An Odyssey in a Familiar Galaxy

by kpmh2001

Summary:

At the height of the Galactic Civil War, a Jedi and a Temple Security Force Officer awaken from thousands of years in stasis to find a Galaxy shrouded in darkness. With their war now nothing more than ancient history, the two must find their place in this new Galaxy, helping those in need and combating the Sith wherever they can.

Chapter 1: A Long Time Ago...

Through the halls of an Old Republic Military Base, a lone figure in dark armor marched with a terrible purpose, his shadow casting itself over some of the last ruined remnants of the once great Republic. He was an Inquisitor, his real name lost to a distant past he no longer remembered. For all intents and purposes he was a part of the Empire, a tool of the Emperor, and nothing more.

 

Beside him was a squad of the Empire’s best and brightest, the elite Stormtroopers. While the armor of the Stormtrooper Corps was normally shiny and white, uniform and faceless, he’d made sure to drag his squad through enough battles and struggles to temper them. Now the armor was burnt and singed, grayed and covered in scars… just like those who wore it.

 

The Republic Base he found himself in was beyond ancient, overgrown and infested with wildlife. Clearly, nobody had visited the location for several millennia. The power was long since gone, and the subterranean structure would’ve been pitch dark were it not for the lights mounted on the blasters and helmets of his Stormtroopers. Every once in a while, they would illuminate the forms of fallen soldiers, each bearing on their armor the insignia that presumably belonged to the same Old Republic that had once operated this base.

 

The fact that there were any remains that were left to be seen after spending so long laying still was just one of the many oddities about their current situation. Despite the Empire having almost every record from the Republic and Jedi Order, no files existed on this particular installation. Indeed, even the planet upon which the base was built wasn’t logged in Imperial databases. The only reason the Inquisitor had even known about the world at all was through his powers of the Dark Side… he had sensed something here that had immediately demanded his attention.

 

A Jedi.

 

Interestingly, the Jedi didn’t even seem to be masking themselves with the Force, being as bright and visible as a star. It was a refreshing change of pace from the cowardly hiding that the rest of their ilk had resorted to, but it would not change their fate.

 

Every dozen paces that they walked, one of the Stormtroopers would summarily execute a wandering Mynock or Dataspider. Blaster rifles might’ve been a bit extreme for what were common pests, but the black-clad figure encouraged them to continue. If anything, the sound of blaster fire would hopefully inspire fear in their target.

 

Although… I don’t sense any fear, the Inquisitor thought, pausing in place and raising a fist. His Stormtroopers all took a knee and readied their weapons as he once more reached out with the Dark Side, bending it to his will. The Jedi’s presence was still very apparent, but there wasn’t a hint of fear to be felt.

 

“We’re close. Set your blasters to stun,” the Inquisitor commanded, his voice garbled by the audio equipment in his helmet. Although he was far from against the idea of killing the Jedi, he knew that if he could bring a captive Jedi back to Lord Vader, the Sith Lord would be pleased.

 

“Yes Sir!” the squad leader replied as he and his fellow troopers adjusted their weapons with silent, military precision.

 

The Inquisitor’s dual-bladed lightsaber rested heavily in his hand as he surveyed the darkened corridors through his helmet’s thin red visor. There was nothing in the way of movement, and an unnatural quiet permeated the air. More than once, his finger brushed over the blade’s ignition switch, but he maintained his patience in spite of the growing anger he felt. Better to let the Jedi make the first move and show their hand, giving him the perfect opportunity to take them down.

 

“Sir,” the squad leader spoke up once more. “I’ve got a ping on the Motion Tracker, twenty meters forward.”

 

“Could be another Mynock,” another trooper reminded him, a lilt of snark and humor in his voice.

 

“Don’t get complacent,” the Inquisitor sternly reminded them, striding forward toward what was likely the source of the motion. Just ahead of them was a four-way junction in the corridors that led deeper into the base, and it was all but a certainty that their target was hiding just around the corner.

 

After only a few steps, he heard a sound from just ahead, around the left corner. The Inquisitor grinned as the presence of the Jedi shrink away from the Force. Now you choose to hide, he thought, a predatory smirk growing beneath his helm.

 

“You will find no sanctuary in this old tomb, Jedi,” he called out, his voice modulator keeping the declaration cold and detached. “But if you surrender yourself, the Emperor may yet show mercy to you, just as he did to me.” His hand clenched tightly around the hilt of his saber, the memories of the Emperor’s mercy seared into his mind as if with a hot iron.

 

No reply came, as the Inquisitor expected. More noises were audible, a shuffle of footsteps, and a mechanical clicking noise from… a blaster? That was certainly unusual, but so was a Jedi that didn’t bother to hide themselves.

 

“So be it, Jedi,” the Inquisitor growled, igniting a single red blade that bathed the hallway with an eerie glow. He detected a strong sense of fear clouding the Force as soon as his lightsaber came to life, so perhaps a more direct approach had been the correct call after all. While he’d intended to let the Jedi make the first strike, he wasn’t about to let himself be shot, and he wasn’t above making a change to his plans. 

 

Slowly and steadily, he crept forward, his Stormtroopers mirroring his movement with practiced ease. Finally, a figure exploded out of cover, and a pair of crimson blaster bolts flew through the air. The first ricocheted off of the Inquisitor's blade, and although he didn’t see what happened to the second, it was easy to sense the squad leader of his Stormtroopers departing from the Living Force. An unfortunate loss, but an acceptable one.

 

Before the figure could fire another shot, the Inquisitor reached out a hand and, with the might of the Dark Side, pulled the weapon from the hand of its wielder. A slash of his lightsaber ensured that the blaster rifle was in pieces by the time that it hit the ground, leaving his target defenseless. The figure lunged forwards as though to try and close the distance, but the Inquisitor’s fist tightened as he simply grabbed the hapless fool and lifted them into the air. 

 

As they choked and clutched their throat, one of the Stormtroopers managed to shine a light on the figure, revealing a human man clad in a simple khaki uniform. He bore the proud and prominent insignia of the old Republic on his shoulders, and had curly blonde hair and what were probably blue eyes, although it was a bit hard to tell with all of the light being cast over his face.

 

The Inquisitor frowned as a realization struck him; while this was certainly an enemy of the Empire, he was not a Jedi.

 

“How unexpected. I should have known, it’s much harder to inspire such fear in a Jedi,” he taunted the choking man. “But perhaps you may still be of use to us.”

 

With a single deft motion, he released the man from his choking grasp, leaving him falling to the floor in a heap. As he coughed and hacked, the Inquisitor held his blade to the man’s throat. “Tell me then, you hapless fool, where is the Jedi?”

 

The man heaved as he looked up at the Inquisitor, first with a look of relatable anger, before his expression shifted to… relief?

 

“Closer than you think.”

 

The words hadn’t even processed before he heard the ignition of another lightsaber, and a terrified scream from one of his Stormtroopers. In a move that would’ve had him killed by Lord Vader for his incompetence, his training failed him as he turned around… only for the man to leap up and tackle him from behind. For a brief moment they struggled against one another, all the while the Jedi effortlessly cut down his Stormtroopers with remarkable ruthlessness.

Finally, the man’s grip slipped just enough for the Inquisitor to free a hand and launch him away with a strong Force Push. The sound of a loud metal clanging confirmed that he’d been thrown all the way into one of the corridor walls, but the Inquisitor had no time to examine what state he was in, as he was just barely able to bring up his lightsaber in time to block an overhead swing from the Jedi.

 

The Inquisitor stared the Jedi down with a burning hatred as he forced their blade back and assumed a defensive stance. The Jedi was a human woman with short red hair, green eyes, and glasses. But the true thing that stood out to him even more than the green lightsaber in her hands was her armor, an unusual type that he’d never seen before. He also noticed the smoldering remains of his Stormtroopers lying in heaps behind her. Evidently this was a battle that he would have to win himself.

 

“There you are, that’ll make this much easier,” the Inquisitor taunted her. “You Jedi are getting quite hard to find these days, this’ll be all the sweeter.”

 

The Jedi narrowed her eyes in response, but wasted no time with talk as she struck again, and again, but each time he deflected or outright blocked her strikes. Her form was unusually aggressive for a Jedi, with a great deal of power behind every strike that she brought to bear. He found himself being overwhelmed, and looking for a means to gain an advantage, he ignited his second blade. 

 

The move succeeded in catching her momentarily off-guard, and exploiting the vulnerability, he knocked her off balance with a Force Push and aggressively struck back. His hope was that her defensive skills wouldn’t be as strong as her offensive form, and that if he could end the fight quickly, perhaps he could claim victory. Unfortunately, she managed to keep up with his strikes, and he found it impossible to find a gap in her defenses.

 

The frustration and hatred within him slowly built with every passing second, and in a gamble, he latched onto it. The Dark Side thrived on such emotions, and through it he could become stronger. Each blow he delivered began to land more heavily, but rather than faltering, the Jedi shifted her posture and began deflecting his blades away from her, using his own momentum against him. The vines and plants that had overgrown the base were sliced to ribbons with each blow she deflected, and he grumbled in frustration at how she remained laser-focused throughout it all.

 

But just as the Dark Side offered him strength, so too did it sap his focus. Rage was blinding, it obfuscated his thinking, and eventually offered the Jedi the opportunity that she needed. Exploiting a momentary gap in his guard, she drove her boot into his stomach. As he stumbled back, his lightsaber fell out of place, and the last thing he saw was the bright emerald-green light rapidly approaching his neck.

---

As the Sith Warrior fell to the ground in a lifeless heap, Lucy rushed to Kyle’s side and inspected him for any injuries. He was dazed after having been thrown into the wall, but seemed to have escaped any major injuries. Now with the chaos over, he was hyperventilating and clearly confused after his close brush with death. “Breathe,” she instructed gently, “you’re safe now.”

 

Kyle nodded in response, and Lucy held onto his hand tightly as his breathing slowly returned to normal. In truth, she was barely able to keep the incredible fear that she felt contained. She had been perhaps only a few seconds from losing him for good, and had it not been for the surprising lack of awareness on the part of the Sith Warrior, she may well have been too late to save him. 

 

That fear of loss was exactly the kind of reason why Jedi were forbidden from forming emotional attachments, but it was also what she’d been well-trained to resist. Even as the Dark Side called to her, she paid it no mind, and focused instead on the present. She had won, and he was safe.

 

“Thanks,” Kyle finally said, steadily returning to his feet with her help. “When’d you wake up?”

 

“About an hour ago,” Lucy answered, frowning as she registered just how badly the base had deteriorated while they’d been in stasis. Whilst she’d been awake for a while, she wasn’t any closer to finding out what had gone wrong. They were only meant to be in stasis for around three days, helping to test a new technology that could be used to keep wounded soldiers alive until they could get medical attention, but it had clearly been a great deal longer than just one week. “I thought I was alone at first, but when I sensed you waking up, I ran over as quickly as I could.”

Kyle rapidly blinked and breathed deeply, no doubt still recovering before he managed to lock eyes with her once more. “You made it just in time… I don’t suppose you saw any of the others?”

 

Lucy sadly shook her head, reaching out with the Force one more time to confirm her suspicions. “I ran past a few dead Troopers on the way here, I didn’t have time to check but… I think we’re the only ones who made it.”

 

“...Shit,” Kyle muttered, before giving her one last hopeful look. “Any idea what happened?”

 

Once more, Lucy had to shake her head. “No idea, but something must’ve gone terribly wrong. Judging by the look of this place… we’ve been out for a long time.”

 

Kyle’s gaze fell to the ground. More specifically, to the dead Sith Warrior. “Think that he had anything to do with it?”

 

“Not with what I overheard from him,” Lucy answered. Experimentally, she reached down for the man’s long double-bladed lightsaber, the hefty cylinder being noticeably warm to the touch. “No doubt about whether or not that’s a Sith Warrior. The armor’s… strange though, I’ve never seen that insignia before. I don’t think he’s alone either, there’s this… terrible darkness over the whole galaxy. I can’t sense any other Jedi.”

 

As she spoke, Kyle reached down and took the blaster of one of the Imperial Soldiers. Far from wearing the armor of a normal Sith Trooper, the predominantly white armor of these soldiers was far more simplistic, but also looked a bit sturdier. Judging by the way that Kyle held the blaster, it wasn’t a model that he was familiar with, but he quickly set to work taking everything he was likely going to need from the bodies, including the Sith’s helmet. 

 

Judging by his awkward, stiff movements and the way he kept his eyes glued to his task, it was clear that something was weighing heavily on Kyle’s mind. Several more moments passed in silence before he finally asked,“Lucy… do you think we lost?”

 

Closing her eyes, she reached out into the Force once more. Concentrating, focusing, allowing herself to reach out further into the Galaxy… and found it to be even more smothered in the dark than she’d found earlier. It was as though a suffocating weight was holding the light back, and she still couldn’t sense even a single Jedi. Recognizing the danger that she was in just by what she was doing, she reluctantly concealed herself as best as she could. If any other Sith Warriors were out hunting for people like her, she had little choice but to hide, at least for now.

 

“I… I think so,” she finally answered. It probably shouldn’t have surprised her just how hard it was to say, but it still felt like she wasn’t so much speaking her words as much as she was coughing them up. Everything that she’d known, the Republic, the Jedi Order, even her old family… all of it gone, in what had seemed like just a moment. But she couldn’t mourn for it all; not yet anyway. “What do we do now?”

 

Kyle stood up and affixed the belt of one of the fallen Imperial Soldiers to his waist. When he turned to face her, there was a reassuringly determined look in his eyes. “We can’t stay here, there might be more on the way. But these guys had to get here somehow. We’ll find their ship, and fly it to deep space where we can try to figure out what we’ve missed.”

 

Lucy nodded. While a bit optimistic, it was probably the best chance they had. “And you’re confident you’ll be able to fly whatever they brought?”

 

“I sure hope so,” he replied. “Got anything you need to grab before we go?”

 

Lucy briefly thought it over and, recognizing that nobody was around to judge her, smiled softly. “Yeah, I just need one thing.”

 

With a single confident motion, she leaned forward and kissed him on the lips. At first he was very clearly caught off-guard, but he swiftly reciprocated the gesture and, after a few precious and blissful seconds, she reluctantly broke off the contact and beamed at him.

Kyle blinked as though in mild disbelief, before he shook his head and regained his focus. “...You know, I think I needed that too.”

 

“I thought so,” she replied. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

---

The Force continued to guide Lucy, just as it always had, and before long they found themselves at the open doors to one of the landing bays. Along the way, they happened across the bodies of several Republic Soldiers, all of which had been killed by some unknown force. It was disturbing, but Kyle opted to retrieve their ID Tags, even if there was likely nobody left to return them too.

 

Looking inside the landing bay, they spotted what was without question the Sith Warrior’s vessel. Rough and angular, it was coated black, and carried no visible markings of any kind. It was also decently-sized, but it was still a far cry from the very sizable Fury-class Imperial Interceptors that they were familiar with. Standing guard at the ramp of the vessel were a pair of the same Imperial Troopers that they’d encountered earlier.

 

All of the other ships that were docked in the bay were all very obviously non-functional. If they wanted to leave, they’d have to steal the Imperial Vessel.

 

Kyle kept his eyes and blaster on the soldiers as he whispered to her. “How do you wanna play this?”

 

“I’ll distract them, you blast ‘em,” Lucy answered, to which he nodded.

 

Reaching out with the Force, Lucy reached up to one of the large spare engines hanging from the roof, and with a bit of manipulation, decoupled it from the large brace that was holding it up. The starship engine came crashing down and hit the deck of the hangar with a terrific clanging sound, and the two Imperial Troopers turned around to see what had caused the noise. Four blaster shots rang out in rapid succession as Kyle killed both of them, missing twice along the way.

 

“Huh, I expected more recoil,” Kyle commented, before gesturing towards the starship. “Come on, there’s probably more aboard.”

 

Sure enough, even as they crossed the hangar, the ship’s engines roared to life and the ramp began to close. The pilot was too slow however, and they were both able to barely make it aboard. The ramp led directly into a cramped troop bay, with a number of bulkheads leading to other parts of the ship. The interior of the ship was dispassionately utilitarian, and almost as darkly-colored as the exterior.

 

Briefly, Lucy and Kyle looked to one another, each wondering which room to search first, before one of the doors opened and a blonde man in a gray uniform stepped through. Kyle raised his blaster to kill him, only to hold his fire as the man kept his hands up above his head.

 

“Woah, woah!” he loudly cried. “I’m just the pilot, don’t shoot!”

 

Lucy hesitated, for as much as she distrusted anyone who served the Sith, she also didn’t want to kill a surrendering foe. “Stun him.”

 

Kyle briefly looked down at the blaster in his hands with a hint of doubt. “I’m uh, not quite sure how.”

 

The pilot was very quick to speak up, keeping his hands raised. “You use the lever, on the left side, by the grip! It needs to be pushed forward!”

 

Kyle looked at his weapon for a moment, briefly glanced to his side to ensure that Lucy was able to step in if the Pilot made a move, and showed the blaster’s side to the man.  “Like this?”

 

“Yes, like that,” the pilot answered with a noticeable resignation.

 

“Thanks,” Kyle said, before aiming the weapon once more and pulling the trigger. 

 

A blue cone of energy enveloped the Imperial, who promptly fell to the deck in an unconscious heap. The duo swiftly pushed forward, but after checking the cockpit, and then the rest of the ship, realized that there was nobody else aboard.

 

The cockpit itself turned out to be probably the most spacious part of the ship, having four primary seats and a large viewport for the crew to look through, along with a camera system to cover the ship’s blindspots. The controls themselves didn’t look all that different from the ships that Lucy had flown in the past. At least, not at a glance.

 

“I’ll get this guy tied up,” she said, feeling a bit of relief to find that apparently their new prisoner had already taken the liberty of disarming himself. “Think you can fly it?”

 

Kyle took the helm and examined the controls. “Fly? Yes, I think so. Fighting’s gonna be a different story. Let’s just hope the Sith think we’re on their side.”

 

“The Force willing, they will,” Lucy said. 

 

With the prisoner now bound and tied to one of the seats in the cockpit, Lucy took a seat next to Kyle and gave him a reassuring smile, which he returned. Experimentally, he applied a bit of power to the lateral thrusters, and they were both relieved to see the ship spin around as expected, its nose now facing the hangar bay. With the ship now angled, he quickly accelerated, and the Sith Transport shot upwards into the sky.

 

“Everything looks good… although if I’m reading the sensors right, we might be alone out here,” Kyle said. “I’ll note our coordinates just in case we want to come back, but I still say we find somewhere to hide for a bit. Then we can try to find a way to link back up with the Republic… if it’s still around.”

 

Lucy couldn’t help but feel a cold chill run down her spine. Even at the height of the war with the Sith, she had never felt a darkness like the one that had seemingly swallowed the Galaxy. For as much as she tried to look on the brighter side of life, she knew the odds that the Republic was still in the fight were slim to none. “Even if it isn’t, the Sith have to have enemies, right?”

 

“Damn right,” he answered, although the lack of confidence in his tone was telling. He spent a few moments familiarizing himself with the controls of this new ship, pleased to see that surprisingly little had changed. Finally he glanced over at Lucy and gently asked, “How are you holding up?”

 

The cold chill that Lucy had felt failed to leave her as she answered. “...I’m just worried about everything we missed, everyone that we left behind… this just doesn’t feel real. I don’t want it to be.”

 

Kyle was silent for a moment, sparing a glance down at the control console before turning to look her in the eye. Given that they were flying up and out of the atmosphere, it was probably safe for him to deviate his attention a little. “I get it, and if I’m being honest, I’m scared. But it’s gotta get better from here, right? We’ve still got each other.”

 

Lucy’s mind momentarily flashed back to just how close Kyle had come to death, and she couldn’t help but grimace. “We almost didn’t.”

 

“Almost,” he emphasized, reaching out one of his hands to grip hers tightly. “Thanks again, but I’m okay. I’ve got you looking out for me, and you know I ain’t going anywhere.”

 

The familiar comfort of Kyle’s hand in hers, along with his words of reassurance, were enough to ease at least some of the tension forming in her shoulders. “Thank you Kyle.”

 

“Anytime,” Kyle replied with a small smile. “And relax a little, we’re safe.”

 

Lucy nodded, and let him return his focus to flying. Even if she’d known it was there, she was still grateful that he’d neglected to not voice the “for now” at the end of his statement.

 

Author’s Notes: I’m not gonna pretend like I didn’t just want to write a Star Wars adventure and play around with the universe. Plus, I had this perfectly good bit of art of Lucy as a Jedi, and figured it needed a story to go with it. I’ve got some vague plans but nothing too concrete, this is just for fun.

Chapter 2: Back In The Saddle

It had been about an hour since Lucy and Kyle departed from the Republic Base on Verdant, and in that time, they had parked their new ship in the vast void of space. Once they knew for certain that they were safe, they elected to conduct a quick inventory of everything that was aboard. There was quite a lot, given how small the ship was, but most of it was fairly predictable for a military vessel. Blasters, armor, food and water rations, power cells, cleaning kits, basically everything a soldier of the Empire could need to carry out their duties.

 

What was more significant was that absolutely none of it was of the models that they were familiar with. The blasters and armor were to be expected, but even the rations looked nothing like what they were familiar with.

 

The Inquisitor’s personal quarters were sparse, and aside from some spare lightsaber parts, contained belongings no different from those of the Stormtroopers. Just about the only truly strange thing they’d found was a small collection of ID Tags for various Imperial Pilots somewhat carelessly hidden in a drawer. Lucy felt a great darkness emanating from the tags; the last feelings of their owners, preserved in the Force. Streaks of terror, anger, and shock echoed vibrantly from the metal chips.

 

It wasn’t much of a leap to deduce who had killed the pilots. The Sith were notorious for killing their own men for a great many reasons. Although, Lucy found it hard to reason why exactly the pilots had suffered such a fate in particular. Kyle sought an answer by looking through the datapad of their now-captured pilot, and instead had come away with a technical manual for their new ship, identifying it as a Phi-class shuttle.

 

With the technical manual in hand, and a greater understanding of what they had aboard to work with, Kyle set about studying the ship’s controls in a bit more detail. Lucy elected to stay in the seat right next to him in the cockpit, greatly preferring his company to any potential isolation. Behind them in one of the two other seats was their captured pilot, tied up and locked in place with some binders that she’d found. He was still unconscious for the moment, but would probably wake soon.

 

While Kyle was busy getting to know their new ship, Lucy tried to gather what information she could about the Galaxy around them using the ship’s internal databases. To say that they had missed a lot would have been a terrific understatement. Around nineteen years ago, the Galactic Republic had indeed been defeated, reorganized into an Empire by one Emperor Palpatine. The Emperor was very obviously a Sith Lord, although curiously, Lucy couldn’t find any instances of him being referred to as such. Even the name of the Empire was different, simply being called a “Galactic Empire.”

 

As for how long Lucy and Kyle had been in stasis, it was hard to determine a concrete answer. There was no mention of the Sith Empire in any of the logs aboard the ship’s computer. A similar search of weapons, equipment, and personnel that Lucy had encountered in the past yielded nothing. That wasn’t to say she had nothing to work with; there were entries on a great deal of recent events and even entire wars, but again, she found nothing recognizable.

 

Just about the only lead that she had was the final Grand Master of the Jedi Order, Master Yoda. Predictably, Yoda was considered a fugitive and wanted by the Empire, but Lucy was able to glean some useful information from a file that the Empire kept on him in their records. There was apparently some doubt as to whether or not Yoda was even still alive, but according to the Empire, he was nearly nine-hundred years old. He was apparently the same species that Master Oteg had been, and given just how long-lived and rare they were Lucy was certain that she would’ve known about Yoda if he had been alive at the time that they had entered stasis.

 

“Find anything?” Kyle asked, interrupting her deep introspection.

 

She turned to face him and had to resist the urge to wince. He looked as though he’d aged years over the course of the past day. His Temple Security Force uniform was covered in small tears and cuts from the plants that he’d been thrown through during the fighting yesterday, and blood stained his clothes at various points. His eyes were noticeably unfocused, and for the millionth time that day, Lucy worried that he might’ve hit his head a bit harder than she’d thought. Briefly, she reached out through the Force and tried to sense if he was more seriously injured, but found that the only thing clouding his mind were doubts and fears. 

 

Lucy could only imagine that she had a similar appearance. Truthfully, she still had a difficult time believing that what she was seeing was real, hoping that it was some kind of nightmarish Force Vision. Everything that she’d known was gone, her life erased in what had only felt like a moment. At every moment, she could feel the Dark Side exploiting her grief, subtly pulling at her and trying to draw her off-balance. The danger it posed was great, but not impossible to fight, which she did by focusing on who she had left. 

 

“We’ve been gone for nine-hundred years, at least,” she answered Kyle. There was no reason to hide the truth, painful as it might’ve been, especially when it was so important. She’d already shared a lot of bad news with him, but she didn’t miss how he flinched when he heard how long they’d been gone. “Sorry.” she breathed, prodding him with a gentle, comforting feeling through the Force. She knew that he must be reeling from the revelation, just as she did when she first learned the truth.

“Don’t be, it’s not your fault,” Kyle quietly replied. He then took a deep breath, steeling himself before gesturing at the controls before them. “I think I’ve gotten a grip on what all of the basic controls do, and I can probably jump between systems, but I’m still not too confident about getting in a dogfight. This thing’s a shuttle, not a fighter.”

 

An idea had already been formulating in Lucy’s head for some time, but at Kyle’s remark regarding flying, she turned her head towards their captive pilot. “Maybe he can help you.”

 

“A Sith Pilot?” Kyle openly, although justifiably, doubted. “I know he surrendered… but who’s to say he doesn’t just try to fly us into a star? Or try to break out and shoot us?”

 

Truthfully, Lucy had similar doubts. If this man was anything like the soldiers of the Sith Empire, he would be indoctrinated into their beliefs whether he realized it or not. Even so, deducing how much of a threat he posed was impossible while he was asleep. “Couldn’t hurt to ask, see what he’s like. Maybe he can help us find whoever’s fighting the Empire?”

 

Kyle gave her a long look, before standing up and walking over to the pilot. Kyle grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him, gently at first, and then with more force when he failed to wake up. 

 

When the Pilot did wake up, it was slowly and groggily, the effects of the blaster’s stun round still clearly lingering. “Ugh…. what?”

 

He was a blond man, with hair much shorter and more orderly than Kyle’s, but similar blue eyes. Kyle snapped his fingers in front of the man’s face, getting his focus. “Hey, wake up!”

 

The pilot blinked furiously, before looking at Kyle, and then at Lucy, and then at the lightsaber on her hip. He tried to shift in his chair, only to realize that he was tightly-bound. “...Oh blast.”

Experimentally, she tried to gently peer into his mind with the Force, but found nothing but confusion. Perhaps on a better day she could have seen more, but with her own unbalanced state and trouble focusing, it was like trying to see the bottom of an ocean. She could probably have taken a more invasive approach to probing his mind, but that was something that had always made her uncomfortable. It would likely also lose them any chance that they had of getting the pilot to help them.

 

Kyle nodded to her, before returning to his seat and letting her take the lead. Lucy leaned forward and looked the man in the eyes as she softly spoke.  “Relax, we’re not interested in hurting you. What’s your name?”

 

Lucy wouldn’t have needed the Force to see that the pilot was at least a little intimidated by her. “Uh… Captain Paulen Hanson, but you can call me Paulen, I guess.”

 

“Paulen it is then. I’m Lucy, Knight of the Jedi Order. This is Kyle Harrington, one of the officers from the Temple Security Force,” she said. There was a noticeable flare of objection through the Force from Kyle, likely over revealing their identities, but he said nothing. “Was this the only ship that the Empire sent to Verdant?”

 

“Verdant?” Paulen asked, before he made the connection in his head. “Well, yes, but… no. I can’t talk, I won’t be a traitor. I know you spared me, but I’m sorry, I can’t help you.”

 

Kyle swiveled his seat around to look at Paulen. “Look, Captain, I’ll tell it to you bluntly. Whether you like it or not, your life with the Empire is over. If it’s any comfort, you’ll live much longer with us than that Sith. We found the ID Tags of enough Imperial Pilots in his quarters to confirm that he’d have gotten rid of you pretty quickly too.”

 

Paulen didn’t seem to react all that much, at least at a glance. Upon closer inspection, Lucy could see the color drain from his face a little even as Kyle returned to his work, but Paulen kept a stiff upper-lip regardless. “...I shouldn’t help you, the Jedi are traitors.” His voice was softer now, as if he were repeating the mantra as much to convince himself as to declare his belief.

 

“Traitors?” Lucy feigned ignorance. She’d read a bit about the fate of the Jedi, and through the heartbreaking recounting of every dead Jedi, she could see the way that the Sith had framed them as being traitors to the Republic. Even so, she wanted to hear it from Paulen, as the odds were good that he had a bit more to offer on the matter. “Traitors to what?”

 

“What do you-” Paulen began to reply, but paused, hesitating as he no doubt reconsidered what he was saying. “...The Jedi tried to kill the Emperor, back when the Clone Wars were ending, and take power for themselves. I’m sure you already knew that, though.”

 

Lucy pondered it for a moment, mulling over how much she should tell him, before making her decision. “What if I told you that, until today, we’ve been in stasis for more than nine-hundred years? Likely far more than that.”

 

Paulen didn’t seem to react at first, his doubts obvious. After a few seconds of watching her expression, however, the tension on his face gradually slackened. “By the Force, you’re serious, aren’t you? How’s that possible?”

 

“Admittedly, I’m not sure,” Lucy answered. “We were only supposed to be in stasis for three days, not… however long it’s been. Something must have gone wrong. We weren’t awake for long before you, those troopers, and the Sith arrived. I suppose you know what happened after that.”

 

The shocked expression on Paulen’s face gradually shifted to one of conflict, before he let out a hefty sigh. “Alright, I suppose I can at least let you know why we were here. The Thirteenth Brother, the Inquisitor that you killed, said that he sensed a Jedi. We were already on another mission, and I had to make a blind jump based on where he said you were. I don’t really know how he could sense you, but he was adamant about diverting to… well, kill you.”

 

For a moment, Lucy took in what he’d told her, before nodding. “Thank you, Paulen.”

 

“Don’t mention it,” he replied with surprising casualness. Then a more serious expression crossed his features and he added, “Seriously, though… I’d be shot for treason.”

 

Out of curiosity, Lucy tried to reach out with the Force again to gently probe Paulen’s mind. Again, she avoided invading his thinking, but rather tried to gain a simple sense of what he was feeling. In this particular case, it was a bit of fear, some confusion that lingered in his mind, and lastly, a small sense of relief. 

 

That last emotion gave Lucy a bit of hope. Perhaps Paulen was a bit more than some simple slave to the Sith. It would take some convincing to prove that his loyalty to the Sith was misplaced, but perhaps there was still a chance for him to do something better with his life.

 

“Why were you flying for the Empire?” Lucy asked. “It seems like they didn’t care for you all that much.”

“They don’t,” Paulen agreed. “But I had to provide for my Mom somehow, and I always wanted to be a pilot… so it seemed like a natural fit. I was hoping to just get a dropship somewhere, maybe one of those old Clone Wars gunships, but I guess my academy marks were a little too high. I got picked up by the Thirteenth Brother only around a month after I graduated.”

 

For a moment, Lucy felt a hint of doubt as to Paulen’s story. He clearly didn’t think that he was lying, the Force made it clear that he was being sincere. Even so, that didn’t explain why a Sith Inquisitor would want a fresh graduate as his personal pilot. A grim sensation settled in her stomach as she made the connection between Paulen’s selection, and the collection of Pilot ID tags that they had found in the Inquisitor’s quarters.

 

“Paulen… think for a moment, about why you got picked for that role,” Lucy told him. “Why would an Inquisitor want a pilot who was fresh out of training to fly them around? What kind of missions were you flying, were they secret?”

 

He paused for a moment, genuinely putting effort into it. “I’m not allowed to talk about much of anything that the Empire does, even this mission, so I guess you could say so. I had to sign these forms not to talk, take counter-interrogation training, I even got issued a suicide pill so I couldn’t talk if I ever got captured.”

 

Lucy grimly nodded. That was exactly what she was afraid of. “The Inquisitor was going to kill you, Paulen. Being his pilot gave you knowledge about what he was doing, knowledge that he thought was dangerous. That’s why he had the ID tags of those other pilots. They knew too much, so he killed them.”

 

She wouldn’t have needed the Force to sense the chill that ran down Paulen’s spine. “That’s… that’s not true,” he protested weakly, “you don’t know that.”

 

“No, she’s right,” Kyle said, turning around once more. “For all that’s changed since we were gone, it seems like the Sith haven’t changed at all. They never cared about you or your mother Paulen, you're just a tool to them. Just like all of the other poor saps who flew for that bastard.”

 

The color drained out of Paulen’s face, and it was impossible for Lucy not to sympathize with him. She could see a similar look of sympathy on Kyle’s face, and could almost feel his doubts about the danger that Paulen posed begin to fade.

 

“I… I don’t…” Paulen stammered. “I can’t believe it, you’re right. How could they do that?”

“The Sith always betray their own, it’s in their nature,” Lucy told him. “Take a moment to breathe, I know this is a lot to take in.”

 

Paulen did, spending a few minutes in relative silence. At one point, he asked to see the ID tags of the other deceased pilots, which Kyle retrieved and gave to him. After a bit of deliberation, and another careful probe into Paulen’s mind to see if there were any hostile intentions within him, she took a risk and removed his restraints using the Force.

“Thank you, you… you saved my life,” Paulen said in a hollow voice as he held the very evidence of that fact in his hands. “What’s going to happen to me now?”

 

“Well, the Empire’s probably eventually going to notice that the Thirteenth Brother has gone missing, and by extension, you. If you never show up, they’ll probably just write you off as dead,” Kyle reasoned. “I don’t know what that means for your mother, but you could probably find a way to let her know that you’re actually still alive, quietly, of course.”

 

Paulen shook his head. “She would get a pension if I was dead, but… No, that couldn’t work, the Empire has surveillance systems all across the Galaxy. They’d know that I lived, especially if I got in contact with her.”

 

“Fake name, and something to cover the face,” Kyle suggested. “A helmet maybe, or just a mask and some glasses. I could probably forge you some credentials too, if you show me what the Empire uses.”

 

Lucy couldn’t help but give Kyle a look of amused suspicion. For a man who operated as an aspect of Republic law, he’d come up with that plan worrying quickly. “Speaking from experience, Kyle?”

 

“Back in the Temple, Commander Miller had a bad habit of losing his security credentials,” Kyle explained with a sly grin. “After a while I got sick of requisitioning new ones, so I just started making him forgeries. Master Satele cornered me about it once, but she ended up letting me go, I think she thought it was funny.”

 

Lucy smiled at the thought of Master Satele, it wouldn’t have been the first time that she’d shown a bit of leeway to her and Kyle. Indeed, it had been Satele who had permitted and even encouraged Lucy to form an attachment to Kyle, circumventing the Jedi Code. In Satele’s own words; “So long as he stays in the light, then he can help you resist the darkness, you’ll be good for each other.” 

 

So far, the Jedi Master’s wisdom was showing itself in spades, and Lucy couldn’t help the pang in her heart at the knowledge that Master Satele had almost certainly died a long time ago. Briefly, Lucy reached out into the Cosmic Force, hoping against all odds that she could sense Satele’s presence. For a moment, she thought that she could sense something, but in her own unbalanced and distracted state, it was impossible to determine.

 

Paulen took a deep breath, seemingly thinking it over, before he shook his head. “I need to think about all of this. It’s… this is a lot to take in. I don’t know what to do.”

 

“If you want to get some rest, the Troop Bay’s all yours,” Kyle offered. “But before you go, do you mind answering me one more question?”

 

“Go ahead,” Paulen replied, albeit with a hint of lingering doubt.

 

“Lucy and I are looking for some of the Empire’s enemies, and we’re looking for leads,” Kyle explained. “I don’t suppose you’d know where we could find some?"

 

Paulen paused and thought for a moment, before an answer struck him. “The Thir- The Inquisitor was a paranoid nutcase, he kept everything on a need-to-know. I knew that we were going to Utapau, but beyond that, we didn’t get to know anything else. He might’ve had his orders stored somewhere in the ship’s computer, or maybe in his quarters somewhere, or his armor.”

“His armor?” Kyle asked. “Give me just a moment.”

 

Kyle stood up and walked out of the cockpit. About ten seconds later, he returned with the helmet of the Imperial Inquisitor that Lucy had killed. “I pulled this helmet off of his body.”

 

Paulen nodded. “That might work, although I’m not even sure if it has a database. I just know that the whole suit needed power to run all the systems, and he never asked me to look anything up for him.”

 

“Understood, thank you,” Kyle said. 

 

After that, Paulen departed to the Troop Bay, and Lucy could sense the continuing havoc in his mind. As soon as the door was shut, Kyle turned to face her, before sitting down in the pilot’s seat once more. “What do you think, can we trust him?”

 

Lucy nodded. “At the very least, he’s not going to try to kill us. I can tell you that for certain.”

 

“That’s all I’m really worried about,” Kyle said. From the ship’s command console, he pulled a length of data cable, which fit snugly into a socket on the Inquisitor’s Helmet. He tapped a few keys for a moment until a redout appeared on the holographic display before him. “Well I’ll be,” he said with an appreciative whistle. “Looks like Paulen might’ve been onto something.”

 

“What have we got?” Lucy asked.

