Meeting Talen Jall was one of those moments in my life that leave me wondering what would have happened if it had never occurred. My dislike of Jedi was one of those things that I thought for a long time was utterly unassailable, and in many ways it was, but meeting that padawan was an experience. That's putting it lightly when I look back on it. The kid changed everything, even if I didn't see it right at that moment. Jedi had a way of walking into someone's life and complicating everything. It's what they were best at.

I hadn't liked them for a long time, and it began with what I saw on Christophsis. It festered inside of me during that campaign until that dislike turned to a simmering hatred. The crux of that hatred came from the simple fact of this: there were Jedi commanders - Krell, Vos, and a handful of others whose names I forget now out of spite - who had no regard for our lives at all or who openly despised us, and none of the other Jedi ever openly protested it. They never argued for us. We were just expected to die, and it was "regrettable, but necessary", yet when a Jedi died they made it all pomp and ceremony and held discussions on how and why it happened. Meanwhile, there were talks about exterminating us at the end of the war and they did nothing to stand up for us. Some of them even encouraged it. For people who claimed that peace and justice were all they cared about, they certainly didn't extend that to us. It was only peace and justice for people they considered human, I suppose.

After all, we were just ranks of weapons to be hurled time and time again at an unfeeling, unthinking enemy. What did we really matter at the end of the day?

We had returned to the crime scene and found the officers crowded around someone. I recognized the robes, but what confused me was the sie of this supposed master we were getting. I wasn't aware many species were around that small-ish height, and my mind was running through potential species when the Jedi seemed to sense our presence and turned to face us.

Never, in my entire life, had I felt so insulted to see a literal child standing there in front of me than I did right then when the little Jedi turned around and pulled his hood off. He was staring at me with big blue-green eyes and this childlike look of wonder about him. The only feature about him that was really remarkable was the fact that his hair was so blond that it might as well have been white. He still didn't look any older than maybe eleven or twelve. He was, for all intents and purposes, a kriffing child.

"You must be Captain Kando," he spoke with an accent similar to ones I heard from Chagrian visitors hailing directly from Champala, and that was even more confusing.

"Um... yeah. That's me. Listen, kid, we're looking for a Jedi..."

He got this dumb, goofy smile on his face and nodded excitedly, "That's me! I'm Talen Jall, padawan to Master Agen Kolar. He sent me here to help!"

A kid.

He had sent a literal kid to help on a murder investigation.

I was happy I was wearing a helmet because the face I made would have broken the kid's heart, I think.

Still, I could tell that he sensed the collective disappointment we all had because his smile faltered a little bit and he began fidgeting before quickly adding, "I... I promise I won't get in the way! I'm fast, I'm... pretty good with a lightsaber, and Master Kolar says I have a gift for reading emotions!"

None of us said a word.

He looked embarrassed more than anything else, and I actually caught myself feeling bad for him as I watched him stare down at his feet like he wanted the road to crack open and eat him. It wasn't until one of the security guys made some quiet remark behind him that we finally swallowed our pride. Red marched past the kid to catch the guy by the collar of his uniform, "Got something to say to the kid? Say it out loud and say it to me." None of the guards made any move to say a single word as Red gave the guy a shove, "Get lost. The investigation is ours now."

The kid may have been a Jedi, but he was our Jedi now.

I mean, that, and he was just a kid. We have some obligation to stick up for a literal child.

"I'm Kando, as you know," I began introducing us with a quiet sigh, which made the kid finally look up from his feet, "that there is Red. This big guy is Grek. This loser standing here is Tor. We'll be... helping with your investigation."

He smiled up at me like some puppy and it made me throw out another sigh as Red fell in beside me and crossed his arms, "So... you're good with a lightsaber?" Red asked him with a nod to the silver lightsaber hanging at his side.

"Uhm..." Talen seemed hesitant to say anything before he folded his hands in front of him and looked away sheepishly, "I'm better at using the Force - but! But I can fight!"

"Kid," I sighed, "stop trying to prove to us that you need to be here and just show us that you should be. Telling us what you can and can't do isn't the same as showing us that you're capable."

He looked at me like I had delivered some prophetic wisdom and I wanted to scream. He glanced down at where the body had been and gave a quiet hum, "I read the autopsy reports. Whoever killed the man had a decent vantage point."

"Doesn't match up with the Nikto's escape route, either," I supplied as I fell in step beside the tiny Jedi. "Think he killed him?"

I watched Talen consider for a second before he turned to look up at me, "No... but... You still have him in custody, right?" I glanced back at the boys before I turned back and nodded, making him turn his eyes to one of the nearby storefronts and fuss with his lower lip. "May I question him?"

"Don't waste your breath," Grek interjected with a dismissive wave of his hand. "We've tried that already. The alien's nuts."

