his head, but as he brought it down this time, she dove, tucking into herself as much as possible as she rolled between his legs, the mace sticking into the cliff where her head had been seconds ago. He pulled it away, but it was too late. She had already struck out with her scalpel, slicing it across the thin skin stretched over the tendons in his ankle.

He howled with an animalistic agony, dropping instantly, his weapon clattering, forgotten, onto the ground next to him.

Omega pushed herself to her feet, panting, watching as he bled freely from the wound, the howling turned to screaming as he reeled on the ground, convulsing from what must have been unimaginable pain.

What was a mighty warrior was now dying, alone, in the dark, crying out and useless, like a wounded animal…

Omega dropped to her knees, taking off her coat as she did so, laying it down in front of her on the ground before she pulled out her small med kit, thumbing through the instruments until she pulled out a small pair of scissors. With those, she took the coat back into her hands and cut off the sleeve before she started shredding the sleeve into long strips.

“Don’t move so much,” she said once the sleeve was all cut up, a bundle of fabric all that remained of it.

She moved next to him, kneeling at his side, the blood on the ground soaking into her knees, warm and sticky, making her pants cling to her skin.

The zabrak whimpered, and she wasn’t sure if he could hear or understand her, or he was ignoring her because he kept squirming.

“Moving will make it worse. I’m trying to help you,” she said, gently grabbing his leg.

He cried out as she lifted it, balancing his calf on her lap as she began to wrap the strips of fabric around his ankle tightly, but not too tight. Binding the wound, but not cutting off circulation.

“I’m trying to slow the bleeding,” she explained as she worked. “I have a healing stim that I’ll inject into your thigh and that will accelerate the beginning of the healing process and potentially reduce her chance of infection.”

He groaned in response, tightly clenching his fists, clenching his whole body it seemed, breaths coming out in shudders as he tried to regain control of himself. He didn’t relax, and she didn’t want him to.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

He grunted in response before speaking, slowly, voice hoarse. “Why… Do you want to know?”

“One, to make sure you’re conscious. Two, to ascertain whether or not you understand me. Three, to keep you talking to ensure you stay conscious.”

The zabrak squeezed his eyes shut. “Malign,” he hissed. “I am Brother Malign.”

“I’m gonna do everything I can for you, Malign,” she said, tying up the last of the bandages.

“Why?”

She pulled out a healing stim that she got from the salvaged wreckage and plunged it into his thigh before she could think too much about the action. The little canister hissed as it deposited the stim into his body. “Because I’m a doctor.”

Malign relaxed, his breathing less labored now.

Omega leaned back on her haunches, looking around, thinking. The stim would help stop the bleeding and close the wound, but he had already lost a lot of blood. “Is there a settlement nearby?” she asked, looking back at him.

He took a few shaky breaths as he met her gaze. “A village. The Nightbrother village… but I can not walk.”

“Then I’ll go alone. I’ll bring back help. Tell me how to get there.”

“They will kill you as soon as they see you,” Malign warned.

“Then I’ll talk quick,” she said, standing up slightly. She helped move him so he was resting against the cliff face in a reclined, sitting position.

He watched her, expressionless as she bundled up what remained of her coat into a small ball before she carefully tucked it under his ankle, keeping his leg propped up and the wound elevated.

She crouched back down next to him, and, locking eyes again, he seemed to resolve something within himself. Slowly, he reached to the belt he wore, and unsheathed a large dagger, the blade not shiny like metal, but… sharp, regardless. Bone, she suspected.

As he held it out to her by the blade, offering her the hilt, she gave him an inquisitive stare.

“It will protect you on your way there better than that puny blade,” he muttered, slowly lowering his gaze.

She nodded, taking the weapon, feeling it, testing the weight in her hand before gripping it tightly. “Thank you.”

He looked back at her. “Back in the cave, if you go out the other way, there will be a wooden platform that, when you stand on it, it will lower you to a path. Go towards the three faces. If you hurry, you will run into a hunting party. Make them take you back to the village to get Brother Mercile. Tell them I am at the Strangled Cliffs, they will know how to get back.”

She nodded, committing the instructions to her memory. “I’ll be back,” she promised, “Just hang on, okay?”

She made to stand up, but his hand caught her wrist before she could leave.

She looked back at him and his expression hardened. “Do not let Brother Malicos discover your intentions.”

She nodded again. “I won’t.”

He returned the nod, and with that, he let go of her wrist, moving to grab the previously discarded mace, pulling it closer to himself and laying it over his lap.

“I’ll be back,” she repeated, retreating.

He said nothing, so she took that as a goodbye, turning on her heel, and running back to the cave.