 

Kyle typed a few commands in on the console, prompting massive lines of holographic text to appear on some of the displays. “Wow, a lot, apparently. Now then, let’s see what this guy was up to…”

 

As it turned out, the Thirteenth Brother had been quite the busy man, and with his own personal log on display, Lucy and Kyle were able to learn quite a bit about where he’d been and what he’d been up to. Naturally, some of the reports were easier to read about than the others. Neither of them mourned the Hutt whom the Inquisitor had discretely killed, although they were a bit disappointed to hear that the Hutts were still around, and holding the same if not more power on the Galactic scale than back from the time that they had come from.

 

More depressingly, he’d captured, tortured, and executed a Rebel Agent on Malastare. The Agent had apparently been a part of a larger Rebel Alliance, an insurgent movement aimed at restoring the Republic and completely destroying the Empire. Naturally, making contact with the Rebel Alliance seemed like the best course of action for them, and after a while of searching for leads…

 

“Ah, here we go, his last set of orders,” Kyle said after several long moments of poring over the available information. “Looks like he was heading to Utapau all right, hunting for a squad of Rebel Operatives.”

 

A vague memory floated its way by Lucy’s mind at the name of the world. “Utapau was one of the worlds that we lost to the Sith… although I imagine it’s changed quite a bit since our time.”

 

“Let’s hope it’s for the better,” Kyle said. “I’ve never been there myself, but I remember hearing Commander Miller complain about it being really windy. Most of the people who lived there had to live underground in these cities that were built into sinkholes.”

 

“That can’t be very comfortable,” Lucy commented, but soon enough, it seemed like she was going to have a chance to examine the living conditions there herself. “Does it say anything about an Imperial Garrison?”

 

Kyle scrolled through more lines of data, before frowning. “Yeah… and a blockade. I suppose we better hope our cover lasts. I don’t suppose the Force can help us with that?”

Briefly, Lucy thought back to her training back at the Jedi Temple, before shaking her head. “Unless you’re talking about Mind Tricks, I don’t think so. I certainly never learned how to turn invisible.”

 

“Let’s hope we don’t need to be,” Kyle replied. “I’ll shut down our video feed here; don’t need any Imperials asking what the hell a Jedi’s visiting for.”

 

Sensing an opportunity, Lucy leaned in towards him. “And her boyfriend.”

 

“And her-” Kyle was midway through repeating what she was saying when he stopped and furiously blushed. “I’ll get you back for that.”

 

“You make it too easy,” She confidently declared with a smirk, before returning her focus to the important matters at hand. “Why don’t we just ask Paulen to help us?”

 

A noticeable degree of hesitation crossed Kyle’s expression. “Even if he’s willing, and that’s a big if , he’d be giving away the fact that he survived. Although…”

 

Kyle’s attention glanced down at the helmet of the Thirteenth Inquisitor, an obvious idea formulating in his mind.

 

“Talk to me Kyle, what are you thinking?” Lucy asked.

Briefly, he gave her an overview of his plan. Once she’d managed to get her face out of her palms, she had to admit, it had the potential to work; albeit with a substantial risk of failure. It would keep Paulen’s survival a secret, helping to keep him safe. It would preserve their cover until they reached the planet’s surface, and potentially even get them a lead as to where on Utapau the Rebels were.

“Okay, but if this fails, I say we let Paulen take the wheel and let him fly us out of trouble,” Lucy stated.

 

“Deal,” Kyle said with a smile. “I’ll go tell him the good news.”

---

 

In spite of the vast stakes that weighed upon the success of Kyle’s plan, and the undeniable anxiety that he felt, he couldn’t help but find a bit of humor in his current situation. The inspiration had come from, oddly enough, the Inquisitor himself, and Kyle’s own observation about the fact that the Sith apparently hadn’t changed all that much while he and Lucy had been in stasis.

 

The inner workings of the Sith Empire back in the time that he was familiar with were a bit of a mystery to the Republic, but as best as he understood it, the Sith were pretty much allowed to do whatever they wanted. The Sith had their own rules that they were supposed to follow on paper, and a far stricter adherence to the word of their masters; but when it came to the rank-and-file of the Empire, and even a lot of the officers, the word of a Sith was law.

 

And it was that deference to the Sith that Kyle was counting on.

 

With a single pull of a lever, he brought the Phi-Class Shuttle out of Hyperspace, and was met with the sight of Utapau. Also in view were a handful of tiny specks in the planet’s orbit, but as Kyle came closer to the planet, he was met with the hulking frames of two imperial frigates and a Star Destroyer. None of them were models that he recognized, but the Star Destroyer in particular was unmistakable in its role, not to mention utterly goliath.

 

Sure enough, one of the lights on his console began to flash, noting an incoming transmission. With a hefty breath that was mildly obfuscated by the helmet that he wore, Kyle pressed a key to open the transmission. 

 

“Shuttle Lancer, This is the Tyranny ,” A man with a High Galactic accent addressed him. “We have you on screen now. Your arrival was scheduled twelve hours ago, state the reason for your delay.”

 

With no time left to hesitate, Kyle keyed the reply, and spoke in the best Inquisitor-impression that he could manage. “ Tyranny, this is Shuttle Lancer. My previous pilot demonstrated incompetence when faced with a Hyperspace Anomaly. I have since resolved the issue.”

 

Kyle had practiced his impression of the Thirteenth Brother based off of what little he’d heard from the man for at least an hour. Paulen had been a judge of his acting, and according to him, his impression was “okay.” Thankfully, the Inquisitor’s helmet naturally garbled the speech of the wearer, helping to sell the ruse.

 

“Shuttle Lancer, our probes haven’t detected any new Hyperspace Anomalies in his sector for over a week,” The Officer replied. “Where did you encounter this anomaly?”

 

A mixed sense of fear and frustration flared up within Kyle. Somehow, he’d had the misfortune to be trying to bluff a man who was actually paying attention to his surroundings. Fortunately, he did have at least one backup plan.

 

“I did not come to discuss pleasantries with you, Captain, ” Kyle sternly replied, taking a vague guess at the officer’s rank and hoping that it would give off the impression that he knew more than he actually did. “I am here on the direct orders of Lord Vader, and I have already been delayed long enough. My patience for your insolence wears very thin.”

 

The mention of Lord Vader had been Paulen’s idea. As he’d explained it, Darth Vader was not only the ‘man in charge’ of the Inquisitors, but the Emperor’s Second-in-Command, and all signs pointed to him being the Emperor’s own Sith apprentice. Paulen had also explained that the man had a reputation for summarily executing officers that irritated him, a habit that Kyle was hoping the Tyranny’ s Captain was familiar with.

 

The sound of a man clearing his throat shuffled over the transmission. “Shuttle Lancer, this is the Tyranny . Transmit clearance codes and we shant delay you any further,” the Imperial officer answered him, sounding gratifyingly spooked.

 

The clearance codes were the easiest part by far, since Paulen had been able to provide them. In less than a minute, Kyle had the codes transmitted, and received another message.

 

“Shuttle Lancer, this is the Tyranny . You are cleared to proceed. Good hunting, notify us if you need anything else.”

 

Sensing an opportunity, Kyle sent out one final transmission. “ Tyranny, transmit any data you may have on local Rebel Activity in this sector to my personal database.”

 

A moment later, he received a directed data transmission containing a swath of hopefully-useful information that, unfortunately, he was too busy to look at. Interestingly, the Imperial Officer made no attempt to contact him again, either scared straight or simply seeing no reason to.

 

After flying past the blockade without issue, and once their ship was free of the Star Destroyer’s looming shadow, Kyle removed the stuffy helmet and yelled back to the Troop Bay, “All clear!”

 

The doors opened about a second later, and Lucy and Paulen walked in, both looking mildly amused. Lucy sat down and closed her eyes, no doubt looking through the Force for the Rebels they were seeking, while Paulen stood beside Kyle and gave him a winning smile. “Alright, so maybe that impression was a bit better than I gave you credit for. Nice work, and thanks for, well, announcing my death.”

“Don’t relax yet, we’ve still got a mission ahead of us,” Kyle replied, before turning to face Paulen directly. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to lend a hand?”

 

For a brief moment, hesitation flashed across Paulen’s face, before he nodded. “I might not be a Rebel, but I owe you one for saving me from that maniac. Let me fly, I’ll get you where you need to go.”

 

Kyle turned to Lucy who, in spite of having her eyes closed, apparently noticed and nodded her approval. The signal received, he turned back to the Pilot. “By all means, take the stick.”

 

The two exchanged places, and Kyle couldn’t help but notice the small smile on Paulen’s face as he took the controls. “All right… where to?”

 

“I’m still working on that,” Lucy answered. “Kyle, why don’t you see if there’s anything we can use in the data you got from the Empire?”

Noticing that Paulen was still looking for an answer, Kyle gave him one. “Just take us down into the atmosphere and keep a holding pattern over one of the major cities. Let me know if the Empire gives us grief, I’ll put the helmet back on.”

 

“Sounds good to me!” Paulen answered.

 

As their vessel descended into the atmosphere, Kyle opened the data that the Tyranny had transmitted to them, and couldn’t help but sigh. It was a lot to pick through, and most of it looked like it was going to be useless. “...This is gonna take a while.”

 

With a mild sense of frustration, he started his search, looking for anybody who might have a connection to the Rebel Alliance. Most of the reported suspects were petty criminals, mostly thieves, and a few individuals tied to mining strikes. 

 

Kyle had been searching for about an hour when one individual in particular stood out to him. A Human woman, whose sheer volume of listed crimes managed to grab his attention.

 

“By the Force…” He muttered as he brought up the suspect’s file. “Insurrection, Terrorism, Grand Larceny, Assault of Imperial Officials, Murder in the First Degree, Arson-”

 

Paulen gave him a doubtful glare. “Don’t tell me, you wanna go find that one?”

 

“Well, it says here that she’s apparently the leader of a Rebel Cell, last seen in Pau City,” Kyle justified. “Your thoughts, Lucy?”

 

She opened her eyes, nodding. “It’s the best lead we’ve got.”

 

“Alrighty then, Pau City it is,” Paulen confirmed.

 

Author’s Notes: Been having a lot of fun for this one, and I’m starting to get a good few more plans already. Big thanks to AlphaSpartan117 for lending me his Pilot OC, Paul Hansen, and for his editing work. Similarly, thanks to BrownCoat for his own editing work. Also thanks to my friend CT-5555 as well!

Chapter 3: For The Empire?

As Paulen guided their shuttle down into a massive sinkhole, Lucy looked out of the front viewport and got her first look at Pau City. It was an engineering marvel in its own right, and a creative usage of the natural landmark. The city was primarily powered by windmill farms which dotted the windy surface of the planet around the edges of the sinkhole, with several more clusters of windmills being placed within the sinkhole itself. Even with the series of power generators, there was still plenty of space for incoming starships to traverse. The actual starport of the city was equally spacious, which was a fairly big surprise given that it was technically underground.

 

“Looks like we’re already cleared to land, I guess the Tyranny didn’t want to annoy us any more,” Paulen noted, snapping Lucy’s attention away from admiring the architecture. “That being said, if you two really want to go out there, you’re going to stick out like sore thumbs. The Rebels might be happy to see you, but nobody else will. There’s some spare gear for you in the Troop Bay, it’ll help you blend in a little.”

 

“Thank you, Paulen,” Lucy replied. Going without her armor would be a major inconvenience to be certain, but she was well aware that the best possible protection was to not have to fight at all. “We’ll see what we can come up with.”

 

“Don’t mention it,” Paulen replied dismissively as their ship continued to descend, his distraction made evident by his tone of voice. “What do you want me to do while you’re away?” he asked, a frown crossing his lips as he stared intently at the instrument panel before him.

 

Lucy paused for a moment to think, but Kyle spoke up, already having an answer prepared. “Stay with the ship and lay low until we come back,” he advised. “Don’t give the Empire a reason to ask any questions. If they come knocking, take off without us and don’t look back. You’ll also need this.”

 

Kyle handed Paulen a comlink; by the looks of it, one that he had borrowed from one of the Stormtroopers that Lucy had killed. Paulen also seemed to recognize it, and his tone betrayed his doubt. “Aren’t you worried about the Empire picking up our transmissions?”

 

“Only if they have the keys on hand for some very old Jedi encryption algorithms,” Kyle answered. “That being said, don’t be careless with it, it’s not my best work. It wouldn’t take the Empire long to decode, and they’ll probably get suspicious just from picking up encrypted transmissions at all. Just in case they do crack it, don’t use your name and put on an accent, hopefully they’ll still think you're dead once they realize the Inquisitor’s gone.”

 

Paulen ran a quick inspection on the comlink as he nodded along to Kyle’s words. “I guess my old callsign is out of the question as well. Call me… Ryder-One.”

 

“Ryder-One it is, we’ll be Scepter,” Kyle replied before turning to Lucy. “I’ll go see what our options are for disguises.”

 

While Kyle took inventory, Paulen piloted them down to one of the landing pads. No Imperial personnel were present to greet them, but there was a tall Pau’an man and four of the far more diminutive Utai present, seemingly waiting for them to leave their ship. Lucy normally would’ve been worried about getting spotted through the viewport, but they’d learned back on Verdant that the shuttle had polarized windows that were impossible to see through.

 

“I better get going,” Lucy said quietly. She stood to make her way out of the cockpit, but paused to turn back to the pilot once more. “And Paulen, if we don’t come back… may the Force be with you.”

 

Paulen gave her a small smile as she stood in the portal leading back into the shuttle’s troop bay. “And with you, uh, Jedi.”

 

As Lucy walked through the door that led to the Troop Bay, she shouldn’t have been surprised to see Kyle once more donning the Inquisitor's helmet, covering his very out of place Republic Uniform beneath a large Sith Cloak. The cloak was matte-black, with a hood he had lifted to cover his helmet and neck. He actually looked fairly convincingly like the Inquisitor had… at least, she thought so. 

 

“I couldn’t find anything resembling a spare set of armor, but I did find this cloak…” Kyle shifted his arms beneath the heavy material, causing it to sway slightly back and forth. “I’m pretty sure it’s weighted.”

 

Lucy resisted the urge to chuckle at the way his casual tone blended with the speech synthesizer of his helmet, but ultimately failed. “I’d say that’s a good look.” She then cocked her head inquisitively to one side as she considered something. “Are you sure you don’t want me to be the Inquisitor?” she asked. As the Force sensitive of the pair, she did seem to fit the bill better than Kyle.

 

“Not to dismiss your acting skills, but you’d make for a more convincing Stormtrooper,” Kyle answered, gesturing towards a spare set of armor. As she made her way over to inspect the white armor, he asked in a quiet voice, “…You really think I look good?”

 

“Sure, in a diabolical, evil kind of way,” Lucy answered with a smile. “Now turn around, will you?”

 

The flare of embarrassment that she sensed from him at her instruction was delightfully entertaining. Within a few minutes, she was dressed as one of the Empire’s enforcers. The armor was tight-fitting in places, and loose in others. It had clearly been mass-produced, but now, Lucy was starting to suspect that the Empire hadn’t even bothered to manufacture more than one size. Even more worryingly, she quickly found a major issue.

 

“I can’t get the helmet to turn on,” Lucy reported. “The battery’s full as well, but the button won’t work.”

 

“It might have some kind of lock on it, or maybe it’s just broken. Maybe there’s a reason it got left in storage,” Kyle surmised, his helpful suggestion sounding completely at odds with the sinister voice that his borrowed helmet emitted. “Can you see out of it?”

 

That was a surprisingly difficult question to answer. On one hand, her normal sight was restricted to two tiny eye holes in the helmet, giving her a very narrow field of view. On the other hand, a Jedi didn’t even need their eyes to see, so long as they had the Force. “I’ll manage.”

 

“Good. Stay close to me, and don’t be afraid to step in if things get a little hairy,” Kyle said, grabbing the Inquisitor’s twin-bladed Lightsaber and fixing it to his belt. “I’ve always wanted one of these things…”

 

Lucy couldn’t help but playfully roll her eyes. “You could’ve just asked me to teach you, you know.”

 

“I’ll hold you to that,” Kyle replied with a noticeable hint of excitement. “Now come on, we’ve got a Rebellion to find.”

 

She gave him a thumbs-up as she took one of the Imperial Blasters. As soon as she did, Kyle hit the control to lower the ramp, and the two walked down to greet the welcoming party. The Pau’an man straightened his posture as they approached.

 

“Greetings Inquisitor, and welcome to our sanctuary,” he said, his voice raspy and his demeanor overly formal. “I am Lampay Fay, Port Administrator. What brings you to our home?”

 

“I am here in search of a group of terrorists that cower in this city, under orders from Lord Vader,” Kyle explained. Lucy couldn’t help but be slightly impressed at the way he was so easily able to slip into a distinctly malicious tone of voice, although the speech synthesizer was undoubtedly doing a lot of the heavy lifting to mask his voice.

 

Lucy kept her eyes fixed on Lampay and listened in on his conversation with Kyle, but her true focus was given to the Force. She hadn’t been able to sense the Rebel’s presence while aboard the ship, and she was still having trouble sensing much of anything outside the city. The whole sinkhole practically radiated an anxiety and unspoken fear that was as unnerving as it was heartbreaking.

 

Is this what the whole Galaxy is like now? Lucy wondered, but steeled her resolve before she could become distracted. There was never a good time to give in to despair and fear, but now was an especially bad time to do so.

 

Lampay nodded, as though he had expected that answer. “You must be the man that Major Dauphin spoke of. I’m afraid that he expected you to attend a meeting several hours ago. As I understand it, he wanted to discuss strategy with you.”

 

Lucy could feel Kyle’s concern spike, sending nervous ripples out through the Force, but was relieved to see him do a good job of concealing it. Truth be told, she was a bit worried as well, this was something that she had not expected. Thankfully, they already had an excuse ready to explain their late arrival. 

 

“I am afraid that I was preoccupied with other important duties, and that our established schedule needed amendment. I am not at liberty to discuss such matters, at least, not as long as you wish to keep your head attached to your neck.” Kyle explained.

“Of course, Inquisitor,” the Port Administrator stammered, inclining his head slightly in deference to the supposed Inquisitor to hide the even greater-than-normal pallor that covered his face. “May I be of any service to you?”

 

Lucy expected Kyle to dismiss Lampay so that they could get moving, but instead, it seemed that Kyle had other plans. “Indeed you may. I require a new, suitably discrete location to host a secret meeting with Major Dauphin. Something that neither the public nor the rest of the Garrison would be privy to. I trust you and your assistants could keep such a meeting private, Administrator?”

 

Lampay noticeably hesitated, and seemed a bit confused, before he answered. “There is an office complex that hasn’t seen use for many years... I understand that it once belonged to the Banking Clan. Whatever you need to discuss, I am sure that it will remain a secret there.”

 

“Very good,” Kyle replied. “And where might this office be?”

 

“Level Five, at the end of the Ninth Sub Tunnel,” Lampay answered. “Do you… require an escort?”

 

“That will not be necessary,” Kyle answered. “Your service to the Empire will be noted, Administrator, but I cannot be delayed any further. You may leave.”

 

Lampay simply nodded and stood aside, along with his assistants. Kyle and Lucy then stepped forward into the city, occasionally attracting gazes from both civilians and Imperials alike. Despite the attention, nobody seemed to be particularly eager to stare at them. At the very least, none seemed to be in a hurry to be caught doing so. The path down to Pau City’s Fifth Level was a decently long one, they had a lot of walking to do.

 

As soon as Lucy was confident that she could quietly talk without getting overheard, she spoke up. “What’s your plan?”

 

“Paulen says that the Inquisitor was paranoid and secretive, I think we can get away with arranging a quiet meeting with the Major,” Kyle explained. “My plan is to call him, get him to join us for a meeting, and we can take him prisoner. If anybody is going to have leads as to where the Rebels are, or a way to find them, it’ll be the commanding officer.”

Lucy briefly mulled it over. It could work. Of course, if the Empire did know the location of the Rebels, it stood to reason that they would’ve attacked them. That being said, even a vague lead could get them a long way, as scouring the entirety of Pau City was something that the two of them alone simply couldn’t hope to achieve.

 

“That could work, but what if we could bluff him, just like you did with the Captain of that Star Destroyer?” Lucy asked. “Nobody’s doubted your identity so far, as for why you’re late and acting secretively… let’s say, you just killed a Jedi.”

 

“And you think that the Major will tell us what he knows?” Kyle asked. “I suppose it would be easier than trying to interrogate him… but our cover’s not going to last forever.”

 

“All the more reason to act quickly,” Lucy reasoned. “Besides, if he sniffs us out, there’s nothing saying we can’t just take him prisoner then.”

 

Kyle hummed aloud, a sound made amusingly sinister by his modified voice. “Alright, let’s give it a shot.”

 

Kyle produced a comlink from his belt, and after a minute spent searching through Empire’s Com Network, found the frequency for the Major, who answered almost immediately. “This is a restricted frequency, identify yourself immediately!”

 

“Major Dauphin, this is the Thirteenth Brother,” Kyle lied. “I need to speak with you, urgently and discreetly.”

 

Major Dauphin was silent for a long, tense moment, before finally speaking once more. “This is highly irregular. Why are you deviating from standard security protocols? What is the reason for your delay?”

 

Lucy couldn’t help but grimace behind her helmet. Those were both tough questions, and neither had a simple answer. Their earlier excuse could work for the second question, but not for the first. They should have been prepared for such an obvious question, but hindsight was worthless here. Lucy simply had to have faith that Kyle could make something convincing up.

“I cannot explain in full, our communications are no longer secure for reasons that will be explained, nor are our defenses,” Kyle answered with a half-truth. “The Rebels are listening.”

 

Again, there was a long pause before the Major tentatively replied. “Very well, Inquisitor, and what would you propose?”

 

“I have arranged with the Port Administrator for the office complex on Level Five, at the end of Sub Tunnel Nine, to be made clear of any potential eavesdroppers,” Kyle explained. “I need you to assemble a squad of your best men to discreetly meet me there. I cannot stress enough the importance that nobody knows where you are going, and why.”

 

Kyle briefly turned to face her, and even with the helmet and hood of an Inquisitor on, she could still discern the message that he was trying to silently convey to her.

 

Trust me.

 

She nodded in reply, and didn’t miss the fact that he walked with renewed confidence.

 

Major Dauphin answered tersely, and quickly. “Forgive me for saying so, Inquisitor, but I’ve been led into traps far less obvious than this. You may be my superior officer, but I will not so blindly violate our protocols for your sake.”

 

The distrust in his voice was palpable, and both Lucy and Kyle knew everything hinged on exactly how Kyle replied. Thankfully, he already had a strategy that had been proven to work once.

 

“Listen to me carefully, Major,” Kyle sternly spoke. “The Rebels have made a grave mistake, and have granted us an opportunity to exterminate their forces on this planet completely, but time is of the essence. I will not allow my mission to be a failure because you will not follow my commands. You have been given an order, and you shall follow it.”

 

The tense silence lasted for a long time, and somewhere else in Pau City, Lucy could’ve sworn that she sensed a man so frustrated that he stood out amongst the sea of anxiety.

 

“Very well, Inquisitor, I shall do as I am ordered, but I will not hesitate to direct any complaints about my actions to you,” Major Dauphin replied, not even bothering to hide his irritation. “How many men shall we need?”

 

“No more than twelve, and their loyalty must be unquestionable,” Kyle replied. “Ensure they have the equipment necessary for a sustained firefight.”

 

Again, there was a period of silence, and for a brief moment Lucy felt that perhaps this was a mistake. Perhaps they had only managed to give away their presence to the Empire by calling the Major, and all but doomed themselves. It was too late to back out now, however.

 

After a painfully long wait, Major Dauphin answered. “Very well, Inquisitor. We shall depart by the end of the hour. I shall see you soon,” he replied, before seemingly forgetting to turn his comlink off as he put it away, allowing them to hear at least one last thing from him. “...Paranoid freak.”

 

Kyle put away his comlink, triple-checking that it was switched off. “Stubborn bastard… let’s hope he doesn’t wise up to what’s going on.”

 

“What’s the plan for the extra Troopers?” Lucy asked. She wasn’t doubtful about being able to fight them, but she also knew that Kyle wouldn’t have asked for their presence without some reasoning.

 

“It would’ve been too suspicious to ask him to come alone,” Kyle explained his thinking. “Besides, if we’re going to catch some dastardly Rebels, we’re going to need some help, now aren’t we?”

 

Lucy couldn’t help but chuckle. “I feel like I should be worried by how good you are at this. Did you do any infiltration missions before we met?”

 

“No, before we met, I just got stuck with all of the jobs at the Temple that nobody else wanted,” Kyle answered, the somewhat bashful confession sounding rather comical in his artificially deepened voice. “One of ‘em was sorting through all of the Sith Comms that our ships would pick up. Real exciting stuff, I know. A lot of Sith didn’t really bother with encryption, so we’d get to listen to them complain a lot, and not much else. I used to think that we didn’t find anything useful in all that chatter; I guess I’m proving myself wrong here.”

 

“That does sound pretty boring,” Lucy empathized, before finding herself in possession of a sly, teasing grin. “Although, if I may say so, I think you make for a great Sith Lord.”

 

Although Kyle didn’t take his focus off of the road ahead of them, she could sense him going through just about every single emotion in the span of about four seconds, before finally settling on being confused. “You mind your tone, Jedi Scum.”

 

She only chuckled in reply, but stifled herself as they found themselves walking once more into crowds of citizens. Straightening her posture and renewing her focus, she put aside her plans to tease Kyle further for another day.

 

---

 

Kyle anxiously waited alongside Lucy, standing in the dusty receiving room of the abandoned office complex. The building’s previous owners had clearly left nothing behind, and it was as empty as a building could reasonably be without tearing out the floors. The room that they now stood in was furnished only with a thick carpet, now saturated with dust and what was probably mold. Lines in the dust denoted where cubicles had likely once stood, and were it not for the open windows and streetlights, the room would likely have been entirely dark.

They had been waiting for around half an hour, finalizing their plans and discussing how best to continue their ruse. They had a lot to work with, but also some restrictions that needed to be taken into account. To rely on Major Dauphin forgetting any of what they had said would have been foolhardy, so they carefully crafted an elaborate, fake conspiracy to explain exactly what was going on. It wasn’t enough for them to simply say they could draw the Rebels out of hiding; they had to have a robust, non-existent strategy that could be used as bait for the Empire.

 

Admittedly, it felt a bit strange to be planning against the people who they were hoping to join forces with. Even so, they had enough to work with to produce a strategy that might , at the very least, bring the Rebels out into the open. Once they did that, Lucy and Kyle could jump in and try to escape from the inevitable Imperial Forces alongside them. Although, if the Major didn’t buy into the strategy that they were going to propose they would simply have to come up with another plan. At the very least, Kyle hoped to leave the meeting with more information than they entered it with.

 

“They’re here,” Lucy suddenly announced, before handing over her lightsaber to Kyle. Up until now, she’d been keeping it hidden in a small pouch on her belt in case of an emergency. Though she felt trepidation parting with the weapon, Kyle would have to hold onto it if they wanted their ruse to work. “Stick to the plan, and we’ll be fine.”

 

The confidence that she displayed was reassuring, and he tried to mirror it as best as he could. Even if this plan didn’t work, they still had backup options. “Let’s hope so.”

 

Around a minute later the doors swung open, and thirteen men walked through the door. Twelve were Stormtroopers armed with their standard-issue blaster rifles, what looked like a repeating blaster, and a single rocket launcher. The final man was a tall, pale man who wore a simple gray uniform, the lapel bearing blue and red bars that likely denoted his rank. His face was covered with the creases of stress and age and a large, gray mustache.

 

“I was not expecting to see a Stormtrooper here…” Major Dauphin sternly noted in a high-galactic accent as he looked at Lucy. “Trooper, why is your Comlink off?”

 

It was a question that they’d prepared for, and so Kyle answered for her. By now, he was pretty confident with his impression, and he was able to speak with a bit more confidence. “She has done so on my order, Major. I am not here to discuss the identities and missions of other agents of our great Empire, but you may know that I saw fit to disguise her as something more familiar to the Rebels. As you are about to see, I have good reason to be cautious, even regarding our own.”

 

Major Dauphin turned and shot him a glare. “Am I to assume that you’ve had your own subordinate jumping through as many hoops as us?”

 

The open challenge admittedly caught Kyle a bit off-guard. He’d expected the Major to have a degree of fear for the Inquisitor, similarly to that which the Captain of the Tyranny had. That was clearly not the case, as Dauphin’s voice was clear and concise, with no hint of fear.

 

“Mind your tone, Major… but yes, and now you shall see why,” Kyle explained, before holding up Lucy’s lightsaber. Thankfully, the Inquisitor’s cloak had been built in such a way as to conceal his armor, and so it meant that Kyle’s obviously non-Imperial uniform remained out of sight. “Do you recognize what this is?”

 

Major Dauphin continued to glare at him for a moment, but as he shifted his gaze to Lucy’s lightsaber, he didn’t seem to be all that placated. “I have yet to meet an Inquisitor who hasn’t carried a lightsaber, what’s so special about yours?”

 

“This is not my weapon, Major,” Kyle explained, igniting the weapon to further demonstrate its difference from the typical Sith’s red blade. “This is the weapon of a Jedi, one whom I killed not even a day ago.”

 

Dauphin’s expression shifted, first to surprise, and then to confusion. His eyes ran up the length of the blade before Kyle extinguished it and pulled the weapon back under his cloak. “I haven’t seen a Jedi in over a decade… I thought they were extinct.”

 

“By the Emperor's will, they shall be,” Kyle said, trying his best to channel the same tone of evil conviction that he’d heard the Sith of the past speak with. “But you will find that they are very much still alive, albeit now, there is one less.”

 

“I fail to see the significance of this… Jedi,” Dauphin grumpily replied. He still seemed shaken by the information that the ‘Inquisitor” before him had not only found but also killed a member of the all but forgotten religion, but not enough to make him open to any suggestion thrown his way.

 

“That is because you have not heard what I learned from this Jedi… and their Rebel allies,” Kyle stated. “I sensed a disturbance regarding an Imperial Supply shuttle that I found just outside of this system. I confirmed my suspicions once I boarded the vessel. The crew had been killed, and the shuttle stolen by Rebel agents.” 

 

Gradually, Dauphin’s glare became slightly less intense. “The Jedi was coming here?” A flicker of emotion crossed the eyes of the petulant major. Nervousness… or was it excitement?

 

“Indeed,” Kyle answered. “I managed to take one of the Rebels prisoner during the fighting. Before they… expired, I was able to learn more about their mission. They were to join forces with an existing Rebel Cell on Utapau.” Kyle leaned in closer, allowing the menacing nature of his stolen uniform to work in his favor as he invaded the officer’s personal space. “In order to bypass our blockade, they would make use of Rebel Agents who are already within the ranks of your garrison, Major.”

 

“That’s impossible!” Dauphin loudly proclaimed. “My men are among the best in the Empire! The idea that any of them could be traitors is, is…”

 

He paused mid-sentence, his reddened face gradually shifting to an expression of shock, and Kyle couldn’t help but hope that he was finally starting to be won over. Their fake story was full of holes but a good delivery could, with any luck, make it a bit more convincing.

 

“... is the abject truth, Major,” He finished Dauphin’s sentence for him. “The Rebels would not risk the life of a Jedi unless they were certain that they could bypass our warships. Your ranks have been infiltrated, severely enough that we must treat everyone with suspicion.”

 

Dauphin did a fairly decent job concealing his true feelings, enough that Kyle could barely see the disgust and hurt in his eyes. The twelve Stormtroopers were too busy casting concerned glances at one another to see it, but their commanding officer had been shaken. 

 

He dared not turn to face Lucy, but he knew she was there, likely taking the exchange in with laser focus. Their decision to have her assume the role of a disguised agent was something that Kyle had honestly expected to be harder to sell. So far, however, it seemed as though he had been able to plant some bigger concerns in the Major’s mind.

 

“I… wish I could deny it, but it explains too much,” Dauphin said after some hesitation. “The Rebels here have been elusive, bypassing our checkpoints and even moving from city to city, all without being detected. If they had a man on the inside…”

 

A small bit of worry formed in the pit of Kyle’s stomach at Dauphin’s words. While it was certainly possible that the Imperial was simply imagining things to disguise his own failures, it was equally possible that Kyle had just inadvertently drawn attention to an actual Rebel Agent.

 

“Now you see why I was forced to resort to such discretion. If we alert the Rebel Spies that we know about them, they will attempt to flee, and we will lose our opportunity to capture them,” Kyle said. “But before we can contend with them, we must first exploit the opportunity that we have been given, and eliminate the heart of this Rebel infestation .”

 

As much as Kyle didn’t like deviating from the plan that he and Lucy had established, it was necessary. They couldn’t risk the Major going on a frantic inspection of his own forces, as that had the potential to expose actual Rebel Spies. Hopefully, now that the Major was seemingly buying into the nonsense that he was being fed he would be more willing to adhere to their plan.

 

Major Dauphin’s stern glare was gone, replaced by an attentive, albeit cautious expression. He even stiffened his posture up a bit more, probably on instinct alone. “...And what kind of opportunity might that be, Inquisitor?”

 

“The Rebels will likely be expecting their reinforcements to arrive in the near future. They will be on the lookout for their allies, and this gives us the opportunity to stage an ambush,” Kyle explained. “I trust you’re familiar with the leader of this particular cell? I have done my own research, but I would like to know if there is anything I’m missing.”

 

Dauphin gestured to one of his subordinates, who drew a holo-projector out of their rucksack and handed it to Major Dauphin. After a moment’s configuration, he placed it on the ground, and a holographic display of a familiar Rebel’s Imperial File sprang to life.

 

“This is Sarah Lyons, the ranking Rebel Officer on Utapau,” Dauphin explained, looking somehow as though he’d aged five more years as soon as he’d said her name. “For a while, she and a much larger cell were causing a lot of trouble on Fondor, but our garrison there nearly crushed them, about… about a day after we lost the Death Star…”

 

There was a noticeable shift in the room’s atmosphere as Dauphin trailed off, a decidedly morose expression creeping into the hard lines of his face. Even the Stormtroopers behind him seemed noticeably disquieted, although it was hard to judge much of anything about them behind their sleek white helmets. Whatever the Death Star was, losing it had clearly been a terrific loss for the Empire.

 

Recognizing that it would be suspicious for him to not seem similarly disheartened, Kyle did his best to seem at the very least, a bit unnerved. It was a mixed blessing that he was already very anxious, so it didn’t take a lot of effort. “Focus, Major. So that we may avoid further disaster.”

 

“Right, my apologies,” Major Dauphin said, snapping back to attention with renewed determination. “Lyons has been a thorn in our side for nearly a month. Thanks to you, we now know how her forces are able to move so freely, but I’m afraid that’s only where things begin.”

 

Kyle had already taken the time to read Sarah’s file, which to him looked just as much like a resume as it did a wanted poster, and so a lot of what the Major had to say was familiar to him.

 

Sarah’s forces somehow managed to make their way to Utapau after their cell on Fondor was nearly destroyed, and attacked the Imperial garrison regularly. Different methods were used each time, making her movements hard to predict. A droid delivering a bomb disguised as cleaning supplies, starting a fire on one end of the city and then blowing up a factory on the other side once the Imperials had taken the bait, and even sporadic sniper fire on multiple of the Empire’s checkpoints at the same time. 

 

There were however, two constants that Kyle had noticed, and Dauphin had seemingly picked up on them as well. “She seems to have a certain affinity for drawing our forces out of position, usually through some explosive distraction. Then, she goes and strikes her real target, which is usually an industrial facility of some kind. She did destroy one of our cargo shuttles, but even that was carrying cargo to our research facility on the surface.”

 

Kyle raised an eyebrow and had to resist the urge to ask more. For now, they still had a job to do… but an Imperial Research Facility seemed like an ideal target for the Rebels to know about. “It is both of these habits that we will exploit. The Rebels do not yet know that their Jedi is dead, and will likely be looking to make some kind of diversion, allowing the Jedi to slip behind our defenses while our back is turned. And so, we shall give them the opportunity which they seek. Only this time, they will fight on our terms.”

 

By now, whatever doubt that Dauphin had about what Kyle was telling him had clearly been destroyed. Even his Stormtroopers were visibly paying a greater degree of attention, no doubt just as eager to destroy the Rebel Scum as their commanding officer was. “What do you need us to do?”

 

“If my plan is to succeed, we shall first require a place to stage our ambush,” Kyle said. “An industrial facility would be an obvious candidate, but a remote location would also be ideal. The Rebels will be more likely to act if they believe that we will be slow to respond. We should also try to avoid any civilian attention, if possible.”

 

Major Dauphin considered it for a moment before adjusting the holo-projector to instead show some kind of underground facility. “If that’s the case, then I would recommend the hydroelectric plant in the tunnels at the bottom of the crater. We use it to power the research facility without drawing too much attention, but about a week ago the sentries spotted one of the Rebels scouting the location out. I doubled the guard in response, but I have no doubt the Rebels could be drawn out if I make it seem as though we had relaxed our increased security measures.”

 

For a long moment, Kyle weighed up the merits of the location for their purposes. An underground facility would play hell with comms for both sides of the inevitable battle, and make escaping with the Rebels a good deal more difficult. The fighting would likely be close-quarters, but that cut both ways. It was also likely to be fortified at least to some degree, which would work against the Rebels.

 

That being said, it was far from civilians, ensuring that they wouldn’t get caught in the crossfire. It was also noticeably isolated, meaning that any potential Imperial Reinforcements would need more time to arrive. The Rebels already knew about the position and had even scouted it out, confirming that they had some way down into the underground rivers that ran beneath Utapau’s surface. Lastly, Dauphin had just made it clear that losing the facility would be a substantial blow to the Empire, which was a nice bonus.

 

The most important factor, however, was unfortunately out of their control. Whether or not the Rebels would take the bait was completely up in the air. Indeed, Kyle wasn’t even sure if they could safely make it to the installation without attracting the Empire’s attention, nor whether they had the required strength to view a potential attack as viable.