Talen turned to Grek, hands folded before him, and sighed, "I don't mean to be rude, but you all don't have the... gentlest touch. My powers may be able to help ease his mind if nothing else. I'd like to try," here he turned back to me with a look on his face that was asking permission, "if that would be alright?"

I just gave a shrug of my shoulders, "You're the Jedi. This is effectively your show."

And again, one of those dumb smiles. The kid was going to drive me absolutely insane, I just knew it. "I'll question him. Perhaps we can get some new insights before we return here. I can't do much without some more information."

*

Frankly, none of us were expecting much out of the investigation when it came to interrogating that shabuir of a Nikto. Talen had moved through the office like he owned the place, with that blissful childlike confidence, and he was let in to see the Nikto, who was sitting in the corner of his cell muttering to himself and starting at every creak and groan of the building and every far off rumble of machinery.

Talen had entered the cell almost silently and had smiled at the Nikto, "Hello there, friend. My name is Talen Jall. I'm a Padawan of the Jedi Order. May I sit down?"

The Nikto didn't even seem to realize he was there, but if it bothered the kid he never flinched. Instead, he sat down at the table in the cell across from the alien with a smile, giving the murmuring man time to register his presence and go silent. "Can't say anything... already told them..."

"That's alright. I just want to ask you a few questions. First off, how are you doing today?"

"You're kriffing kidding me," Grek murmured from where we watched by the monitors.

"Don't question the Jedi's methods!" Tor snapped in response. "He's a professional-!"

"He's a padawan," Red's reply was laced with annoyance that all of us except for Tor seemed to be feeling at the time. "He's about as far from professional as you can get."

I stayed quiet and watched. I was attempting to figure out some method to the madness. There had to be some reason for the string of inane questions coming out of that kid's mouth, but I couldn't put a finger on what they could be.

We were watching him sit in front of that Nikto, his hands folded before him in his lap, and he spoke to him in the most soothing way any of us had ever heard. Each question was calm and level, and before long I let my eyes wander to his hands. The kid was making small gestures with his fingers as he spoke, small little signs and motions that would accompany the occasional response from the originally nearly incoherent alien. When I looked back at his face, there was a certain look of concentration there despite how relaxed he was trying to keep himself looking. His brow was set in a firm line above his eyes, which were calmly regarding the alien. Underneath that calm exterior was a sharp point of focus, though.

Some of the questions seemed relatively pointless. They were simple questions about his name, how he was doing, what his favorite foods were, but eventually, we all seemed to understand exactly what was going on at about the same time. The kid was trying to find some opening in this Nikto's terrified mental prison and, he was, surprisingly, making progress.

"I get it," I nodded slowly. "He's opening that alien up to him. Every question pries his mind open just a little bit more so our Jedi can start weaseling questions out of him. Surprisingly devious, but just as clever."

"Still would have been easier to just beat them out of him," Grek shrugged and made Tor roll his eyes so hard that I swore they were going to roll right out of his head and onto the floor.

"He... he had this rifle..." We heard the Nikto push out, "Big thing... custom... Long-scope and.. high powered, beyond factory defaults. I sell them, see... I knew it wasn't legal... He tried to make sure no one saw him... Told me I didn't see anything... Told me he'd kill me... Then the pain..."

The Nikto lapsed back into incoherent mumbling and we all exchanged looks. He had gotten more out of that guy in twenty minutes than we had in over two days.

He was in there with that alien for a grand total of thirty minutes when he finally emerged looking rather tired despite the calm interrogation that had occurred. "He never knew the man's name, but whoever it was is capable of some sort of..." he trailed off, his voice shaking slightlyas he steadied himself on the wall.

"You okay, kid?" Red asked and reached out to put a hand on his shoulder, and the padawan smiled at him.

"Yeah. Yeah, that just took more energy than I was expecting, that's all. I'll be alright soon."

The session hadn't seemed all that intensive from where we were standing, but then again, if the kid's face had been any indication of what he was doing, it had taken quite a bit of concentration. I don't pretend to know how these force powers work, but if it required that much focus then it must have been far from easy.

Red stepped back and withdrew his hand as Tor straightened up, "What would you have us do, sir?"

"Do you have a list of bounty hunters?" Talen asked with a steadying breath as he pushed himself off of the wall. "Like, names, known powers, and associates? That sort of thing?"

"Think that's who we're dealing with?" Red asked as he gave Talen a steadying pat on the shoulder.

Talen nodded, "Without a doubt. The way he claimed the murder was conducted, the need for secrecy, the specialized rifle, even the tactics of mentally breaking this man... This wasn't some gangster." He fussed with his lip again, "What bothers me is how they put him inot that state... Potentially an alien power, but I cannot recall any species capable of such a thing. I'll consult the archives. For now, could you draw up a list of known active bounty hunters that work in the Core Worlds?"

