Chapter 19: The Liberation of Calodan - Part 1
POV: Oliver
Dawn breaks over Calodan like a reluctant promise, pale light filtering through the perpetual ash that hangs over Corvus's poisoned atmosphere. Oliver crouches behind a supply depot, his enhanced senses straining against the city's unnatural sterility. Without the background hum of living ecosystems, his awareness feels truncated, as if someone has severed half his nervous system.
[MP: 60/106]
[HP: 200/230]
[SYSTEM INTERFERENCE: ONGOING - FORCE PROXIMITY EFFECTS]
[DANGER SENSE: ACTIVE BUT DIMINISHED]
Through the supply depot's grimy windows, he can see Magistrate Elsbeth's prison compound—a fortified structure that squats in the city's eastern quarter like a cancerous growth. Electric pikes line its perimeter, each one adorned with the remnants of those who dared oppose the Magistrate's rule.
"Thirty guards visible from this angle," Oliver thinks, cataloging their positions through memory rather than enhanced perception. "Maybe twice that many inside. And me with the blaster skills of a particularly uncoordinated child."
Cara settles beside him, her rifle already assembled and sighted. Her presence radiates the steady competence of someone who's conducted dozens of similar operations, but Oliver can sense the tension beneath her professional calm.
"Ready?" she asks quietly.
Oliver checks his blaster one final time, the weapon feeling alien and treacherous in his grip. "Define ready."
The signal comes as planned—an explosion in the city's western quarter where Din has engaged Elsbeth's main forces. Cara moves immediately, her breach charges turning the compound's rear wall into expanding clouds of dust and twisted metal.
Oliver follows, stumbling through the gap with all the grace of someone whose combat training consists entirely of desperate improvisation.
POV: Cara Dune
The prison compound's interior is a study in systematic brutality—narrow corridors designed to funnel attackers into kill zones, cells barely large enough for human occupancy, and the lingering stench of fear that permeates places where hope goes to die.
Cara moves through the facility with tactical precision, her rifle speaking death to guards who present clear targets. Behind her, Oliver contributes what he can—throwing objects, providing covering fire that mostly serves to make enemies duck, and somehow managing to stay alive despite his complete lack of combat competence.
"Left corridor," she says, dropping a guard who was attempting to flank their position. "Six cells. Start freeing prisoners while I secure the perimeter."
Oliver nods and disappears down the indicated passage. Almost immediately, Cara hears the distinctive sound of her partner discovering that door locks don't respond well to blaster fire.
"Amateur," she thinks with fond exasperation. "But a brave amateur."
Through her rifle scope, she tracks two guards attempting to coordinate a pincer movement. Her first shot takes down the lead guard cleanly. The second guard dives for cover, and Cara shifts position to maintain her firing angle.
That's when she hears Oliver's voice raised in what sounds like panic: "You! You're the Imperial scientist! You did this!"
"Shit."
POV: Oliver
The Twi'lek prisoner launches himself from his cell with the fury of someone who's been given a target for months of accumulated rage. Oliver stumbles backward, his blaster clattering away across the compound's duracrete floor.
"Dr. Voss!" the man snarls, his hands closing around Oliver's throat. "You burned our forests! You poisoned our children!"
Oliver can't breathe, can't speak, can't explain that he's not the monster this man thinks he is. The prisoner's grip tightens, and Oliver's vision begins to gray at the edges.
Then Cara appears like an avenging angel, her rifle butt connecting with the prisoner's skull in a precisely calculated blow that drops him without permanent damage.
"He's not who you think!" Cara shouts at the other prisoners, who are beginning to gather with expressions that suggest Oliver might be facing a lynch mob.
The Twi'lek spits blood and glares up at Oliver with undiluted hatred. "Voss burned our forests! Made weapons from our dead!"
Oliver kneels beside the fallen prisoner, his throat still aching from the attempted strangulation. When he speaks, his voice comes out hoarse and broken:
"I know. I'm sorry."
It's inadequate. It's pathetic. It's all he can offer.
But something in his tone—genuine remorse rather than defensive denial—makes several of the prisoners pause in their advance.
"I'm not him," Oliver continues, meeting each pair of eyes in turn. "I'm wearing his face, carrying his sins. But I'm not him."
[SENTIENT INFLUENCE ACTIVATED]
[MP: 20/106]
[TARGET: MULTIPLE CIVILIANS - EMOTIONAL RESONANCE]
Oliver doesn't consciously choose to use his ability. The emotional resonance simply flows from him like water seeking its own level—not mind control, but genuine empathy transmitted through enhanced awareness.
The prisoners feel his sincerity, his self-loathing, his desperate desire to make amends for crimes he didn't commit but can't escape.
One by one, they step back.
"Free the others," the Twi'lek says finally, still glaring but no longer homicidal. "Then get out of our city."
POV: Lang
Lang has served Magistrate Elsbeth for two years, ever since Imperial forces recruited him from a Corellian prison. He's good at his job—which involves hurting people who displease the Magistrate—and he takes professional pride in his work.
When he spots Dr. Voss and the former Rebel soldier fighting through the compound, Lang feels something approaching excitement. The Magistrate has standing orders about Voss: alive if possible, but damaged is acceptable.
He corners them in the compound's main courtyard, his weapon trained on the scientist while calculating angles for non-lethal shots.
"Dr. Voss," Lang calls out, enjoying the way the man flinches at the name. "The Magistrate will pay double for you alive. Triple if you come quietly."
The scientist—exhausted, probably near the end of his enhanced abilities—straightens with visible effort.
"Not him. Not anymore."
Lang laughs. "Identity crisis? How therapeutic. It won't save you."
But when he moves to subdue his target, the former shock trooper interposes herself with the fluid violence of someone who's killed professionally. Lang recognizes skill when he sees it, and adjusts his tactics accordingly.