 

“Do you believe the Rebels are aware of the significance of this installation?” Kyle asked.

 

The major nodded, tapping his fingers against his lips thoughtfully before responding. “At least in part… but if I had to guess, they’re likely just looking for a place to draw power from,” Dauphin explained. “The Rebels made extensive use of powersuits when they first arrived, but they have been using them less and less. Our current theory is that they’re simply running out of energy.”

 

Again, Lucy’s proposal to play along with the Empire paid off as they learned something very interesting about the Rebels. Power armor had existed in their time as well, but it wasn’t common due to the heavy costs involved in building and maintaining such suits. Apparently now, those issues must have been at least somewhat resolved.

 

“An astute observation, Major,” Kyle replied. “Then it is here that we shall stage our ambush, but first, we will need to remove the existing Garrison, and do so without arousing suspicion. We cannot risk the Rebel spies leaking our plans to the enemy.”

 

A tone of noticeable doubt returned to Dauphin’s voice as he questioned; “Sir?”

 

“The Rebels will not attack a well-fortified position when alternatives exist, but they will also sense our trap if we simply order the Garrison to leave. We need a suitable excuse, and a way to inspire a bit of urgency within them,” Kyle explained, before holding up Lucy’s lightsaber once more. “And this Jedi fool has given us the tool to do both at once.”

 

Dauphin’s grin developed into one that practically radiated a newfound confidence. “Of course… The Rebels don’t know that the Jedi is dead. If we were to publicly announce that a Jedi had infiltrated the city, and begin a large-scale search for them, then the Rebels will strike while we’re distracted .” He set his jaw and squared his shoulders, taking on the stance of a confident officer once more. “I’ll order the power plant’s garrison to join the ‘search efforts’ while we take over the position.”

 

Kyle was a bit surprised to see Dauphin come up with more or less the same idea that he had. With a bit of hindsight, however, he determined that he really shouldn’t have been. The limited experience that he had with the Major made it clear that he wasn’t completely inept. He certainly lacked a good deal of perception, and bought into a lot of what he was being told without much question, but the total lack of fear that he demonstrated showed that he had at least some merit as an officer. 

 

Either way, Kyle was content to let Dauphin think that the idea was his. “And we shall know where they will strike… provided, of course, we maintain the element of surprise. To that end, the Rebel Spies cannot know of our plan. When you raise the alarm, do not tell your troops that the Jedi is dead. They must buy into our ruse along with the Rebels if we are to succeed.”

 

Kyle couldn’t help but feel a hollowness in his gut. This was the one part of his and Lucy’s plan that both of them were very unhappy with. Inspiring a crackdown on Pau City was inevitably going to result in innocent people getting hurt, and perhaps even killed. Kyle and Lucy had passed around other ideas, but nothing they could come up with had even a remote chance of convincing the Major. As a result, the citizens of Utapau would be the ones paying the price to get the two of them in contact with the Rebellion. If they succeeded, however, then perhaps the citizens of Utapau would not have to live in fear for much longer.

 

“I understand. With any luck, we may find some Rebel Scum in our search,” Dauphin voiced his agreement. “How much of the power plant’s garrison should we retain?”

 

“None,” Kyle answered simply. He made one quick, circular motion with his hand that encompassed the fifteen people gathered in that dusty abandoned building. “We shall be more than enough to contend with the Rebels, and will replace the existing garrison entirely.”

 

Again, the Major let his doubt show. “Are you certain? While I recognize that there is the possibility of Rebel Infiltrators being among the men already present, we may find ourselves outnumbered.”

 

That, unfortunately, was a question that Kyle didn’t actually have a prepared answer to. In truth, he assumed that if he’d gotten this far, the major would be willing to follow an Inquisitor into battle. After all, the rank-and-file of the Empire had to know just how dangerous a Sith could be, and he had just gotten away with claiming that he’d killed a Jedi and their Rebel allies. The fact that the Major was, somewhat rightfully, doubting their ability to fight all of the Rebels on their own was something he didn’t have a response to.

 

Lucy, thankfully, stepped in just in time, and caught both Kyle and the Major a bit flatfooted. “I thought you said that your men were some of the best in the Empire?”

 

“They are . You shall find no better troopers anywhere else in the Outer Rim,” Dauphin said, a bit of his earlier frustration welling back up to the surface. “But these Rebels… should not be underestimated. Carelessness has killed too many of my men already.”

 

“That is precisely why I am here, Major, and why we have taken the time to plan this matter with the care it deserves, even with our time constraints,” Kyle spoke back up, trying to assuage the man’s concerns. “Lord Vader himself has an interest in the destruction of these Rebels, and he shall not be disappointed.”

 

Major Dauphin hesitated for one second, then another, before nodding. “As you wish, Inquisitor.”

 

Kyle couldn’t help but smile. Everything was going according to plan. At the same time, however, he couldn’t help but feel a strange guilt for what he was doing... luring men to their certain deaths. Perhaps he had truly picked up some habits from the Jedi, or had been spoiled by how easy it had been to convince Paulen to defect and assist them, but he couldn’t help but wonder if there was some way to do the same with Dauphin and his team… to convince them to turn their backs on the Empire. 

 

It was, however, obviously impossible. The conviction in Dauphin’s eyes was as visible as the confident smile on his face. This opportunity to capture or kill all of the Rebels was, to him, the best thing that could’ve happened. Perhaps he was courageous, and he certainly carried an obvious loyalty to his men, but that didn’t change the fact that he was also just one tiny cog in the evil machine that was the Galactic Empire. Much as Kyle might’ve wanted to, there was just no way he could save Dauphin.

 

“Very good. I trust that you and your men will do your duty well,” Kyle stated. “I shall meet you at the Power Plant in short order, you are dismissed, Major.”

 

The Stormtroopers all offered a salute to him before they departed, alongside Major Dauphin. About a minute passed before Lucy dared to speak up, her voice as soft as the hand that she gently rested on his shoulder.

 

“There’s nothing we can do for them, Kyle,” Lucy told him. It was no surprise that she knew what he was thinking, his doubts had probably sent shockwaves through the Force. “They made their choice.”

 

She was right, and he knew it. He’d already known it, but still, her words were enough to relax the tension in his shoulders just the tiniest bit. “Thank you.”

 

“Anytime,” Lucy said. She offered him a tender smile, and a comfortable silence settled over them for just a moment. Then she perked back up, squeezing his shoulder reassuringly.  “Now come on, we can relax later, but we’ve got a job to do.”

 

With a steady nod, Kyle picked up the holo-projector that Major Dauphin had left behind, and took a quick look at where exactly they were going. “Looks like it’ll be a long walk… we’d better get started.”

 

With no further delay, the two set out for the hydroelectric plant, hoping against all hope that their mad plan would actually work.

Chapter 4: The Last of the Lyons

Night had fallen over Pau City by the time Lucy and Kyle made their way down to the Imperial Hydroelectric Power Plant. The facility was nestled within a massive tunnel that branched off from the bottom of the sinkhole, where the plant exploited the natural flow of one of Utapau’s many aquifers to generate power with the use of three massive water wheels. The wheels generated the only disturbances in the water, and without them, the water likely would’ve been almost completely calm. Dug into the wall behind the water wheels was the rest of the plant, including the turbines which would be turned to generate the power.

 

Befitting its military purpose, the plant was built like a fortress. Much of the facility was plated with durasteel and overlooked by a trio of watchtowers, each of which was affixed with an automated laser cannon. Its position within the natural tunnel also severely limited the options that any potential attacker would have in planning their approach. The facility only had one visible entrance, a main gate which was sizable enough for a vehicle to comfortably pass through it, and guarded by a pair of Stormtroopers. One of the troopers crewed a large static cannon of some kind, powered by a similarly impressive power cell. As Lucy and Kyle approached, the gate opened and they were waved on through.

 

The walk had been a quiet one, with only a few words exchanged in the brief moments where they’d been relatively alone. Even with little in the way of open communication, they knew each other very well, and Lucy could see that Kyle’s apprehension and anxiety were starting to get the best of him. In an unspoken response, she tried to stay a bit closer by his side to remind him that he wasn’t alone. A bit of concern clawed at her own heart, but she kept it locked away. They had come too far to succumb to fear now.

 

“It looks like the Major’s got everything in position,” Lucy noted. With the possibility of being overheard she chose her words very carefully, as to not say anything suspicious.

 

“Indeed,” Kyle replied. Even with his false accent and the voice modulator in his helmet, the exhaustion that he felt was still clearly audible. “He has certainly not disappointed; let us hope that it will be enough.”

 

The double meaning behind what he was saying was not lost on her, and she tightened her grip on her stolen blaster as they walked forward deeper into the power plant. Kyle had given her some basic lessons on how to use a blaster once but she was far from comfortable with using such a weapon in an actual battle, especially one of an unfamiliar model. Their standing plan was for Kyle to throw her lightsaber to her as soon as the fighting started, but if that failed, she could always pull it to her with the Force.

 

Behind the main gate was a large courtyard, occupied by several deactivated hoversleds and speederbikes. Their exact models were unfamiliar, but their purposes were unmistakable, much like the rest of the new technologies that Lucy had seen so far. Standing in the Courtyard was Major Dauphin, now clad in a set of dark gray body armor and a simple helmet of the same color, who was looking over a holographic projection of the Hydroelectric Plant alongside two more of his Stormtroopers. Several blue dots on the hologram marked the various positions that the Imperials had taken, but as he saw them approaching he offered a professional nod.

 

“Ah, Inquisitor, it’s good to see you’ve arrived,” Major Dauphin greeted him. “We’ve prepared an E-Web at the main gate, and have a second in the control room aimed at the courtyard should the Rebels get that far.”

 

“Very good, Major,” Kyle replied. Despite the exhaustion that Lucy sensed from him, his impersonation skills had not faltered. “Has the rest of the Garrison been alerted to the arrival of our phantom Jedi?”

 

“As of around four minutes ago, yes,” Dauphin answered. “A full search of the city will be underway within minutes, and the Rebels will no doubt be made aware that they have an ally in need of a distraction with little delay.”

 

Lucy couldn’t help but feel a bit disturbed by the venom with which the Major spoke of the Jedi. He wore his hatred on his face, and would not have been the slightest bit out of place in the Army of the Sith Empire. Knowing that men like him held the Galaxy in their fist… it was a good thing she was wearing a helmet. Her expression would have surely been enough to draw the Major’s suspicion.

 

Taking a soft breath, she remembered the lessons that she had been taught by her Masters, and refocused herself. The clock was now ticking, and the sense of premonition of danger that the Force granted her made it clear; one way or another, things were about to escalate.

 

There was a moment of awkward silence as Kyle debated how to respond, and once again, Lucy couldn’t help but feel a bit nervous. Planning their ambush with the Major would be particularly tricky. While Kyle and Lucy would obviously turn and attack the Empire as soon as the Rebels showed their hand, they had to somehow plan a “defense” that would leave the Major and his men in a vulnerable position. They also had to do so whilst not alerting the Major to the fact that he was about to be betrayed.

 

“Then we shall plan quickly,” Kyle declared. “While the main gate will be the most obvious point of contention, we must consider what else the Rebels may try.”

 

“Worry not, the Rebels will need quite the explosive to breach the walls, but assuming they have them, we can orient the Courtyard E-Web to cover any potential breaches,” Major Dauphin answered. Lucy pursed her lips behind her helmet. Although Major Dauphin had only been given a few hours to prepare, he had clearly given substantial thought to the planning. “What about your orders?”

 

Kyle only paused for a moment, clearly having at least something prepared. “Kill the Rebels if you must, but Lord Vader has made it clear that he desires more prisoners. They should be stunned, if possible.”

 

“Our blaster’s stunners won’t do much against their power armor, but I’ve had my men turn in their grenades for sonic detonators,” Major Dauphin explained. “We might even be able to coax them to surrender. After all, they haven’t been faced with an Inquisitor before.”

 

“Perhaps, but we should not depend on such a possibility,” Kyle replied. “As for prisoners, remember Vader’s will, but our primary mission remains the destruction of this Rebellion. I don’t believe that there’s any good reason to lose sleep should all of our enemies lie dead after today.”

 

The Major nodded enthusiastically, but Lucy did not miss the hidden meaning of Kyle’s words.

 

“Well said, Inquisitor,” Major Dauphin said. “Now, forgive me for suggesting what might seem like a cowardly approach, but I suspect that our ambush will be more successful if you weren’t… visible.”

 

There was a slight look of anxiety on the Major’s face as he danced around telling Kyle to go and hide, but Lucy was surprised to not sense even the slightest bit of fear from him. If anything, he seemed almost emboldened, no doubt feeling as though he’d gotten to tell an Inquisitor what to do.

 

“As much as I loathe such methods, you make a fair point,” Kyle conceded. “My agent and I shall remain concealed by the second E-Web. Once the battle commences, we shall reveal our hand. Where will you be?”

 

“By the main gate, of course,” Major Dauphin answered. “I suspect my presence will have entirely the opposite effect,” he added with a confident smirk, even being so bold as to flash a conspiratorial wink at the Inquisitor. “I shall make for an excellent target.”

 

Again, Lucy failed to sense any fear from Major Dauphin, although she did detect a fair degree of disbelief from Kyle. The Major’s confidence made total sense to her, since as far as he was concerned, he had an Inquisitor watching his back.

 

“Then I shall not delay any further,” Kyle stated. He turned away before pausing to say over his shoulder, “...And do try to avoid getting killed, Major. The Empire is in short supply of qualified officers.”

 

Major Dauphin gave him a small smile. “I shall do my best, Inquisitor.”

 

There was a small degree of guilt that radiated off of Kyle as they made their way deeper into the Hydroelectric Plant, but along with it was a strong sense of resolve. Just as a reminder that he wasn’t alone, Lucy briefly stepped in front of him and accidentally bumped into his shoulder. They exchanged a silent look at one another, and even behind the masks of evil that they wore, Lucy swore she could see him smile.

 

---

It had been about thirty minutes since Lucy and Kyle had arrived in an observation room, manned by only a single Stormtrooper. His heavy E-Web cannon was pointed at the main courtyard of the power plant, affording an excellent field of fire that, as Lucy noted, included all three of the watchtowers and their automated laser cannons.

 

Communication between her and Kyle turned out to be very sparse thanks to the unwanted third party sitting between them. At the very least, the Trooper didn’t seem to pay them much mind once they’d briefed him on their “plan.” As far as he was concerned, she and the Inquisitor would be leaving as soon as the shooting started.

 

There was a rich tension in the air as the small but well-equipped Imperial squad warily waited. Even without a guarantee that the Rebels would take the bait, there seemed to be an unspoken guarantee that something was going to happen. Kyle remained totally silent, his hand resting firmly on the Inquisitor’s lightsaber, which he kept concealed beneath his dark robes.

 

The Force became more and more disturbed with each passing moment, and Lucy found it hard to ignore. It only became worse as the Empire began its crackdown and search of Pau City, creating an atmosphere of fear that seemed to smother half of the planet. Her heart panged with sympathy and regret, but it was too late to turn back now. They would simply have to make things right once they had joined forces with the Rebellion.

 

Lucy’s thoughts were swiftly derailed by the sound of a screeching rocket. She, Kyle, and the Stormtrooper crewing the E-Web all snapped to attention just in time to watch one of the watchtowers be struck, its automated laser turret reduced to a heap of burning shrapnel. As flaming scrap metal rained down across the courtyard, the Stormtroopers leapt into action and began to fire at the unseen attackers. 

 

Blaster fire rang out from both ends of the cavern, and Lucy heard a second rocket fly and explode, but did not see where it landed. The automated laser cannons all turned to fire at unseen targets beyond the wall.

 

The Stormtrooper standing beside them swung their E-Web around, scanning for targets, up until the exact moment that Kyle ignited his lightsaber through the back of the man’s head. It was about as quiet of a kill as he could’ve managed, and he quickly caught the lifeless Imperial’s body before lowering them gently down to the ground. He then reached into his cloak and pulled out Lucy’s lightsaber, tossing it to her as she tore the suffocating helmet off of her head. 

 

Lucy ignited her weapon as she breathed freely for the first time in hours. “How did you ever wear one of these everywhere for so long?” Lucy asked as she dropped the helmet to the ground.

 

“Remind me to tell you later,” Kyle brushed off the question. He threw off the black cloak and clipped the Inquisitor’s helmet to his belt, revealing his Temple Security Force Uniform once more. He took the time to safely de-ignite the Inquisitor’s lightsaber before affixing it to his belt as well, before stepping up to the back of the E-Web. “Right now, let’s deal with those cannons…”

 

Lucy raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing with that?”

 

“It’ll be fine… this doesn’t look terribly different from the repeating blasters we used to use,” Kyle said as he took control of the E-Web, targeted the closest laser cannon, and pulled the trigger. 

 

Instantly, the weapon began to launch a hail of bright red blaster bolts in a blinding storm of fire. The whole weapon jerked in his hands at first before Kyle got a hold of the recoil, shifting the stream of fire back towards the target. Each of the large blaster bolts exploded on impact, and within a few seconds, the armor of the automated laser cannon melted away, and the top of the watchtower exploded. Kyle shifted focus onto the last watchtower, which quickly exploded into a similar spray of sparks, shrapnel, and fire.

 

As the second turret was destroyed, Lucy noticed the E-Web’s power supply begin to steam, and could feel the room grow noticeably warmer. “Kyle!”

 

Her shout got his attention, and he let go of the trigger just as the steam emanating from the E-Web’s power supply became thicker. A small spark flew out of the boxy device, as she and Kyle hastily backed away from the battery, and Lucy braced herself to contain any potential explosions with the Force. However, it seemed that she had warned him just in time, and the power supply merely made an uncomfortable crackling noise, before the lights on the battery’s controls went dark.

 

“Alright, so maybe it was a little more complicated than I expected…” Kyle admitted sheepishly. “That’s the cannons taken care of, but the rest of the Imperials probably know we’re not on their side anymore.”

 

“Leave them to me,” Lucy said, tossing her blaster over to him as she got a better grip on her lightsaber. The gloves of the Stormtrooper armor that she was wearing weren’t all that different from the gloves on her own armor, so she didn’t feel particularly hindered by them. 

 

What was different however, was the actual mobility offered by the rest of the armor. The Empire had evidently considered eliminating weak points to be a bigger priority than flexible movement when they had designed their armor. While that made perfect sense for rank-and-file infantry, it was a noticeable disadvantage for a Jedi, and would force her to be a bit more cautious with her movements.

 

Lucy took the lead as the two of them descended back down into the courtyard. There, they found a trio of Stormtroopers taking cover amidst the parked hoversleds and speederbikes, but they swiftly turned their attention to Lucy once they saw her lightsaber and lack of a helmet. 

 

“A Jedi?!” Their leader asked in disbelief, before swiftly coming to their senses and ducking into cover, narrowingly avoiding a blaster bolt that Kyle had fired at them.

 

The three Stormtroopers demonstrated their skill well, all immediately turning and firing their weapons at her as quickly as they could, forcing her onto the defensive. Shots were fired at Kyle as well, but Lucy deflected or otherwise blocked all of them, attempting to deflect the bolts back at those who had sent them. Her efforts were foiled by the cover the Stormtroopers had taken, and Kyle wasn’t having much luck with hitting them either. It was a difficult situation, but not for a Jedi.

 

With her lightsaber clutched firmly in her right hand, Lucy pushed out with the other, and sent a shockwave through the Force that pushed against the Stormtroopers and vehicles alike. All three were forcefully thrown from their feet and roughly impacted the parked vehicles, before being struck again by others. Whether or not the collisions had killed them wasn’t a certainty, but even if they had survived, they were certainly out of the fight.

 

“Thanks, I didn’t really know what to do there. I wish we had some grenades,” Kyle admitted. “Look out, there’s more!”

 

No doubt having been drawn by the noise, another pair of Stormtroopers ran out from the direction of the main gate. Both opened fire as they ran, but again, Lucy was able to protect herself and Kyle from the blasts. This time, the Stormtroopers advanced without cover, and paid for it when Lucy deflected their own blasts back at them. Both fell to the ground in heaps, but Lucy and Kyle paid them little mind as they continued towards the gate.

 

They found the main gate had been blown open, likely by the second rocket, and just outside of it, the E-Web and its operator had similarly been blown to smithereens. The corpses of several other Stormtroopers surrounded their fighting positions, replaced instead by a new team of soldiers. 

 

There were a little over a dozen of them. Most were human, with the obvious exception of a large muscular green alien whose species Lucy didn’t recognize. All of the humans wore suits of what had to be power armor, although it was a far cry from the sleek, uniform armor that Lucy had observed from the empire. It was very heavy-looking, dominated by simple gray metal plates, and covered the entire body and head. Emblazoned on their armor in a striking red color was a symbol that, while different in its own right, bore a striking similarity to the insignia of the Jedi Order.

 

The Rebels had made their entrance.

 

The only Imperial still breathing was Major Dauphin, who sat on his knees as another armored rebel, presumably the leader of the group, held a sword-length vibroblade to his throat. Dauphin looked with a hopeful expression to the gate as Lucy and Kyle ran through, before a look of shock and betrayal overtook his features. His eyes lingered on Lucy’s green lightsaber, and then the Inquisitor’s helmet and lightsaber on Kyle’s belt, and he glared at them with utter disgust.

 

The Rebel Leader also looked over to them, her voice ringing out an order even before the rest of her Rebels could finish raising their rifles. “Hold your fire!”

 

The rest of the Rebels, now noticing that they clearly were not working the Empire, steadily lowered their weapons and looked to Lucy. Now having the Rebels’ attention, and sensing no surviving Imperials aside from Major Dauphin, she extinguished her lightsaber and stepped forward. Strangely, the premonition of danger still lingered, but that was probably coming from the rest of the Imperials in Pau City.

 

“We mean you no harm,” Lucy told the Rebels as she came to stand before the Rebel Leader. “I’m Lucy, and this is Kyle. We came here looking for Sarah Lyons and the Rebels.”

 

The Rebel Leader tilted her head in faint surprise, before reaching up with one hand and removing her armored helmet. Lucy sensed a small bit of annoyance from Kyle as the Rebel did so, but Lucy’s attention remained firmly on whose face was behind the mask.

 

Unsurprisingly, Lucy found herself matching the gaze of Sarah Lyons. Her eyes were a steely blue, her short blond hair filled with specks of dirt and what was probably bits of debris. The expression on Sarah’s face betrayed a strong degree of surprise, but also a reserved giddiness. “Then you won’t need to look any further… By the Force, I thought that you were just some Imperial trick…”

 

“That makes two of us,” Major Dauphin bitterly agreed, staring at both women with utter disgust. “But a Jedi won’t be enough to save your little gang. You-”

 

Sarah did not silence him with words, but made her point clear by moving her sword to within an inch of the Major’s throat. A look of fear dominated the Major’s features as he closed his mouth, but Lucy could sense little firm determination in his heart. Even in his most dire moment, Major Dauphin’s loyalty didn’t waver.

 

“The rest of the Imperial Garrison is dead, but we shouldn’t stay for long. It won’t be long until the Empire notices that we’re here,” Lucy said, before gesturing over to Kyle. “Kyle and I have a ship we can use to escape. Assuming there’s not any more of you, we can fit you all.”

 

Sarah nodded, taking the information in stride. There was an unspoken, mutual understanding between them all. Introductions and explanations would have to wait, right now they had to ensure that they would all survive to get to know each other. Given the lack of any objection to the plan from Sarah, Lucy had to presume that she was okay with leaving Utapau, at least for the time being.

 

Gesturing to the rest of the Rebels, Sarah issued out rapid-fire orders. “Glade, Kodiak, clear the compound, make sure we’re clear and plant the last of our detonators on whatever looks important. Val, Peter, Fawkes, take our power cells and get them refilled. The rest of you, pull security.”

 

“What about him?” Kyle asked, nodding his head towards Major Dauphin.

 

“Indeed, Sentinel Lyons , what about me?” the Imperial asked with a mocking sneer, somehow managing to sound contemptuous even while on his knees with a blade held to his throat.

 

Sarah returned her attention to the man and glared down at him, her calm demeanor doing no justice to the absolute fury that radiated off of her. “You will be given the same mercy that you gave my father… any last words, Major?”

 

Briefly, Lucy considered intervening in whatever was about to happen. Executing a defeated enemy on their knees was a far cry from defending oneself in battle, and any Jedi who did such a thing would be reprimanded substantially, if not removed from the order outright. Whether or not the individual in question “deserved” to be killed was a matter that the Jedi deemed irrelevant, as killing someone in a demonstration of such hatred was about as far into the Dark Side as one could fall. Sarah was clearly no Jedi, but the Dark Side radiated off of her all the same.

 

After a moment’s thinking however, Lucy stayed her hand, realizing just how little of a choice they truly had. Major Dauphin might have had a look of fear on his face, but through the Force, Lucy still sensed a proud, stalwart defiance radiate off of him. In a completely mad way, this was precisely what he wanted, to die as a loyal martyr in service to his Empire. Stopping Sarah would also make for a less-than-stellar first impression, and so, with a hefty weight in her stomach, Lucy stood silently and waited for Dauphin’s answer alongside Kyle and Sarah.

 

Dauphin’s fearful expression lingered for a moment, before it was supplanted by one of stalwart determination as he turned to face Sarah. “Not for you, Rebel Scum! Long live the Em-“

 

Major Dauphin was interrupted as Sarah almost casually removed his head from his shoulders, not even bothering to look as it rolled away. Instead, she reached down and retrieved a small object from his chest pocket. It might have been an unfamiliar model, but Lucy had spent enough time in the Jedi Archives to recognize a code cylinder when she saw one. 

 

With the code cylinder in hand, Sarah donned her helmet once more, and stood back up to face Lucy. “You’re not wrong about the Empire. I’ll assume you inspired the panic they’re in, but it won’t last long. My people are exhausted and don’t have the ammo for a prolonged fight, we need your ship on the double. If they park outside the tunnel, we can run our way to them.”

 

“I’ll give them a call,” Kyle replied as he reached for his comlink and switched it on. “Ryder-One, this is Scepter, do you read? Repeat, Ryder-One, this is-”

 

Kyle’s voice seemed to trail off however, as Lucy’s focus was rapidly ground down by a great disturbance in the Force. The premonition of danger that she had sensed ever since the battle had begun was only growing worse, but the Imperial Garrison had been defeated. 

 

Closing her eyes, she calmed herself, breathed deeply, and sensed her surroundings with a greater focus. Had the Empire realized what was happening sooner than they had expected? Were there more Imperials at the Power Plant that they hadn’t known about? Had the battle done enough damage to the cavern walls to destabilize it?

 

She received her answer when, amidst the sound of crackling fires left over from the battle and the Rebels talking to one-another, Lucy heard the distinctive sound of a large amount of water being moved, creating a wave. 

 

But the water was calm when we arrived, why would- Lucy’s train of thought skipped a beat as the realization clicked, and she interrupted whatever conversation Kyle and Sarah were having. “Wait! There’s something in the water!”

 

The two ceased their discussion and turned to face her, and while Kyle seemed more confused than anything, Sarah shot into immediate thought, before her helmeted head jerked up to attention. “Shit… Look alive people, we’ve got company in the water!”

 

Sarah promptly sheathed her sword and pulled a heavy-duty blaster rifle off of a sling around her shoulder, before running over to the badly-damaged Imperial Positions. Lucy and Kyle slid into cover right behind her, and Kyle tightened his grip on his blaster as he looked to Sarah with newfound doubt. “What is it, more Imperials?”

 

He found his answer when the sound of waves could be heard again, although far, far louder this time. A low, loud groan echoed down both ends of the entire cave as a massive reptilian creature emerged from the water, clambering onto the duracrete surface. Even on four legs, it stood eight-meters tall, and stared down at the gathered Rebels with a pair of large forward-facing eyes, mounted just about a large mouth, which was easily big enough to swallow a man.

 

“Worse,” Sarah answered. “Nos monster. Open fire!”

 

Kyle and Sarah opened fire with their blasters, swiftly joined by all of the other Rebels who were present as the rest began to run back to the gate. Blaster bolts rained down on the Nos monster like hail as it approached the gate with rapidly increasing speed, but the creature barely even flinched, and was certainly not slowed. A shot fired by Sarah Lyons managed to strike the creature’s eye, forcing it closed, but again, the Nos monster did not stop.

 

Recognizing that the massive beast would be on them in mere seconds, Lucy reached out with both hands and unleashed the strongest Force Push that she could muster. The air rippled as the wave of energy struck the beast, causing it to stumble on its feet in surprise and begin to slide forward instead of run. The creature had finally been slowed, but hadn’t been stopped, and Lucy ignited her lightsaber, bracing herself for a melee.

 

“Glade, rocket, now!” Sarah shouted. 

 

At her urging, one of the Rebels ran up to the gate, rocket launcher in hand. With well-practiced ease, they dropped to one knee, took aim, and sent a rocket downrange towards the Nos Monster. The rocket struck the creature’s neck, and the beast fell on its belly as its momentum carried it across the ground. By the time its dead body had stopped sliding across the duracrete, it was only around a meter from Lucy’s foot.

 

“That was my last one, Sentinel,” Glade calmly stated whilst everyone caught their breath. “Our explosives are in place, we’re ready to leave once you give the order.”

 

“Get everyone together, the Jedi and her friend have a ship coming to get us,” Sarah ordered, receiving a brief acknowledgement from Glade before he left, and Sarah turned her attention to Kyle. “Better tell your pilot they’ll have to come to us. We just killed a mother, and her kids are gonna be pissed.”

 

Kyle glanced at the massive corpse beside them as he nervously drew his comlink. “How many kids do they usually have?”

 

“Enough to kill us before we can walk out of this tunnel,” Sarah answered vaguely before turning to Lucy. “Nice work. I don’t suppose you could pull that trick on something a lot smaller?”

 

Sarah meaningfully gestured to a grenade resting on her belt, and Lucy nodded. “Just tell me where you need it.”

 

Even with a helmet on, Lucy could somehow sense Sarah’s smile. “I was hoping you would say that.”

 

At the same time, Kyle was on his comlink. After a moment of adjusting the signal, which was likely not coping well with the millions of tons of rock all around them, he managed to get a clear connection. “Ryder-One, this is Scepter, change of plans. We need you to come to us, how copy?”

 

“Are you kidding?! You want me to fly down that tunnel?!”   Paulen replied with audible dismay. “I’ll have maybe four meters of wiggle room on either side!”

 

“Oh come on!” Kyle complained in turn. “What kind of pilot doesn’t like a chance to show off?! Just get the hell down here!”

 

Paulen sighed with resignation, but the sound of engines firing up could be heard through the comlink. “Just be ready to climb aboard!”

 

Kyle holstered his comlink, and gripped his blaster with renewed vigor. “Got a plan in mind Sarah?”

 

“We hold the gate and wait for your pilot,” Sarah simply answered. “We can’t use the opening as a chokepoint, but whatever’s left of those watchtowers will block your ship from reaching the courtyard.”

 

Lucy spared a glance at the smoldering ruins, before an idea struck her. Rather than being solid structures, each watchtower seemed to be held up by a number of smaller supports, the strongest of which couldn’t have been more than half a meter thick. “What if we could bring them down?”

 

“No can do ma’am,” A fourth voice answered her as the Rebel known as Glade returned, along with the rest of the squad. “We just placed every charge that we had on the power generators, we’ve got nothing to bring them down with.”

 

Lucy ignited her lightsaber, and Glade gave a nod of understanding. Sarah, however, spoke up in protest. “We’re going to need your help here, Lucy.”

 

“I can do it,” Kyle said, holstering his blaster and drawing the Inquisitor's lightsaber. “Just keep me covered.”

 

Before Sarah could reply, the sound of freshly-created waves could be heard from the river, and Kyle broke off into a sprint back into the compound as Sarah shouted after him; “Make it quick! Everyone else, dig in and hold the gate!” 

 

Whilst Kyle was running off, Lucy turned to face the oncoming Nos monsters with her lightsaber in hand. When the first one’s head came into view over the edge of the duracrete walkway, Lucy felt the slightest hint of relief. She’d assumed that the younger Nos monsters would be smaller, but this one was about twice the size of an adult human, and one of the Rebels managed to snipe it down with only a single blaster bolt to the eye. Lucy’s newfound confidence was swiftly dashed, however, when at least ten more of the creatures began to emerge from the water from various points and approach them.

“Oh blast,” She heard one of the Rebels mutter, perfectly echoing Lucy’s own thoughts.

 

The Rebels opened fire, and Lucy stood waiting for her moment to act. Behind her, she could hear Kyle cutting down the first of the watchtowers with the Inquisitor’s Lightsaber. The Nos monsters wilted quickly under the storm of blaster fire unleashed upon them, but as the Rebels intermittently paused to cool their weapons, the creatures were able to gain ground rapidly as they effortlessly bounded over their fallen brethren and charged the gate.

 

“Lucy!” Sarah shouted, getting her attention. The barrel of Sarah’s blaster softly smoked and glowed a heated red as she rested the weapon’s stock against her side, while in her left hand, she held a grenade. “I need this in the river!”

 

“Throw it!” Lucy replied.

 

With a hefty toss, Sarah sent the grenade into the air, and Lucy assisted it forward with a Force Push. The grenade sailed over the heads of at least a dozen of the beasts, before landing in the river with a soft splash. Seconds later, a massive eruption shot water into the air in every direction as the grenade detonated. It was hard to judge just how effective the grenade had been, but there was a lot of alien blood mixed in with the many water droplets that fell all around them. 

 

Directly after the grenade exploded, Lucy heard the sound of a lot of metal crashing loudly against duracrete. Kyle had brought down the first of the watchtowers.

 

At around the same time, all of the Rebels’ blasters cooled enough to begin firing again, and with only around a dozen of the Nos monsters out of the water and still approaching them, they managed to finish off the swarm. It was far from a comfortable situation however, and Lucy ended up having to finish off the last of the creatures with a single cut after it made the mistake of entering Lightsaber range. 

 

The Rebels all held their fire, waiting for more of the creatures to appear, but the grenade that Sarah had thrown appeared to have given them a moment’s pause. The barrels of their blasters softly smoked as they caught their breaths, warily waiting out the moment of calm. Behind them, the sound of a lightsaber cutting through durasteel could still be heard.

 

Reaching out with the Force, Lucy could feel that the battle was not over. Even though there were at least thirty young Nos monsters lying dead on the duracrete, there were still many, many more still waiting for their chance to strike. Briefly, she considered the idea of calming the creatures with the Force, but that was a technique that she had never been particularly skilled with. She could perform such a trick with a sentient being, sure, but not a carnivorous predator, and certainly not such a large group of them.

 

“Nice work,” Sarah commented, breaking the tense silence. “I’ve only got one more of those left.”

 

“It’ll be enough,” Lucy replied, doing her best to communicate a sense of confidence that she didn’t actually feel as the sound of waves being made could be heard once more.

Behind them, the sound of the second watchtower falling unintentionally punctuated the arrival of the second wave of Nos monsters. Once more, the Rebels opened fire with every blaster that they had, but their lane of fire was now cluttered with the corpses of deceased Nos monsters, acting as cover for those that still lived. Despite the obstacles, the advance of the creatures was not delayed, as their strange webbed feet seemed to have little issue moving across dry land.

 

“Lucy!” Sarah grabbed her attention as she lowered her rifle and hoisted her final grenade. “Middle of the pack!”

 

“Got it!” Lucy shouted back.

Just like before, Sarah armed and threw the grenade as hard as she could. Unlike before, however, Lucy opted to more gently and precisely guide the grenade into place. With her guidance, the grenade softly landed on the duracrete towards the center of the group of creatures, before detonating with terrific force. Whatever creatures weren’t claimed by the resulting shockwave and firestorm fell victim to the shrapnel. 

 

Lucy ducked and covered her head with her arms as small pieces of debris landed all around her. What few pieces did strike her failed to do any substantial damage through the plastoid gauntlets of her Stormtrooper armor. The Rebels’ power armor effectively protected them from such dangers, although Lucy was left with ringing ears, and was now somewhat coated in the water and alien blood that had been blown all around the cavern.

 

Unlike the previous grenade, the explosion did not create any noticeable pause in the oncoming tide of Nos monsters. While it did kill a considerable amount of them, more and more continued to pour out of the river, and they began to steadily grow closer and closer. Between the blast of the grenade and the absolute fusillade of blaster bolts, dense gray smoke loomed ominously throughout much of the cavern.

 

Some of the Rebels had fired so many blaster bolts that they needed to reload their Tibanna gas cartridges, while others poured water from their canteens onto the barrels of their blasters to keep them in the fight. The Nos monsters, despite having lost at least fifty of their number, showed no such signs of exhaustion. Steadily, even as the Rebels kept killing them, they grew closer and closer.

 

“Where the hell’s that ship?” Sarah asked as she cleared a malfunction in her own blaster rifle.

 

Lacking a comlink with which to get an answer to the question, Lucy reached out with the Force, searching for Paulen. To her relief, she could sense him approaching, although he had also only just reached the entrance of the tunnel, and was being forced to traverse it at a slower rate to avoid crashing. “On the way, if we need to fall back, we still can!”

 

As she spoke, however, a Nos monster finally reached their positions and lunged at Sarah just as her weapon overheated once more. Leaping in front of Sarah, Lucy swung out with her lightsaber and struck the creature dead with a slash to the head, but was unable to entirely dodge the flying corpse of the newly-deceased creature, and her leg was clipped as she fell to the ground. 

 

Landing face-first in a puddle, Lucy hastily returned to her feet with a helping hand from Sarah, who issued out an order to her men. “Fall back into the courtyard. Fawkes, pull rear guard!”

