Measured Steps

Posted on Sat Apr 25th, 2026 @ 12:31pm by Darth Serus & Kalen "Rex" Vickers & Bomoor Thort & Mentis

3,744 words; about a 19 minute read

Chapter: Chapter IX: The First Verse
Location: Dunari's Delight Space Station, Mayagil Sector
Timeline: Day Three

Thane's departure from the Red Raptor in the station dock had been swift. He had not allowed himself to be accompanied as he first entered and moved about the ship, Bomoor having dismissed the repair technicians before he entered.

Clothing had come first - the black garments restored with care rather than haste, each layer set into place with a precision that bordered on ritual. The gloves concealed what they needed to conceal. The boots grounded his stance, and the cape settled across his shoulders with a familiar weight that redefined his outline, restoring something recognisable to those who would look upon him. Even his hair, still uneven at the edges of its recovery, had been forced back into order. The mask completed it.

There had been a moment, brief and controlled, where he had paused within the medbay of the Raptor, where his life had been barely maintained, outside of his recollection. The ship was familiar, recently his home, but it now seemed different through his new vision and perspective.

The droids had gathered in their disparate ways. G2-O7 circling with restless purpose, emitting clipped bursts of Binary that carried more agitation than its regular maintenance cycles ever allowed. Useless had observed from the medbay projection, offering a series of dry, clinical confirmations regarding survivability and exquisite work of the surgeons on the station, which did not please Thane, although his kept his tone less curt than his instinct.

Faze, Bomoor's queer project, had simply stood, still and precise, its photoreceptors fixed upon him as it delivered a measured acknowledgement of continued function, a degree of what seemed like his own contempt trickling into its voice. Even Rex's rickety droid Brick had lingered near the access ramp, optics flickering as though uncertain how to categorise what stood before it.

Thane ultimately said little, but he did acknowledge them and offer, in his way, his gratitude, keeping silent, for now, his disdain for the photoreceptor embedded into his right eye socket. Then, he had left.

Now, the corridor stretched ahead of him, clean and structured in the way of the Dunari’s Delight, its polished surfaces catching the light in long, uninterrupted lines that photoreceptor dissected with uncomfortable clarity. The station breathed with quiet activity, the movement of its residents steady and habitual.

Aside from the pain of something as rudimentary as dressing himself, the wounded flesh still so recently being, the first physical misstep came within a dozen paces of this corridor.

His foot landed just short of where it should have, the depth misjudged by a margin so small it would once have gone unnoticed. Now it registered immediately, the slight shift in balance travelling up through his spine in a sharp, corrective line of pain. He adjusted without looking down, the second step placed more carefully, the discrepancy already being measured and compensated for somewhere between instinct and calculation.

He did not slow, intentionally. Another issue followed,but less pronounced. The delay between his natural sight and the artificial input, still not wholly calibrated or accounted for by his own mind, created a fractional distortion in distance, a doubling that lingered just long enough to interfere with precision. His body corrected again, faster this time. The rhythm began to settle.

Pain, however, remained. Whilst not overwhelming, it was sharp enough in its arrival to demand acknowledgement. A brief spike along his back as the stabilised structures took the strain of his movement, a tightening through his chest as his lungs worked against pathways still learning their function. His step faltered for a fraction of a second again, but he recovered before it could become too obviously visible.

The respirator adjusted with him, the intake of air remaining smooth despite the interruption, feeding him clean, measured breath that prevented the lapse from becoming something worse. The Force followed, reinforcing, carrying his posture through the instability and returning it to alignment.

Beside him, Bomoor moved without disruption.

The Ithorian’s presence was constant. Not intrusive or overbearing, but still ready. Every slight deviation in Thane’s movement was met with a subtle shift of his own stance, an adjustment that would allow him to intervene if needed without making the offer visible,for which Thane was silently grateful.
The corridor ahead responded to them in a way that had nothing to do with his internal suffering, though.

Conversations of station residents and passersby faltered first; they were not immediately silenced, but thinning, voices dropping away as attention shifted. Individuals slowed as they passed, their gazes lingering a fraction too long before being pulled away again. Some stepped aside entirely, creating space where none had been required, their bodies angling just enough to avoid direct proximity.

No one addressed him, and no one challenged his presence - but they wafched him. Thought about him. Perhaps, even spoke about him straight afterwards.

The photoreceptor registered it all with quiet precision. The dilation of pupils and the tightening of postures... The subtle redirection of movement paths that kept distance without appearing deliberate. His new eye and its associates equipment presented the data without interpretation.