The fight is brutal and efficient. Lang has training, experience, and the advantage of fighting on familiar ground. But the woman has something he lacks—desperate determination to protect someone she cares about.
When Lang's vibroblade arcs toward the woman's unprotected flank, the scientist does something unexpected: he throws himself into the strike's path, using his beskar bracelet to deflect a blow that would have opened the woman's throat.
The sacrifice costs him—Lang's return strike leaves a shallow cut across the scientist's ribs—but it gives the woman the opening she needs.
Her knife finds the gap between Lang's armor plates with surgical precision.
POV: Oliver
Lang collapses with the particular finality that marks the transition from life to death. Oliver stares at the spreading pool of blood, his enhanced awareness cataloging details he doesn't want to process: the man's final breath, the cessation of neural activity, the moment when a living being becomes mere organic matter.
[MP: 20/106 - CRITICALLY LOW]
[HP: 185/230 - MINOR LACERATIONS]
[COMBAT STRESS: SIGNIFICANT]
Cara wipes her blade clean with movements that speak of long practice. When she looks at Oliver, her expression carries surprise rather than gratitude.
"You saved my life," she says quietly.
Oliver touches the beskar bracelet—the Armorer's gift—and feels amazed at his own actions. "I... yeah. I guess I did."
Something shifts between them in that moment. Not romantic love—neither of them is ready for that complexity—but a deeper recognition of partnership. They've each chosen to risk everything for the other's survival.
Through the compound's windows, Oliver glimpses the duel that's taking place in Elsbeth's tower—lightsabers against beskar spear, moving too fast for normal vision to track. Ahsoka Tano fighting with the lethal grace of someone who's survived decades of war.
[FORCE INTERFERENCE INTENSIFYING]
[MP: 15/106]
[SYSTEM INSTABILITY INCREASING]
[VISUAL CORTEX: COMPROMISED]
Oliver's enhanced vision begins to fracture as Ahsoka's active use of the Force creates interference patterns his artificial nervous system can't process. Colors bleed into each other. Distances become unreliable. His sense of balance deteriorates.
"We need to get you away from her," Cara says, recognizing the signs of system failure.
"Can't," Oliver gasps, forcing himself upright despite the waves of nausea. "Mission's not done."
Through sheer force of will, he stumbles toward the central tower where Din is fighting Elsbeth's elite guard. Each step feels like walking through liquid concrete, his enhanced abilities at war with the Force presence that permeates the compound.
He reaches the tower entrance just as Elsbeth's guards prepare to ambush Din from behind—six armed figures moving with the coordinated precision of professional killers.
[SENTIENT INFLUENCE ACTIVATED]
[MP: 0/106]
[TARGET: ELITE GUARDS - PARANOIA INDUCTION]
With his last fragments of energy, Oliver reaches into the guards' minds and whispers poison: suspicion, doubt, the certainty that their companions are preparing to betray them.
The guards turn on each other with the vicious efficiency of predators who've suddenly discovered they're also prey.
Oliver collapses as his nervous system overloads, blood streaming from his nose as feedback burns through pathways never designed to channel such complex emotional manipulation.
The last thing he sees before unconsciousness claims him is Din's helmeted silhouette, safe because Oliver chose to spend everything he had protecting someone who'd become family.
[CRITICAL MP DEPLETION]
[SYSTEM SHUTDOWN INITIATED]
[HP: 175/230 - NEURAL STRAIN DAMAGE]
[XP GAINED: +1,500 FROM LIBERATION EFFORTS]
[TOTAL: 9,900/15,000 TOWARD LEVEL 5]
POV: Cara Dune
Cara finds Oliver unconscious in the tower's entrance, his body convulsing slightly as his enhanced nervous system struggles to maintain basic functions. Around him, Elsbeth's elite guards lie in pools of their own blood—victims of the paranoia he somehow induced in their final moments.
"He nearly killed himself again," she realizes with a mixture of admiration and frustration. "Brilliant, effective, and completely suicidal."
She gathers Oliver's unconscious form and carries him away from the tower, seeking shelter while the liberation of Calodan continues around them. Through the compound's windows, she can see citizens emerging from hiding places, their faces reflecting the particular wonder that comes with unexpected freedom.
But her attention remains focused on the man in her arms—someone who's repeatedly chosen to sacrifice himself for others, despite having every reason to prioritize his own survival.
"You don't get to die on me, nature boy," she whispers to his unconscious form. "Not after everything we've been through."
In the distance, the sounds of combat begin to fade as Ahsoka's mission reaches its conclusion. Soon, Oliver will wake to find that Calodan is free, that the Magistrate's reign of terror has ended, and that the conversation he's been dreading is finally upon them.
But for now, Cara simply holds him and watches his chest rise and fall with the steady rhythm of someone who's survived another day in a galaxy that seems determined to kill him.
+1 CHAPTER AFTER EVERY 3 REVIEWS
MORE POWER STONES == MORE CHAPTERS
To supporting Me in Pateron .
Love [ The Mandalorian and the Transmigrator ]? Unlock More Chapters and Support the Story!
Dive deeper into the world of [ The Mandalorian and the Transmigrator ] with exclusive access to 25+ chapters on my Patreon, you get more chapters if you ask for more (in few days), plus new fanfic every week! Your support starting at just $5/month helps me keep crafting the stories you love across epic universes like [ Game Of Throne ,MCU and Arrowverse, Breaking Bad , The Walking dead ,The Hobbit,Wednesday].
By joining, you're not just getting more chapters—you're helping me bring new worlds, twists, and adventures to life. Every pledge makes a huge difference!
👉 Join now at patreon.com/TheFinex5 and start reading today!