 

The Rebels pulled back in pairs in what was clearly a well-practiced maneuver, with the large green alien Rebel being the last to retreat alongside one of the Rebels in Armor. Fawkes laughed maniacally as he blasted the incoming Nos monsters with a hail of fire from a rotary blaster cannon, firing until the barrels dispensed a thick black smoke. At last, he released his hold of the trigger, and narrowly avoided being tackled by a Nos monster when Lucy blasted it away with a strong Force Push.

 

Lucy let out a hefty breath of exhaustion as she fell back into the courtyard alongside Fawkes, taking their positions behind the rest of the Rebels as they momentarily rested, while a few of their number kept the rest of the Nos monsters at bay. The effort of using the Force so extensively was nothing that she couldn’t handle, but doing so after an immensely draining day was a different story; especially considering that she hadn’t actually felt particularly rested even after she left stasis. 

 

Her lungs burned, her ears still rang, and the acrid smoke burned at her dry eyes. Across the courtyard, a loud clanging briefly drowned out the sound of blaster fire, marking the destruction of the third watchtower. Moments later, Kyle was at her side, planting a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Hey, Breathe. We’re almost through this, hang in there.”

 

Lucy took a few more hefty breaths, clinging on to Kyle’s reassuring presence in the Force, before giving him a firm nod. “Ready.”

 

The two turned back to the gate just in time to see the first of the Nos monsters reach the impromptu chokepoint, before being shot dead by Sarah Lyons, who promptly swore as her rifle then let out a dissatisfying click. “Shit, reloading!”

 

More of the creatures charged and died as Kyle took his place by Lucy’s side. After returning the Inquisitor’s Lightsaber to his belt once more, he turned his blaster on the Nos monsters as he shouted to the Rebels. “Our ride’s almost here, keep the Courtyard clear!”

 

True to Kyle’s word, Lucy could hear the sound of repulsorlifts echoing down the tunnel as Paulen, no doubt with great caution, guided their ship through to the Power Plant. If the Nos monsters noticed the sound, it offered no discouragement, and they continued to pour through the gate into the hail of blaster fire, growing ever closer to the Rebels, and showing no signs of slowing down.

 

Finally Ryder-One came into sight, its frontal-facing blasters sadly fixed in their mounts, useless in such an enclosed space. Lucy was forced into action as the foremost monsters reached melee range. With a Force-assisted leap, she launched herself at the first creature and slashed it across the head, causing it to drop into a heap. Another lunged out at her, but it was stopped by Sarah Lyons, who sliced the beast across the flank with her Vibrosword, before plunging it into the creature’s chest. A third tried to sneak around Lucy, only to be shot dead by Kyle as Lucy cut down a fourth.

 

As the fight began to devolve further into a melee brawl, Paulen steadily glided the dropship over their heads, doing a one-hundred and eighty degree turn over the courtyard as he lowered the boarding ramp.

 

“Fall back, but don’t let up!” Sarah ordered. 

 

Steadily, the Rebels began to backpedal towards the ship’s ramp, climbing aboard one by one. With each Rebel that boarded the ship and stopped firing, the Nos monsters were able to move with greater freedom, and Lucy quickly found herself beset upon by an entire group of the creatures. 

 

Kyle pushed his Imperial blaster carbine to its very limits in an attempt to keep them off her back as he shouted to her. “Lucy, come on!”

 

Even as he spoke however, another Nos monster slid between her and the ship. Two more  snuck around her, and as her exhaustion mounted, one of the creatures managed to sweep one of her legs out from under her with its heavy tail. She fell to the ground on her side, and rolled out of the way onto her back as one of the creatures attempted to bite her in half.

 

Now encircled and all but pinned on the ground, Lucy could vaguely hear Kyle screaming out to her, but the exhaustion that she had felt earlier now returned, albeit far stronger. Her muscles became heavy, her lungs were on fire, and her vision was blurred by her water-stained glasses. Another Nos monster attempted to lunge at her, and she managed to barely lunge out with her lightsaber, causing it to impale itself. Its heavy corpse landed on her arm, and she bit back a cry of pain as both her arm and lightsaber were pinned beneath the corpse. 

 

She tried to move it, but felt her strength steadily begin to wane. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as she watched another creature line up to strike her, being momentarily distracted as somebody threw a smoldering blaster at its head. Lucy’s eyelids grew heavy, and for a brief moment, she could’ve sworn that she could hear the Force calling her.

 

…Lucy…

Her eyes shot open. She knew that voice. She could feel the familiar presence of its speaker. Years of training flashed before her eyes, visions of half-a-dozen Masters who had all trained her at one point or another, each of which being killed by the Sith. But finally, one Master had managed to stick with her, the Jedi who had guided her through the last years of her training, all the way to Knighthood.

The Force wasn’t calling her, but somebody was.

 

“Satele…” Lucy muttered. Fresh energy rushed through her veins, and she looked up to see a Nos monster just above her, seemingly frozen in place in the middle of a lunge towards her head that would’ve certainly killed her. Instead, it was as though it was frozen in time… before a fiery red blade tore the creature in half, and its wielder turned to face her with tear-stained eyes.

 

“Come on!” Kyle all but screamed at her, before he threw his entire strength into pushing the dead Nos monster off of her arm. Lucy’s arm came free, and Kyle pulled her up to her feet. Several more of the creatures tried to intervene, but were all cut down by Sarah Lyons, who whirled through them in her power armor like a tornado with a sword.

 

Under Sarah’s protection, Kyle helped Lucy stumble aboard the waiting ship, before Sarah herself leaped aboard the ramp and shouted up into the rest of the ship. “All aboard, punch it!”

 

Kyle guided Lucy up into the Troop Bay, and the two sat down on one of the benches alongside the rest of the Rebels. All of them were catching their breath, and most of them were likely looking at her and Kyle, as he held her in his arms and frantically asked if she was okay. 

 

She wanted to nod and answer him, to reassure him that, a crushed arm and maybe a broken bone or two aside, she was fine, but “fine” didn’t quite describe the state of shellshock in her mind. Such a close brush with death, on top of a mountain of mental exhaustion, and then, to top it all off…

 

It was impossible to explain what she’d heard, what she felt, but she knew better than to doubt the Force, and that went double for her old master.

 

“Lucy?” Kyle’s shaky, unashamedly scared voice finally broke through the cage around her mind, and she rapidly wrapped her arms around him. The lack of any serious pain in her arm from doing so suggested that her Stormtrooper armor had done its job, although she was likely going to have a nasty bruise.

 

“I’m here, I’m okay,” She finally answered him, feeling a weight lift off of her shoulders even as their ship lifted further into the air and began to work its way down the tunnel. Kyle held her tighter, and even though she could feel the eyes of all of the Rebels upon her, she didn’t care. “I won’t leave you.”

 

For a brief, blissful moment, Lucy allowed herself to relax and be at peace. It was tragically short-lived, however, as Sarah promptly walked over and softly spoke. “I don’t mean to interrupt, but my men and I have been running on fumes in hostile territory for weeks. We need a place to lie low, got one in mind?”

 

Lucy paused, briefly thinking it over. In her turbulent state of mind however, it was difficult to think of just about any location, let alone those that she could assume were still safe after however-many years she’d been in stasis. Thankfully, Kyle had an answer in her stead.

 

“The base, on Verdant, where Paulen picked us up,” Kyle explained, gesturing with his head towards the cockpit. “He’s our pilot. I know he’s in an Imperial Uniform, but he’s on our side.”

 

“Got it,” Sarah said with a nod, and promptly turned to go and speak with Paulen. The rest of the Rebels quickly began to talk amongst themselves, and now that the fighting was over, Lucy noticed just how sluggishly they were moving. Various names were engraved on their chestplates just above where their hearts would be, she recognized Glade from earlier, along with new names; Peter, Colvin, Reddin, Val, and perhaps half a dozen others. It was impossible to focus on them however, as Lucy once more felt that same familiar presence.

 

Remember Lucy, the Force will be with you, always.

 

“She’s still here, Kyle, in the Force,” Lucy muttered, breaking off their hug and looking him in the eyes. “Master Satele… she saved me. I don’t know how, but she’s still here.”

 

His eyebrows raised, and he softly blinked as he processed her words. His eyes were puffy and red, and she could sense the fear in his heart still hadn’t quite faded. “...Thank the Force. I… I thought...”

 

“It’s okay,” Lucy cut him off, taking one of his hands in her own. “I’m here, I’m not going anywhere.”

 

He nodded, letting out a morbid chuckle. “Is this how you felt earlier?”

 

She gave a soft smile and nodded. “Just about… I’ll try to be more careful from now on.”

 

Kyle let out a long, shaky breath. “Thank you.”

Chapter 5: Regroup on Verdant

The trip back to Verdant was quiet enough that Lucy actually managed to catch a bit of sleep along the way. By the time Kyle woke her up, they were back at the Verdant Base, where night had apparently fallen. Pale moonlight filled the hangar as they walked down their ship’s ramp, reflecting off of a small river which now ran through the hangar and out down the cliff that it had been built into. The river was just one of many details that Lucy had failed to notice whilst they’d been boarding the Inquisitor’s ship; it seemed that she had underestimated just how overgrown the base had truly become.

 

Just as they’d hoped, the Empire remained seemingly oblivious to the existence of the Republic Military Base. Indeed, aside from Kyle, herself, and the Rebels, the only living creatures within the base that she could sense were Mynocks, Dataspiders, and a few other varmints.

“Where the hell are we?” Sarah asked, peering around with a distinct look of confusion at the moss and vines which covered everything. Her squad all wore matching expressions as they followed her down the ramp

 

“This is a Republic military base, or at least it was, I guess,” Kyle answered. “This is where Lucy and I woke up yesterday.”

 

“Woke up?” Sarah asked as she turned to face him. “Must’ve been a long nap.”

 

“We were in stasis,” Lucy explained, catching Sarah’s attention. “From what we can tell, it’s been at least nine-hundred years since we were last awake, probably a lot more.”

 

Sarah looked at her with wide eyes, as though Lucy had suddenly grown a second head, before blinking and nodding. “Well, as much as I look forward to hearing your story, none of my men have slept in over a day. I don’t suppose you have a place where we can sleep that isn’t crawling with Mynocks and snakes?”

 

“The Hangar is probably your best bet, at least for tonight,” Kyle answered her. “We can show you around tomorrow, and hopefully see about cleaning at least part of this place up. Maybe we can even get the power back online...”

 

“It’ll do,” Sarah said, her resignation faintly detectable over the exhaustion that radiated off of her. “Who’s taking the first watch?”

 

Naturally, nobody spoke up, and Lucy could sense that nobody really wanted to. However, she could also sense something else, or perhaps more accurately, someone else. “I will.”

 

The Rebels all nodded with relief, while Kyle turned to face her with exhaustion that was clearly derived from more than a lack of sleep. His eyes were still bloodshot, and she could see plainly that he was still very worried about her. Lucy gave him a quiet nod of reassurance, but she could tell that he’d need a bit more convincing. 

 

Kyle always tended to get a bit carried away when it came to worrying about all sorts of things, usually those that were out of his control. She knew that he would insist on staying awake right alongside her, exhaustion be damned, and that was the last thing she wanted when she could tell that he very clearly needed the sleep.

 

“Much appreciated, Lucy,” Sarah said. “We’ll talk more in the morning. If you’ve really been away for nine-hundred years... I imagine you’ve probably got a few questions.”

 

“They can wait. I’ll be by the hangar entrance.” Lucy replied, before turning to Kyle and subtly gesturing for him to follow her.

 

The two quietly walked across the hangar, sitting at its edge and looking out at the vast forest beneath them. Snow-capped mountains dominated the horizon, and the beautiful moonlight from several of Verdant’s nine moons cast over the landscape.

“This planet really is beautiful, I never really got the chance to appreciate it back when, well...” Lucy trailed off, her focus hastily dismantled as Kyle wrapped his arm around her shoulders. It wasn’t quite as warm as usual, what with the Stormtrooper armor that she had yet to change out of, but it was a welcome gesture nonetheless.

 

“That’s no excuse to be staying up all night,” Kyle softly chastised her. “Why not ask Paulen to stand watch? He’s probably willing, and he’s even slept recently... I made sure of it.”

Lucy quietly chuckled at Kyle’s words, before giving him a small smile. “I did get some sleep on the ride back. Besides, I want to try to connect with Satele, I’m hoping that I can talk to her.”

 

Kyle softly nodded, recognizing now that she had good reason to want to stay awake. “I hope you can, I think we could all use her help... You promise to wake me up if you need me?”

 

In response, she leaned in, giving him a swift kiss on the cheek before giving him a reassuring smile. “I promise, now go get some sleep.”

 

She took a great degree of glee at the way he blushed, and she could practically see his brain struggle to catch up as he instinctually answered her. “...Yes ma’am.”

 

With no further objection, he stood up, sparing one further glance back at her before he went back to join the rest of the Rebels, most of whom were now laying out sleeping rolls from their packs. Lucy tried not to pay too much attention to them, and instead kept a lookout for anything that could pose a threat to them.

 

Verdant was a planet that was safer than most, but it was no stranger to predatory animals, specifically large cat-like creatures whose name she couldn’t quite remember. The fact that Sarah likely didn’t know that and had still elected to set a watch spoke favorably towards her competence. So far, Sarah seemed like a good leader, although her cold-blooded execution of Major Dauphin still didn’t sit quite right in Lucy’s mind.

 

Lucy reached out through the Force in addition to her physical senses, but didn’t find anything of concern as the rest of the Rebels began to steadily fall asleep, until finally she was the only one awake. Her earlier exhaustion was certainly present, but it was negated in large part by the excitement that gripped her heart. If Satele really was still around, then Lucy knew that she was the perfect person to go to for guidance. Before she’d gone into stasis, Satele had been promoted to Grand Master of the entire Jedi Order, and was one of the wisest people Lucy had ever known.

 

Sitting down to meditate, Lucy reached out with the Force, hoping to feel Satele’s presence just like she had on Utapau. After around a minute of mediation however, she failed to sense anything out of the ordinary, aside from a bitter cold that was brought on by the strong winds that blew past the hangar entrance. To help with the cold, she returned to the shuttle and slipped out of her Stormtrooper armor and back into her own, far more comfortable clothes. The familiar Jedi Robes and lightweight armor offered her a small degree of reassurance as she returned to the hangar entrance, to find that the cold was now much more tolerable, as if the base was now ready to receive her.

 

Minutes passed as she continued her mediation, patiently waiting for something, anything to reach back to her, but nothing did. Lucy pursed her lips, the Force never made anything easy, but this was far from a good sign. She’s still here, I felt her presence... right?

 

Even though it had been less than a day ago, Lucy’s memory of the battle with the Nos monsters wasn’t great. Even so, she could have sworn that somebody had stopped the Nos monster who had nearly killed her, freezing it in place with the Force long enough for Kyle to kill it. Had she imagined it all, including Satele’s presence? Or maybe her presence did still linger, but even through the Force, the two couldn’t communicate.

 

With a hint of frustration, and after an hour of attempting to find Satele with the Force, Lucy stood up and paced the hangar. Everyone was still asleep, and her extensive mediation had made it very clear to her that Verdant Base was almost totally safe. Aside from the ambient darkness which the Galactic Empire cast over the Force, there was nothing that should’ve been disturbing her or her connection to the Force. Logical deduction suggested that there had to be something else, something that she was missing.

 

After a long period of pacing, Lucy sat down in one of the darker corners of the hangar, disturbing one of the Dataspiders who had been resting there and causing it to flee. She leaned her back against the wall as she sat on the ground as her mind ran circles around itself, the situation she was in steadily dawning on her. The idea of communicating with Satele was now absent from her mind as questions ran rampant in her head.

 

What was she doing? Why was she still here? So far out of time and out of place, it was like some kind of nightmare, one she couldn’t wake up from. The rest of the Jedi were either dead or in hiding, the Republic was a distant memory, and the Empire that they stood against ruled over the entire Galaxy. What hope could they possibly have to survive, let alone defeat the Sith? Despite standing far from the hangar door, a grim coldness marched through the cool air to crash into her.

 

Her mental spiraling however, was promptly disturbed by the most unlikely of sources.

 

Less than ten meters away, where the rest of the group was sleeping, one of the Rebels let out a loud snore. At least, that was what Lucy thought, before she realized that the sound was actually coming from Kyle. 

 

With quiet, deliberate movements, she crept over to Kyle’s side, and realized that he wasn’t snoring, he was talking. Being asleep, there was nothing intelligible to glean from his mutterings, only that it wasn’t good. As she sat beside him, he shifted subconsciously in response to a grave disturbance running through his mind... a nightmare.

Briefly, Lucy contemplated waking him up. Kyle rarely had nightmares, and given the events of the previous day, it wasn’t hard to guess what had inspired this one. Waking him up would also mean that she wouldn’t have to be awake by herself, but it would have been a selfish thing to do. He badly needed the sleep, but leaving him stuck in a nightmare was also something that she wasn’t going to even entertain the idea of doing.

After taking a brief moment to remove her glove, she placed her hand on his forehead and peered into his mind with the Force. She didn’t spare the nightmare itself even a glance before she drove it from his mind with the Force. Steadily, Kyle’s muttering and twitching ceased, and a small smile formed on her lips as he peacefully rested. For a moment she considered sitting down beside him for the remainder of her watch, but she was certain that she would end up drifting off to sleep if she did that, and so she reluctantly stood back up.

 

Now back at the hangar entrance, and feeling slightly less sorrowful, she decided to reach out with the Force once more. There was still a lingering anxiety within her, but steadily, she calmed herself, focusing not on her goal, but on the Force around her, and all that it interacted with. The soft radiance of the sleeping Rebels, the overgrowth of the hangar, the birds flying outside, the snake which cautiously crept away from the larger beings and out of the base, and Kyle, whose peaceful state seemed almost contagious... all of it was connected to the Force. Lucy had a connection to all of it, and as she focused on that connection, she could hear a voice before her.

 

“Well, it certainly took you long enough.”

 

Lucy didn’t realize that she had closed her eyes, but when she opened them, she gasped in shock. Before her was a ghostly blue apparition of Satele Shan, although she looked younger than when they had last met. The former Grand Master was clad in spectral Jedi robes, with a small smile on her face. 

 

“Master?” Lucy uttered, barely able to believe her eyes.

 

Satele nodded. “It’s good to see you again, Lucy.”

 

Lucy forced herself to stay calm, to focus. She had hundreds of questions for Satele, but wasn’t even sure where to start. What had happened to Satele, and how was she talking to her? What had she and Kyle missed? How long had they been gone? What went wrong with the stasis experiment?

 

Lucy eventually settled on that final question; it seemed like a good place to start. “What happened? We were only supposed to be in stasis for three days!”

 

Satele’s smile vanished as she broke off eye contact. “I… am not sure. I only learned that you and Kyle were still alive after I had passed on, and by then, you had been gone for many, many years.”

 

The cold night air seemed all the more chilling as Lucy absorbed what Satele had said, and the words that left her were some of the hardest she’d ever spoken. “...You thought we were dead?”

 

“I never gave up hope that you could have survived, not even when the Republic called off the search for you,” Satele firmly answered. “Although I will admit... I didn’t expect to find you two alive and well in a secret Republic Base.”

 

It was hard to keep up with what she was saying, so much was packed into so few words, and it was all that Lucy could do to keep calm. “Then... how are you here? It must have been hundreds of years since... since you...”

 

“Since I died,” Satele gently said, voicing the words that Lucy couldn’t, locking eyes with her once more. “Death is only one part of a Jedi’s journey, Lucy. We live on through the Cosmic Force, like with all things. I may have died a long time ago, but my spirit lives on, just as yours will.”

 

Lucy nodded, mentally kicking herself. She’d known that, even a youngling would know all of the aspects of the Force.

 

“I see you’re still being too hard on yourself,” Satele said, a faintly stern tone to her voice. “I only learned about this power long after you were gone. Patience will do more than keep you safe, Lucy, it will bring you peace.”

 

Again, Lucy nodded. That was something that Satele had a lot of issues drilling into her in the past, and she did her best to take what she said to heart. “I will.”

 

“Good,” Satele said with a satisfied nod. She then glanced around the hangar idly, taking in the sight of its disrepair and the Rebel troops scattered across the ground. “As for why I’m still here... When I passed on, I learned that you were still alive. I was able to see you, having been lost and forgotten... and completely unaware of the Galaxy that you would awaken in.”

 

Lucy struggled to keep eye contact with her bygone Master, and struggled even more to take in what she was hearing. Up until now, there had still been some wild idea in the back of her mind that this could all be some dream, and that she would wake up back in the Temple on Tython or aboard her ship, and everything would be back to normal. But now, that illusion was shattered.

 

“It’s like a nightmare,” Lucy admitted. “You sense it too, right?”

 

Satele nodded. “From the moment I saw you here, frozen in time on this world, I had a vision. I saw the grim fate that would befall the Galaxy, and how you would awaken in the midst of it. I knew that I couldn’t let you face it alone. So, I waited.”

 

The significance of that commitment slowly dawned on Lucy, as she remembered how long they had been gone. “How long?”

 

“A little over three-thousand six-hundred years,” Satele answered with a grim seriousness. “Although for me, it was like sleeping, just like it was for you.”

 

Lucy let out a low breath, partly out of utter shock at just how short her own estimate had fallen, and partly out of relief. The idea that Satele would’ve been forced to experience thousands of years of isolation, all for her sake, was unbearable. Even if that had been the case, Lucy knew that Satele still would’ve done it.

 

There were tears in her eyes as she finally gathered the strength to speak again. “...Thank you.”

 

Satele did her best to keep a small smile, but Lucy didn’t miss the spectral tears on her own face. “I could never bear the thought of you being on your own, not in dark times such as these.”

 

Lucy gratefully nodded, but spared a glance back towards Kyle and the rest of the sleeping Rebels as she wiped the tears from her face. She wasn’t able to speak her mind, but Satele’s gaze followed her own, and her former master offered her a somewhat smug grin.

 

“I’m very glad that you have him,” she said. “I always thought that you two had the strength to keep the darkness within each other in check... I’m happy to see that I was right. Just keep an eye on him... you’re going to need each other.”

 

Steadily, Lucy found her voice again. “What do we do?”

 

“You are a Jedi, Lucy, you already know what to do,” Satele pointed out. Her posture was stern, but her tone made very clear that trust that she still held for Lucy. “You are a keeper of the peace, a defender of justice, and a protector of the people of the Galaxy. You are needed, now more than ever.”

 

Lucy nodded, and finally, stood up off of the ground, now standing evenly with Satele’s spiritual apparition. “Where do I start?”

 

Satele’s smile returned, bigger than ever. “Trust yourself, and those closest to you. Remember that I will be with you, even if you don’t see me.”

 

Lucy committed her former Master’s words to heart, but didn’t miss what else she had stayed. “You... can’t stay?”

 

Satele shook her head, before gesturing at herself. “Saving you earlier cost me a lot of my strength, and speaking with you isn’t much easier. If I have anything to say about it, we will speak again, but it will likely be some time before that can happen.”

 

It hurt Lucy’s heart to hear it, but the burden was eased by Satele’s words. “Thank you, Master.”

 

Satele nodded as she beamed with pride. “The Force will be with you, Lucy, always.”

 

Not even a moment after she finished speaking, Lucy watched as the ghostly vision of Satele faded away. Her presence however, still lingered, and she couldn’t help but smile at the knowledge that, even if it was only a single other person, she and Kyle weren’t the only ones who were still around from times long since past.

 

---

 

Kyle woke up to the smell of something burning.

 

As he groggily opened his eyes, the sun pouring in through the hangar door stung his eyes, which he quickly rubbed clear. As he stood up, he could see the source of the smell. Two of the Rebels were cooking something with their mess kits around a campfire that they’d built right in the middle of the hangar. Kyle recognized both of them from the previous day’s battle, but their names eluded his memory.

 

One was a human, who had shed his power armor and now only wore a simple outfit under a leather duster, which Kyle found refreshingly familiar to what some of the people from his own time had worn, especially pilots. Granted, those pilots hadn’t necessarily always operated within the confines of Republic law, but it was a nice bit of nostalgia nonetheless. He had shaggy blond hair and blue eyes, much like Kyle himself did, but also possessed a unique feature in the form of a scraggy, mid-length beard.

 

The other Rebel was the one doing the cooking, and unlike the rest of Sarah Lyons’ group, was clearly not a human. He stood more than two meters tall, with massive muscles and green skin, under which thick veins criss crossed back and forth. He wore a loose-fitting dark blue outfit, likely some form of jumpsuit, that had been ripped, torn, and burned in various places. His face was seemingly stuck in a permanent grimace, and he turned to face Kyle as he walked over.

 

“Ah, you’re awake!” the Rebel said, his voice loud and bellowing, although Kyle somehow got the feeling that it wasn’t intentional. “You have been asleep for some time, would you care to join us for breakfast?”

 

Given his half-awakened state, it took Kyle a moment to process the fact that the Rebels were cooking some kind of eggs. He also noticed that there was an opened Republic-issue blaster cleaning kit next to the two of them that, coupled with a familiar smell, led Kyle to only one conclusion.

 

“Uhhh... maybe,” Kyle hesitantly answered as he sat next to them. “You know you’re cooking with blaster lubricant, right?”

 

“I ran it through my scanner, and it says this stuff’s identical to cooking oil, It’ll work,” the human spoke up as he turned to face Kyle. The dark bags under the man’s eyes made it clear that he hadn’t slept nearly as well as Kyle had. “If you’re looking for your Jedi friend, she's been asleep aboard the ship for a few hours now. My name’s Peter, and this is Fawkes.”

 

“Thanks for the heads up. I’m Kyle,” he introduced himself, trying his best to maintain eye contact while he finished waking up. “Where’s everyone else?”

“Most of Sarah’s men are out searching the woods for anything useful, or just sleeping,” Peter answered as he leaned back into his makeshift seat, crafted from Republic supply crates. “Sarah and Tristan are somewhere else in the base. Lucy warned them that there might be some security systems still online, so we got told to sit around and wait for you to wake up while they scouted ahead.”

 

Kyle nodded, grateful that Lucy had the foresight to warn the Rebels about the Base’s security systems when he’d apparently forgotten to. Whatever had gone wrong at the base might have caused it to enter a lockdown state, and while Kyle couldn’t recall if the Inquisitor’s men had looked like they’d run into any automated defenses, that didn’t mean that there weren't any dangers, even with the power being out.

 

There was something else in Peter’s statement however, that had caught Kyle’s attention. “You two aren’t with Sarah’s group?”

 

Peter and Fawkes exchanged a brief look at one another, before Peter answered. “Well, I guess we kind of are. After she and some other Rebels lost a battle on Fondor, they were in a pretty tight spot. Fawkes and I were in the area doing a little smuggling, and we decided to step in and help.”

 

Called it, Kyle somewhat smugly thought as Peter revealed the nature of his career, but elected to avoid saying so out loud as to not be rude. “Good on you for doing that. Most of the smugglers back in my time were just looking for a quick buck.”

 

“It was the right thing to do,” Fawkes said, his booming voice catching Kyle somewhat off-guard. “We prefer to view smuggling as a profession, and not a way of life.”

 

“More or less,” Peter voiced his agreement. “Most of the smugglers we’ve dealt with would probably sell your kidneys for fifty credits, but that’s just kinda how things are, I guess. Running into Sarah was a real stroke of luck for us though, not to mention running into you. Normally I’d judge you for luring us into a trap like that, but it did lead to us getting offworld, so I guess I shouldn’t be too mad.”

 

“Yeah, sorry about that, but Lucy and I were at a loss for what else to do,” Kyle admitted. “Did she mention anything else?”

“She did, but I wasn’t the one to talk to her, Sarah was,” Peter answered. “Sarah then told the rest of us not to look around the rest of the base yet, and also not to wake you up. That was about it though.”

 

Kyle couldn’t help the small smile on his face, it was nice of Lucy to look out for him. “Where’s Sarah now? I’ll see if I can help her out.”

 

“Probably not too far, here, follow me,” Peter said as he stood up, grabbing a flashlight and a blaster pistol. “Fawkes, please make sure those don’t burn.”

 

“I will make sure of it!” Fawkes said.

 

Kyle followed Peter along further into the Republic Base, and Kyle couldn’t help but wince when Peter’s flashlight illuminated the remains of a fallen Republic Trooper. Their body was leaned up against the wall, and their blaster rifle rested in their lap. Rather strangely, it seemed like the body had only recently started to decompose.

 

“We decided to leave ‘em for the time being,” Peter explained, apparently noticing where Kyle’s attention lay. “We weren’t too sure what you and Lucy wanted to do for them... was that friend of yours?”

 

Kyle shook his head. “I can’t tell, they’re too far gone. Can’t even tell what killed ‘em...”

 

“We couldn’t either. Some of the blasters we found had empty Tibanna cartridges, so there might’ve been a fight, but they also might’ve just leaked over the years.” Peter added.

 

Kyle couldn’t help but scowl, if something had attacked the base while he and Lucy had been in stasis, how were they still alive while everyone else had been killed? He immediately ruled out the idea that the Sith had been responsible; there was no evidence that they’d ever been present at all, and they would have certainly killed or captured him and Lucy.

 

Their conversation was interrupted, however, as they found Sarah and another one of the Rebels, presumably Tristan judging by what Peter had said, standing outside the overgrown blast door to what Kyle recognized was the command center. Both of them were clad in their power armor, albeit without their helmets. They both turned to face Kyle and Peter with their blasters raised, but relaxed once they recognized them.

 

“Good to see you awake,” Sarah said. “You holding up okay?”

 

Kyle nodded, feeling a bit more alert than he had earlier. “Well enough, what’s going on?”

 

“Lucy warned us the base’s security might still be dangerous, even with the power being out, and said you might be able to help,” Sarah explained. “I asked her if I should wake you up to ask about it, but the look on her face made it seem like she was going to throw me out of the hangar if I did, so I figured I’d let you sleep.”

 

“Thanks,” Kyle replied with a nod. “And don’t worry about Lucy, she’s not like that.”

 

“I’d still rather not piss her off,” Sarah said with a conspiratorial glance at Tristan, who chuckled agreeably in response. “How do we shut down the base’s security systems?”

 

“They might already be offline,” Tristan pointed out. “Remember the laser turrets we passed by on the way here? They weren’t active.”

 

“Those are only the visible ones,” Kyle interjected quickly, doing his best to remember the layout of the base. “There’s more that are concealed. They’ve got proximity sensors and run off of their own power supply, designed to lie in ambush for any Sith Infiltrators during a lockdown,” Kyle explained. “As for how we shut them down... we have to get through that door. With any luck, we can find Commander Gil’s credentials.”

 

Sarah, Peter, and Tristan all looked to the command center’s blast door with varying degrees of doubt before Sarah spoke up. “I don’t suppose you have a key?”

 

“Well, not a key per say,” Kyle replied as he unclipped the Inquisitor’s Lightsaber from his belt. “Just a trick Lucy showed me. You might want to stand back.”

 

All three of them stepped away to give Kyle space as he ignited the lightsaber, and one of its crimson red blades came to life. The lightsaber itself didn’t look all that different to those that the Jedi and Sith from his own time had used, being a simple metal cylinder furnished in an ominous black and gunmetal gray. Even after having used it in battle during the previous day, Kyle still found the hefty weight of its hilt fairly surprising. For a weapon with a blade that wasn’t even made of solid matter, the lightsaber weighed about as much as a typical sword would. The hefty weight aside, using a lightsaber to cut open a door, even one as heavy and durable as a blast door, did not require a great deal of skill.

 

After about a minute of continuous cutting, Kyle had made a sizable hole in the door of the command center, allowing the four of them to enter. Sarah and Peter both illuminated the room with their flashlights, revealing a pleasant surprise.

Quite unlike the rest of the base, the command center looked more or less just how Kyle remembered seeing it during his one and only visit… albeit now a fair bit darker and infinitely more dusty. The air was heavy and stale, but no vines, moss, or plantlife of any kind had made it into the room. But the relief of finding the command center was swiftly dashed however, when Peter’s flashlight found the first body.

 

“By the Force...” Sarah muttered as the four of them looked at the body of the fallen Republic Trooper. This one had been of a Rodian, although little remained besides a mangled and broken skeleton. The fact that nothing was crushing him left only one possibility.

“Something attacked these guys,” Peter noted as he cast his light over even more bodies, this time a two-man repeating blaster team who had been mauled, their weapon lying in pieces across one of the holotables. “...Something with claws, look at the armor.”

 

Kyle felt a grim sorrow as he walked over to the skeletal remains of a Zabrak trooper, rolling him over to reveal a massive gash running through his skull. “These were some of the Republic’s best, but it looks like whatever killed them didn’t have too much trouble...”

 

“Kyle,” Sarah called his name, gesturing towards one of the bodies. “The base commander you mentioned, is this him?”

 

He walked over to where she was shining her light, and sure enough, there was a Sullustan skeleton in an officer’s uniform on the ground. Kyle walked over and rolled him onto his back, causing a small chip to fall out of his decayed hand; Commander Gil’s credentials. With a bit of trepidation, he reached down and picked them up, taking a deep breath as he stood up.

 

“Now all we need is to get the power online, at least for the command center,” Kyle said, swallowing his own nerves and doing his best to ignore the growing disturbance in his stomach. “...We’ll bury these men once we know this place is safe.”

 

Peter shot Kyle a doubtful look. “Kyle, if there’s something around here that can kill an entire base full of trained soldiers, I think safety might be off the table.”

 

“Whatever it was, it might not be around anymore,” Sarah pointed out. “Remember how long he and Lucy have been in stasis? Whatever attacked this place is probably long since dead.”

 

Peter nodded, but looked decidedly unconvinced. “...Yeah, probably.”

 

In the meantime, Kyle was looking around the room, searching through computer terminals, displays, and holotables until he found what he was looking for. “This is the security terminal. If any of the base defenses are still online, they’ll be linked to this. Tristan, does that power armor have a low-voltage outlet we can use?”

 

“It does, although I’m a little low on power as is. We’re probably only going to get one try at this,” Tristan replied as he set to work plugging his own armor into the terminal. “You weren’t a technician, were you?”

“No, security officer. I didn’t even work at bases like this, I was stationed at the Jedi Temple most of the time,” Kyle explained. “That said, somebody had to fix the terminals whenever they got broken...”

 

After about a moment, Tristan tried to plug his armor into the terminal... only for the outlets to not match.

“I probably should have seen that coming,” Kyle admitted. “Any ideas?”

 

“I’ve got one,” Peter said as he stepped forward, pulling out a small knife and cutting a small hole in the rubber housing of Tristan’s power cable. “Hold this steady, I’ll be rather unhappy if that armor of yours cooks me.”

 

Tristan obliged, and as Peter freed the bundle of wires from its housing, he steadily stretched it out into two prongs, before gently guiding both into the terminal’s socket with his knife. His heavy gloves kept him safe from the electricity while he worked, all the while he muttered something about a square peg and a round hole.

 

Suddenly, the terminal blinked to life, and after an agonizingly slow bootup time, a prompt appeared requesting access credentials. He hastily entered them, and was greeted by another loading screen.

 

“By the Force... this thing actually works,” Kyle remarked. “Maybe there’s some hope for this place yet.”

 

“Don’t relax yet, I’m still holding a live wire here,” Peter commented with a small degree of frustration.

Sarah gave him a sly look as he held the wire with remarkable stillness. “You’ve done this before, haven’t you?”

 

“In my defense, I was stealing an Imperial Speeder. I wouldn’t expect you to complain,” Peter somewhat grumpily retorted.

 

The loading screen mercifully ended, and Kyle hastily set about navigating the interface. Just as he’d suspected, the base had entered a lockdown, but with Commander Gil’s credentials, he was able to quickly release the lockdown, shutting down the automated defenses. As he did so, there was a loud clanging sound somewhere on the other side of the base, which acted as fairly direct evidence that at least some of the defenses had still been active and dangerous, but no longer were.

 

“Security’s offline, we’re good to go,” Kyle said, prompting Peter to let go of the cable and step back from the live wire. “The base should be safe.”

 

“Should be. ” Peter pointedly remarked, gesturing towards the bodies of the Republic Troopers around them. “We’ll have to keep an eye out for whatever did this... Still, I suppose there are worse places to hide, it’s certainly far from the Empire’s eyes.”

 

“We could use a new headquarters,” Sarah noted, before sparing a glance at Kyle. “What do you think?”

 

“It’ll take a while to get everything back into working order...” Kyle noted, sparing a doubtful glance at the now-ancient computers that lined the room. “But I’d be happy to help you if I can.”

 

Sarah gave him a grateful nod. “In that case, let’s get started.”

The next hour or so was very busy for Kyle, with him and the Rebels taking the time to gather the bodies of the fallen Republic soldiers and bury them in a clearing just outside the base. Kyle personally dug the grave for Commander Gils and buried him, but Glade and Tristan volunteered to spend the rest of the day making sure the rest of the bodies were given the respect they were due. They also took the effort to do the same with the bodies of the Stormtroopers and the Inquisitor.

 

The two of them would also be responsible for the grizzly task of seeing whether or not any of the armor and equipment was worth salvaging, and Kyle was very quick to look for any other job that he could do that didn’t involve pulling loot off of the bodies of his fallen allies. It was a job that needed doing however, as even with the ammo and equipment that the Inquisitor’s Stormtroopers had been carrying and had stored in their ship, the Rebel’s supply situation was very dire. Thankfully, Sarah was putting together a plan to get into contact with another Rebel Cell to help alleviate that.

 

But with Kyle’s hand in the grizzly work over, he found himself looking for something else to do. Thankfully, he already had something in mind, which would hopefully not be quite so depressing, and would certainly be less gruesome.