Thane understood it, though. He focused on his walking.

Another step taken, this one clean. Then another. And another. The rhythm began to form, almost something normal, but decidedly different from before.

He adjusted again, more naturally now, the earlier miscalculations feeding into a growing internal correction that required less conscious effort with each stride. The pain remained, but it settled further into the background, something carried rather than fought.

Another couple froze their conversations, fear gripping the female's expression as she more tightly grabbed her mate and they moved to the far side of the corridor. Thane's jaw tightened beneath the mask, as he was finding himself doing a lot.

He did not look at them as they moved aside. He did not acknowledge the silence that followed in his wake. But, despite himself and the cold resolve that had become his new companion, he felt it. Not through the Force, not through any bond or instinct, but through the simple, undeniable shift in the space around him.

He had been seen before as something odd, different or powerful - but not like this.

His head turned slightly, just enough to bring Bomoor into the edge of his vision, the red glow of the photoreceptor narrowing fractionally as it focused.

"They do not look away quickly enough." The words came low through the respirator, shaped with care but edged with something harder beneath the control. Only a beat passed as his gaze returned forward. "I no longer have the benefit of obscurity."

"Obscurity was never going to last," Bomoor observed as he continued striding alongside Thane, unfaltering, "We have spent so long running, staying just ahead, just out of sight. Now, the galaxy will be forced to see us."

He spoke of 'us' and not merely Thane, reinforcing his commitment to their combined fates. That he shared in this outward change and embraced it.

A pair of station workers ahead stepped aside, giving them a wide berth. Bomoor eyed them firmly, ensuring they were aware they had been noticed. As they rounded a gentle corner, he angled his head back towards Thane.

"Of course, they may look, but it does not mean they understand," the Ithorian continued on, "They see the surface, but underneath we can be whatever we want to be. Whatever we have to be."

He glanced ahead toward the lift that would take them to the dignitary suites, where Rex and Mentis waited.

"Come. This way," he hummed, producing a small access chip Bruta had granted them to allow free use of the suites during their stay.

Thane did not answer as the lift came into view ahead, its polished doors reflecting a warped image of what approached. Thane caught it only briefly in passing, the composite of black fabric, pale damage and precise machinery resolving in the surface for a fraction of a second before he looked away again. It was not unfamiliar - it was simply still not what he expected.

They entered and ascent passed in silence. Thane stood still within the confined space, posture held, hands relaxed at his sides beneath the drape of his cape. The photoreceptor flickered once as it adjusted to the enclosed lighting, then stabilised again.

The doors opened and the suite beyond was immediate contrast. Space, softness, deliberate comfort. His gaze moved across it once, taking in the arrangement, the exits, the positions within it, before settling.

Rex had been mid-motion and mid-word, perched carelessly upon the back of the settee, drink in hand, posture loose in the way of someone who believed himself temporarily removed from immediate danger. It ended the moment Thane entered.

The stillness that followed was absolute.

Rex did not speak. The half-raised glass remained where it was, suspended in a gesture that had lost its purpose. His eyes fixed upon Thane with a clarity that cut through whatever casual ease had existed seconds before. Recognition came first and then disbelief - then something closer to understanding.

Fear followed quickly after, but Thane regarded him without expression.

For a brief moment, the silence stretched between them, filled only by the faint hum of the suite’s systems and the distant murmur of the station beyond its walls. He allowed it and did not rush to break it, nor soften it.

He let Rex see him - truly see him, as he was now, although he understood he had been the first to sight his ravaged form, along with his Jawa companion.

Thane then moved further into the room, the measured rhythm of his steps continuing uninterrupted now, each one placed with growing precision as the earlier miscalculations resolved into something controlled. He did not approach Rex directly. Instead, he angled slightly, positioning himself within the space rather than dominating it, his attention passing over him and toward Mentis beyond.

When he spoke, it was not to reassure.

"Thank you."

The words were directed to both of them, but his gaze lingered on Rex just long enough to make the meaning clear. Beyond gratitude, it was acknowledgement.

Rex did not move at first. The words seemed to catch him more than the sight had. His grip tightened slightly around the glass.

"Right, uhh... yeah."

The reply came a fraction too quickly, the edge of it uneven, as if he had reached for the first thing available rather than what he meant to say. He cleared his throat, the sound small, and finally lowered the glass from where it had been suspended.

"I mean... we weren't just going to leave you there, were we?"

