"~We interrupt this broadcast to let you know that rations have been halved in this sector until further notice. Stay vigilant. Emperor protects. The Galaxy stands.~"
Just three scrappers trying to make a living on Imperial controlled Bracca, approx. BBY19.
That is Tabbers, by the way, because he deserves some recognition as a person Cal actually sort of trusts. I love him, I have created a huge ass headcanon for him despite his being mentioned exactly once. He is a freelance scrapper and smuggler, and is very rough and grumpy...but he has a huge soft spot for Cal.
Today's request is 'You've got one minute' for @ralndown ^_^
Every time Cal thinks he’s settling into a routine on Bracca, something awful happens. Maybe the Ibis Maw gets hungry for flesh and grabs a tentacleful of unsuspecting scrappers. Maybe a ship that’s been in the same place for two years suddenly decides to collapse under its own weight. Maybe someone breaks something aboard an old terraforming lab and suddenly there’s a bunch of people turned into trees.
Today, Cal’s crew makes it halfway through their shift before the worst, most terrifying siren goes off. Bracca doesn’t have a lot of warnings for incoming disaster, but this one? This is the one they’re all trained to react to in one way, and one way only.
Get out. Get out now or die.
Maybe that’s why the Force left Cal feeling nauseous all day. It’s so useful like that.
Dropping the wires he’d started stripping, Cal follows the others. Prauf’s leading them and he’s already on the comms, listening intently to whatever’s being said. When he stops still and holds up a hand to make everyone else do the same, Cal shivers under the weight of the collective fear around him.
It only gets worse when Prauf starts issuing orders in a sharp tone of voice Cal’s never heard before.
“It’s a chemical leak. A bad one. We’re too deep in the ship to get out in time. Get into your emergency teams, find a room, and seal yourselves in. If we’re lucky, we’ll see each other on the other side of this thing.”
People break off into their groups. There’s no time for goodbyes or good lucks. Cal sticks close to Prauf and Tabbers. He takes a breath and immediately coughs it out, a sharp bite scraping the back of his throat. Prauf grabs him, throws him into a room, and Tabbers seals the door.
It’s not enough. The room, a tiny refresher, has an air conditioning vent high on the ceiling. Even Prauf can’t reach it to close it off. Gas seeps in. Cal hears people coughing and choking from all around, senses their fear and pain.
“We gotta seal it, now!” Tabbers shouts. His eyes stream, coughing hard. “We’ve got one minute before we’re all spitting out chunks of our lungs.” He pulls a wall panel down. “Weld this over that vent!”
“Lift me up,” Cal says. He puts his filter mask on, hoping it will help. “I can do it.”
Putting his own mask on, Prauf grabs Cal, lifting him. Cal plants his feet on Prauf’s shoulders. His eyes burn, so full of tears he can hardly keep them open. Tabbers hands him a sheet of metal and Cal presses it to the vent, welding torch in hand as he covers it up. He can’t keep his eyes open, so he trusts Prauf to guide him, molten metal sealing the panel in place.
“Good job,” Prauf says, lowing Cal down. “Sit, both of you. That gas is light, so we should be safer down here.”
Cal’s feet touch the ground. He drops to the deck moments later, eyes squeezed shut, lungs still rebelling. His mask isn’t doing much to help, but it’s better than nothing.
“Is this shit what I think it is?” Tabbers’ voice is muffled by his mask.
“Yeah,” Prauf replies. Cal hears him sit beside him. “Someone messed up big time.”
“I’d threaten to beat the idiots myself, but I cannae imagine they’re alive now,” Tabbers says.
“What is it?” Cal asks when he can talk again.
“A chemical weapon designed to rot battle droids,” Prauf says.
“Aye, not that it worked,” Tabbers adds. “It’s far better at killing us organics.”
Cal never heard about anything like that. Not that he tells the others. The idea that the Republic would create something like that leaves him nauseous.
“Looks like no one thought to remove the canisters before we started pulling this thing apart,” Prauf says. “Foreman said someone cut off the wrong thing and boom – we’re all breathing in poison.”
Cal doesn’t join the conversation. He pulls his knees to his chest, keeps his eyes firmly closed, and tries not to suffocate in the feelings of so many people dying around him. He pushes the Force away, begs it to leave him alone like it usually does.
“Cal?”
Prauf’s big, warm hand lands on his back. Cal startles, eyes flying open. His vision is fractured by the tears still running, but the burn is easier to manage now.
“You okay?” Prauf asks.