 

After a few minutes of searching, Kyle found Paulen in the cockpit of their ship. He was sitting alongside another one of the Rebels, a human woman whom he was seemingly showing his ship off to. She had shed her power armor now that the fighting was over, instead wearing a simple tan jumpsuit, blending well with her short brown hair and brown eyes. Though curiously, he noticed she had a pair of very pale blue tattoos under and above her eyes, which wasn’t something you would see outside of the Core Worlds like Coruscant or Corellia, at least, not in Kyle’s time. Both she and Paulen turned to face Kyle as he entered the cockpit.

 

“What’s going on Paulen? Flight Lessons?” Kyle asked in a half-serious tone. “Maybe I should’ve stopped by sooner...”

 

The woman shook her head, before speaking in a noticeable High Galactic accent. “Not quite, I’d just stopped by to thank Paulen for saving us back on Utapau, and now he’s showing me his ship.”

 

Kyle raised a curious eyebrow. While he didn’t actually object to Paulen claiming the ship, he couldn’t help but imagine Paulen introducing the ship as his own might have had something to do with the cute woman sitting right next to him. “Your ship?”

 

“Yes, my ship!” Paulen argued, running a hand over the control console defensively before shoving a finger in Kyle’s face. “Don’t forget that I was aboard when you were flying earlier! Half of the cadets at my academy flew better than you while drunk , and they-”

 

Paulen stopped himself however, when the woman sitting beside him started to chuckle. “It’s alright, Paulen. I think he’s just joking. Right?”

 

“Right. Although he’s not wrong about my flying...” Kyle confirmed. He then turned to the woman and held out his hand. “I’m Kyle, I’m not sure we’ve properly met.”

 

“I’m Valerie, but please, just call me Val,” she introduced herself. She glanced between Kyle and the pilot, then began to rise from her seat. “I can come back later if you need to speak to Paulen,” she offered helpfully

 

Kyle spared a glance at Paulen, where their eyes met, and Kyle picked up on a quiet, unspoken message from his pilot friend. That being; Please don’t mess this up for me.

 

A brief moment of thinking was all it took for Kyle to decide to play along. He’d never really been a great wingman, but he had come along to try and help Paulen out...

 

With the unspoken and practically instantaneous conversation over, Kyle turned his attention back to Val. “Don’t worry. I did want to talk to Paulen, but that doesn’t mean you need to leave.”

 

Val nodded, and Kyle took a seat in the third chair as Paulen turned around to face him with a faint look of concern. 

 

“Is something wrong?” the pilot asked, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees.

 

“Not quite, I just wanted to stop by and check on you,” Kyle answered. “I know that it’s been a really busy day or two for you, and I wanted to make sure that you’re holding up okay.”

 

Paulen let out a low, tired breath. “You’re not wrong about that. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t exactly have a lot of love for the Empire even before you and Lucy saved my ass. It just all happened so suddenly, it's kind of hard to adjust.”

 

Kyle nodded, having obvious sympathies regarding that exact thing. But before he could speak up, Val beat him to the punch.

“I can relate,” she spoke up with a similar exhaustion to Paulen’s. “A month ago, I was fixing starfighters for the Alliance, and now I’m a full-blown soldier. Hell of it is, I can’t quite tell how I got from one to the other.”

 

“That does sound tough,” Paulen sympathized. “At least I got to keep flying... you think you’d rather be fixing things?”

 

Val nodded without a moment’s hesitation. “It’s where I’m at my best. I can fight, don’t get me wrong, I just wish I didn’t have to.”

 

“Well, I know Sarah wants to get this base back into working order, and there’s a lot of things that’ll need to be fixed,” Kyle said, before an idea came to mind, and he turned to Paulen. “I know you’ve got your Mom to worry about, but I don’t suppose you’d be willing to stick around a little while longer, lend us a hand?”

 

Paulen paused, his eyes subtly going back and forth between Kyle and Val, before he gave a brief nod. “I will, for certain. I need some extra time to think.”

 

Kyle gave a faint smile, grateful that Paulen had picked up on what he was trying to do. He was also just glad to have Paulen stay around; as much as he didn’t want to force Paulen down any particular path in life, he was hoping that he’d join them in the fight against the Empire. Flying such a broad ship down a narrow tunnel like that had been a real display of skill, and he knew that they were going to need as many skilled pilots as they could get if they were going to dethrone the Sith.

 

“We could always go and get your Mom away from the Empire, then you both could stay with us,” Val offered. “Up until now the best pilot we’ve had was Peter, and… don’t tell him I said this, but you’re much better at flying.”

 

Kyle resisted the urge to chuckle as Paulen blinked and faintly blushed, before awkwardly scratching the back of his head. “...I mean, I’ll certainly give it some thought.”

 

“That’s all I ask,” Val replied with a broad smile. “I’d be happy to have you around.”

 

Now Paulen’s blush became much more apparent, and Kyle resisted the urge to chuckle. Sensing that his work was more or less done, Kyle stood up and turned to leave. “Well, I’ll be around if either of you need anything. Just give me a shout.”

 

“Will do,” Paulen said with a nod. “And Kyle? Thank you, and tell Lucy I said thanks as well... I’m glad I ran into you.”

 

Kyle gave him a thumbs-up as he turned to leave, before opening the cockpit door and nearly running face-first into Lucy. Thankfully, she managed to back out of the way in time, and quickly steadied herself alongside him as the door closed behind him. 

 

She softly chuckled and gave him a small smile. “You okay?”

 

“Yeah, just finished talking to Paulen and Val, he was showing her around his ship,” Kyle answered, nodding his head back towards the cockpit. “He said thanks for saving him, by the way.”

 

Lucy’s eyes lit up. “Oh, let me go talk to him, I’ll-”

“No no, wait,” Kyle interrupted her, gently holding her back. “I think it’s best that we give ‘em some privacy.”

 

Lucy paused for a moment, running what he’d said through her mind, before her smile faintly grew. “I see, well in that case, I’ll go visit him later. How about you, did you sleep well?”

 

“Thanks to you, yes. I think you scared Sarah though,” Kyle answered, to which Lucy gave a bashful laugh. “How about you, did your night go well?”

 

“Absolutely,” Lucy happily answered. “I’ve got a lot I need to tell you about, come with me!”

 

Lucy grabbed him by the hand and pulled him along, leading him down the boarding ramp as he couldn’t help but smile right alongside her.

 

Author’s Notes: The decision to include the Lyons Pride from Fallout was largely because I wanted to write more of them after I wrote Knightfall, especially Peter, Fawkes, and Sarah. I’ve come up with some of my own lore for their Star Wars incarnations.

Chapter 6: Relics of The Old War

Two days had passed since the Rebels had reclaimed the Republic Base on Verdant, and Lucy couldn’t help but have some doubts about whether or not it was really the best place to establish themselves. While she welcomed the familiarity that living in a Republic military base brought, she also recognized the terrible state that the facility was in. Kyle had spent the entirety of the previous day doing a survey of the base alongside Lucy to see what exactly they had to work with, and the results were about as disappointing as they had expected. 

 

Three-thousand and six-hundred years of disuse had taken their toll across just about everything. The electrical systems were almost all gone, having been chewed to pieces by Mynocks or eroded by time. Strangely, a few of the systems remained almost untouched, as though they’d been in disuse for only a few weeks.

 

Far more predictably, there were several cave-ins that had blocked off access to various parts of the base, with half of the barracks in particular having been entirely collapsed. The vegetation was also not helping, having grown thick over time that it sealed off some full corridors, in spite of a lack of sunlight. To top it all off, all work on the base had to be done by a mere fifteen people, most of whom were totally exhausted after a month of near-constant fighting. 

 

Sarah’s group didn’t have much in the way of supplies either, and not just weapons and ammunition. Basics like bedrolls, mess kits, and batteries were in short supply, to say nothing of the building materials actually required to maintain and restore the base. While there were a few things that could be scavenged from the accessible parts of the base, most of the areas that they’d explored so far yielded little of value. There was likely more to be found, but in a facility this size there was a lot of ground to cover if they were going to scavenge everything, and they had other priorities. 

 

The first order of business was getting the hangar cleaned up. Sarah Lyons had recognized that they could use a place to rest that wasn’t the cramped interior of an Imperial Shuttle, and with the Barracks inaccessible, the hangar was designated the group’s temporary home. To that end, Lucy had joined forces with Kyle and a few of the other Rebels to cut back some of the vines and greenery. 

 

In spite of a lack of supplies Peter and Fawkes had managed to put together a small kitchen, and the missing sleeping rolls were supplanted by makeshift hammocks made from large bags that had once held supplies for the Republic Military. Their lodgings were definitely more than a little ramshackled, but it was far better than nothing.

 

Lucy and Kyle pitched in where they could, and quickly found themselves swamped with work. They found very few moments to rest or even just talk, which Lucy found more than a little frustrating. Hard work didn’t bother her... being apart from Kyle did. 

 

A more critical part of herself highlighted that this was a somewhat unhealthy mindset, and that as a Jedi she should be in control of her attachments, not the other way around. For once, it was easy enough to silence her inner critic with the counterpoint that everyone else she usually depended on was dead , and that she’d probably earned the right to be a little clingy to the one man she had left.

 

There was Satele of course, her presence almost always noticeable now, but Lucy could already guess what she would’ve said; “Can you at least wait until you’ve done something wrong to beat yourself up? ”

 

As day turned into evening, Lucy finally got what she wanted as Kyle walked up and sat down beside her while she was sitting on the floor, cleaning her lightsaber. Rather than using the Force like a Jedi would normally do when maintaining their weapon, Lucy was simply removing all of the gunk from the last few days with a cloth that had been donated to her by one of the Rebels from their own blaster cleaning kit.

 

“I really have to learn more about how mine works,” Kyle commented once he saw what she was doing. “Dinner’s ready by the way, but if you need an extra minute, you’ve got time.”

 

“This won’t take long,” Lucy replied simply, before realizing that in her focused state of mind she’d overlooked something about what Kyle had said. “Wait… your lightsaber?”

 

Kyle shrugged, taking what was once the Inquisitor's lightsaber off of his belt and placing it on the floor before them. Despite having two blades, it wasn’t much longer than her own, although the fact that it had been made by a Sith Inquisitor was very obvious just from looking at its menacing design. “You never asked for it, I figured I’d get to keep it. I’ll admit, I’ve always wanted one of these things. It certainly ended up coming in handy back there, although it’s a lot heavier than I expected...”

 

“Well, I seem to recall promising to teach you how to use one...” she replied, allowing herself a small smile at the excitement that she felt fill his heart. Admittedly, this was always something she’d wanted to do. Kyle wasn’t Force Sensitive, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t use a saber, and it would give her an opportunity to show off a bit of what she’d learned. “...Let me take a look.”

 

Closing her eyes, she reached out to the weapon with the Force, attempting to lift it up and disassemble it like she would do with her own lightsaber. As soon as she did, she immediately wished that she hadn’t. 

 

Lucy flinched as the lightsaber practically screamed at her through the Force. The terror that the weapon’s victims felt as they were cut down was fused into the synthetic crystals that lay at its heart. For at least a moment she powered on through the darkness, but swiftly realized that she wasn’t having any luck. She let out a breath that she didn’t know she’d been holding as she opened her eyes. When she did, she saw the lightsaber fall to the ground in pieces, she hadn’t even noticed disassembling it.

 

“Woah! You okay?” Kyle asked, doing his best to mask the frantic concern that he was feeling as he wrapped his arms around her. 

 

Lucy nodded and breathed deeply, leaning into his arms as she answered. “...Yeah, I’m okay.” She nodded at the pile of disassembled weapon parts and suppressed a shudder. “That thing’s been in some… dark places.”

 

Kyle held onto her a bit more tightly and spared a look back at the pieces of the Inquisitor’s lightsaber. “I’m sorry, I should’ve known.”

 

“It’s alright, I’m okay.” Lucy reassured him. 

 

Following his gaze, Lucy discovered that, curiously enough, the Inquisitor’s blade actually had contained three lightsaber crystals. She had connected with the first two while she’d been disassembling it. They both burned bright and red with the fiery, passionate hatred that had sat at the heart of the Thirteenth Brother. The third crystal, however, which Lucy guessed had probably just been used as a rather crude heatsink, was totally transparent. True to Sith tradition, all three were synthetic, but as Lucy stared at the final crystal...

 

“It’s alright,” Kyle reassured her. “I should probably stick to blasters anyway. Do you want to go get some food?”

 

Lucy scowled, particularly disturbed by the disheartened tone which he tried to hide. A part of her did admittedly feel guilty over breaking the weapon, but the guilt was brought into question with the relief she felt, knowing that the weapon would never again take an innocent life. Even so, she felt a bit hollow at having taken away Kyle’s chance to explore the art of lightsaber combat.

 

…Or had she?

 

Slowly returning to the present moment, Lucy blinked away her train of thoughts and refocused herself. “Yeah, let’s go.”

 

Kyle helped her up to her feet and turned to lead the way. The moment that Kyle had turned his back however, Lucy reached out with the force and grabbed the translucent lightsaber crystal, silently guiding it into her pocket as she walked. An idea had hatched in her mind, and even if it didn’t end up going anywhere, she wanted to at least hold onto the option.

 

Lucy followed as Kyle led the way to the makeshift kitchen. There, she saw that Peter and Fawkes were handing out surprisingly large servings of what looked like some kind of meat stew, which smeled impressively good given the limited ingredients that they probably had to work with. Val and Paulen were off to one side with their own food, although Lucy did her best not to look directly at them as she smiled, which was made easier by the fact that something else quickly grabbed her attention.

 

Sarah Lyons and Tristan were standing off to the side of the group. Rather than eating, Tristan was holding up a backpack-scale comlink while Sarah spoke into the handset.

 

“Kyle, can you get me mine?” Lucy asked. “I’d like to see what that’s about.”

“Sure thing.” Kyle replied before Lucy stepped aside.

 

Lucy approached the two and, now less interrupted by the idle chatter of the Rebels, was able to hear what Sarah was saying as Lucy sat down beside them.

“-I repeat, Cheyenne Relay, this is Lyons’ Den. Come in, over.”

 

There was a long, silent pause before Tristan spoke up. “I don’t think they’re listening anymore Sarah. They probably think we’re dead. Or that we’re just Imperial Agents hoping they’ll recognize the callsign.”

 

“I know that!” she chastised him, before seemingly noticing Lucy’s presence. “Lucy, do you know if there’s anything on this planet that might be messing with our comms?”

 

Lucy shook her head. “I don’t know much about this place, we were only here for the experiment. Where are you trying to contact? Maybe you don’t have the range.”

 

“A relay satellite in the Fondor System. We used it to keep in contact with another Rebel cell while keeping their position a secret,” Sarah explained. “We’ve definitely got the range to connect to the satellite, so that’s not the issue. My best guesses are that the satellite went down during the battle... or that nobody’s around to listen.”

 

“They may think we’re dead, and that what they’re hearing are Imperial Agents,” Tristan interjected with his own theory. “Whatever the case, we’ve not been having any luck getting into contact with the rest of the Alliance.”

 

Lucy gave it a moment’s thought, but the sound of footsteps approaching interrupted her as Kyle stepped up beside her, holding two bowls of stew as he spoke up. “If I might make a suggestion, we figure it out after dinner. Peter’s got yours coming up next.”

 

Sarah gave him a brief look, as though she wanted to protest, but quickly relented. “Fine, but you two stay right here, I want to talk to you.”

 

Sarah walked off without another word, and Tristan gave both Kyle and Lucy a silent nod of gratitude before following her.

 

“Looks like we’re going to be on our own for a while longer,” Lucy noted, not able to help feeling at least a little disappointed, then turned to Kyle. “You said you worked with comms before, any ideas?”

 

Kyle shook his head as he sat down next to her. “Not yet, I’d have to have a better look at the problem. Keeping things quiet isn’t going to be easy though, I imagine every relay in the Galaxy’s probably got someone listening for Rebel traffic.”

 

Lucy nodded. While the finer points of military communications were admittedly a bit lost on her, she did know enough to recognize just how dangerous even talking would be for the Rebels in a Galaxy ruled by the Sith. “Well, like you said, we’ll worry about it after dinner.”

 

“Indeed,” Kyle agreed simply.

After about a minute of quietly eating, Sarah returned, this time alone, and with a much more lively expression on her face. “I don’t know what the hell’s in this, but it tastes good enough for me to not ask questions.”

 

“It is pretty good…” Lucy agreed. She waited another moment before asking, “What did you want to talk about?”

 

“The two of you, mostly,” Sarah answered. “I’ve got a few questions if you don’t mind me being nosy… it’s not every day you get to talk to people from the Old Republic.”

 

The Old Republic. Lucy couldn’t help but feel her gut harden, and it wasn’t because of the food. Even after days of adjustment, and learning that Satele was still watching over her, Lucy couldn’t help the coldness she felt when she was reminded of how long it had been. 

 

A heavy sense of loss radiated through the Force as Kyle no doubt felt the same, but he was first to speak up regardless. “I’ll answer what I can, although I doubt you want to hear about the time I got saddled with the Jedi Temple’s Accounting for two days after Lieutenant Oswald fell down a flight of stairs.”

 

Sarah’s curious look did not waver. “I think you mentioned something about being a Security Officer. What do Jedi need Security Forces for? Lucy’s already proved all the stories about their skills in battle weren’t as fantastical as I’d thought.”

 

“Well, anything that’s not worth having a Jedi do, mostly,” Kyle explained. “The accounting’s a good example actually, why have a Jedi Knight counting how many credits go into the electric bill when you can get any chump to do it?”

 

Lucy couldn’t help but frown at his demeaning tone. She knew very well that wasn’t how Kyle felt about the rest of the men and women he had served with, which left only one real candidate his deprecating remarks might be pointed at; and that was not something that Lucy intended to allow him to do to himself.

 

Before Lucy could speak up, however, Sarah did. “So, you were the operations staff?”

 

“That was the Jedi, command and control fell to them. We did a lot more mundane stuff, maintenance was a big one, cleaning as well, and I won’t even get started on the paperwork,” Kyle explained. “The Jedi were needed elsewhere, so we took on everything that wasn’t quite as urgent.”

 

Sarah nodded, speaking even as she continued to chew her food. “You still carry yourself like a soldier; were you guys a part of the Republic Military?”

 

“We were technically under Jedi command, although in practice, we were both,” Kyle explained. “It was a good job… real dull at times though, more than you’d expect.”

 

Seeing an opportunity to interject, Lucy spoke up. “What he’s not telling you is just how helpful they were, or that they’d join us on missions from time to time.”

 

Sarah softly smiled at her interjection. “Glad you recognize the importance of logistics. We’ve lost more than a few cells because they have gear and men they need, but they run out of parts, or ammo, or even food, and they fall apart.”

 

Sarah’s tone carried a dark inflection behind it, and Lucy couldn’t help but feel that there was something more specific bothering her. Lucy briefly considered reaching out with the Force to try to help, but with Sarah’s apparently poor understanding of the Jedi, doing so might only stress the woman out even more. Still, that didn’t mean Lucy couldn’t try to give Sarah a chance to open up.

 

“Is that what happened to your cell?” Lucy asked, speaking as gently as she could.

 

Sarah paused before shaking her head as a renewed sensation of fury radiated off of her in the Force. “Worse. Traitors. A group of Outcasts led the Empire right to the gates of our bunker at Lost Hills. It was right after Command blew the Death Star apart.”

 

Sarah paused, letting out a long breath as she collected her thoughts.

 

“It took them four days of constant fighting, but we were cornered and badly outgunned. We made breakout attempts, but each one was stopped,” Sarah explained. “We didn’t have a choice but to stand and fight to the last man. The Empire’s prisoners don’t usually live for long, and those are the lucky ones.”

 

Sarah trailed off, a tenseness filling the air before Kyle spoke up. “But you and your team lived, Peter mentioned that he and Fawkes managed to save you.”

 

Sarah solemnly nodded. “Our cell would have been entirely wiped out without them. As far as I know, the Lyons’ Pride is all that’s left.”

 

“And that’s your squad, the Lyons’ Pride?” Kyle repeated the name aloud.

 

“It was the oldest unit in our cell, formed by my Father, Owyn Lyons,” Sarah explained, a tired hollowness in her voice. “The name was a joke his men came up with during the Clone Wars, before he became leader of the whole militia, and took up arms against the Empire when it rose. The Pride remained, becoming our commando team... but now we’re the only ones left.”

 

“There weren’t any other survivors?” Lucy asked, although she was afraid that she already knew the answer.

 

Sarah shook her head. “I can’t say there are, but I can’t say there aren’t. It was chaotic, and my team was definitely the last ones left on Fondor... but I have to hope that some others made it out during one of the breakout attempts.”

 

“If there’s anyone else out there, we’ll find them,” Lucy reassured her. “I’ll make sure of it.”

 

“I can help as well,” Kyle offered. “Whatever signals you were using, I can tune the ship’s comm array to listen for any transmissions on them. If we find any distress calls, we can go out and pick them up.”

 

Sarah smiled and gave a small huff. “Appreciate it. Hell, thanks to you, we even have a place to bring them... even if it’s a little green.”

 

“Yeah... I’m glad I don’t have my pollen allergy anymore,” Kyle replied. “Otherwise, I imagine Lucy would’ve had to carry me out of here over her shoulder when we woke up.”

 

Sarah nodded, chuckling at the thought of it. She then raised an eyebrow as something new came to mind. “Wait just a moment… how are you still alive if the power’s out? Wouldn’t your stasis pods have powered down?”

 

Lucy briefly thought on the matter, but quickly realized she had no good answer for Sarah. The actual mechanics behind the stasis field generators were far beyond her… she’d only ever been briefed on what they actually did.  

 

Kyle, thankfully, had at least a short answer for her. “The stasis field generators only needed power once, since they were designed to be disposable for use in the field. You’d carry one right alongside your grenades, and if your squad member got a bad injury, you could pull one out and freeze them. Then you could drag them back to safety, where the Doctors could take care of them.”

 

“Sounds handy, although I guess they must’ve worked a little too well...” Sarah said, nodding along to Kyle’s explanation and staring into her stew thoughtfully. “Do you think anyone else might be in stasis like you were?”

 

Lucy shook her head. “I didn’t see anybody else in the lab that I woke up in. Nobody alive, anyway.”

 

“Me neither,” Kyle confirmed, his voice subdued and a dark look on his face. “I would be surprised if there were, since Lucy and I were the only ones in our testing round. They wanted a Jedi to see if they’d be okay in stasis, so Lucy volunteered, and I joined in as well. There were some other experiments, mostly for equipment to see if it would get damaged, but no other people.”

 

Sarah took a few more bites of her stew as she took in what he had said. “It sounds like you two were pretty close even before this all happened.”

 

Lucy tried not to smile too much as she felt Kyle flare up with embarrassment through the Force, although for once, he did a good job of hiding it on his face. It was pretty cute how, even though there wasn’t a need to keep their relationship a secret anymore, the instinct still remained for him. Then again, she was pretty sure that every Jedi in the Temple had known about them being together… even the Younglings could probably see right through him.

 

“We were, and we had been for about three months,” Lucy explained. “My first assignment as a Knight was to go play bodyguard for a ball that a bunch of Republic Senators were hosting.”

 

Sarah raised a judgmental eyebrow. “They sent a Jedi to do that, during a war?”

“Never underestimate the idiocy of a politician, let alone a group of them,” Kyle replied. “I got sent to do the same thing, and lo and behold, I ended up running into the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.”

 

Now it was Lucy’s turn to blush, and she did not miss how Sarah’s somewhat solemn expression quickly melted into a small smile. “Oh, stop! Also, I seem to recall having to go and talk to you, since you were too shy to even move , let alone come talk to me!”

 

Kyle briefly weighed up his response, before he awkwardly scratched the back of his head and conceded. “...Yeah, that’s true.”

 

“Certainly seems like it worked out for you,” Sarah noted, a playful twinkle in her eye as she smirked at them. Despite her teasing, the sincerity in her voice was evident when she added, “And we’re lucky to have you both.”

 

“I could say the same,” Lucy replied, lifting her bowl to her lips to slurp down the last of her stew. “I don’t think Kyle and I would be doing too well if we had to take on the whole Empire ourselves.”

 

Sarah’s smile only grew as she finished her stew as well. “Oh, just you wait until we get back into contact with the rest of the Alliance. We’re far from out of the fight.”

 

“Whatever we can do to help, you just let us know,” Kyle replied as he put his own bowl down. “Actually, on that note...”

 

Both Sarah and Lucy raised an eyebrow as Kyle reached into his satchel and pulled out one of the more valuable finds from the base; a datapad. It had previously belonged to Commander Gil, but with the aid of the fallen officer’s credentials, it now belonged to Kyle. While the hardware was understandably woefully out of date, Kyle’s hope was that there might still be some useful information on it.

 

“What’ve you got?” Sarah asked, perking up curiously as she leaned forward to get a better look at the datapad in Kyle’s hands.

 

“Trying to figure that out at the moment. When you brought up the stasis experiments, I was reminded that there might be a few other things somewhere in storage...” Kyle explained. He scrolled through the datapad’s contents for a few moments in silence before leaning back, a triumphant grin on his lips. “Ah, here we go. Looks like everything else was stored in the second hangar.”

 

“There’s a second hangar?” Sarah asked.

“There is, although it’s a vertical one, and the opening on the top of the hill is probably covered up by the forest,” Kyle answered. “Still, it shouldn’t be that far. You want to check it out?”

 

Sarah shrugged and stood up. “Worth a look. I’ll go see if anybody else is done eating, and we’ll organize an excursion team.”

 

Sarah walked over to the rest of the group as Kyle stood up as well, sparing Lucy a glance. “I suppose it’s too much to ask that some Commando Team left us their Thunderclap?”

 

Lucy smirked as she stood up as well. “Only one way to find out.”

 

---

 

Flashlights and the emerald glow of Lucy’s lightsaber illuminated the overgrown corridors of the newly-named Lyons’ Den as Kyle led Lucy, Sarah, Peter, and Fawkes towards the second hangar. Given the size of the base, this was one of many areas that hadn’t been explored yet, although thankfully they hadn’t come across any unexpected obstacles. The navigation was made slightly more difficult by the fact that all of the signs were concealed by foliage, and those that weren’t were often decayed beyond the point of legibility.

 

Even so, Kyle found Commander Gil’s datapad to be a lifesaver, as one of the features had been a bit of management software for the entire base. While the remote-control nature of the base was a feature that was now worthless, the map of the facility was still helpful, even if it didn’t take any cave-ins into account.

 

“Do you think there is a danger that the rest of the base could collapse on top of us?” Fawkes asked as they passed by a large piece of durasteel which had fallen off of one of the walls.

 

“I’m not sure, but to be honest, I’m surprised it’s suffered this much damage,” Kyle answered. “A base like this would’ve been built to withstand artillery, if not a limited-scale orbital bombardment, at least for a short time.”

 

“Maybe they cut corners building it.” Sarah suggested.

 

Even as she spoke, however, Kyle spotted something between the vines, illuminated briefly by one of the flashlights. “Wait, get me a light, there.”

 

Fawkes obliged, shining his fusion lantern over the wall. Kyle pushed the vines out of the way, and found three horizontal lines sliced through the durasteel, a few centimeters apart, and all jagged and uneven. 

 

“...That doesn’t look like something an earthquake would do,” Lucy noted. “Maybe a power saw?”

 

“Or a vibroblade,” Sarah noted, resting her hand on the hilt of her own weapon as she spoke.

 

“They look more like claw marks to me,” Peter noted, a scowl on his face. “Like the ones we found on the bodies...”

 

“Indeed,” Fawkes voiced his agreement. “Although I cannot think of a reason for any creature to carve at a wall in such a way.”

 

As if prompted by Fawkes’ words, Lucy stepped forward, resting her hand on the wall and closing her eyes. The rest of the Rebels looked at each other with varying degrees of confusion. It was Peter who finally spoke up, asking the question on all of their minds. “What’s she doing?”

 

“Using the Force,” Kyle answered. The truth was, he didn’t know exactly what she was doing… but ‘the Force’ seemed like a safe answer given the context. He leaned closer to Lucy and asked in a quiet voice, “What do we got Lucy?”

 

“I sense... Hatred... Fear... Death...” Lucy said slowly , before suddenly pulling her hand away, stepping back, and looking at the wall with newfound wariness. “...and a scream.”

 

Peter’s hand drifted down to the blaster pistol on his hip. “Any idea what caused it?” he asked, his voice low and quiet as his eyes flitted anxiously from one shadow to the next.

 

Lucy shook her head softly as she turned away from the wall. “Something that’s strong with the Dark Side of the Force, I can tell you that much. If it were still around, I would have sensed it.”

 

Peter relaxed slightly, but Kyle only found himself feeling newfound tension. “Maybe it really was the Sith who did this...”

 

“Maybe,” Lucy replied, although she sounded far from convinced. “We should keep moving. How much further is it to the second hangar?”

 

Kyle nodded, double-checking his map. “Just around the next corner.” With that he set off again, leading the group the rest of the way to a set of blast doors, which were far larger and noticeably more durable than even the entrance to the command center. “Well, this is it...”

 

“If it’s sealed, maybe whatever’s inside won’t be overgrown,” Sarah reasoned. “Lucy, think you can get this open?”

 

“Even with my lightsaber, it would take a while to get through a door like that,” Lucy answered. “...But there are alternatives to violence.”

 

Lucy closed her eyes and reached out a hand, and Kyle felt and heard a shift in the air around the whole corridor, prompting him and the Rebels to stand back. After a moment of waiting, Kyle watched with admittedly a bit of surprise as the doors slowly began to slide open, stopping once a large enough gap had been created to allow even Fawkes to go through.

 

“Impressive,” Sarah said, voicing what Kyle was thinking. “Can you do that with any door?”

 

Lucy lowered her hand and opened her eyes with a slightly bashful smile. “Well, it helps when it’s not locked...”

 

Sarah chuckled in response, but gestured the group forward, allowing their lights to illuminate the hangar. It was about the same size as the first hangar, although there was a very large tunnel on the far side of the chamber, presumably marking where the base’s fighter squadron would’ve been stored, safe from enemy attack. 

 

The hangar had thankfully avoided the plants that had overtaken much of the base, and it was immediately clear that this had indeed been where the rest of the stasis experiments had taken place. Around the hangar, various small tables held up everything from power packs to entire suits of armor, all frozen in a semi-translucent web of dark blue energy.

 

But there was one experiment in the center of the hangar, however, that immediately stole everyone’s attention.

“They froze a whole ship?” Peter asked, a barely-concealed tinge of excitement in his voice. “Look at that thing...”

 

Even with the poor light, Kyle recognized the model almost immediately. “That’s an FT-9, a Star Shield. One of the new- well, it was new, I suppose...”

 

Befitting of its name and designation, the FT-9 Star Shield resembled a scaled-up FT-8 Star Guard. Its longer wings were folded upwards above the main fuselage to clear up more hangar space, nearly reaching the massive doors above the hangar. The most defining difference was a long, conical nose that was quite unlike the one on the original Star Guard, which housed a good portion of the Star Shield’s massive sensor suite.

 

“Did you ever fly one?” Peter asked, looking back at Kyle and Lucy.

 

“No, but I saw all the ads. Rendili Stardrive was pretty annoying about that...” Kyle simply answered.

 

Peter gave an amused huff. “Yeah, you’d be surprised how little has changed. What’s it meant to do? Looks too big to be a fighter.”

 

“You’re not wrong, it’s basically a patrol craft,” Kyle answered, now trying to remember advertisements that he’d been attempting to ignore at the time. “Robust electronic suite, very long range, holds a crew of around twelve... uh, I guess it can dogfight, probably. Might struggle against an interceptor, but it should have missiles.”

 

“Sounds pretty useful, even if it is a bit old,” Sarah noted, a cautious look of optimism on her face. “Think it still runs?”

 

Kyle gave it a brief degree of thought, and couldn’t think of anything calamitous that could happen if they disabled the stasis field around the craft. “I guess so, the stasis field should’ve prevented anything from breaking. It’s a good thing the ceiling didn’t collapse here... it probably would’ve cracked the field right open.”

 

“What of everything else?” Fawkes asked, sparing a glance at a stasis field not far away from them which contained a small, sealed supply crate.

 

“The field looks intact on that one too, but one that small should just need a harsh knock and it’ll open… hang on, let me double check what’s in that,” Kyle said. The list of experiments had included a manifest of what had been placed in stasis, and Kyle raised an eyebrow as he saw what was in the box. “It’s... an astromech, apparently.”

 

“An astromech?” Lucy asked, before her eyes went wide with excitement. “Wait, it can’t be...”

 

Without another second to waste, she rushed over to the box and to the stasis field. She slammed the metal plating on the back of her glove into the field, causing it to destabilize and deactivate. “Here, help me get this on the floor!”

 

A few seconds after Lucy had, Kyle made the connection as he helped her lift the heavy crate, lowering it onto the ground. “This isn’t who I think it is, is it?”

 

“Is this your droid?” Sarah asked as Lucy fumbled with the security lock, the excitement evidently getting the better of her.

 

Finally, she and Kyle pushed the lid of the supply crate off. Kyle could practically feel Lucy’s radiant joy even before she squealed with delight, pulling a small four-legged astromech out of the crate, hugging it even as its limbs fell limply towards the ground. Although powerless, Kyle could see just from the familiar silver paint scheme, extra antennas, and red nameplate that this was, in fact, Lucy’s astromech. A small T-3F Series Utility Droid, who appeared to be powered down.

 

“Ah, a friend of yours?” Fawkes more accurately guessed.

 

Lucy turned to beam at him. “Yup! Everyone, this is ED-3, but I call him Eddie!”

 

“Eddie?” Peter asked, looking the diminutive droid up and down as Lucy held him out. “I’ve never seen an astromech that small before...”

 

“I know! Isn’t he so cute?! He’s a mini model!” Lucy joyfully said, hugging the droid once more. Kyle couldn’t help but feel grateful that she was happy, and had been reunited with their friend... but also a bit jealous. Lucy naturally sensed that immediately, and gave him a somewhat stern gaze. “Oh, quit moping! If you want a hug, get over here!”

 

The rest of the Rebels turned to face him as Kyle blushed and joined in the hug, where Lucy accommodated him. The other people watching did make Kyle feel a little self-conscious, but with the fact that Lucy clearly didn’t care and that they’d gotten at least one other person from their time back... it was easy to ignore.

 

Peter didn’t even bother to be subtle as he turned to speak to his partner in crime. “Fawkes, if I ever fall for a woman, please make sure it’s one that can’t read my mind.”

 

“Already done,” Fawkes answered cryptically, causing Peter to narrow his eyes at his giant green friend. Given the fact that Lucy’s head was in the way, Kyle couldn’t see Sarah’s reaction, but he could hear her cough awkwardly.

 

“Well, it’s nice to see that you both have your friend back, and that we’ve got some new gear, but...” Sarah said, gesturing up at the ceiling. “How do we get the ship out of here?”

 

Lucy broke off the hug, hastily setting about getting ED-3 back online, Kyle looked up at the closed hangar doors above them, and put the issue together. “...shit.”

 

“Let us not get ahead of ourselves,” Fawkes stated. “Perhaps we should see if the ship works first, before deciding whether or not we wish to move it.”

 

“Good thinking but... that field’s pretty big,” Kyle replied. “We aren’t going to be able to punch that one open, and it might ricochet a blaster bolt.”

 

Fawkes hummed aloud, shared a knowing glance with Peter, who gave him an encouraging nod, prompting Fawkes to crack his knuckles and offer the others a grin. “Leave that to me,” he said confidently.

 

While Lucy stayed behind to continue working on ED-3, Fawkes led the rest of them over to the edge of the stasis field that surrounded the ship. After a moment of calm breathing and preparation, he drew his arm back and cried out as, with a single, mighty punch, he shattered the stasis field and freed the ship from its temporal prison.

 

“...I suppose I should’ve been more specific about whose punch it was,” Kyle commented, but didn’t feel like stealing Fawkes’ thunder too much with further commentary. “Nice work.”

“Thank you,” Fawkes said with a nod. “Are there meant to be lights on the ship?”

 

Kyle looked up and, sure enough, none of the ship’s running lights were on. “Looks like the reactor was powered down, but it doesn’t look like it’s too bad. I can run over it later and-”

 

“No need!” Lucy happily interrupted, walking over with ED-3 still in her hands. “Just need to turn this on, and...”

 

The lights of the astromech flickered to life as its head spun, and its main eye swiveled around to face Lucy. A series of happy beeps and boops emanated out of the droid as it spun its head once more, this time in celebration.

 

“I’m happy to see you too buddy!” Lucy jovially said. “I’ve got a lot to catch you up on, but for now, do you think you can look at a ship for us, and make sure it’ll work?”

 

ED-3 replied with a chirping noise that was meaningless to Kyle, as he didn’t speak Binary. Lucy, on the other hand, smiled even wider as she set ED-3 down on the ground, where the droid’s head barely reached the height of her knee. With no further delay, ED-3 wheeled himself over to the Star Shield, before opening a port on his chassis and painting the ship with a holographic scanner.

 

“I think I actually understood what he said,” Peter spoke up. “...I had a droid once, but he didn’t have an accent quite like yours there.”

 

Accent? Kyle thought. While he recognized that some droids had remarkable intelligence, he ever knew they could have accents. 

 

Lucy however, seemed to be considerably less fazed, looking at ED-3 work just as a proud mother would. “He’s special, that’s why. Kyle and a few of my friends helped me upgrade him, and now he’s a lot smarter.”

 

“Like the holo-scanner?” Peter asked.

 

“And the slicing kit,” Kyle added, knowing that Peter would probably appreciate the usefulness of a tiny droid that could hack terminals.

