Nar Shaddaa is a city of constant life. Constant energy. Under normal circumstances, Santos would be out enjoying the city. Tonight; however, there isn’t much to enjoy. It’s been close to a week since Shard’s attack, and every attempt to locate her has proved useless. More and more he’s been withdrawing from his crew, spending his nights alone, on top of the Rainbow Dash, back resting in-between the blasters of the upper turret, staring out into a starless sky.

Callia has been pushing herself to help find Zet in every way she knows, as well. There has been everything from meditation to actually travelling the city-planet in order to find information on their friend. No stone goes unturned, but they’ve also provided no real intel to her, yet.

Tonight she finds herself unable to sleep. She can feel the unease in the Force, not that it’s in-evident without it. Santos may feel her signature like a dimly lit, soothing light as she finds her way along the top of the Rainbow Dash and to her friend. “I thought I might find you here.”

Santos doesn’t respond for what might seem like an eternity. He simply stares out into the vast nothingness of Nar Shaddaa space in silence. Eventually, he lowers his head and makes a nearly inaudible confession. “I’m scared, Callia.”

Callia lets Santos take his time to even acknowledge her. He knows he needs his space. The woman does, however, move in to sit near him. The vast nothingness of space can be soothing, but sometimes it can be incredibly daunting. Callia is feeling conflicted about that feeling right now.

She releases a soft sigh at Santos’ confession. “I know.” She offers. “I’m scared, too.” Sometimes small confessions in return will help open another up. That’s what she’s hoping for here.

“There was nothing I could to. I could barely move. I couldn’t see her. There was nothing I could do.” Hi red eyes glisten as he struggles to keep tears from rolling down his greyish blue cheeks. If it sounds as though he’s trying to convince himself that Zet’s capture was not his fault, he’s failing.

He takes a deep breath, trying to regain his composure. “We have to find her now. What if they aren’t feeding her?”

Callia takes a deep, calming breath. Her focus turns to her friend beside her, full of empathy. “I know.” She breaths. A hand reaches up to tentatively rest on his shoulder. “I do know. I won’t tell you not to blame yourself, I know that fighting with that sense of grief and helplessness takes time. Know that we don’t blame you, though. It wasn’t your fault. I’m sure even Zet believes you did what you could.”

“We will find her.” Callia agrees. “All of us will pool our resources to do so.”

“I’ve reached out to all of my contacts here. Even some on Toydaria, Nimban and Zisia. No one knows anything.” Santos goes quiet again. He reaches into a pocket and takes out the orange crystal he found on the asteroid. He rolls it around in his fingers as he looks up to the sky. “What happens if Teemo’s people can’t find anything? What else can we do?”

“We know who took her and where she would have been taken to. We know the Black Sun had a bounty on her.” Callia pauses, eyes focusing on the orange crystal in his hands. “I’d say we start there. We have enough sway with smugglers in the Corellian system that they may be able to help. We also have our own contacts that we’ve helped along the way. I can reach out to the rebels. We could try reaching out to Aris on Bespin.” Her words trail off. “Where did you find that?”

“This?” Santos fails to see why some stupid crystal is more important than Zet. “I found it near the landing pad just before the robots attacked the Dash.” It doesn’t occur to him that nothing about that sentence is reasonable.

Distractions can be good. “You found it? In the middle of a droid uprising and the storm generators failing?” Callia asks, gently trying to make him realise the absurdity of that statement. “How did you find it? May I see it?”

Santos tosses it to her. While sitting on top of the Dash. You better catch it Callia! “Well, it kinda spoke to me, and then the dust conveniently cleared away.”

Thankfully Callia is quick enough to catch it. She rolls it over in her fingers, “listening” to the soft hum the crystal seems to emit. “I’m not surprised it called to you. It’s full of a fiery energy…” She murmurs. After reverent examination, she offers it back over to Santos. “It’s a kyber crystal.” She unclips her lightsaber and uses the Force to open it and remove her very similar yellow crystal for him to see.

“You mean this little thing can power a lightsaber?” Santos could certainly make use of a lightsaber when he frees Zet. If they haven’t killed. “Is there anything else I would need?”