“Yeah,” he says, knowing he doesn’t have to worry about how rough his voice sounds. And then, because he needs a distraction, he keeps talking. “Can’t believe we’re stuck in a ‘fresher.”
Tabbers chuckles. “Get comfy, brat. We might be here a while.”
It’s two days before the foreman gives them the all-clear. The survivors are given a half-shift break to clean up, get something to eat and drink, and then sent back to work to make up for the two days of sitting around doing nothing. Cal notes that their crew is down several people when they meet up to be assigned duties, but no one says anything.
Prauf learns the hard way that Cal has never had caf in his life. Not until today. Tea, yes. Caf, definitely not. Prauf only wanted to help him feel less sleepy on an early shift. Now, the kid is vibrating, bouncing on his toes with an eagerness for work that is downright unnatural.
"I'm gonna climb the hull," Cal announces as they reach their worksite, a huge Dreadnought that can only be a year old. "I am gonna climb all the way to the bridge."
Prauf sighs. "No, you're not." They've been assigned to the starboard wing to guide in the ship cutter.
"Watch me."
Cal tries to run for it. Prauf grabs him by the poncho hood to keep him from racing off, little legs kicking in the air. He catches Cal's arm when he tries wiggling his way out of the poncho in a bid for freedom. He doesn't risk putting him down until they're on site.
Suitably occupied, Cal spends the entire shift racing back and forth across the wing, scanning, charting, scrapping and plotting until the cutter crew had everything they need.
"That's two days of work Cal's saved us from," Tabbers observes. "What the hell got into him?"
i like to imagine during cal's earlier years on bracca, tabbers was one of both he and prauf's best mates before he moved up to nar shadaa (i have spent that wrong)
the thought of these two old guys adopting a 12yo to take care of makes me laugh. obviously as cal got older they would take the role of friend rather than parental (though prauf has some lenience to that). but i really just want to believe cal had more that one (1) guy looking out for him on bracca
anyway, it might just be me but i've been imagining tabbers as a giant anthro tabby cat in my head. anyone else??
I've always headcanoned that while Prauf is Cal's primary self-appointed parental figure, Tabbers is Prauf's Official Guide To Humans. Prauf's clueless about them, especially still growing ones who do weird things that no one can quite explain (and no, he doesn't entirely buy Cal's 'I was in the circus' act either). When he has a question, he goes to Tabbers, who takes him aside and sets a few things straight. Prauf is both enlightened and, at times, horrified. Seriously, how are Humans so fragile and working on Bracca? Tabbers thinks this is hilarious. "Spoiler alert: Humans, especially young ones, see themselves as immortal."
(As if to prove the point, Cal flips a somersault a hundred meters in the air between two wrecks).
Tabbers fills an extended family role, like a cool uncle who knows way too much about all kinds of nebulous stuff and shares this with Cal. Kid's gotta survive on Bracca somehow. He needs to know this stuff!
Prauf worries about the day the stormtroopers drag Cal away because he got caught with contraband. Why is Tabbers so incredibly chill about this?
"All part of the Human Experience," he says.
...Prauf is not a fan.
I love the idea of Tabbers being a giant cat. Alas, I went far more boring and made him a regular ol' Human. Scottish, yes, and Human.
Another idea knocking around my head: in the five-year gap between Fallen Order and Survivor, Cal bumps into Tabbers. Y'know, the throw away line that I have now turned into a character. Who is Scottish. Because Star Wars has a Scotland now.
Picture it. The Mantis crew stops off on some backwater, Hutt-run planet where the Empire has no presence, to restock. Cal and BD-1 go to the local market, the stalls lined up and stretching into the distance. It's not a friendly kind of place, but Cal and BD are familiar with the attitude and know how to project it right back.
BD-1's language is only getting saltier with age.
That, and Cal's subtle use of the Force to make people's perceptions slide right off them helps. He's become a lot better at hiding over the years.
Cal's headed for a cantina, hoping to pick up some information on the local system, when he hears the sounds of a scuffle. Looking down an alleyway, he sees people fighting.
Or, more accurately, he sees two chunky Gamorreans beating up a helpless third individual, species unknown.
The Force prompts and Cal responds. He could easily throw the attackers back with a flick of his wrist. He doesn't. He won't use the Force so overtly unless he really needs to. Instead, he grabs the first guy and shoves him away, just as the second one notices what's happening and raises a blaster.
Fires.