 

“Very nice...” Peter said, watching ED-3 eagerly get to work. There was a sly grin on his lips when he turned to Kyle and quietly asked, “You sure you’ve only got just the one?”

 

As Peter spoke, ED-3 completed his scan, rolling back over to Lucy and letting off a string of beeps and boops.

“He says that the ship works, but the reactor needs to be jump-started,” Lucy explained. “...Think there’s a power pack in one of these stasis fields?”

 

“Or blasters,” Sarah added.

 

“I would not mind a replacement for my repeating blaster, preferably one with barrels that have not melted.” Fawkes commented.

 

“Astromechs, blasters, power packs...” Kyle took one look at the manifest, saw just how much was on it, and shook his head. “You know what? Looking would be faster. Just come get me if it looks dangerous, that includes droids.”

 

Sarah nodded. “Let’s get to it then.”

 

The group hastily dispersed, but Kyle stayed by Lucy’s side for an extra moment, and kept an eye on ED-3. “Is he doing okay?” he asked quietly enough for the others not to hear his whispered question.

 

ED-3 answered him with more beeps and boops, which Lucy translated. “A lot of questions, but no damage, thank the Force...”

 

Kyle gave her a firm pat on the shoulder. “First Satele, now ED-3... think we’ll find anyone else?”

 

“I hope so, but I don’t sense anyone else. I didn’t even sense Eddie...” Lucy answered. “I suppose we’ll just have to find out.”

 

With that, the two went to separate parts of the hangar, looking through everything that had frozen in time, just like them.

 

Author’s Notes: Including ED-E in this story is my penance for his death in the Catalyst Timeline, and you can thank AlphaSpartan117 for giving me the idea. Him being tiny was inspired by corgis, which are cute.

Chapter 7: Blind But Not Deaf

It took Kyle two hours to catalog all of the Republic equipment that had survived the years of neglect within the shelter of the stasis fields. He had help in the form of Fawkes, Peter, Lucy, and Sarah, who were joined later on by Val and Paulen. All of them put together their own detailed notes on what they found, which they then forwarded to Kyle, who compiled it into a total stockpile. 

 

While they didn’t find as much as Kyle had hoped for, it was a relief to see their supply situation improve at all. While ED-3 and the Star Shield were the obvious highlights, other noteworthy finds included Republic-issue blasters, much-needed ammunition, and even some rather familiar armor. 

 

Bearing a hefty weight, as well as a sharp paint scheme of white and orange, Republic Trooper Armor was something that Kyle had never worn, although he had great respect for those who did. The Troopers of the “Old Republic,” as Sarah had informed him it was now called, were the defenders of the Galaxy. Rigorously trained and impressively tough, Kyle had personally read over after action reports detailing how they would go toe-to-toe with Sith Warriors and win. Some of them had even been his friends... but now they were all gone.

 

Maybe there’s more Jedi out there somewhere, but I find it hard to believe there’s more Security Force Officers out there. Not if the Temple was wiped out. Kyle grimly postulated. It was a recurring thought for him… not just that he was likely the last of his kind, but that everyone else he knew was dead. His family, his friends, his brothers and sisters in arms, all of the Jedi that he’d worked with…

 

He shook his head to clear it, ignoring the cold sensation that ran through his blood as he resumed his work. If he slowed down, let alone stopped, he risked falling into despair; and he owed it to Lucy to not let that happen. Currently, he was double-checking their inventory to make sure that nothing had been listed twice or overlooked.

 

While he’d been busy picking through Republic Trooper Armor and the blasters they used, the rest of the Rebels had found other, more immediately useful items. Clean clothes, rucksacks, fusion lanterns, first aid kits with bacta patches, and even things as simple as flashlights. There were, however, some more questionable finds listed among the rest.

 

10 Ration Packs, with… Gizka Nuggets? Don’t remember that one on the menu, Kyle thought, unsure of what to make of the discovery but noting it down regardless. Just one left, a comms set with-

 

Kyle paused, frantically re-reading what Paulen had apparently discovered and noted down, before jogging over to the relevant table. Sure enough, there was a backpack-mounted Republic comms set, but far more importantly, there were a handful of seemingly innocuous metal chips that lay on the table beside it. Kyle hastily picked one up, shining a flashlight on them to see what was written on the chip, and couldn’t help but break a smile.

 

“You finished?” Sarah spoke up from behind him. He’d been so caught up in the discovery that he hadn’t even noticed her approaching. Taking note of his flustered expression, Sarah cocked her head curiously to one side and asked, “What... you find something good?”

 

Kyle held up the small metal plates for her to see. “Oh yeah, very good. Check these out, actual Republic encryption keys, and the algorithms to go with them. These’ll do much better than what I cobbled together for us. Of course, we’d have to get them to the Rebellion and copy them a bunch, but this should be more than enough copies for just us.”

 

Sarah blinked, eyes filled with a cautious optimism. “Secure comms would be a game changer for us… you think the Empire can crack it?”

 

“Probably, but I’m willing to bet they don’t train codebreakers on encryption schemes that are three millennia old,” Kyle reasoned. “At the very least, it’ll buy us some time.”

 

“Sounds like good news to me,” Sarah confirmed as Kyle pocketed the encryption keys. “Are you done taking inventory?”

 

Kyle nodded, noting the discovery on his datapad before tucking it back under his arm. “I’ll get a copy of this sent over to you.” He paused for a moment, eyeing Sarah curiously. “Did you need something?”

 

“I do. I know it’s getting late, but it’s important,” Sarah answered. “ED-3 and Paulen are taking a crack at that code cylinder I picked off of the Major back on Utapau. They’ve made some progress, but they asked if you could help them.”

 

Admittedly, between exhaustion, the weight of depression, and the fact that slicing was far outside of his field of expertise, Kyle wanted to refuse. He recognized it was necessary however, and gave a short nod. “Lead the way.”

 

Sarah led him back to the main hangar, and then aboard Paulen’s ship. Val was asleep in the troop bay, and Kyle noted that she was the only Rebel who had chosen to continue sleeping aboard the ship now that arguably better sleeping arrangements were available in the hangar. 

 

Kyle and Sarah did their best not to disturb her as they entered the cockpit, where they found Paulen in his pilot’s seat and ED-3 on the floor beside him. ED-3 was displaying a very complicated holographic readout, which was likely an encrypted data file of some kind. 

 

Paulen was silently reading through the mess of data when they entered, his posture slouched and dark bags beneath his eyes. When he noticed that they had entered, he jumped as though he were surprised. “Ah! ...Kyle, Sarah, good to see you. Eddie and I were just… uh, getting stuck, honestly.”

 

ED-3 sadly beeped and booped in affirmation, shaking his tiny head as Sarah weighed up what she was looking at. “Look at all this… if I’d known this was what Imperial Security had in store for us, I might’ve let that bastard keep his head. Well, for a bit longer, at least.”

 

Kyle had a look at the diagram as well, comparing the systems in use with his own knowledge, and immediately noticed a few looping patterns. “What are those recurring loops?”

 

“Scrambled data,” Paulen answered. “We’ve already tripped three security measures, and each one deleted something. We’ve been going more slowly since then.”

 

In response, ED-3 turned to face Paulen and grumpily let off a string of binary that Kyle didn’t need to speak to understand; a lecture.

 

“Hey, I’m not a slicer! You’re the one with the module for it!” Paulen defended himself hotly. It was evident that this was not the first time the pilot and droid had blamed the other for their misfortune. Paulen sent one last glare at the diminutive droid before looking up to Kyle. “Any ideas?”

 

Hand on his chin, Kyle read through everything again, then he did it again. It was tricky, as his expertise in the field of slicing extended only as far as the now ancient Jedi systems, and even then usually for whenever someone forgot a password. That being said, there was at least one idea that he had that had rather unbelievably worked for a few military systems in the past.

 

“Attempt login, admin, password,” Kyle instructed ED-3, before receiving a single negative bloop in response. “Damn... Eddie, you tried running your slicing module, right?”

 

ED-3 replied with a lengthy response, that Paulen then translated and summarized. “Yes, but it didn’t work, and he needs an extra set of hands to handle the data scramblers if you want to try it again.”

 

Kyle nodded, pulling out his datapad along with a stray bit of data cable that he’d previously been using as a charge cord. Thankfully, at least for this particular instance, he didn’t have to worry about mismatching sockets, since both ED-3 and his datapad were ancient. “You’ve got ‘em now. Plug in buddy, let’s do this.”

 

With a connection established, ED-3 began a slicing routine, and routed any security issues to Kyle, which he attempted to deal with as quickly as possible. Each one that he couldn’t stop would corrupt a part of the data, and the valuable Imperial secrets would be lost forever. It was far from his area of expertise, and one or two got past him, prompting a frustrated swear with each one.

 

ED-3 was a very different story, and the droid worked silently and with great focus as Kyle did his best to catch up. His hardware was ancient, his software even more so, but he still had a handful of key advantages. There was no Imperial Droid on the other end of the process slowing him down, and for as old as his hardware was, he still processed data a lot faster than even a sophisticated data storage device.

 

“I’ll admit, I’m lost,” Sarah commented after a while, looking at the rapidly moving holograms with a mix of bewilderment and annoyance. “Then again, I couldn’t even change the HUD color on my armor without Val’s help…”

 

“Don’t beat yourself up ma’am,” Paulen replied with a sympathetic nod. “I recognize all basic bits and... that’s about it.”

 

Kyle scowled, ignoring the distraction as he maintained his attention on the task at hand. Thankfully, the Empire of the modern period seemed to take a similar approach to electronic security as the Sith Empire, aiming their defenses against the greater threat posed by fast-thinking droids, rather than much slower organic beings such as himself. It was a good strategy, but one that came with its own vulnerabilities. Namely, a human’s slowness could do a good job at keeping certain systems busy, in essence providing a lingering distraction for his droid companion.

 

After a few minutes of barely keeping up with ED-3’s slicing, Kyle stopped receiving new security issues, and instead began a lengthy data download as ED-3 let out a happy chirp and beep. “Got it!” he declared, turning to his companions.

 

Sarah smiled at his confirmation. “Damn good to hear. What’s on it?“

 

“Good question,” Kyle half-answered, noting that the download would take at least half an hour. “It’s… a lot, I’ll say that much for certain. Eddie, see any highlights?”

 

In response, ED-3 forwarded him a broad spectrum of characters, both numbers and letters in long strings. At first, it seemed like nonsense, but the confusion didn’t last for long, as Kyle remembered something very similar that he’d found very recently.

 

Kyle let out a low whistle of astonishment. “Imperial encryption keys... looks like they’re for a command net as well. Nice work little buddy.”

 

ED-3 gave a happy chirp, spinning his head around in circles briefly as Sarah leaned over Kyle’s shoulder. “This is an Imperial Ship... Paulen, is your commset still online?”

 

Paulen shook his head. “No. Kyle shut it down first, but I made sure that the backup systems wouldn’t restart it. I could switch it back on, but we weren’t sure if the Empire could pinpoint our location using our signal.”

 

Sarah scowled, clearly running the risk against the potential rewards, before she shook her head. “Then don’t. We’ll lift off in the morning and try tapping into their comms from somewhere safe. We-”

 

Sarah was interrupted, however, by ED-3 making a number of insistent beeps and boops. Kyle and Sarah both turned to Paulen, who translated for him. “Eddie’s... got another idea. With the encryption keys, we don’t even need to connect to their net, we can just listen in and attempt to intercept what we’re looking for.”

 

“Verdant is very remote, or at least it was, back when we got frozen,” Kyle pointed out. “We’d have to be close to a major hyperlane if we’re going to hear anything.”

 

ED-3 gave a confirmative beep, taking the extra time to display a holographic starmap of the surrounding region, along with the major communication lines. Sure enough, Verdant was off the main hyperlanes, but it was also just close enough for most of its stellar orbit to pick up comm signals.

 

“Damn, you’re a smart little droid,” Sarah noted, to which ED-3 replied with an appreciative beep Sarah grinned at the little droid, then turned to Paulen and Kyle. “What about you two, think it could work?”

 

“For sure,” Kyle confirmed. “A lot of it is just waiting around, so we should set everything up tonight before we go to bed. We’ve probably missed some important stuff already, and the longer we aren’t listening, the more we’ll miss.”

 

“I can handle that, comms interception was one of the things I was trained in,” Paulen said, his expression faltering somewhat. “I guess I just never really thought that I’d ever be intercepting Imperial Comms.”

 

Kyle couldn’t help but feel a bit of sympathy for the former Imperial, who was no doubt still feeling lost after he’d narrowly dodged death at the hands of the very Empire he’d been serving. Sarah’s face bore a remarkable stillness as well, as she no doubt remembered her own experience with being betrayed.

 

“We’re damn lucky to have you Paulen,” Kyle said, reaching out and putting a hand on the man’s shoulder and putting on the most reassuring smile he could muster. “You definitely fly a lot better than me, that’s for certain.”

 

Paulen gave a small smile. “I’m glad you’re willing to admit it, it’s just... still hard to adjust.”

 

Kyle nodded, understanding completely. “It’ll get better, I’m sure of it. Do you want me to stay and help you get this set up?”

 

“Nah, I think I’ve got it covered, won’t take me too long...” Paulen answered. “Although I’ll admit, I wouldn’t mind Eddie’s help. It’s his plan, after all.”

 

ED-3 chirped and rolled over to the controls, plugging himself in and setting to work. For a moment, Kyle briefly wondered how he’d done so, given that his hardware was utterly ancient. That was when he saw the universal access data probe that ED-3 was using... the same one that Kyle himself had bought for Lucy as a gift.

 

Feeling a bit foolish and happy to blame his exhaustion, Kyle stood up and prepared to leave, now that he was seemingly not needed. “In that case, I’m going to go get some sleep.”

 

“Same here,” Sarah added. “Wake me up if something goes wrong and we have to move, got it?”

 

“Got it,” Paulen said, turning to begin his own work. “ED-3, can you help me get this panel off? We’ll need to make sure-”

Kyle didn’t hear the rest as the door closed behind him. He and Sarah parted ways before Kyle made his way back towards the hangar entrance, where Lucy had set up a shared sleeping roll for them, widened with the help of some blankets recovered from the Star Shield. 

 

Lucy was already fast asleep when he found her, and he gently slid into bed beside her, grateful for her company as he rapidly drifted off to sleep under the moonlight.

 

---

 

Lucy awoke just as the sun rose over Verdant to find that Kyle had joined her in bed sometime after she’d fallen asleep. As usual, he had his arms wrapped around her, and despite knowing that she should really get out of bed, she allowed herself to just enjoy the moment. For a few minutes, she allowed herself to rest in his arms, and rest her head against his gently moving chest as he breathed. Once she started drifting back off to sleep however, she realized that she had to get out of bed, and set about carefully untangling herself from his embrace without waking him up.

 

Once she was out of bed and was finished with her morning routine, she found that Kyle was still asleep, but that there were a few others already awake. The first three people she spotted were Val, Peter, and Fawkes, all of whom were gathered around and sitting on a few Republic military supply crates which they’d presumably dragged into the hangar. There was some kind of large mechanical device on a large hoversled beside them as well, which had certainly not been there last night.

 

Suitably curious, Lucy walked over to see Val pull a blaster carbine out of one of the crates, examining it with a look of great interest. Lucy wasn’t sure about the model, but it was definitely one of the Republic blasters that they had found yesterday.

 

“Well, it might not be what I’m looking for, but it looks like a nice blaster. Almost reminds me of the E-11, a good bit heavier though...” Val commented, before noticing that somebody was approaching. “Hey, Lucy! I don’t suppose you’re looking for a blaster?”

 

“Not right now I’m afraid,” Lucy answered, softly chuckling as an idea came to mind. “Although I think Paulen might be looking for a new one, and that one looks pretty similar to the Imperial models. Maybe he could use it?”

 

Val locked eyes with her for a moment, processing Lucy’s unspoken message along with what she’d said, and giving Lucy a nod of understanding as she holstered the weapon. “...Good thinking.”

 

“You two are smart women, you know. The fastest way to a man’s heart is a good blaster,” Peter dryly noted with the same lack of discretion he’d given Lucy and Kyle while they’d been celebrating ED-3’s rediscovery. Fitting to Peter’s words, he had a new blaster of his own, a marksman’s rifle of some kind that he was inspecting.

 

Fawkes turned to face Peter with a look of perplexity. “Is that a metaphor, or a statement of fact?”

 

“It was... hmm...” Peter paused, as though he hadn’t thought of that.

 

“You’re gonna find out real soon if you don’t mind your own bloody business,” Val pointedly noted as she meaningfully glared at Peter.

 

“Just tryin’ to help!” Peter chuckled, momentarily looking up to raise his hands in mock surrender. “Here, I’ll prove it; check these out. There isn’t a single pilot out there in the whole Galaxy who wouldn’t love these…”

 

He reached into the crate before him and pulled out a pair of striking aviator sunglasses, which he promptly passed to Val. She looked at them for a moment, before smiling and pocketing them.

 

“...Alright, I believe you. Sorry if I was a bit harsh…” Val said before turning to Lucy. “Say Lucy, you wouldn’t know where I could find spare parts for the Star Shield’s navicomputer, would you?”

 

I suppose that explains what that thing is, Lucy thought, looking at the contraption on the hoversled with newfound understanding. “I’m afraid not. I would offer up the one from my Starfighter, but, well…” she trailed off, blushing lightly and offering him a bashful grin. “I left it at the Jedi Temple a few millennia ago.”

 

“Yeah... something tells me you’re not getting that back,” Peter commented. “Even Fawkes and I couldn’t get through Coruscant's checkpoints, and that was before the Death Star was destroyed and security ramped up.”

 

The Death Star. The words ran through her mind, and she felt renewed sorrow at what she had learned. Whilst they’d been working the previous day, Sarah had told her and Kyle about what the Death Star actually was, and how the Empire had used their planet-killing superweapon to destroy Alderaan. It had hit them both like a bullet, and Lucy was still having a hard time processing the loss.

 

Pushing aside her lingering grief, Lucy replied. “I actually meant the Temple on Tython, but I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that the Jedi moved back to Coruscant once they got the chance.”

 

“I’ve never heard of Tython,” Val stated, and a glance showed her that both Peter and Fawkes were wearing similar looks of confusion. “What’s it like?”

Lucy sat down beside Val as she answered her question. “Very rich with the Force... my Master, Satele, taught me that it’s the homeworld of the Jedi. It’s an old world, with an awful lot of mysteries that we never got the chance to solve, at least, not as far as I know. It’s also very green, kind of like Verdant.”

 

“What about the temple you mentioned? Is it like the one on Coruscant?” Peter asked. He was sitting forward, eyeing her curiously. Evidently, her story had even captured the seasoned smuggler’s attention.

 

“The Temple itself was built on the foundations of an old one,” Lucy explained. “It was pretty small compared to the one on Coruscant, I had to park my Starfighter pretty far away to free up the main hangars. It wasn’t a pyramid either, far more rounded.”

 

Val nodded along to what Lucy was saying even as she resumed her search for spare parts. “Do you think that there might still be stuff for us to use there, like in this base?”

 

“What, is that thing not enough for you to tinker with?” Peter asked, gesturing at the sizable navicomputer beside her.

 

“This thing’s astromech territory, I’m much better with engines, repulsorlifts, that kind of thing,” Val replied with a roll of her eyes. Then she cocked her head and turned to Lucy. “Actually, come to think of it... Lucy, does ED-3 have astronav capabilities?”

 

Lucy shook her head. “He does, but it’s not very good. He’s too little to fit an astrogation buffer, so I’d usually just program in where we were going on my own with the navicomputer, and let Eddie double-check my work. After I met Kyle, he’d do it.”

 

Val must have noticed her smile, as she shot a sly grin at Peter. “Oi, take notes flyboy. Fastest way to a woman’s heart? A man who can pull his weight.”

 

Peter paused, a look of mild annoyance flashing across his face, before a bit more contemplation took over his features. “...Duly noted. Now, what’s wrong with your navicomputer?”

 

“Wait just a sec...” Val said, turning to reach into the device, before pulling out one of the few components Lucy would’ve recognized. A small cubic device covered in status lights and circuity, small enough to fit in a palm. “This. The starpath unit’s not even powering on. It was probably broken even before they put it in stasis.”

“They ran a preservation experiment on something that was already broken?” Peter rhetorically asked, gesturing for Val to pass over the device, which she did. He gave the device a soft shake, and what sounded like jingling broken glass could be heard. “Ah, there we go, broken Vector Crystal. No fixing that, we need a new one.”

 

“I know that!” Val pointed out. “I’m just wondering where the hell we’re going to find a new one… outside of a museum.”

 

Lucy frowned upon hearing that, considering her own limited knowledge of starpath modules. They only needed a single crystal about a centimeter in diameter, which needed to be both reflective and shatter resistant. As fortune would have it, Lucy had a solution sitting in one of her back pockets, but that was precisely the issue.

 

The synthetic lightsaber crystal was one that she’d had plans for, especially after she’d destroyed the Inquisitor’s Lightsaber. Her plan had been to make a new one alongside Kyle which he could use, and that she could teach him with. She could still teach him using her own, but it would be a far cry from him having his own.

 

While Val and Peter, with Fawkes’ moderation, argued about whether or not the idea of finding another Old Republic-era Starpath was even possible, Lucy wound her hand down to take hold of the crystal between her fingers. It was lifeless, but strong. Likely grown in an Imperial Lab, specifically for the Inquisitor’s usage, rather than being a natural crystal like a Jedi’s.

 

A part of her wanted to be selfish, to retain the crystal for her own purposes... and scowled as she fought that desire down. A second lightsaber would be helpful, but not as helpful as the Star Shield, and the Rebels needed every ship they could get. A part of her was upset that she was even having the debate at all, as any other Jedi wouldn’t have thought twice about it. 

 

“Let me see it,” Lucy stated. Peter obligingly handed her the device, which she opened. She flipped it upside down and dumped the shattered fragments of the crystal out into her glove, pocketing them as she replaced it with the Synthetic lightsaber crystal. The fit was a little uneven, and it was a little too big for the socket, but the extra material wouldn’t likely cause any issues. It clicked into place, and Lucy handed the Starpath Module back to Val with a nod. “Try now.”

 

Val and Peter looked at her with bewilderment, and as Val took the device and reinstalled it, Peter spoke up. “Where the hell did you get that?”

 

“Inquisitor's Lightsaber,” Lucy answered. “There’s two more on the other side of the hangar, but I don’t think they’d work... too full of darkness.”

 

Peter nodded, and against what Lucy would have preferred, immediately stood up to retrieve them. Her expression must have conveyed her feelings, because Peter shrugged as he walked to the other side of the hangar. “What? Not gonna let ‘em go to waste...”

 

Fawkes also seemed to notice Lucy’s attitude, and despite his inability to form complex facial expressions, she could see that he was a bit more concerned than Peter had been. “Are they dangerous?”

 

Lucy paused, considering her answer carefully. To her, holding those crystals had been like reliving the last moments of everyone the Inquisitor had ever slain with his lightsaber. To Peter, they were likely no different than any other crystals, albeit potentially somewhat ominous given their origin. He wasn’t Force Sensitive, nobody else in the Lyons’ Pride was, and that meant that he was all but blind to the evil contained within them. A small mercy, sharply undercut by the tragedy that he was equally blind to the light that the Force could have offered him.

 

It took her more contemplation then she would have expected to find her answer to Fawkes’ question. Finally she just offered him a simple shrug and said, “Only in the wrong hands.”

 

Fawkes nodded as a moment later, Val switched the navicomputer back online. Status lights came back to life as she smiled. “Huh… works perfectly. Thanks Lucy!”

 

“No problem,” Lucy replied, smiling softly even though she did feel a bit of disappointment about the blow to her plan. I suppose I could help Kyle forge another... if I knew how.

 

Whilst she was thinking, she sensed a familiar presence walk up behind her, and she turned to see a very groggy-looking Kyle joining them. “Mornin’.”

 

Peter returned to the group and spared Kyle a look of sympathy as he sat down again. “...You’re not a morning person, are you?”

 

“No,” Kyle answered, sitting down beside Lucy and leaning into her shoulder, a gesture which she echoed. “What’d I miss?”

 

“Lucy helped me fix the navicomputer for the Star Shield,” Val answered.

 

Kyle gave Lucy a pat on the shoulder and a smile. “Nice work, you two. If that was the only thing that was broken, we just have to find a way to get it out of there...”

 

“I believe that Glade had a plan to burn away the forest above the door,” Fawkes spoke up. “Although that could spread out of control. Perhaps cutting a path manually could be the best way, but it would take a great deal of time.”

 

“I appreciate the optimism, but getting this base back online without a couple hundred extra pairs of hands is a fantasy,” Val stated far less optimistically. “What we need is support, we can’t do this on our own.”

 

“It will have to wait.”

 

Everyone around turned to see Sarah, who had a stern look of concern on her face. While Lucy had sensed that somebody else was approaching, she had been focused enough on the conversation that she hadn’t noticed who it was.

 

“What’s going on?” Val asked.

 

“I’ll explain once Paulen gets here,” Sarah answered. “He’s getting Tristan right now, who’ll get everyone else, but we’ve had a major development.”

 

A few minutes passed as, slowly and steadily, everyone at the base gathered around Sarah. Even ED-3 showed up and quickly found a seat in Lucy’s lap. Paulen was the last to arrive, settling in beside Val as the Rebel Leader pulled a holo projector out of her pocket. 

 

“Last night, Paulen, Eddie, and Kyle were able to decrypt the code cylinder we pulled off of the scum-sucking bastard back on Utapau. They found a lot of information, including Imperial Encryption Keys. We set up a signal interceptor aboard the ship overnight, and we managed to pick something up.”

 

There was murmuring throughout the group. Lucy felt a good deal of curiosity, accompanied by anxiety. She had a suspicion that whatever they had found, it wasn’t good, and Sarah’s expression only reinforced that notion.

 

“The bad news is that solar radiation and Hyperspace Anomalies killed a lot of what we were trying to pick up; but the good news…” Sarah said, setting the holo projector on the ground and turning on the device’s playback function. “…is that we got this.”

 

Two blue holograms steadily came into view as the device crackled, making unintelligible noise that slowly became more coherent. The garbled sounds of static became speech, and the holograms steadily took on the form of a pair of Imperials. One wore a uniform not entirely unlike what Paulen had been wearing; a drab, flat, unarmored uniform with a simple cap and bars denoting his rank on his chest, an officer of some kind. 

 

The other wore armor very similar to the Stormtroopers that Lucy and the Rebels had fought on Utapau, but with a different helmet. It featured a protective sun visor, and a single unified black window instead of the twin eyes of the typical helmets. One of the Rebels muttered something about a “Scout Trooper,” but this helmet was also adorned with additional markings, ones that Lucy didn’t recognize. 

 

The armored figure spoke first, standing professionally yet aggressively with a deep voice that was filtered by his helmet. “-...do not believe you appreciate the significance of our situation, Captain. A surviving Jedi is no laughing matter, and neither is a dead Inquisitor. I need more men.”

 

The officer spoke in response, and Lucy immediately recognized the voice as the Captain of the Star Destroyer Tyranny . The same man they’d managed to bluff while arriving on Utapau, and still speaking the same obnoxious high galactic accent. “I appreciate your concerns, Agent Shepherd, but I have given you all the men that I can spare. You’ve seen the riots for yourself! I cannot divert men from their stations without leaving checkpoints unmanned and facilities vulnerable!”

 

“Then I need you to make do,” Agent Shepherd sternly said. “I don’t care if you need to call in offworld reinforcements and I don’t care who they are. If we don’t track down that Jedi, Lord Vader will be... displeased with us.”

 

The Captain’s expression shifted from indignant to somewhat sheepish as he replied. “You give me too little credit, Agent. I have already petitioned Lord Vader for assistance with this Jedi but he is... ah, attending to more important matters. You have an entire regiment of Stormtroopers and a flight of fighters, how can one man give you enough difficulty that such a force is insufficient?”

 

Man? Lucy thought, raising an annoyed eyebrow.

 

“I see you neglected to read the case file I’ve established for the suspect...” Shepherd grumbled, shaking his head in disappointment. “You’re forgetting that I have to cover an entire planet, and Dauphin’s Army Troops are just playthings for the insurgents we’re already having to deal with. I have no idea what he was thinking, ordering that crackdown right after the mess with Alderaan...”

 

The recording unexpectedly began to crackle and distort, but returned quickly, seemingly at a later point in time.

 

“-suppose I should’ve known better than to rely on a Pendergast,” Shepherd’s tone was accusatory, his posture aggressive. “How much did that officer’s commission cost your father? He clearly paid too little.”

 

Despite his hologram’s completely blue appearance, Lucy could tell that Captain Pendergast was red in the face. “And I should have known better than to expect professional conduct from the Investigations Branch! I’m surprised you’re not out there groveling at the Rebels’ feet, basking in their so-called strategic brilliance !”

 

Shepherd shook his head. “Unless you’d like to end up like Dauphin did, I suggest you stop underestimating our enemy. Perhaps you’d like to come down here and help my men look for the rest of him?”

 

Penderghast raised an eyebrow. “Our men protecting transfers to the labor camp are shorthanded, and you have your men searching for the remains of one officer? How do you know they weren’t crushed underfoot by one of those beasts?!”

 

Through the Force, Lucy physically felt the chill run down the spine of every Rebel present, especially Kyle, not to mention herself. The crackdown had been ordered by Dauphin, but it had been their fault, and now the people of Utapau were being sent to a labor camp by their Imperial occupiers. A dark fury tugged at her mind, but she brushed it aside perhaps a bit more aggressively than she was comfortable with.

 

“His body is case critical evidence, and I have yet to determine if his code cylinder was taken. If it was, we’re in a lot more trouble,” Shepherd argued. “And my men are doing a lot more down here than the Troopers aboard your ship, Captain . Unless you’re afraid that your Destroyer isn’t going to stand up to a stolen shuttle?”

 

Pendergast narrowed his eyes. “I’ve had enough of this! And certainly enough of you, Agent! Your request for reinforcements is denied, I have nothing to give you! Now get back to work!”

 

The holo projector turned off a moment later, presumably marking where the transmission ended. Sarah faced them all with a serious look. “So, now that you’re all caught up to speed, I’d like to brief you all on the plan going forward. We’re going to be hitting that labor camp, but we can’t be stupid about this. First off, Paulen? I’m going to need you and your ship to stick around, at least for the time being.”

 

Paulen nodded. “I can get you where you need to go, but, uh… where’s that?”

 

“The edge of the Fondor system. We’re going to take the place of our relay satellite and get back into contact with the Rebellion, or at least with Cheyenne Company. We’ll let them know that we’re still in the fight, but that we need support, and that we’ve got a golden opportunity to hit the Empire while they’re down,” Sarah explained. 

 

“Cheyenne Company?” Kyle asked, voicing the question on both his and Lucy’s minds.

 

“Our sister cell. We were in contact with them before we were overrun on Fondor. I can’t tell you who they are or where they’re operating from, but I know they can help us,” Sarah answered, before turning to continue her debriefing. “I’ll be taking a few of you with me, but everyone else needs to start preparing for a fight. We’re going back to Utapau and we’re getting those people out of chains. No ifs, ands, or buts.”

 

Judging by the silence in the hangar that met Sarah’s words, and the steady sense of determination in the air, Lucy could guess that she was never going to receive any objections.

 

Sarah nodded, seemingly pleased. “Good. I’ll have more detailed orders for you all soon, but go get your breakfast... there’s no sense in taking on the Empire with an empty stomach.”

 

The group replied with murmurs of agreement, gradually standing up and making their way over to the kitchen. But Kyle remained, and Lucy along with him, and she didn’t need the Force to know what he was thinking about.

 

“We’re going to make this right, Kyle,” She reassured him, taking his hand into her own. “And we’ve got some backup along for the ride.”

 

Kyle nodded, but his hollow tone betrayed his doubts even before his words did. “I hope so.”

Chapter 8: Slowed But Not Stopped

The cockpit of Paulen’s ship was dominated by a sense of quiet anxiety as the four occupants braced themselves for what they might find at their destination. The trip to the Fondor System had been long and quiet, and Lucy had attempted to pass the time with Meditation, with frustratingly little success. There was simply too much on her mind for her to find peace.

 

Sitting beside her in the Pilot’s seat was Paulen, who maintained a strong calmness as he kept an eye on the ship’s instruments. Even with the Force, It was hard to gauge whether or not his confidence was genuine, or simply an act put on to reassure his passengers. Regardless, Lucy was willing to believe that Paulen was being sincere; he seemed like the type of man to be honest.

 

Behind them in the other two seats were Sarah and Tristan. The Force around them radiated with immense anxiety, even fear, as they idly inspected their weapons. Fondor was once their home; a home that they had been forced out of as the vast majority of their friends and allies were killed. Now Fondor languished under the boot of the Empire, the planet’s vast shipyards cranking out ships for the very military that oppressed it.

 

The Jedi Code preached harmony, serenity, and peace; but Lucy found it hard to not share Sarah and Tristan’s mindsets. The great darkness in the Force was blinding, choking, and it was hard to see the light through it all. The fact that she and Kyle were also responsible for inspiring a crackdown on Utapau, resulting in the enslaving of what was likely a great number of people... it was all that she could do to remain calm.

 

Feeling antsy and impatient, Lucy finally caved and asked the question that they were all thinking… “How much further?”

 

Paulen checked his instruments. “About ten minutes. I’ve programmed our jump to end outside of the normal step-off point. I’d put us closer to your satellite, but we’d risk colliding with the moon.”

 

“We’ll take safety over convenience,” Sarah noted. “Tristan, anything on the comms?”

 

Tristan looked up from the backpack-mounted Old Republic comms set that he was tinkering with, moving his headset off of one ear to speak with them. “I’ve still gotten nothing from our satellite; we should assume the Outcasts told the Empire where it was... Let’s hope they didn’t decide to leave anyone to watch for any returning Rebels.”

“What about Imperial Traffic?” Lucy asked. Thanks to the encryption keys that Paulen had found, and some joint work between him and Kyle modifying their comm set, Imperial Comms were currently more accessible to them than the Rebel ones were.

 

“Seems quiet,” Tristan answered. “A lot of protocol and business being done on the shipyard nets, and nothing exciting on the command net either. Unless they somehow know we’re listening to their comms, I don’t think they’re expecting company.”

 

Sarah nodded as she took in the information. “Then with any luck, we can be in and out of here without a fight.”

 

“Leave that to me,” Paulen confidently stated, scanning over his console when a proximity alarm sounded. “Looks like we’re almost there. Seatbelts on everyone, if the Empire’s waiting for us, I’m not going to be able to get away from them by flying casually.”

 

“What if they have an Interdictor?” Sarah asked, and Lucy stifled a groan of frustration. Of course this new Empire had their own Interdictors.

 

“I doubt it, they can barely afford to keep ‘em up around Imperial Center. Too expensive to build and maintain, and they need ‘em for the frontline,” Paulen reassured her. “Assuming we do, we let them drag us in, and then Lucy can kill all of them, and we’ll steal the ship.”

 

“Good plan.” Sarah nodded before Lucy could interject.

 

“I’m honored that you think I’m that good, but I’m no Hero of Tython,” Lucy pointed out. “Those creatures back on Utapau nearly killed me, I don’t think I’d do well against a whole ship’s crew!”

 

“Let’s just hope we don’t have to put your skills to the test,” Tristan commented, to which Lucy gave an approving nod.

 

Their discussion was cut short by Paulen, who spoke up as he reached for a control lever on his console. “We’re here, standby...”

 

Paulen pulled the lever, and their ship returned to normal space on the outskirts of the Fondor System. Paulen immediately reduced the ship’s power output to the point where even the lights in the cockpit dimmed. This was a part of the plan, as the Phi-class apparently had limited stealth capabilities, and avoiding a fight would be critical for their mission.

 

Fondor itself was visible from their position through the viewport, but appeared to be quite small because of their immense distance. Even so, the shipyards could still barely be seen, along with small dots that slowly glided around the massive structures. Judging by the apparent size of the shipyards, and the distance they were at, those dots were likely an entire squadron of Star Destroyers.

 

“There’s a lot more than when we left...” Sarah mused as she looked back towards her former home, her tone dejected and quiet. “They’re probably building more as well.”

 

“Easy, Sarah, Focus,” Paulen softly said, bringing her back into the present. “You said your satellite was orbiting Craster, right? That’s the red moon?”

 

“...Right,” Sarah confirmed, her voice still hollow as she spoke. “There’s a few small settlements on the surface, but at least when we left there wasn’t anything military. Still, there’s probably a few patrols around the whole system, so keep us in the dark.”

 

Paulen nodded, giving a quick thumbs up. “Can do.”

 

With limited use of the ship’s engines, they began the slow trip towards Craster. Four hours of miserable quiet passed by, interrupted only by the occasional light conversation, or by concerns that they’d been spotted. When they finally achieved a stable orbit over Craster, Paulen leaned forward intently, making small adjustments to their flight as they remained in low power mode.

 

“I’m not reading your satellite on passive scanners, and I’m not dumb enough to try the active ones,” Paulen reported.

Tristan held up a finger to give himself an extra moment as he listened to the comm set, likely searching for the satellite, but shook his head. “It’s gone then, I would have certainly heard the recovery beacon by now. The Empire must have found it.”

“Then let’s send our message before they come back,” Sarah said firmly. “Tristan, patch us through to the old channel... let’s see if anyone’s still listening.”

 

Lucy waited in silence as Tristan and Paulen worked in conjunction to establish the connection. Predictably, connecting Old Republic hardware to Galactic Empire systems was a substantial challenge, but, thanks to a bit of jury rigging, not impossible. After a few minutes of work, Tristan passed her the handset attached to the comm backpack. “You’re on.”