It was meant to land lighter than it did. There was an attempt at familiarity in it, something close to the tone he might have used before, but it did not quite land. His eyes flicked over Thane again despite himself, taking in the mask, the eye, the way he stood now with that unnatural stillness that had not been there before.

"You looked..." He stopped himself, jaw tightening briefly as he recalibrated. "...bad."

Bomoor appeared behind, like Thane's shadow following him forward from the turbolift to the seating area.

"He was not intended to rise from that spot again," the Ithorian hummed solemnly, "But you saw fit to defy the will of Axion, just as Mentis did. Your strength is admirable, even if you do not acknowledge it."

His eyes cast over to the Rattataki, sinking into the background of the viewport on the far side of the room. The Ithorian's eyes were still strained - paler than before he had slipped into his comatose state.

"And Mentis, I understand I have you to thank for my rescue," he continued, adding, "To my shame, I failed to halt Amare's capture before I collapsed."

His wide neck cocked fractionally towards Thane, "I will do everything in my power to correct that. Once we are prepared."

Mentis slowly paced over, his eyes flitting between the sight of Thane, but also how the pair loomed together. He stopped just behind the couch Rex sat at, now uncomfortably upright on the luxury hand-woven Ithorian fabric.

"So..." Mentis wavered, "I take it by that, you still intend to face Axion. Even now?"

Bomoor's frame leaned in, the certainty in his posture answering for him.

"Good!" Mentis announced too quickly and too sharply, leaving the word hanging for a moment. He swallowed, eyes flicking again between the two men they had carried here.

"Because when he finds out you’re still alive," he went on, quieter now, "He’ll bend the Force itself to finish what he started. You’d better be prepared…”

The last word trailed off, not in threat, but in something closer to dread. He drew in a breath, steadied himself, and tried again. He was firmer this time, as though forcing his spine straight.

"Because if I see you facing him again before you’re ready," he said, voice tightening, "You won’t have me by your side next time."

He turned more fully toward Thane, peering past the mask, past the photoreceptor, searching for the man beneath the machinery.

"You’ve got to show me you’re as strong…" his brow lowered, "No. Stronger than the man you were before."

Then his gaze shifted to Bomoor, and something in him hardened. Not the hard heart he had forged through years of life in the cult, not courage from the strength he had forged beside Rex since, but resolve scraped together from fear.

"And Bomoor; you said you would teach me. Then start teaching me something more than life lessons. Show me why I sought you out in the first place."

Rex did not look away from Thane as Mentis spoke, though his focus had shifted. It was no longer fixed entirely on the mask or the eye, but something broader now, something trying to reconcile what stood before him with what he knew had been dragged out of that place.

When the moment opened, he took it. The glass came up again, this time without hesitation, and he took a longer pull than he likely intended. The motion was deliberate, but not composed. It was something to do - something normal. Something Human.

Thane’s gaze followed it. Not the man, though - but the act. The tilt of the glass and the movement of the throat. The quiet, unconscious ease of it and something in him tightened in response. It was not immediate anger, and not even necessarily bitterness. It was recognition, sharp and invasive, cutting through the steadiness he had been constructing since leaving the bacta tank. The simplicity of it struck harder than anything that had been said. There was no effort in it. Rex had to make no adjustments and no calculatios. There was no dependence in any of it - just normal sentient function.

His own breath continued, smooth and supported beneath the mask, measured and precise, entirely controlled by systems that he could feel but not fully own, and he found his attention drawn deeply into that, which almost unsteadied the fresh and awkward alliance between his internal biology and his cybernetics.

Thane would never again simply drink a glass of water, or enjoy the richness of a finely-cooked steak. He would no longer find joy in roasted vegetables, or delight in the rare and mundane treat of a pint of spiced ale.

His organic eye tightened, the unnatural red that rimmed the gold core flashing for a moment, as he actively forced down these stray thoughts and frustrations beneath the far greater current that now defined him - that would. If these thoughts and doubts remained as they were, as anything but fuel, they would weaken him. If it mattered, it could even controlhim - and nothing would control him now. Nothing else would be used against him.

His attention lifted again, returning to the room, to Mentis, to Bomoor, to the shape of what had just been said. When he spoke, it was not in response to the challenge.

"You mistake what happened." The words came low and controlled, the respirator shaping the Caanan's voice into something flatter than before, but no less precise. There was no heat in them, no need to assert through volume or force.

Thane’s gaze fixed fully upon Mentis now, the red photoreceptor narrowing fractionally as it aligned, the glare of his remaining eye steady and unyielding beside it.