“Yes, that crystal can power a lightsaber,” Callia replies. She hesitates as Santos jumps right on board of building one. This could lead somewhere dangerous. “You’d need a power supply, for one. Something to house it is. You would need the proper components to focus the energy from the crystal and create a safe blade. I’ve found all of them before from spare parts and scraps, that’s not the hard part. The hard part is that it is built entirely using the Force. It’s an incredibly personal experience, from the design to construction. I can guide you, but you are the one who must do the work.”

Santos thinks about that for a minute. “Our new robo-fixer has been creating a rather large pile of spare parts out of those powered down droids. Would those work?” He’s about to question why he needs to use the Force to build this thing, as he’s a decent mechanic in his own right, but decides against it. Sometimes it’s just better to honour the Jedi’s super spiritual wizard traditions.

“They may. I will give you a list of supplies and see what you can find in there. More than likely you’ll be able to find all the parts.” Callia replies. “In the meantime, you may want to start thinking about a comfortable hilt for yourself. Something that will fit in your hands, one or both, wide enough that you can hold it without your fingers cramping and long enough so you won’t lose any. You can embellish it as you wish, as well. Like I said, it’s a personal experience. I remember lighting my ‘saber for the first time…it’s much more than just a weapon or a tool. It’s a part of you, of who you are. The crystal is the heart of the blade and it is connected to you.”

Clearly Santos is going to embellish the shit out of his saber. After hours of hiding on top the Dash he finally stands up, offering a hand to Callia. “Why don’t we just do it now?” At the very least, Santos will feel like he’s doing something more than simply waiting for a lead. “We can also take a look at my repair kit. I’m sure we have what I need.”

Callia watches Santos get to his feet, her eyes subdued and expression hesitant as he offers out his hand. On the one hand, it will help distract him but on the other…

This isn’t her Trial. She continues to say that to herself, over and over, as she takes the Chiss’ hand and gets to her feet. “We can start, of course. It may take you some time to design your hilt. We can lie out the components and I can show you designs I remember.” She smiles. “I’m sure we do have everything you need. It’s just a matter of applying it the right way.”

A small smile actually appears on Santos’ face as he helps his human friend up. He quickly opens the top hatch into the ship and jumps in, using the Force to soften his landing. He waits patiently for Callia to join him, while going over a design in his head. It won’t take as long as Callia believes to come up with something personal. He’s drawing on history he once left far behind him.

“GARBOL gathered up all the droids in our animal suite. There must be piles of spare parts and broken droids by now.” Santos tried to refer to the robot by the full ‘Ord Lantern’ purpose/designation, but quickly gave up and abbreviated it all.

Santos smiling gives her hope. To see the Chiss go from depression to even the smallest of smiles is a good sign. She clips her lightsaber back onto her belt and follows Santos down the top hatch. Her feet land softly beside him.

“GARBOL? Is that what we’ve decided what his designation is, now? I like it.” There is a wry grin on her face as she follows after Santos. “How many droids did we collect, exactly?”

“They all kind of powered down as soon as Shard left with… I guess 10 or so.” He leads the way to the home of their future menagerie with a little more enthusiasm than he’s shown lately. “It’s easier to say than whatever it said its purpose was. It’s still hard to believe that it wasn’t given a name 300 years ago. How did they give it directions?”

“Possibly something along the lines of snapping their fingers and saying “you, droid”." Callia offers. “Somehow they managed without one for as long as they have.” Clearly she will need to come up with more distractions for the Chiss when they aren’t searching for Zet. This is going to keep his mind well off of it. “Ah yes. Well I’m sure there will be a lot of good material to work with.”

“Hmm.” Santos grunts as he makes his way up to a pile of spare parts. He falls to his knees and begins sorting out the pile, separating the bit he believes (without any real reason to) will be helpful. “This could be useful… oh, how about this one? What do you think Callia?” He certainly is distracted for the moment, although he’s focus on this for it’s potential use in protecting Zet from the Black Suns. It’s not like Callia not to respond when spoken to, so Santos stops his directionless search long enough to look over his shoulder to see that his human friend is no where to be seen. He does notice that a document appeared somehow, a list of components he would need to find. How long has he been talking to himself?