 

Sarah held her thumb down on the transmitter, breathing deeply before she spoke. “Cheyenne Relay, this is Lyon’s Den. Do you read? Over.”

 

An eerie silence greeted them in response. Ten seconds passed, then twenty, and then a minute. Sarah repeated her message two more times, each more urgently than the last. Lucy, Paulen, and Tristan remained silent, their own private doubts present, but unspoken for their leader’s sake.

 

Finally, after two minutes of silence, a man’s voice replied to them, a cautious optimism permeating his words. “ Lyon’s Den, this is Cheyenne Actual... Is that you Sarah?”

 

The tension in the air seemed to crack apart like ice in springtime as Sarah smiled, a single tear running down her cheek before she brushed it away. “Affirmative Cheyenne Actual... It’s damn good to hear your voice, Charlie.”

 

“Took the words right outta my mouth,” Charlie said. “We thought you were dead, is your cell still active?”

 

“Barely, and not on Fondor anymore,” Sarah answered. “I’ll explain more later. I don’t know how long we can maintain our position, we’re in the Empire’s backyard right now.”

 

Charlie paused for a few moments, no doubt processing what she had said, before replying. “Sounds like we better be quick then, I’m listening ma’am.”

 

“I need a new relay satellite, and some stealth-capable transports with enough seats for the Lyon’s Pride... we’re all that’s left,” Sarah explained quickly. “I know it’s a lot to ask, and I know you had your own issues, but we’re sitting on an opportunity to launch a massive prison break on Utapau.”

 

Charlie was silent for a good few seconds before he replied, his voice quiet and soft. “...Is it really just your squad now, Sarah? What about your father? Is he...”

 

Lucy resisted the urge to flinch at the utter fury that spiked in Sarah’s mind as she answered through gritted teeth, “He’s dead. The Empire paraded his corpse through the streets after they beheaded him.”

 

There was a moment of tense silence between all five of them, and Lucy was left wondering if there was anything she could do to help. But with surprising speed, Sarah calmed her nerves, breathed deeply, and continued to speak as clearly as she could manage.

 

“Things aren’t looking good Charlie, and my team’s not in great shape, but you know I wouldn’t lead them into a suicide mission,” Sarah stated. “We found a Jedi Charlie! She helped us get somewhere safe, and now she can help us hit the Empire where it hurts! I just need-”

 

“Alright,” Charlie interrupted her, a noteworthy unease in his tone. “You’ll get your satellite, and your ships, but I’ll warn you now. We’ll need this favor returned in the future… And probably sooner rather than later. Things haven’t been great for us either.”

 

Sarah’s sigh of relief pretty accurately summarized Lucy’s own feelings on the matter. “We won’t let you down Charlie. Can you meet us at Rally Point Lookout? ”

 

“Lookout?” Paulen spoke up for the first time, before Tristan silently gestured for him to be quiet.

“We can do that,” Charlie confirmed. “I’ve got a pair of U-Wings I can send, but I’m short on pilots. I can send one and have an astromech ferry the second, but you’ll have to find a man to fly it.”

 

Sarah spared a brief glimpse at Paulen, before turning back to her handset. “We’ve got one on hand, the same guy who got us this Imperial Shuttle. We’ll try to rig a friendly IFF tonight, so don’t shoot us when we reach the rally point, got it?”

 

“Got it,” Charlie confirmed. “I’ll have your ships inbound in two days. Just remember, you owe me one, got it Lyons’ Den?”

 

“Understood Cheyenne Actual,” Sarah fell back into the typical comms disciplines with well-practiced ease, as though she had never left them. “We’ll be in touch, out.”

 

The line went silent, and Sarah returned the handset to the comm backpack as she fastened her seatbelt again. Paulen returned his attention to his instruments and set about returning them to action when a warning light began to blink on his console.

 

“What’s that?” Lucy asked, although she was afraid that she already knew the answer.

 

“Passive warning sensor, that’s gotta be an Imperial Patrol,” Paulen answered, before flicking a pair of switches and examining the resulting readout. “Two strike craft, probably TIEs, heading right towards us!”

 

TIE Fighters. The term rang familiar in Lucy’s mind, and she quickly remembered why. She and Kyle had been given some brief instruction by the Rebels on some of what was going on in the Galaxy. One of those lessons pertained to imperial Military units, and one of the most common of those was the TIE/LN Starfighter. It apparently served a similar doctrine to the Mark VI Supremacy Class Starfighters that the Sith Empire had fielded, and which Lucy had personally fought against. However, she had been in a small, nimble starfighter during those fights, not a shuttle craft which she wasn’t even flying.

 

“Can we outrun them?” Sarah asked, echoing Lucy’s own suggested strategy.

 

Paulen’s expression had barely shifted from the calmness that he’d displayed earlier, and although Lucy could sense a strong conflict within him, the pilot’s hands worked with a professional and practiced ease. “No, but we can fight.”

“In a shuttle?!” Sarah demanded, looking at him as though he were crazy.

 

“In my shuttle,” he corrected coolly, then barked, “Strep yourselves in!” He didn’t bother looking to see if his crew were obeying or not, instead focused on the instruments before him as his hands danced over the consoles nimbly. He muttered under his breath, seemingly to himself, “Time for a dogfight...”

 

Paulen didn’t wait for them to comply, gunning the throttle and causing them to rapidly accelerate as Sarah hastily put on her seatbelt. Lucy was pressed backwards into her own seat as Paulen turned on a dime, directing them towards the incoming fighters at a closing speed that only rapidly increased. In the distance, Lucy could see the pair of enemy fighters bearing down on them, with one trailing behind the leader’s right flank.

 

“You’re taking them head on?!” Tristan demanded, looking at Paulen like had gone crazy.

 

“Let him work,” Lucy reassured him. As much as she had her own doubts about what Paulen was doing, she also knew that distracting their pilot wasn’t going to do them any good.

The distance between their ship and the TIEs continued to close as Paulen reached for the trigger at far beyond effective range, without even having a target lock. With a steady hand, he fired three bursts of green laser blasts at the lead TIE, which was seemingly caught off-guard, and forced to roll out of the way. The TIEs blew past them on either side, the screeching of their engines momentarily audible as the wingman veered off from the game of chicken. Neither he nor the flight leader attempted to shoot back, seemingly more focused on avoiding being hit themselves. Given that Lucy had learned how they weren’t very durable, this made perfect sense; a fighter with shields would’ve likely not been so sheepish.

 

The craft were rapidly heading away from each other, but Lucy could see on the sensors that the TIEs were quickly turning around to engage their rear. In response, Paulen pulled back on the stick and twisted them around, bringing them about in a surprisingly abrupt Immelmann turn. Lucy was pushed back into her seat as she watched out of the front viewport as Paulen prepared to engage the TIEs once more.

 

“Needed more speed... but now we’ve got it,” Paulen noted as he locked onto the first TIE Fighter. The firing computer locked onto the target rapidly, and the wingtip guns spoke as they gimbaled onto the flight leader, firing a burst of bright green bolts as the TIEs returned fire. 

 

Lucy watched as the shuttle’s viewport was momentarily overtaken by green fire, burning away their deflector screens and forcing Paulen into a roll to evade further fire and certain destruction. His own shots were already fired, however, and through the now-clear viewport Lucy watched the first TIE Fighter detonate in a spectacular explosion. A few small pieces of debris clattered off of the shuttle’s hull like metal rain as they blew past the wreckage.

 

“Nice work, but we won’t survive another hit like that,” Sarah noted, a restrained note of panic in her voice.

 

“We won’t need to, we’ve got speed now,” Paulen replied as they began another turn to merge. 

 

Lucy watched on the ship’s sensors as the last TIE Fighter mirrored their movements, preparing for one final clash before Paulen executed a roll mid-turn. Again, the TIE matched them, and suddenly Lucy could see his strategy. Rather than facing the enemy pilot head-on in a joust-like fight, Paulen would match them in a rolling scissors maneuver. 

 

The distance closed and Lucy, Sarah, and Tristan waited with bated breath for the confrontation. However, Lucy noticed the same thing that Paulen had almost certainly planned for; their speed was now better than the TIE’s. Again, Paulen locked the target, exploiting their now-superior speed to get the first shot off. He pulled the trigger, and the second TIE was blown apart in a great ball of fire.

 

Paulen let out a low breath as he continued to accelerate, turning to leave the system. “Scratch two. There’s a few others on the long-range scanner, but we’ll be gone by the time they arrive.”

 

“Nice work!” Lucy complimented the pilot, causing him to smile with a small degree of pride. Still, she sensed a quiet solemnness in him, and pieced together why quickly. Less than a month ago, he had flown under the same banner as the two pilots whose lives he had just ended. It was an experience that Lucy had never known, and one she hoped she would never have to.

 

Sarah looked as though she were still having a hard time processing that they’d won. “...What kind of shuttle is this?”

 

“One designed in a Galaxy dominated by Headhunters and X-Wings,” Paulen simply answered. In spite of his victory his voice was cold and stiff, the voice of a man grappling with his own internal struggles “We’re clear of the moon’s gravity well. Stand by for jump in three, two, one...”

 

---

 

Night had fallen over the Base on Verdant when the shuttle returned to the hangar. Lucy walked down the ramp to find Kyle and Peter were waiting for them to return. Naturally, it took about a third of a second before Kyle had her in his arms, hugging her firmly as he frantically spoke.

“I know you told me not to worry, but I couldn’t help it,” he said as Lucy gently hugged him back, recognizing that he needed reassurance. “Besides, it’s not like I was the only one either. Peter was worried too.”

 

“Yeah, but I wasn’t losing my mind over it,” Peter grumbled, before turning to Lucy. “I did my best to keep him busy while you were gone, but there’s only so much you can do about that kind of anxiety.”

 

“Thank you,” Lucy replied. Admittedly, she’d known that Kyle was going to be anxious about her leaving, especially without him coming along. Even so, Sarah had been right when she mentioned her plans to escape if they had gotten boarded. While Lucy still wasn’t sure that she would have been able to win such a battle, she recognized that as a Jedi Knight, she certainly stood a better chance of pulling off such a feat than anyone else.

 

Kyle’s face reddened as he processed that everyone was staring at him, and sternly defended himself from Peter’s teasing accusation. “You were in Imperial Territory, I had good reason to be worried!”

“He’s not wrong, we ended up running into an Imperial Patrol,” Sarah pointed out, before clasping Paulen on the shoulder. “But thanks to our pilot, we made it home just fine.”

 

“I became a transport pilot partly to avoid dogfights, you know,” Paulen noted. “...but it was nice to be reminded that I still have the skills.”

 

“You did well,” Sarah reassured him as she gave the man another pat on the shoulder, before turning to address Peter. “We managed to get into contact with Charlie, and he agreed to help us out. I want to discuss it with you tonight, at least briefly.”

 

Peter nodded. “Works for me, we have a few things to show you as well.”

 

Peter, Sarah, and Tristan quickly left. Paulen moved to walk away as well, before Kyle spoke up, his voice rich with concern. “You got in a dogfight?”

 

Paulen nodded. “We got attacked by two TIE Fighters. It was a little tricky, but it worked out in the end.”

 

Lucy couldn’t help but feel disheartened at just how shaky Kyle sounded, let alone how he felt through the Force. He was an anxious person by nature, but this kind of extreme worry was unusual even for him. Paulen seemingly noticed as well, looking at Kyle with a concerned look of his own as Lucy rested a hand on Kyle’s shoulder, hoping to change the subject. “What has Peter been having you do?”

Kyle perked up a little bit at her words. “We’ve been going through the data from Major Dauphin’s Code Cylinder, and we’ve found a lot.”

 

Kyle led her and Paulen in the same direction the others had gone, where they found Peter and Val standing beside ED-3, who was using his holo projector to display an image of an Imperial facility to Sarah and Tristan. 

 

The main structure itself was a brutish, ugly monolith; little more than a large duracrete cube surrounded by a perimeter wall. A series of sizable landing pads stood just beyond the wall, overlooked by a pair of watchtowers. Past the landing pads was nothing but vast and open grasslands, which would be very hard to hide in. There was a river visible at the edge of the hologram, but Lucy’s attention was captured by the laser cannons mounted on the facility’s roof.

 

“Shall we begin?” Peter asked as he looked at Sarah, who nodded her approval. “Kyle and I have been working on combing through the data we found on Major Dauphin’s Code Cylinder, while Val and ED-3 have been trying to recover what we lost. Sarah has also just told me that Charlie’s promised us some stealth-capable transports.”

 

“If I may,” Val interjected, and Peter nodded. “Our biggest concern is obviously the Star Destroyer in orbit, but now that we have the U-Wings, getting into the planet’s atmosphere shouldn’t be too much of an issue, so long as we keep our distance. The long-range scanners on a Star Destroyer are more concerned with ranging for the guns than anything else.”

 

Peter nodded, and continued what he was saying. “In addition to the Imperial Encryption Keys, we’ve also found this, a complete map readout and garrison assignment of the Empire’s Labor Camp on Utapau. As best as we can tell, this is the only facility of its kind on the entire planet, and is currently being flooded with the civilians who were arrested during the sweep of Pau City that was happening as we left.”

 

Lucy felt a pang of guilt, but swiftly buried it. She couldn’t afford to get distracted now. Kyle however, seemed to be having more difficulty, his mind a veritable storm in the Force. Lucy discretely took his hand into hers, and gave it a reassuring squeeze as Peter continued to speak.

 

“The prison’s garrison is substantial, we can expect to find a lot of Army regulars, backed up by Stormtroopers. The Empire also uses Sentinel Shuttles to ferry the captured civilians to the Labor Camp, which with any luck, we can use to evacuate the slaves once we free them. There’s also a pair of Occupier Tanks which they use as cargo transports, and we can expect to have to destroy them.”

 

ED-3 added holographic examples of the occupier tanks to the display. Much like the building itself, the vehicles were brutish; they were short and angular, used tracks instead of repulsorlifts or wheels, and featured forward-facing laser cannons.

 

While Lucy was busy inspecting the vehicles, Peter continued. “The prison is equipped with mid-range scanners and an array of anti-aircraft laser cannons. Val, do you think there’s any chance that we can secure a landing within the prison complex?”

 

Val immediately shook her head. “Not a chance. U-Wings don’t have the firepower to suppress a whole gun battery, and at that close range the scanners could probably overpower the stealth systems.”

 

“And I hadn’t even gotten to the planet’s TIE Garrison yet...” Peter grumbled, clearly in deep thought. “In that case, we’ll have to go to the backup plan, and find enough firepower to break our way in on the ground. Fortunately for us, the Empire has a Weapons Development Facility right next door to the Labor Camp. It’s about a five kilometer walk, and from what we can tell, the Empire uses the slave labor to build their weapons.”

 

ED-3 zoomed the hologram out to show that across a bridge on the river and down a winding dirt road was a second Imperial compound. Unlike the Labor Camp, this facility was largely open to the air, although it too was surrounded by a high-standing duracrete security wall. A pair of watchtowers manned opposite corners of the facility, and within the wall were a dozen small structures, along with a large scaffolding erected around what looked like a giant humanoid being.

 

“Is that a statue?” Lucy asked, her mind immediately drawn back to one of the most defining elements of the Sith: vanity . Across their temples, academies, military bases, and even their cities, the Sith were happy to erect massive monuments to their own grandeur. Admittedly, the Jedi had also also been prone to displays of vanity in Lucy’s time, and she wasn’t sure if that had changed for the better or the worse while she’d been gone.

 

“...I guess it does kind of look like one. But no, what you’re looking at is a next generation Imperial battle droid,” Peter answered. “If what Kyle and Val found is accurate, it’s got the armor and armament of an entire tank company; laser cannons, missiles, defensive countermeasures, energy shields, and probably more, since the Major’s Notes were incomplete.”

 

“By the Force, look at the size of that thing!” Sarah commented. Lucy couldn’t help but agree with the woman’s astonishment; as best as she could tell by the surrounding structures, the droid was probably a little over twelve meters tall. “Even Glade’s launcher wouldn’t put a dent in that thing...”

 

“With any luck, we won’t have to fight it,” Peter interjected with a smile. “Val, Kyle, and I have put together a plan... we steal it.”

 

Sarah blinked, a look of sheer disbelief on her face, before she turned to Val. “...Could it work?”

 

“Droids aren’t my area of expertise, but I don’t see why not,” Val answered before gesturing to Kyle. “You’re better off asking him. He’d be handling the programming side of things.”

Kyle sheepishly stood up in response, and ED-3 provided a larger holographic display of the droid in question. “To answer your question... maybe. The Major’s notes refer to this droid as being a technology test bed, likely for a related battle droid program. We can expect to find it with a few of its components either disfunctional or removed, and we know for certain that there’s a major issue with the Friend-or-Foe identification system.”

 

Sarah shook her head and pinched the bridge of her nose. “You want us to steal a broken, dangerous droid?” she asked, exasperation being the only thing that managed to outweigh the incredulity in her tone.

 

Lucy felt a sense of severe annoyance flare up as she glared at Sarah, but bit her tongue and let Kyle reply. Shaky or not, she knew that he could stand up for himself. “I’m getting to that. For starters, this thing has enough firepower to outgun more or less anything the Empire’s able to throw at us, including their TIE Fighters. Even better, the Empire might be hesitant to destroy it. They’ve put a lot of resources into this droid, and losing it could severely hurt their research.”

 

Sarah nodded, her scrutinous expression slowly lightening up. “And how do we plan on stealing it? Can we remote control it somehow?”

 

“No, but thankfully, Val had a better idea,” Kyle answered, before turning to ED-3. “We’re going to copy Eddie’s personality matrix, and modify it for use in a battle droid.”

 

Lucy spared a glance down at ED-3, and admittedly, couldn’t help but be a bit excited at the idea of her little buddy having a twelve-meter tall armored killing machine for a little brother.

 

“That’s admittedly the part of the plan I’m not so confident about,” Peter interjected. “Putting aside the technical difficulties of putting astromech firmware thirty-six hundred years out of date into a cutting-edge battle droid, this is a plan that doesn’t have any room for failure. Nothing else being tested at the research facility has the firepower necessary to break that prison open, and if the best we’re getting for support is a few U-Wings... there’s a very good chance that this isn’t going to work.”

 

Lucy moved to speak up at the same moment Kyle did, but Sarah caught them off guard by beating them both to the punch. 

 

“We have to try,” she declared, speaking with a firm tone. “I’ll run over everything myself and see if we have any better options, but even if we don’t find any, we’re still going in. Besides, in a worst case scenario... the Empire’s still going to have to build themselves a new battle droid, and we can get out the same way we came in.”

 

There was a moment of quiet, then the assembled group shared a collective nod. Lucy sensed a shared hesitation as well, but like with before, none of the Rebels showed any signs of wanting to back out of the fight.

Sarah smiled, the expression soft and filled with pride. “Then it’s settled. Kyle, gather up whoever and whatever you need to get that droid under our control. Peter, Tristan, I want to discuss backup strategies with you. Everyone else? Get some rest, we’re not letting go of Utapau without a fight.”

 

“Yes ma’am,” Kyle replied, before turning to head for the hangar door. ED-3 switched off his hologram and followed along, and Lucy was about to join them before she felt a hand clasp her shoulder.

 

“Lucy?” Sarah prompted her.She looked fidgety, nervous almost… like she was worried about how Lucy would respond to what she was about to say. “You know Kyle a lot better than any of us do. Do you think he can handle this?”

 

Lucy paused, wondering how she should reply. While she had faith in Kyle’s abilities, she also recognized that he was starting to crack. He didn’t have a lifetime of Jedi Training to calm himself like she did. “I think so, it’s just... He blames himself, the crackdown was part of our plan to get into contact with you. We couldn’t think of any better ideas, and we didn’t know what to do, but-”

 

“Lucy,” Sarah said her name again, this time more firmly as she squeezed her shoulder. “Can you handle this?”

 

It didn’t take even a moment’s thought for Lucy to find her answer. “Yes.”

“Good,” Sarah affirmed. “Neither of you should be blaming yourselves, this is the Empire’s fault. They don’t just enslave people on Utapau, they do it on Kashyyyk, on Ryloth, and on tens of thousands of other planets. You two might have been the ones to stir the Empire up on Utapau, but you’re also going to help us hit them where it hurts and set those people free.”

 

Sarah’s words echoed in Lucy’s mind for a moment. While it was terrible to be reminded about the current state of the Galaxy, it was also a relief to know that Sarah didn’t blame them for what had happened. “Thank you.”

 

“I’ve left people behind too, Lucy. Sometimes civilians, sometimes my own men,” Sarah added, her voice carrying a solemn weight behind it. “But we’re at war. We’re going to suffer losses, and there will be casualties. Whenever you’re feeling those doubts, just remember, we’re not the reason that any of this is happening.”

 

Lucy had to force herself to nod. She knew that Sarah was right, but that didn’t mean that she had to like it. “I just wish it wasn’t necessary.”

 

Sarah’s momentary silence spoke volumes. “Me too,” she finally answered, her voice softer than a whisper. Her eyes were distant, memories playing heavily in her mind for a moment. Then she blinked, seemingly clearing her thoughts, and offered Lucy a reassuring nod.

 

Then, without another word, Sarah turned on her heel and marched away, leaving Lucy to her own thoughts.

Chapter 9: Brave But Not Fearless

Kyle had found his way over to the hangar door almost by instinct. Far down below, the moonlight illuminated the vast forest, but the nice view did little to distract him from the task at hand. The work ahead of him was vast, it would be difficult, tedious, and it would need to be done quickly. Every minute that he wasn’t working was another that the citizens of Utapau would be suffering, in no small part because of his decision. He had to do something, anything to help.

 

Typically, Kyle did his best to not think about the darker parts of the Galaxy. He was one man, there was only so much he could do to put a stop to the hideous, horrible things that evil people did. This time however, he’d had a hand in making it happen, it had even been his idea. No amount of reminding himself that he’d done it with good intentions could change that. People were suffering, likely even dying because of him, he had to make it right.

 

A myriad of darker thoughts ran through Kyle’s mind as he sat down beside ED-3. The little droid didn’t argue as Kyle established a wired connection between him and Kyle’s datapad. From there, he brought up ED-3’s personality matrix, and a single brief glance was all that Kyle needed to realize just how out of his element he truly was. He could barely slice, let alone program, and so much of what he was looking at meant nothing to him. Kyle did recognize a few hand-written scripts that had been lovingly made by Lucy, which would need to be carefully adapted not only to function in a new, taller, heavier, two-legged, experimental droid body, but one that was over three and a half thousand years newer than ED-3’s own.

 

With a hefty sigh, Kyle began the long process of making a decompiled copy of ED-3’s entire codebase for him to modify. Copying a droid wasn’t as simple as clicking a button, not with one as sophisticated and personable as ED-3. You could have all of the scripts and programs necessary to run a droid, but without a physical droid brain to use them and a way to link them, it was little more than stray code. In a macabre sort of way, it was the equivalent of a surgeon duplicating all of the organs and pieces of a human, stitching everything together, but lacking the spark to bring it to life.

 

Except I’m not a surgeon, I’m a butcher, and I’m using a vibroblade instead of a scalpel. Kyle thought, his colorful metaphors doing little to make the copying process go any faster. There were other things that he needed to do while he waited, and thanks to Val, he did have one trick up his sleeve.

 

Earlier in the day, while the group had been discussing the plan to steal the prototype droid, Val had managed to get him a copy of an Imperial Security Droid’s codebase. How she’d gotten her hands on such a thing was admittedly a mystery, but it stood to reason that she’d found it somewhere on Major Dauphin’s code cylinder, and that Kyle had overlooked it during his own search. He hadn’t asked questions, he was willing to take whatever help he could get.

 

Granted, it was far from perfect. The model of Imperial Security Droid that this duplicated Imperial codebase had come from wasn’t even close to the same model as the massive droid that they were hoping to steal. Thankfully, as Val had explained to him, Imperial technology usually used similar architecture and software in order to simplify maintenance and logistics. As a result, it gave Kyle a frame of reference for what he would need to change about ED-3’s programming to make it work.

 

Unfortunately, it was a lot. Almost everything, in fact.

 

Kyle set to work without delay, starting from the basics of the operating system, but found it hard to cope with the whirlwind of thoughts in his mind. How was it that he had ended up here? Was it the will of the Force, some wild chain of events driven by pure luck? Why was it that the Rebellion was stuck not with a second Jedi or a competent officer like Commander Miller, and instead got stuck with him, a glorified pencil pusher?

 

He’d know what to do if he were here. Kyle thought, feeling the faintest bit of relief at the thought of his old commanding officer. Miller was as wise as a Jedi, and about as strong as one too. It had been him to give Kyle a chance when he’d applied to enlist in the Temple Security Forces.

But now he was dead, and had been for thousands of years, just like everyone else that Kyle had ever known. The relief that he’d felt shattered into a cold sense of loss and dread that washed over him like a tidal wave.

 

Kyle’s hands trembled as he set the datapad down as gently as he could, trying to steady himself. His stomach churned and his head spun, and he was faintly aware of the increased pace of his breathing. He was spiraling, but he refused to calm down, not when he was needed. How could he stand to relax when everything was resting on his abilities? Abilities which, frankly, he didn’t have.

 

Kyle wasn’t sure when Lucy had arrived, only that she was with him now, holding him against her chest as he tried his best not to break down completely. Her warm arms were wrapped around him, her soothing presence working its way into his mind through the Force, her words softly reassuring him even as he failed to discern what they were through his mental hellstorm. 

 

When he finally did cry, she wiped away his tears with her robes. It was impossible to think coherently, let alone speak, but Kyle hoped that Lucy knew. Not just that he appreciated her, but that he treasured her more than anything else that he’d ever had in his entire life. She was more than his friend, his lover, and a lot more than just a Jedi. She was his light shining in the darkness, brighter than all the stars in the Galaxy, his hero.

 

Steadily, with her help, his breathing came back under control. He blew his nose with his already filthy uniform, there would be a time for laundry later, but for now he had to speak. “Lucy...”

 

“It’s okay, I’m here,” She reassured him, her soft voice like a healing salve for his soul. “It’s going to be okay.”

 

“I can’t do this Lucy, I-” he paused, his mind resisting the words that he forced out anyway. “-this is all my fault.”

 

She held onto him just a little bit tighter as she answered. “I just talked about that with Sarah, and she doesn’t think it's your fault. She blames the Empire, and she’s right. The Empire’s been doing this without our intervention for a long time, they would have cracked down sooner or later, even if we hadn’t been there.”

 

Kyle’s mind was too much of a storm to outwardly acknowledge Lucy’s point, too busy digging up more of the doubts that had been buried into him so deeply that they were all but a part of him. “I shouldn’t be here. It should be someone else... someone who knows what they’re doing! Somebody who could stop all of this...”

 

He felt as Lucy’s shoulders sag with sadness, and felt a sharp pang in his heart. Had he hurt her somehow with what he’d said? For all his doubts and concerns, he knew for a fact that hurting Lucy was the last thing that he wanted to do.

 

However, after a moment, Lucy reaffirmed her hold of him and spoke with a resolute and affirming tone. “Kyle, there is nobody I would rather have with me here than you. No other Jedi, nobody from the military. If I could go back and bring whoever I wanted to the future with me, I would still choose you.”

 

It felt like something he’d already known, but a lingering question remained on his mind as he wiped away the last of his tears. “Why?”

 

“Because when I’m with you, I feel like I can do anything,” She answered. He turned to look up at her, to see her eyes glistening with the faintest of her own tears. “Because every time that I feel the Dark Side creeping up on me, I think of you, and I can resist it. I can face off against hordes of evil monsters, knowing that you’re going to have my back, and worse... the meetings.”

 

Despite it all, Kyle couldn’t help but share a laugh with her. Perhaps some of the most fun, and stupid, things that they’d ever done together had been done within what was meant to be a very serious meeting with other Jedi or Temple Security Officers.

 

Lucy continued to speak, her tone becoming softer and more relaxed. “The other night I had something a lot like what you’re going through, when I was trying to contact Satele. I wasn’t getting anywhere, I was scared, I felt lost and alone.”

 

Kyle felt a hollowness fill his stomach as she spoke. “You should have woken me up. I could-”

 

At his interruption, she gently smacked his shoulder, just hard enough to get him to shut up and realize he’d made a mistake. “And you should have come and gotten me when you felt all this! Because you can do this, I know you can, and I’m going to help you!”

 

Kyle took a deep breath and nodded, she was right, as usual, but there was one more thing he wanted to address before they got to work. “What did you end up doing?”

 

Lucy gave him an amused smirk. “You ended up helping. You were having a nightmare, and I had to focus to get it out of your mind. That helped me calm down, and then, I managed to reach out to Satele. You know the rest.”

 

Again, Kyle nodded. He remembered how chipper and happy she’d been the following morning, talking about her conversation with Satele. He also remembered how she’d laughed at him when he admitted that he’d always been a little intimidated by Satele, before admitting that she’d had similar feelings at times.

 

Slowly and deliberately, Lucy let go of him, and sat beside him as she looked over to ED-3 and his datapad. “Where are we starting?”

 

“I was going to base the new droid off of a copy of ED-3’s codebase,” Kyle answered. “But we’ll have to change almost everything to match the architecture of this Imperial Security Droid’s systems. I want to get something basic done tonight, but I’m not sure if we have the time.”

 

Lucy paused, picking up the datapad and humming aloud, before snapping her fingers. “...Then we’ll work smarter, not harder. Why don’t we start with the Imperial Security Droid and work from there?”

 

Kyle briefly ran the idea through his head, and recognized just how distracted and shaken up he must have been to have totally overlooked that idea. “I really should have thought of that.”

 

“Don’t beat yourself up,” Lucy assertively told him, before handing him the datapad as she took a look at ED-3. “You can still help me make it happen.”

 

With a few simple commands, Kyle stopped the copying process of ED-3 and instead brought the Imperial Security Droid’s codebase into the forefront. Despite being nearly four millenia newer than Kyle himself was, the brutish simplicity of Sith Architecture remained familiar. Out of his field of expertise, but then again, so was ED-3’s codebase.

 

While Kyle was working, Lucy had leaned down to the little droid’s level, and was whispering something to ED-3, who bleeped and booped his acknowledgement and presumed approval. 

 

Kyle raised an eyebrow as she rose back up to his level, or rather, to about the level of his shoulder as she sat beside him. “What’d you say?”

 

“Just making sure he knows his part of the plan,” Lucy explained. “We might not be able to use the majority of Eddie’s personality matrix in an Imperial Droid... but he can help us make a new one.”

 

Kyle’s eyebrow remained raised. “A new one?”

 

Lucy nodded and smiled, her expression steadily shifting towards a more mischievous mood. “I think I’ve got a good way to give the Empire a good scare.”

 

 

---

 

Kyle woke up late in the following morning to the sound of starship engines. Lucy was no longer by his side, and from his makeshift bed by the hangar door, he saw, heard, and even felt as two sizable spacecraft steadily glided into the hangar, with Paulen’s shuttle just behind them.

 

The new ships were long, and possessed what was very obviously a troop bay towards the rear of the craft, even before the doors slid open as they landed. Both were strangely shiny, featuring chrome paneling that had seemingly been shaped and installed over some kind of existing hull.

 

With a hefty grunt as the stiffness of sleep still wore off, Kyle stood up and got to his feet as the three craft landed. From Paulen’s ship came Sarah, Tristan, and Paulen, while a blue Twi-lek woman climbed out of the first new ship, and an astromech rolled out of the second. 

 

Before Kyle could walk over to join them, Lucy got to him first, and offered him a canteen of water along with a chipper smile. “Sleep well?”

 

“Thanks to you, yes,” He gratefully replied as he took a drink, before handing the canteen back to her. “How the hell did I sleep through Paulen leaving to get our backup?”

 

Lucy shrugged. “You were tired and needed to sleep, it doesn’t seem too complicated to me. Now come on, we’re not going to want to miss this.”

 

Kyle let Lucy take the lead as she led them towards where the rest of the group had gathered around the newcomer and her new ships. Everybody was present, with Peter shamelessly ogling their new transports, while Val and Paulen seemed to be having a conversation with the astromech that the Twi-lek woman had brought along. The woman herself was speaking to Sarah, whose armor...

 

Kyle paused, taking a moment to process what exactly it was that he was looking at. Sarah’s armor had seemingly undergone some serious transformations while he’d been sleeping, and now featured more than a few pieces from, of all things, Republic Trooper Armor. The resulting hodgepodge of makeshift Power Armor and Old Republic Trooper Armor was... interesting, but there was little doubt in Kyle’s mind that Sarah was probably as good as blasterproof. 

 

In truth, the sight gave Kyle some truly mixed feelings. Republic Trooper Armor was something that, at least in his time, had been hard-earned and worked for. A soldier wearing it could generally be relied upon to be skillful and professional thanks to the intense training required to earn it. By contrast, the armor Sarah wore had probably been pulled off of a corpse, its components roughly attached to a Power Armor supporting frame with which they were likely barely compatible.

 

Try not to dwell on it. He told himself. He recognized that their circumstances were anything but ordinary, and he was glad to see Sarah taking steps to protect herself. It didn’t help that he was probably the last person in the Galaxy who still appreciated Old Republic Military traditions, with the possible exception of Lucy.

 

Sarah and the Twi-lek woman both turned to face them as he and Lucy approached. “...and here they are. Lieutenant Nashet, this is Lucy, and Kyle.”

 

Lieutenant Nashet’s eyes widened with a great degree of excitement as she looked over them both. He noted that her outfit was decidedly not what he would have expected from a pilot, as rather than a flight suit or a uniform, she was dressed remarkably casually. It was the kind of outfit one might expect from a guerilla rifleman, and she had a heavy-looking blaster rifle to match.

 

She spoke with her hand as she held out her hand to Lucy. “Please, call me Gida. It’s a pleasure to meet you both.”

 

Lucy nodded, extending her hand, which the woman eagerly shook. “Likewise ma’am.”

 

Kyle shook her hand next, and was surprised by the firm strength of her grip. “Are you our pilot from Cheyenne Company?”

 

“That I am. I’m sorry that R3 and I had to come alone, I know things’ll be tough on the ground,” Gida said, before releasing Kyle’s hand and turning her attention back to Lucy. “But I think Sarah’s Team, along with a Jedi and an Old Republic Soldier backing her up, will be more than enough.”

 

Old Republic Soldier? Kyle thought to himself, before realizing that Sarah had probably gone for a simple explanation of what he did, rather than an accurate one. 

 

Lucy, meanwhile, had a look of nervous optimism on her face. “You know about the Jedi?”

 

“I know a fair amount,” Gida answered. “I admit, I had my doubts about you when Charlie said that Sarah was working with a Jedi, and that’s a part of the reason why I’m here. Sarah’s never been the lying type, but I had to see you for myself to believe it.”

 

Lucy stood the slightest bit taller at Gida’s words. “It’s nice to see that there’s more people in the Galaxy who don’t think that the Jedi are traitors.”

 

Gida’s smile faded, and she nodded solemnly. “I can’t imagine how you must feel, with all of the lies that the Empire’s spread about you. If it’s any comfort, know that you’re right, there’s still a lot of people who know that you’re heroes. It’s thanks to a Jedi Master that my sister and I didn’t starve when we were babies.” 

 

Gida paused, her gaze shifting towards the floor, and her hands balling up in fists as she added,“If the Empire hadn’t betrayed the Jedi, I might not have ended up a slave to a Hutt.”

 

Lucy deflated a fair bit at Gida’s words. “I’m sorry.”

 

“Don’t worry, I boiled him alive, and I’m free now,” Gida said, her tone remarkably casual for such a dark joke, although Kyle somehow doubted she was joking.

 

“I hate to interrupt,” Sarah interjected. “But we’re on a tight schedule here. Val and Paulen over there can help you get the U-Wings ready for battle.”

 

“I’ll get right to it,” Gida replied, sparing one last look at Kyle and Lucy. “Looking forward to seeing what you can do!”

 

As she left however, Kyle was more distracted by what Sarah had said. “We’re going today?”

 

Sarah nodded solemnly. “Paulen intercepted another message from Agent Shepherd, apparently a lot of the slaves are going to be moved today. We’ll be moving out within the hour, whether we’re ready or not.”

 

Kyle took a steady breath, slowly letting it out as he reached into his pocket. There, we found Major Dauphin’s Code Cylinder. He and Lucy had moved all of the sensitive Imperial Data into the Verdant Base’s computers, and now, the Code Cylinder held the new programming that he and Lucy had written last night. “I guess we’re going to have to take a chance on this then. I was hoping to have more time to work on it...”

 

“We’ll have to make it work,” Sarah said. “Glade’s put together an armory by the kitchen, head over there and grab everything you need. Lucy, when you’re ready, I’d like to have you with me and Tristan. We could use the help with strategizing.”

 

“I’ll be over in just a moment,” Lucy promised as Sarah turned and walked away, leaving Kyle reeling with a fresh wave of anxiety, along with a sudden, acute headache.

 

“Damn it all,” He muttered, gripping his head before, as suddenly as it arrived, the headache vanished. In its place was Lucy’s presence in his mind, soothing him with the Force.

 

“Sorry,” She sheepishly said as he turned his attention back to her. “I normally ask, but you looked like you needed the help.”

 

Kyle’s eyes briefly matched hers for a moment, and for a moment he was left dumbfounded by how fortunate he was, to have someone like her in his life. “I did need it, thank you... And if there’s anyone who I’m happy to have poking around in my head, it’s you.”

 

He capped off his words with a surprise kiss to her cheek, and smiled as a blush steadily overtook her face. “Oh, stop it! Go get ready for the battle, will you?”

