The press around him pushed him up against the glass. The crowd was moaning, howling, screaming, crying. The heat was moist from breath. His family clung together, as the others did around them. Someone was screaming a name over and over again. A ship outside the window exploded as speartip fighters ripped through its hull, bodies spilling into the void, twisting like puppets with their strings cut.
“Do not look, my son.” his father pleaded.
He reached up a hand, his armored gauntlet touching the glass. Everything was quiet now. The ship hummed as the world burned, silent. He could smell it from space, cloying his nose with the smell of burnt flesh and the sap of the great trees. His black and orange armored fist closed and he pounded on the window, again and again, until it cracked and exploded out, but no air was swept from the room.
Ca Jor stared up at the darkness from the floor near his bed, trying to let his muscles relax in the moments after the nightmare. He felt his hand reach up more then he willed it to and grab the low frame, then he just sat there, not quite ready to move yet. Without looking he knew the clock would read something like 0430 local time. Eventually, with some effort, he swung himself up, and sat on the edge of the bed, slumped in on himself and looking at the floor. The soft glow of his holopicture stand cast different shadows as it flicked between its storage.
Ten beats, flick. Ten beats, flick. He reached a hand out and hit the pause before looking at it, seeing his family and himself standing in front of their new home in the villages. They weren’t smiling, not exactly. We still have each other, his father had said that day, and that means we can rebuild. It wasn’t a happy smile, but it was a smile that said that they would survive. The clock read 0437. He knew he wasn’t going to fall asleep again, so after another minute of not moving, he pushed himself up.
A great annoyance at his height was that no showerhead not designed for him tended to him above his chest level. He definitely felt the need for a thorough scrub, and he took his time, since he had plenty anyway. The bit of singed fur on his chest was sensitive, though luckily it had only singed the surface. His natural healing would take care of the actual damage, but after his shower and multiple-towel dry off, he made sure to apply balm to the place and carefully bandage himself, moving his arms and taking a few deep breaths to make sure it wasn’t too tight.
The him in the mirror stared out at him. The vaguely boot-shaped patch of white fur stood out starkly against the rest of his reddish-orange to peach colored patterns, and he watched the mirror cathar run his hand over it, tracing the outline. He’d considered asking the Jedi about it, but other than his fur being the wrong color, he’d felt nothing else wrong. He wasn’t sure if it was vanity, but he didn’t like other people seeing it. Sinee had, of course, but he’d done a rare thing and refused to tell her about it. He and the mirror took a last look at one another, before breathing in deep and nodding. The time read 0503.
The apartment building was quiet as he moved through the halls, deft feet not making much noise despite the combat boots. He nodded to the overnight doorman, who nodded back, and walked out into the colony streets. It had rained overnight as it usually did, and he could feel the wet chill in the air that would be replaced with humidity before being burned off by the daytime sun. He barely noticed it, still warm from his shower, as he moved through the streets.
Viscara never truly slept, but it did close its eyes, and this time of morning was when it was at its quietest. The third shift was prepping for the arrival of the first; the first was not quite awake. The street vendors would be the first out, of course, catching the crowd going in and the crowd coming out, breakfast for some, dinner for others. He often joined the lines of workers there, smiling and nodding and chatting. That was his job, after all. Right now, he couldn’t muster it though, which is why the walk was important. If he couldn’t work himself up, he’d just skip a cooked breakfast and eat one of his ration bars.
He passed by the stalls as the Ugnaught woman was opening hers, giving a polite wave to her as he went on by. He wouldn’t bother her, she was in the middle of setting up still, and he knew it took a bit for a street food vendor to prepare. Instead he slipped by her stall into the alley, pacing along it, listening to the steaming of the pipes.
“Hey, pal, gimme you-” started a voice from the darkness in front of him, suddenly cut off. Ca Jor idly plucked the vibroblade from the man’s other hand, holding him in the air by his shirt. He flicked the knife, burying it in the alley floor. He felt his claws wanting to come out, but that was below him, way below him. He did, however, pluck out his cred stick.
“Here’s five hundred credits. Get your ass on the next shuttle off world, and if I see you again…” he said, holding his free hand up and extending the claws. The man tumbled to the floor as Ca Jor let him go. He had barely even seen the Cathar move as he’d jumped out from behind a pipe. There was a crash as he stumbled at speed out of the alley, knocking over an empty can of cleaning fluid.
The vibroknife was a cheap one, barely functioning, and Ca Jor had to press the power button several times to turn it off. A quick snap and he ripped the powercell and generator out, casting them to the side and tossing the blade up onto a nearby roof. He had to admit, he felt slightly better. He checked his wrist comp. The chrono read 0530.
Out the alleys, down to the right, near the starport. The two guards on duty were barely functional by the looks of it, but they were at the end of their shift anyway. The sweet’s lady was at her cart, the glow of the built-in oven visible in the pre-sunlight. He wandered over, and she looked up with a smile.
“You look like hell.” she said conversationally in their native language, and he gave a tight grin back.
“You know, for a lady who sells sweets…”
“I’ve heard it before, soldier-boy. From you, in fact.” though she still smiled. She was a few years older than him, and quite pretty with her tan fur and mane tied back into a somewhat severe tail. The markings on her face stood out in a clear pattern.
“Well, if the scent tracks,” he shrugged and leaned on the cart, looking across the street toward the starport “How have you been?”
“Oh, the same. People come, people go, they all get hungry when they smell my products. I saw you come out of the port yesterday soldier-boy. You looked like hell then too, but perhaps a bit less so.” she idly flicked the light on the cart on, over her collection of candies and daily magazines and newspaper decryption keys.
“Off world operation. Sith hit a mining colony, all civilians.” he said distantly, glancing over at her “We pulled the ones who lived, but we had to detonate the facility. Set a region on fire. We could see it from space, and the ship was crowded with people…”
She paused, and looked over at him sympathetically, putting a hand on his upper arm. He felt himself relax a bit, knowing someone understood. She popped open the oven and shooed him off her cart afterwards, placing the steaming buns in the display case and flicking that light on as well. She extracted one, wrapping it in a bag, and held it out.
“Here, soldier-boy. Don’t push yourself too hard today if you can.”
He dropped a credit chit on the counter and took the offered bag, feeling the warmth through his glove.
“Thanks. Think your morning crowds about to sweep through.” he glanced down the street at the sound of lots of feet, Czerka uniforms blending into the early morning gloom as the walls began to fall to the glow of the sun. He began to move, shifting his shoulders back and his chin up, the cathar from the mirror dropping into his shadow, always there, always following, but not presented. The chrono read 0547, and switched from the moon to the sun on the GUI.