"You think I was broken," he said, noticing the pain searing through his back and through the recently-treated flesh of his face, although he let none of that betray his words now. "But I was corrected - and Axion proved his nature. Vainglorious and limited." His gaze did not leave Mentis as he spoke. "He has taught us everything he is capable of teaching."

Not just him - but all of them. Even Rex, in his way, had been touched by the Cult. Thane then inclined his head by the smallest margin, in completion of the thought.

"And now... we surpass him."

There was no rise in tone and no flourish. Thane made no true attempt to inspire or command in this moment - he knew this with inevitability, and he would do it with or without the other men before him.

Thane’s gaze held on Mentis as his hand rose and extended between them, palm open, steady and expectant.

"My lightsaber, please. It will be the next failure to be corrected." The words needed no clarification; his lightsaber had been resistant - hesitant, even - in recent months, delayed, sluggish and almost unwilling to serve its wielder, especially has he more deeply embraced the promise of the dark side without apology, regret or fear. It was one of the final pieces of what he had been, of what had failed on Sleheyron - now something to be remade like the rest of him.

Mentis angled his head, turning the scarred side away from Thane and casting a sideways, considering eye at the Human for a moment before relenting and reaching to his belt.

"Of course," he stated, a little too sternly but with no hint of true resistance, "A man's blade should always be returned to him. I hope it will make you feel more whole."

He retrieved the electrum gilded hilt and brought it before him, stepping a couple of paces forwards before offering it, awaiting Thane to approach him.

Thane did not answer Mentis as his gaze dropped to the hilt as it was presented, the familiar form rendered subtly different now through the precision of his altered sight. The electrum caught the light in clean lines, every contour resolved with a clarity that bordered on dissection. He regarded it less with recognition and more with appraisal.

When his hand clasped around it, though, it felt certain, the weight settling into his grip with a familiarity that remained intact beneath everything that had changed. Yet something in it resisted the moment still as he realised; it was not the weapon that had failed him, but the man who had wielded it, for letting it exist as it had.

His fingers tightened fractionally.

"Wholeness is not the objective." The words came from the Caanan he drew the hilt back from Mentis, not looking at him as he spoke, the correction delivered with finality. "I am not what I was." He then lifted his gaze to Mentis, the expression teetering on dispassionate. "And I have no intention of becoming it again."

Rex shifted again as Thane spoke, the movement small but unmistakable now that the room had settled into this new shape around him. The glass hovered briefly in his hand before he lowered it fully, setting it aside without looking, his attention fixed instead on the hilt now resting in Thane’s grasp. His posture straightened by instinct rather than intent, shoulders drawing back, one hand falling to his pocket, briefly rummaging for something that he then seemed to realise was not there any more, and he tried to settle. He said nothing, but his dark eyes tracked Thane with a wary focus that had lost any pretence of ease. He had never found Thane easy, but there was clearly something more to it now.

The Sith did not care, not in any meaningful way, anyway, and he inclined his head slightly toward Bomoor. "I know what must be done." The words came evenly, without hesitation, the respirator carrying them with a sort of hollowness. "I wish to go to the surface of Öetrago... To the old Elenca settlement."

A faint ripple of disturbance echoed from Bomoor at the mention of the place; the first break in his resolute commitment to Thane's remaking since they had both awoken. However, it dissipated as quickly as it had emerged.

"I think I understand," Bomoor nodded, after a beat, "A place of great personal significance to me: a place where a part of me was forever changed and whole community was fractured with violence. It is most surely a nexus in the Force."

His eyes looked down a moment, considering, "I am sure my father can arrange passage there but I would like to accompany you down. I should face what remains too in the cold light of day."

Thane's true eye had narrowly shifted as it regarded Bomoor. Once, he would have said something, some expression of thanks or connection. Whilst his recent injuries left him less keen on speaking, he also believed such sentiment no longer needed expressing to the Ithorian. They had moved past that, he was certain.

Mentis stepped back, slightly, still eyeing the pair with interest, weighing what he saw like a droid calculating the optimal route through hyperspace. It was the same men before him, but drawn into sharper focus. Whether that was for good or for ill was the calculation he lacked all the values for.

"So, what is it that must be done on Öetrago?" he said eventually, no longer with frustration but a growing curiosity into what the broken man felt was more important than becoming whole again.

"You have your lightsaber and crystal," Thane stated, looking back to the Rattataki, referencing his old gifted crystal and ordeal they knew he and Rex had suffered on Tatooine. "I will have mine."

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