One of Cal's lightsabers is in his hand in an instant. He deflects the bolt straight back at the Gamorrean, killing him instantly. He senses rather than hears the second man's shot, his second lightsaber igniting to protect BD-1.
The second Gamorrean goes down with a guttural squeal.
Pair dealt with, Cal looks down at the third figure, a Human staring up at him with a look of complete disbelief. He's bloodstained, but Cal realises he knows him.
"Tabbers?" he asks.
Tabbers' mouth works, but nothing comes out. Maybe he's sustained a serious head injury. Lightsabers deactivated and back on his belt, Cal kneels. BD-1 runs a quick scan, confirms the injuries are messy but superficial.
Tabbers speaks Binary as fluently as Cal. "Superficial my arse," he groans. "My head's ringing. I'm seeing things. That cannae be you, Cal."
"It's me," Cal smiles. It's been a few years since either of them was last on Bracca. "Been a while."
"You... You were just... I mean... those glowy things... Lightsabers?"
"Lightsabers," Cal says.
He remembers Tabbers saying some choice things about the Jedi back in the day.
"By the stars, I'd heard the rumours, but I never thought it was true." Tabbers stares at him through swollen eyes. "Prauf's really gone then, isn't he?"
It might be an old pain, but it still has the power to flare up and scorch. BD-1 pats Cal's back as Cal says, "Yeah, he's gone."
Tabbers curses the Empire so viciously even BD-1 whimpers softly at the vitriol. Cal soothes him, then holds out a hand to help Tabbers up. "What did these two want from you?"
"Gambling debt," Tabbers says. "Nothing serious." He pats down each corpse, looting a hefty amount of credits from both. "Ah, there we go. That'll help get me off this world." He attempts to wipe the blood from his face and succeeds only in smearing it more.
"Guess that's two you owe me," Cal says.
Tabbers stares at him. "What? Are you still holding me to that? It's been years!" He explodes. "And you're a freaking Jedi! You bastards can just mind trick your way across the galaxy!"
So, still not a fan of the Jedi. Good to know.
Tabbers isn't finished. "So much about you makes sense now. You really weren't from a circus. You were a damned Jedi all along, you sneaky little shit."
Cal had forgotten that particularly detail of his fake backstory. BD thinks it's hilarious. Cal hushes him.
"You need to go," Tabbers says, pointing back down the alley. He turns his back to Cal. "I'm grateful and all, but I cannae afford to get caught up in the sorts of trouble your kind brings down."
"Yeah," Cal says. "I won't ask you to do that. Stay safe, alright?"
Tabbers says nothing.
BD looks from Cal, to Tabbers, to Cal, to Tabbers.
Cal turns, walks away. When he reaches the end of the alleyway, he hears something.
sobbing because now I've imagined Cal grabbing things as he's working and just breaking down or dissociating as he accidentally reaches into a Force echo (especially since he probably lost some control after everything). Prauf and Tabbers try to help, but they barely understand how a human works so they are completely clueless as to why Cal gets incredibly emotional over certain things, or calls out for people that he has never mentioned before (and wouldn't mention after the incidents since they're from the echo).
It gets so bad that Cal becomes paranoid about touching other people around him, including Prauf. Prauf is confused as to why Cal won't accept anymore hugs and why he avoids contact. Thinking it might be a sensory issue, he gives Cal a set of gloves to help him when he's working.
T_T NOOOO IT'S TOO SAD.
Also, I have to believe Cal works his way through this as he gets older because he's always touching people to show affection and how much he cares about them (a fact I noticed better on 1: multiple replays and 2: watching cutscenes on YouTube that do not load very well on my PS4 lolololol). He literally puts both hands on Prauf's face after he saves him with the Force to stop him talking. I still love that bit. Prauf literally cannot shut himself up about the Jedi and Cal's just "Enough already!" in the calmest way possible (considering the world of trouble he's now in).
In those early days, Cal does his best with the echoes he gets, tries to bury the sadness down deep, but some get the better of him no matter what. All he can do is play it off, pretend the names he calls out are of people he used to know and misses...
I *love* the idea of Prauf getting the wrong idea and trying his best with the gloves. He figures Cal doesn't like getting zapped or hates the sound when his nails scratch over metal. Cal can't exactly tell him gloves don't stop his psychometry, so he takes them and is grateful for them. Hey - at least his hands are warmer now!
Aaaah, dear Anon, you've got me thinking about echoes again!!!! Which reminds me, I have a chapter to finish rewriting editing. Thanks for the Ask!