"Right away, sir!" Tor snapped to attention before he grabbed Grek by the bicep and carted him off after him, always eager to please.

talen watched him with raised eyebrows before he turned to me and Red and brushed a hand over his neck, "He's, uh... eager."

Red gave a dismissive wave of his hand, "Tor's like that. You'll get used to him. Hey, need to sit down? I'll grab you a caf. You look exhausted." He guided Talen off towards the barracks, leaving me alone at the monitors.

I took one final look at the Nikto before I headed off after them. I had known that it wasn't going to be easy. I just didn't know how deep this was going to go.

*

Red was growing to like the kid every second he spent with him. Tor was absolutely devoted to him out of his sheer admiration for the Jedi in general. Grek was still unhappy about essentially being told to listen to an infant, and those were his words, not mine.

I was still about as happy with the whole situation as a caged nexu. The kid's skills were undeniably helping, however. There was no feasible way we could have extracted that information without his help, and I'm not too proud to admit it now and I wasn't too proud to admit it then. I couldn't begrudge his enthusiasm that was, despite their best efforts to avoid it, endearing him to my team, either.

Red and him had spent a decent chunk of the afternoon in the barracks while Tor and Grek slaved away through the archives looking through potential suspects for our Bounty Hunters while I followed leads on the street. Red took over after several hours and I found myself heading to the barracks to check up on our latest addition to our strange little family.

I walked in to find the kid meditating with several of the items around him floating several centimeters off the ground. There was something inherently magical about the sight of that boy and what few belongings he had floating there in the center of the room. Whether he was aware of what he was doing or not, I wasn't sure, but after a moment he seemed to register my presence and all of the objects resettled themselves onto the floor around him before he scrambled to his feet and spun to me with a quizzical look on his face.

"What exactly did you do in there today?" I asked and propped myself up against the wall with my arms crossed over my chest.

"You know about Mind Trick, yes?" He asked, and when I nodded he smiled. "I did a variation of that. It was a little more invasive than what I usually do - you know, keep people from trying to sell me spice and getting past gate guards. Can't... can't say I like it." Indeed, he didn't. I could tell from the look on his face that he didn't like it. He looked bothered to put it mildly. "I don't like forcing myself into people's heads. If we had other options..."

"Well, now we have a lead, at least," I added in some half-hearted attempt to cheer him up that, to my surprise, actually seemed to work a little bit.

"That we do."

Something about him reminded me of myself. We were both forced to be a lot older than we actually were. The fact that I drew that parallel actively made me uncomfortable. the last thing Iw anted to be doing was empathizing with a Jedi, of all kriffing people.

"Kando, I get the feeling that you don't like that I'm here," he spoke up, dropping his eyes back down to the toes of his brown boots.

I sighed. He caught on. Figured he would, you know? He's a Jedi, after all. They have a habit of getting inside your mind, and if what I heard about him was true, that he likely did it without trying. "Yeah. Yeah, I don't." I wasn't going to try and lie to him to spare his feelings. It wasn't going to do either of us any good. "I won't let it interfere with the job. Don't worry about that."

"Why?" He asked, looking up at me with a genuinely innocent expression of confusion written across his face.

"Because I don't like Jedi."

"Most Clones I've met seem to like their Jedi well enough-"

"Do you know about Pong Krell?"

The question made him stop in the middle of his statement and his jaw clicked shut as a knowing look of shame came across his face as his eyes once again found themselves glued to the glossy toes of his boots. "Yes."

"And about Quinlan Vos?"

"Yes."

"What do the rest of your masters do to get them to try and save our lives?"

I was met with a shame-filled silence. Whether it was because that was how I perceived it or his Jedi powers let his emotions bleed out into the room, I wasn't sure, but he didn't so much as try to defend his Order.

"There's your answer." When he pulled his hands before him and started fidgeting nervously with his fingers, I slid my helmet back on and began to walk from the room.

"Despite what you think of some of the others," he spoke up, making me stop and roll my eyes, "I hope we can be friends." His voice came from behind me so quietly that I may not have heard it had I been moving any faster.

"Kid," I turned back to him halfway, "the last thing I want is to be friends with a Jedi." I regretted the words as soon as they left my mouth. I was never good with that sort of thing. I wasn't made to be nice, and it showed to the people who honestly didn't deserve it. The look on his face hit me in the stomach, but I grit my teeth and walked away despite everything. I never did apologize for that, and at the time I almost felt like I didn't need to. My biting words to that young padawan felt justified.

They weren't, but I simply equated it out to one simple truth in my head.

He was a Jedi.

I was a Clone.

That's all there was to it.