 

For as content as he was with making Lucy happy, ultimately, there was only so much he could do to distract them both from the imminent battle. “Alright... I’ll be back.”

 

With no time for delays, Kyle made his way over to the makeshift armory that Glade had established. There were a few other Rebels present as well, picking through the veritable smorgasbord of arms, ammo, and armor that had been collected.

 

Glade himself was sitting on a half-opened crate of Old Republic Blaster Rifles, of which several had apparently been taken. In one hand was a small spherical object, probably a grenade, and in his other hand was an Old Republic rucksack. Like with Sarah, he had also added parts of Old Republic Trooper to his armor, although Glade had seemed to do so with a bit more grace.

 

The Rebel’s head rose as soon as Kyle approached, a friendly smile on his face. “Hey, Kyle, mind lending me a hand really quick? I’m having some difficulty with these old grenades. Can’t really figure out how they work.”

 

“Let me see,” Kyle prompted, sitting down beside Glade, and doing his best not to flinch as the Rebel casually passed him a Republic-issue thermal detonator. “Oh, uh... this is a bit more than a grenade.”

 

Glade’s eyes widened with recognition as he gently set down the rucksack he was holding in his hands. “...I see. Well, that’ll be helpful. Thermal Detonators?”

 

“Right on the money. I don’t know now how much they differ from your models, but if you want my advice...” Kyle spoke as he pressed a button of the device, before twisting both sides, causing it to split into two half-spheres in his hands. “Do this. The blast’s still big, but more controllable.”

 

Glade nodded dutifully, and Kyle suspected the Weapons Specialist was making mental notes. “Damn it man, now I’ve got all sorts of questions to ask you, and no time to ask them!”

 

Kyle smiled, glad to have someone else who shared the same love for weapons systems that he did. “We’ll have to talk more once we get back. As for now...”

 

He trailed off as his eyes scanned the stocks of weapons before him, comprising a surprisingly vast variety of Sith, Old Republic, new Galactic Empire, and presumably Rebel designs. Finally, his eyes settled on a weapon that he was personally familiar with. His smile couldn’t help but grow as the blaster’s familiar weight settled into his hands as he hefted it. It might not have been his exact rifle, but he knew it well.

 

“That’s one of the weirder ones we’ve found,” Glade noted. “But as best as we can tell, it’s a really old sniper rifle.”

 

Kyle sighted in the rifle, aiming it away from the others and making sure that the scope was still functional. “You’re pretty close to the mark. This is the FL-308, the Freestone, a gun for the good guys. They’re marksman rifles essentially designed to pierce Sith Trooper armor, and they’re pretty good at it.”

 

“Think it could work on a Stormtrooper?” Glade asked as Kyle ran a basic function check of the rifle. “Pretty impressive since, well, not to be rude, but that thing looks three-millennia old.”

Seeing that everything was in order, and that the rifle had been stored properly, Kyle nodded. “On the higher power, definitely. Not so sure about the medium setting... I suppose we’ll find out. And it might be crude, but they’re cheap, and they’re tougher than they might look.”

 

“It’s got wooden furniture,” Glade pointed out with an amused smile.

 

“ And a Duranium ignition chamber, not to mention this,” Kyle said, tapping the device on the end of the barrel. “Charged Particle Capture Array. It’s fragile, but it’s what gives this thing its teeth.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Glade noted, before looking him over with a bit of disbelief. “We’ve got some of your old armor as well, I imagine you’ll know how to wear it better than what we’re doing.”

 

Kyle paused, briefly setting aside his new blaster rifle and moving over to where Glade had directed. Sure enough, there were multiple full sets of Republic Trooper Armor to pick from, all in surprisingly good condition. With a hollow feeling in his gut, Kyle picked up one of the helmets, looking into his own reflection in the visor, and sparing a thought for who the armor had belonged to.

 

Glade seemed to sense the hesitation, standing up and walking over to stand by his side. “What’s wrong?”

 

It feels wrong. The words couldn’t quite leave Kyle’s mouth, as although he couldn’t shake the feelings, he also recognized the absurdity of what he was doing. As he was about to go into battle, he was hesitating to put on readily-available, potentially life-saving gear, all because...

 

“I never earned it,” Kyle choked out the words, surprised by their difficulty as he ran his fingers against the plasteel under his fingertips. “I always wanted armor like this but... I wasn’t good enough. Republic Troopers were the best, they were heroes.”

 

Glade solemnly shook his head, sparing him a disappointed look. “Kyle, if anyone’s alive who has a right to use that gear, it’s you,” Glade reassured him. “If these guys were Republic Heroes, I doubt that they’d want their gear to go to waste while the Republic needs saving.”

 

The Rebel’s words hung in the air as Kyle’s mind picked at them, but what he settled on the most was what Glade had said at the end. The Republic Troopers that Kyle had known and respected were long since dead, and if the Rebels didn’t win the war, then the Republic they served would die alongside them. 

 

Briefly, Kyle spared a glance at the way Glade had adopted the armor for his own usage, and briefly considered what he’d gone through in his time of fighting the Empire. Sure, Glade had probably never gone through the rigorous training that Republic Troopers did, but then again, most Republic Troopers hadn’t survived the truly extreme conditions that Glade had.

 

With a steady breath, Kyle spared a final look down at the helmet, before spinning it around in his hands and putting it on. Even without the rest of the armor, the helmet’s ancient electronics sprang to life, and began to monitor his vitals. Other functions steadily came online as Kyle turned to see Glade, who had a small smile on his face.

 

After a few moments, the helmet’s microphone came online, and Kyle spoke, his voice tuned and shifted by the speakers. “Do you mind helping me out with the rest of this?”

 

---

 

Lucy fought the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose as she stood beside Sarah, Tristan, and Gida as they all studied the holomap being projected by Eddie. Whilst they hadn’t learned anything new about the defenses of the Labor Camp or the Weapons Development Facility, that hadn’t stopped the Rebels from trying to reinvent their strategy. Planning was something that Lucy could do, arguing over planning when they had so little time left was something she had less tolerance for.

 

“Sarah, I understand that a diversionary attack could work, but we’d need maybe twice as many men to pull it off,” Tristan argued. “There’s nothing we can do about it. Charlie didn’t have the extra hands, so neither do we. We’ll just have to work with what we have.”

 

“We made it work on Utapau before,” Sarah countered. “At the very least, we could split our landings, with one dropship on either side of the Development Facility, and hit it from both sides.”

 

“But we’re out of rockets,” Tristan pointed out. “Glade says he’s only found enough satchel charges to blow open one hole in the wall, what we need-”

 

From beside them however, Glade walked into the circle, interrupting Tristan as he did. “Actually, Kyle’s helped with that one. Apparently we have an entire rucksack of Thermal Detonators. They’re old, but he taught me how to use them.”

 

Sarah raised a doubtful eyebrow. “Of all of the old gear you want to use... you want to use Thermal Detonators?”

 

“They were in stasis! It’ll be fine,” Glade replied, his tone lacking any concern. “...But I’ll make sure to throw them a bit further than usual.”

 

Tristan’s expression betrayed mild annoyance, but it passed quickly. “Well then, if we have the explosives to make two holes in the wall, I agree. Confusing the garrison will likely be worth the temporary loss in force concentration, especially if we have enough Detonators to throw a few over the walls.”

 

“That we do!” Glade happily noted. 

 

Lucy watched with mild trepidation as he began merrily handing the high explosives out like they were candy, giving everyone a ten-second instruction in their usage, before moving onto the next person while the others continued to discuss strategy.

 

By the time that Glade had finished, practically all of Lyons’ Pride was gathered around Eddie and Sarah, except, somewhat notably, for Kyle. Lucy spared a glance around, but although she couldn’t see him, she could sense that he was still in the hangar, likely preparing for the battle. As such, she tried not to worry, and focused on Sarah as she finalized their strategy.

 

“Then that’s what we’ll do. Once we’ve secured the Weapons Development Facility, we’ll take control of the droid, and follow it to the Labor Camp, where we’ll use its firepower to break through the defenses and deal with any Imperial Reinforcements,” Sarah surmised. “But if we can’t take control of it, then we will sabotage the droid and... evacuate.”

 

The word lingered in everyone’s minds, its implications truly unsettling. None of them wanted to leave people in chains, but even if they were forced to, they could at least ensure that the Empire’s usage of Forced Labor was not rewarded.

 

Sarah seemed eager to shatter the ice however, and spoke up once more. “Any questions?”

 

“Yeah, who’s flying?” Peter asked. “Or, am I backseating again?”

 

“Hey, sit-down hotshot, you’ll get your chance,” Paulen replied, before Sarah shut them both up with a stern glare.

 

“Paulen will fly the first U-Wing, and Gida will fly the second,” Sarah said, emphasizing the finality of her choice as she spoke slowly and concisely. “And our pilots will have to keep their distance after they deploy us to avoid Imperial Fighters, so there will be a gap in time between when we call for pickup and when it arrives. Anyone else?”

 

Seemingly taking most of the Rebels off-guard, Eddie was the one to speak up with a series of beeps and boops, although Lucy was able to translate for her little friend perfectly. “Where’s Kyle?”

 

Glade gestured to the other side of the hangar. “Getting some gear fitted, he’ll be here any moment.”

 

“And if anybody else needs anything from the Armory, get it now,” Sarah instructed, although Lucy noticed that most of the Rebels were already carrying a very substantial amount of weaponry, and none moved. “If nobody else has any further questions, then I’m pretty sure we’re good to go.”

 

Tristan nodded. “Then let’s not delay any-”

 

He stopped speaking however, as from around the corner, everyone could hear the sound of footsteps. They all turned to see Kyle, although Lucy, with a great degree of surprise, realized that he was not wearing his usual uniform. Instead, he was clad head-to-toe in the armor of a Republic Trooper, the familiar tones of orange and white standing out far more compared to the Khaki he usually wore. He held his helmet under his arm, and despite the trepidation that she sensed from him through the Force, wore a stoic expression on his face.

Once the surprise wore off, however, Lucy quickly found herself a bit lost in space at the sight before her. Kyle could somehow make his basic Khaki uniform look good on a typical day, but Lucy couldn’t help but notice he looked very, very good in a full suit of Republic armor as well.

“Are we ready?” Kyle asked, before his expression shifted towards being more self-conscious as he realized everyone was staring at him. “What? Did I put something on wrong?”

 

“On the contrary,” Fawkes spoke up first, his booming voice somehow seeming almost nonchalant. “I believe that you are the only one wearing the full suit correctly.”

 

“It kinda looks like Stormtrooper gear,” Paulen observed.

 

“More like the armor the Clones wore,” Sarah argued.

 

“A lot less evil-looking, that’s for certain,” Peter contributed. “Can you put the helmet on? I want to see the whole set.”

 

Kyle scowled, but did follow through with Peter’s request, putting the helmet on. “This isn’t a fashion show, you know.”

 

“Lucy might disagree,” Val teasingly commented, prompting Lucy’s face to flush red as she turned to look at her friend with a look of shock and betrayal on her face. “What? You’re the one who’s drooling.”

 

“By the Force...” Sarah grumbled, her voice rich with annoyance. “Mock the lovebirds later people, we’ve got a battle to win! Peter, Fawkes, Val, Glade, Kyle, Lucy, and ED-3, you’re with me in Paulen’s bird! Everyone else, you’re with Tristan in Gida’s, now let's move!”

 

The Rebels of the Lyons’ Pride all sounded off their acknowledgements, donning their helmets as they straightened up their posture, grabbed their equipment, and moved to board the dropships. Lucy, endlessly grateful for the rescue, made her way to Kyle’s side as the two of them boarded the troop bay of Paulen’s U-Wing. 

 

Once they’d fastened themselves in, Lucy spared a brief glance to the side to look at Kyle. “...I wasn’t drooling, was I?”

 

Kyle hesitated before he answered, which was telling on its own, even before he answered. “...You weren’t, but Master Satele probably would’ve scolded you for staring that much.”

 

Lucy’s face flushed red once more as she gently elbowed him in his armored flank. “...It’s your fault, stupid handsome jerk.”

 

“Well, now I’m glad that Glade talked me into putting it on,” Kyle happily said, before he was admonished by their pilot.

 

“Pipe down you two!” Paulen called back from the cockpit. “Alright... this is Ryder-One, can everyone read me?”

 

Grateful for the unintentional reminder, Kyle dialed his helmet’s comlink into the correct channel just in time to hear Sarah’s reply. “Reading you loud and clear Ryder-One. Gida, how about you?”

 

“Ryder- Two , I’m hearing you!” Gida giddily answered. “I was almost afraid to ask what my callsign was meant to be.”

 

“We’ll brainstorm it later,” Paulen replied, his tone shifting to a more calm, professional demeanor as he spoke. “Everyone buckled in?”

 

Sensing an opportunity to test his own headset, Kyle keyed his own microphone. “We’re all good back here Ryder-One.”

 

“Affirmative,” Paulen noted. “Ryder-Two? How about you?”

 

“Ryder-Two, all dismounts accounted for!” Gida answered back. “Let’s get this show on the road!”

 

Kyle would have continued to listen, but he was distracted as Lucy grasped onto his armored gauntlet. He turned to face her, knowing that she could probably sense the look of anxiety on his face even through his visor. “Thank you... you ready?”

 

With no hesitation, Lucy nodded. “With you by my side? Always.”

 

The next moment, the troop bay doors steadily closed, and Kyle felt the engines come to life as their U-Wing took off for Utapau.

 

Author's Notes: This Chapter has been updated to include some art comissions I got for this story. The FL-308 was drawn by Rasdoodles, and both of the other pieces were drawn by Armynblaster.

Chapter 10: Waking the Giant

In the black void of space, two small vessels exited from Hyperspace at the edge of the Utapau System. Both of the U-Wings kept their distance from the other, but remained in visual range of the other, balancing their coordination with their efforts to avoid creating any kind of signature detectable by Imperial Sensors. Within the ships themselves, internal heat sinks bottled up thermal energy that would normally be radiated into space, while their stealth paneling shielded them from any Imperial Sensors.

 

Within the troop bay of the lead U-Wing, Kyle watched as the rest of the Rebels seemed to perk up as they felt their dropship transition from Hyperspace. Lucy sat beside him, her eyes closed as she sat in a meditative state, holding ED-3 on her lap. Sarah and Glade adjusted their armor, while Peter, Fawkes, and Val all inspected their weapons, the latter sparing a curious glance at the cockpit, waiting for their pilot to speak up.

 

Sure enough, Paulen’s voice sounded from the cockpit, sounding confident and professional. “We’re here. Fasten your seatbelts everyone; entering the atmosphere is going to be bumpy.”

 

“What about the Destroyer?” Sarah asked, her voice carrying a sense of calm despite the ramifications of the question.

“The Tyranny is still here, but I’m not reading any fighters on the passive scanners,” Paulen answered. “With any luck, we’ll just slip right by.”

“Let’s hope so,” Sarah noted, before turning to the rest of the team. “You heard him, seatbelts on.”

The Rebels complied, and Kyle did the same, and fastened Lucy’s as well so that she could focus on her meditation. The craft’s heatsinks left the troop bay feeling warm and claustrophobic, but discomfort was better than death at the hands of a TIE Pilot. Minutes passed, but Paulen gave no indication that they had been detected. So far, their plan seemed to be working.

 

“Hey Kyle?” Glade prompted him, although his focus was on Lucy. “I don’t want to bother her, but is that a normal thing for Jedi to do? She almost looks like she’s sleeping.”

 

“Yes,” Kyle quickly answered. He knew that Lucy was more than capable of answering for herself, but he figured she didn’t need the extra distraction. “It’s just a relaxation technique, helps her keep in touch with the Force. She likes to do it before a fight.”

 

Glade nodded, his helmet briefly bumping into his shoulder pads. Evidently, he had not quite gotten accustomed to the changes made to his armor. “What about you? Is there anything that you do before a mission?”

 

“I never went on many,” Kyle admitted. “But I usually try to just remind myself what to do. I don’t really think there’s a lot I can do about the anxiety.”

 

“There isn’t,” Sarah interjected, her solemn, empathetic tone conveying what her covered face could not. “We’re facing probable death, fear’s only natural. Just remember your role, and what you’re fighting for.”

 

Sarah’s words rested themselves in Kyle’s mind, and he did his best to follow the advice. His primary goal was to help ED-3 take control of the Dark Trooper Technology Test Bed, with a secondary assignment of covering Lucy. Neither task would be easy, but they weren’t impossible.

 

It was Sarah’s other suggestion that had a greater impact, as Kyle thought back once more to those who were long since dead. His family, his friends, the Jedi he’d known, the Republic Troopers that he’d idolized, and so many more. None of them would have hesitated to join the fight against the Empire, and neither would he.

 

“Well said,” Glade noted a few seconds after Sarah had spoken. “I know Colvin likes to pray. I can’t remember who to, but I guess it’s nice to have a higher power looking out for you.”

 

“Like the Force?” Val pointed out as she gestured towards Lucy, who remained in a meditative state.

 

“Exactly,” Glade answered, before a bit of the confidence seemed to leave his voice. “Though I’m not sure what the Force does with you when you get killed.”

 

“The Force takes us all in time,” Lucy softly spoke, her eyes remaining closed as she spoke. “But it’s not something to fear. We will find balance, and peace.”

 

Glade shuffled uncomfortably in his seat. “Yeah, well, let’s try not to find out.”

 

“I knew some smugglers who did Spice before every fight,” Peter noted, his tone carrying a mix of contempt and amusement. “I don’t think they’re around anymore.”

 

“They are not,” Fawkes dryly noted as he examined the weapon in his massive hands. It had been one that Kyle had personally recommended to him, a D-313 Repeating Striker, an Old Republic heavy weapon that looked like nothing more than a rifle in his hands. “I recommend slow breathing, but that is the only advice I can offer.”

 

Kyle nodded, recognizing and appreciating the group’s effort to offer him a bit of reassurance. “I appreciate it. I won’t let you down.”

 

As he spoke, their U-Wing lurched and then shuddered, before the ambient temperature of the troop bay began to rapidly decrease back to a more comfortable level. The lights in the troop bay switched colors from white to red, bathing them all in an ominous glow.

 

Paulen spoke up from the cockpit a moment, his voice carrying some urgency. “Beginning the descent now! You’ll have a few seconds to hop off, but we won’t be able to stick around for long if we don’t want to get caught by TIE Fighters.”

 

“A few seconds is all we need,” Sarah confidently replied. “What about extraction? Can you still get us out?”

 

“A hot extract against TIEs… well, it should be possible,” Paulen noted. “Having a giant battle droid to cover me would help a lot though.”

At the reminder of their precarious strategy, Kyle spared a glance at ED-3, who rotated his head to look back at him. Much of their hopes rested within the abilities of the little droid, who would be essential to capturing the Imperial droid. In theory, Kyle could upload the new programming himself, but the time that he would need to do so made the idea totally impractical. Keeping the tiny astromech alive, therefore, was another of his biggest priorities.

 

“We’ll do what we can,” Sarah promised. “Stay in Comm Range as best as you can, but don’t take any unnecessary risks. If you and Gida get shot down, it’s all our asses.”

 

“Have a little faith, Sentinel,” Paulen reassured her, before the U-Wing lurched under all of them. “We’ve broken the atmosphere; still not reading any targeted sensor pings, looks like we’ve still got the element of surprise.”

 

“Music to my ears...” Sarah said, her grin audible even if it wasn’t visible, before she barked out an order. “Lock and load people!”

 

At her prompting, Kyle spared a glance at the blaster rifle in his hands. The FL-308 Freestone was a familiar, welcome sight in the very strange Galaxy that he now lived in. Forged in durasteel, and furnished in wood, the marksman rifle was hefty and long, but packed a menacing punch. Hopefully, it would burn a hole cleanly through the armor of any Stormtrooper, just as it had done to their predecessors three-millennia ago. A quick inspection revealed a minor misalignment with the scope, but it was a simple correction.

 

Another few minutes of anxious waiting passed, before the red lights that lit the troop bay turned a foreboding amber. Beside him, Lucy’s eyes opened, and the Lyons’ Pride unbuckled themselves from their seats as they prepared for a fight.

 

“Coming in now, get set!” Paulen warned them.

 

The sudden sound of the U-Wing’s repulsorlifts coming to life warned Kyle that they had reached their landing point even before the doors swung open. The lights turned green, but were all but washed away by natural sunlight. The sudden shift would have been blinding, were it not for the visor of his helmet. 

 

The terrain was composed of gigantic fields of yellow-ish grass, largely devoid of landmarks or even many hills. In the distance, several kilometers away, Kyle could see the foreboding form of the Imperial Labor Camp in the distance. Far closer to them, within a hundred-meters distance, was the walled compound containing the Dark Trooper Technology Test Bed. The enormous droid was immediately visible, featuring a shiny black paint scheme that stood out even amongst the darkly-colored architecture of the compound. On the other side of the compound, he could see the other U-Wing coming in to land, before it disappeared behind the wall as they reached the ground.

 

“Pile out, go go go!” Sarah shouted, her voice booming over the receiver of the comlink in Kyle’s helmet.

 

Standing up and jumping forward, Kyle found himself face-to-face with their first obstacle, the Duracrete wall. Peter, Val, Lucy, Sarah, and Fawkes all kept a tight perimeter while Kyle followed Glade up to the wall. Just like he’d suggested, the Rebel split the thermal detonator he was holding into two half-spheres, and planted one against the wall as he primed the timer. “You want one of these over the wall boss?”

“Negative, there could be civilians,” Sarah replied. “If we don’t see any once we’re in, then we start burning the place down.”

 

“I thought that was why we were here?” Glade jokingly asked, while Kyle made sure that he was priming the thermal detonator correctly. Sure enough, either his experience or the twenty seconds of training that Kyle had given him paid off, and the warning lights on the device began to blink. “Charge is set, get back!”

 

Not needing any further encouragement, Kyle joined the rest of the Rebels in moving further along the wall, away from the imminent explosion. On the other side of the wall, he could hear the Imperials barking orders at one another, as they seemingly prepared themselves for what was to come.

 

“Give it five, four, three-” Glade began to count down the timer, before the charge prematurely detonated, catching them all by surprise. A massive gout of fire and fragments of rock shot outwards into the field, accompanied by a large cloud of smoke. “Woah! Sorry!”

 

“Move in!” Sarah ordered, not allowing the surprise to squander their initiative.

 

Keeping to his part in the mission, Kyle kept an eye on ED-3 while Lucy led the rest of the team into the new opening in the wall. He could hear the distinctive snap-hiss of her lightsaber coming to life, along with the terrified screams of what were presumably some very unfortunate Imperials. Sarah led the rest of the Rebels in behind her, opening fire even through the smoke, before Kyle moved through the hole himself and saw what they were up against.

 

Caught completely by surprise, the Imperials scrambled for cover. Amidst their ranks, Kyle noticed that there seemed to be more soldiers than they’d expected, including a sizable number of the White-Armored Stormtroopers. The Empire’s elite responded to the breaching of the wall more quickly, but even they were momentarily distracted as, from the other side of the compound, another blast signaled that the second half of the Rebel Force had breached the wall.

 

As soon as he was past the smoke, Kyle quickly found cover in the form of a cargo container, which bore shrapnel and burn marks from the detonation. Around him, the Rebels found positions behind similar obstacles, with the exception of Lucy. Knowing that, as the Jedi, she would be drawing the enemy’s attention, she was able to create an excellent opportunity for the Rebels to deliver a devastating first strike, whilst she deflected or otherwise blocked any return fire.

 

Making the most of the moment, Kyle leveled the crosshair of his scope with the head of the nearest Stormtrooper, who was only just poking out around the corner of one of the many durasteel structures that littered the compound. As he pulled the trigger, a dizzyingly-fast bolt of glowing red energy flew straight and true into the Stormtrooper’s helmet. Whatever doubts he might have had about the power of his rifle fell dead alongside the Stormtrooper, whose grizzly remains made it clear that Stormtrooper Armor was not quite as tough as he’d feared.

 

ED-3 was the last one through the gap in the wall, and after only a few seconds, the Imperials recovered from the initial shock of the attack. Engineers, Technicians, Army Troopers, and Stormtroopers all rushed to their stations, or to respond to the attacks where they had happened. Kyle noticed at least two technicians bolt for scaffold holding the looming Imperial War Droid, but was prevented from killing them by a hail of repeating blaster fire that flushed him and the rest of the Rebels into cover, including Lucy.

 

From behind an overturned hoversled, Sarah radioed into the other half of their assault force. “Tristan, we’re pinned just inside the wall! What’s your status?”

“Encountering resistance, but making our way to you,” Tristan replied with remarkable calm even as the blaster fire intensified. “No civilians encountered so far, any on your end?”

 

A momentary lack of responses from any of the Rebels made clear what the answer was, and Kyle felt a knock on his shoulder, before turning to see Glade standing beside him and ED-3. The Rebel passed him half of a thermal detonator, and even with his helmet on, Kyle could sense the giddy sense of glee from Glade as he prepared an explosive of his own. Understanding his part in the plan, Kyle gestured to Lucy, who nodded, recognizing what she needed to do.

 

“None we can see,” Sarah replied. “Stay down, we’re going to blast our way through! Glade!”

 

“On it!” Glade confirmed as Tristan replied over the comlink with a brief acknowledgement. 

 

Kyle’s barely heard either of them, instead focusing on correctly priming the high-explosive in his hands. Glade followed suit, and with a pair of over-the-shoulder tosses, both halves of the thermal detonator were sent airborne. From her position in cover, Lucy reached out with the force, and guided the explosives to where they would do the most damage.

 

After a few moments, a pair of cacophonous blasts shook the ground, buildings, and Kyle’s teeth. Shrapnel, dirt, and bits of smoldering plastoid all landed around him, along with an unknown, but vaguely familiar object. Before Kyle could even react, Glade dove over and picked up the Imperial Grenade, throwing it out of the hole in the compound wall, where it exploded harmlessly amongst the field.

 

“Don’t freeze up!” Glade reinforced as Kyle helped him up to his feet. “You okay?!”

 

The adrenaline of the near brush with death only hit after the grenade detonated, and Kyle frantically nodded as the two of them followed Sarah and Lucy, who led the charge into the Imperial lines. The green glow of Lucy’s lightsaber made her easy to pick out amongst the carnage, even through the smoke, but that only made it easier for the rest of the Rebels to move as she attracted the bulk of the Empire’s attention.

 

“Jedi! Je- Agh!” Kyle distinctly heard from one Army Trooper, before they were abruptly cut off by the sound of a Lightsaber meeting flesh, and silenced outright by the same noise a moment later. It was admittedly a bit gruesome, and Kyle knew that Lucy wasn’t fond of killing, but at the very least, it appeared that her skill in facing the soldiers of the Sith had not dwindled.

 

“Snipers!” Fawkes’ voice boomed over the blaster fire, before he fired off a series of shots from his handheld cannon. Following his aim, Kyle saw a pair of Imperial snipers that he hadn’t even noticed fall off of the roof of one of the buildings. The mighty green-skinned Rebel cackled with grim satisfaction as Peter, Val, and Tristan stayed close to him, putting their own blaster rifles to work. 

 

Kyle did his best to cover them as they advanced, killing another Stormtrooper with a headshot, before their place was taken by some form of human-sized Imperial battle droid. The droid forced him into cover with a burst of suppressing fire, before being noticed by Val, who swiftly blew it to pieces with the help of a pump-action underbarrel grenade launcher attached to her DC-15A; a weapon that, as Kyle had been told, had its own storied history of serving the Republic.

 

“Kyle, move it! We’re on the clock!” Sarah shouted, prompting him to pick up the pace as he tried to keep up with her, whilst also not leaving ED-3 too far behind him. Picking up the droid and carrying him would have likely made things a bit easier, but would also have left him unable to return fire. Kyle’s decision to be cautious proved it’s worth, as an Imperial Army Trooper sprang out of cover in front of him, seemingly not noticing that he’d been approaching. It was the last mistake she made, as before she could raise her own blaster carbine, he fired first, the powerful blaster rifle dropping her with a pair of hastily-aimed shots.

 

After several minutes of firing and maneuvering, Kyle finally arrived at the feet of the massive Imperial battle droid. Standing twelve meters tall and covered in thick plates of dark gray armor, it was far more imposing than any hologram could ever reasonably convey. A pair of technicians were attempting to hastily interact with control panels attached to the scaffolding which contained the war machine, before Sarah cut them down with her vibroblade. She turned around just as Kyle caught up to her, with ED-3 and Glade following a moment later.

 

“Slow down boss! Poor little droid almost got stuck behind one of the bodies you left back there,” Glade explained as he took cover behind the control consoles, and spared a glance at Kyle. “Go ahead, we’ll cover you.”

 

“And be quick! The Empire’s not going to take long to send backup.” Sarah warned them, moving to find cover of her own while Kyle directed his attention to the console.

 

At first, the array of menus, displays, readouts, and Imperial jargon was practically impossible to decipher, let alone interact with. After a moment, however, Kyle realized that the technicians had apparently been attempting to purge the Dark Trooper Technology Test Bed of its programming, inadvertently helping him. Recognizing too late that the droid probably contained information the Rebellion could have used, Kyle finished what the technicians started. With the press of a button, he purged its droid brain of whatever Imperial programming it had been created with.

 

“Droid’s wiped!” Kyle reported, before looking down at the ground beside him, where ED-3 was already connecting himself to the terminal. “All up to you buddy!”

The tiny astromech responded with something in Binary, probably reassurances, as Kyle turned his attention back to the compound around them. The sound of blaster fire had only continued to intensify, but from the other side of the compound, he saw the rest of the Lyons’ Pride clear out an Imperial strongpoint with a thermal detonator, before moving to join the rest of the squad in positions around the massive battle droid.

 

“Got held up by an E-Web, good thing we found the extra firepower before we left,” Tristan reported as he fell into position next to Sarah. “Reddin and Colvin both took hits, any injuries on your end?”

 

“Agh... just me,” Sarah said, prompting Kyle to notice the smoldering burn mark on one of the pieces of Republic Trooper Armor fitted to her power armor. “I’m fine, get Reddin and Colvin to cover! Kyle, how much longer?”

“I don’t speak Binary, I can’t ask him!” Kyle replied. Ordinarily, he would have asked Lucy, but he could see that she was closer to the center of the compound, helping to cover the rest of the Pride as they reunited by incoming blaster fire. “Peter?!”

 

At the prompting, Peter ran over to ED-3’s side, and listened to the droid’s response before translating it. “Good news! The droid’s reprogrammed, powering up now! Are you sure we should stick around? It might not be friendly!”

 

Sarah hesitated for only a moment, before glancing in the direction of the Imperial Labor Camp and shaking her head. “We’re staying. We have a job-”

 

Her words trailed off, however, as did sounds of battle, as a faint sound could be heard in the distance. After a moment, Kyle recognized the sound of engines, and of repulsorlifts that rapidly grew louder. Every one of the Rebels seemed to snap to alertness at once, as they recognized the sound.

 

“Gunships!” Glade called out. “Take cover!”

 

The Rebels, recognizing the danger of sticking together, scattered as they rushed for better cover. Kyle only stopped for a moment to grab ED-3, momentarily one-handing his blaster rifle as he ran the tiny droid into cover within one of the durasteel storage units, taking shelter by the door as he gave ED-3 a brief warning. “Stay here.”

 

The tiny droid let out bleeps of concern as the sound of the repulsorlifts became much louder, before being joined by the sounds of laser cannons as the gunships entered firing range. Looking outside, Kyle saw a trio of formidable-looking gunships fly past the Compound about thirty meters off the ground, before quickly turning around and coming to hover over the compound.

 

The airframes of the gunships were brutish and angular, furnished with gray armor. Each featured a pair of downward facing wings, embedded into which were free-spinning dish-like structures, which after a moment, revealed themselves to be beam weapons. The gunships opened fire with their beam weapons and chin-mounted laser cannons, thoroughly suppressing both Rebel and Imperial alike with the deadly blue bolts and beams of green fire.

 

Kyle only narrowly avoided having his head severed as he ducked right as one of the beams passed over his position. After waiting a moment, Kyle peeked out once more to see large doors open on either side of each of the gunships, revealing troop bays laden with well-armed Stormtroopers. They quickly contributed their own firepower to the suppressive barrage, and Kyle was forced back into cover as he and ED-3 were forced to shelter in place. 

 

Panic filled his heart as he wondered whether or not everyone else had made it to cover, but even if they hadn’t, there was little that he could do to help them. ED-3 shrilly cried out in similar fear, and Kyle waved his hand for the droid to stay in cover.

 

“Stay down!” Sarah’s voice barked out over the comlink, confirming that at least somebody else had survived the carnage. “Glade, get out of there!”

 

Fearing the worst, Kyle braved the firestorm and peeked out of cover, seeing Glade still taking cover behind the control console that Kyle and ED-3 had been working at not even a minute ago. Surprisingly, despite being in poor cover, he seemed to not be drawing any fire, as the Imperials seemed hesitant to shoot at their own experimental weapon.

 

“I’m fine!” Glade called back. “Had to reset the start-up sequence, just give it a few seconds!”

 

As the heavy weapon’s expert spoke, Kyle watched as one of the gunships spun around, and noticed the barrel of a precision blaster protruding from its side, before he saw the man holding it; a familiar figure in Imperial Scout Trooper Armor. Despite having only seen him once, and in hologram form, Kyle recognized Agent Shepherd quickly, as well as who he was targeting, and dared to expose himself to enemy fire as he took aim at the Imperial Agent.

He was, however, only a moment too late, as Shepherd took his shot.

 

“Glade!” Sarah called out, her voice cracking along with her composure. Fighting his instincts to check on his friend, Kyle maintained his focus and shot back, firing three times before a hail of repeating blaster fire forced him back into cover, leaving him unable to see the results of his shooting. One of the blaster bolts struck him in the shoulder plate, scoring the armor, but his concern remained solely with Glade, who he only barely managed to see fall to the ground, a smoldering hole left in both sides of his helmet.

 

Kyle knew better than to try to look out from cover again, and half-expected one of the gunships to simply destroy the entire building he and ED-3 were hiding in. After a few seconds of waiting, however, no such destruction came, as what sounded like a massive amount of steam being released momentarily drowned out even the sound of blaster fire, which seemed to slow as something drew the attention of Imperial and Rebel alike. 

 

The sound of splintering metal followed shortly afterwards, and Kyle felt the ground shake as the Dark Trooper Technology Test Bed, now online, took its first step forward. It remained to be seen, however, whether or not the giant droid was actually on their side.

 

---

 

From the moment that the gunships had arrived, Lucy had redirected her attention to them, and tried to bring them down. Her initial attempts to simply pull them out of the air had been fruitless, foiled by their powerful engines and repulsorlifts. She had then been forced into cover along with the rest of the Rebels, being forced to contend with a small team of Imperial Army Troopers that she inadvertently ran into. By the time that they were all dead, she had no easy way to get back into the fight, and instead, waited as patiently as she could for the moment to move.

 

Once she’d heard that Glade was in trouble over her earpiece comlink, Lucy seized the moment to act, and by virtue of being an obvious target, managed to draw at least some attention to herself and away from the Rebels. The laser cannons on the chins of the gunships were powerful, but their bolts were just as deflectable as any blaster bolt was. After she sent the first few bolts of green energy back towards the gunships, some of which missing only by the slimmest of margins. They quickly learned not to target her, lest they fall victim to their own weapons.

 

Despite knowing that something was wrong, Lucy was still caught flatfooted when a single red blaster bolt shot out from the side of one of the gunships, as one of the Rebels returned fire only a moment too slow. She watched as a Stormtrooper fell out of the side of the dropship as a result, but was helpless to do anything as she heard Sarah’s anguished cries, and felt Glade become one with the Force.

 

Lucy did not remain stunned for long, however, as the gunship holding the sniper seemed to notice that she was distracted. The Force warned her of the incoming danger before it could strike, and pushing aside her grief, Lucy redirected her attention to the imminent threat and trusted in the Force. Precognition was one of the Jedi’s strongest abilities, and with it, she could see what she was about to do, even if it would be difficult and dangerous. One mistake, and she would be cut in half.

 

With calm in her heart and focus in her mind, she positioned her blade as the Force directed her to, catching the beam of green energy with her lightsaber as though it were a massive mirror, causing the beam to shoot back outwards and set the ground alight. The radiant heat of the beam was enough to burn Lucy’s Jedi robes and singe her eyelashes, but she did not divert her attention as she shifted her feet and twisted her wrist, redirecting the continuous beam back up and into the sky, before slicing it across the gunship’s cockpit like a gigantic lightsaber blade.

 

The top of the gunship burst into flame as the beam abruptly stopped, secondary explosions shaking the craft as Lucy watched the gunship fall to the ground, still largely in one piece, but powerless and burning. The screams of its occupants were abruptly silenced by the gunship hitting the ground somewhere outside of the compound with the sound of rending metal and a mighty thud. The other two gunships, recognizing the mistake of their wingman, ceased fire entirely as a platoon of Stormtroopers descended from ropes down to the ground.

 

As Lucy turned to rush towards the Stormtroopers, however, Kyle’s voice came over the comlink. “Lucy, the droid’s online! Not sure who’s side it’s on yet, take cover!”

 

Despite not feeling any sense of newfound danger in the Force, Lucy opted to trust him, and took cover as the gigantic droid broke free of its flimsy cage. For a brief moment, the battlefront fell silent, and Lucy felt a mixed sense of dread and hope take hold in the hearts of every living being in the fight, as they waited to see what the droid would do.

 

Then, with a booming, robotic voice, it shouted out its intentions.

 

“ All systems, nominal! New directive, acknowledged! ” The droid declared. “ Liberty Prime, online! ”

 

Lucy allowed herself a small smile as the air seemed to sharply shift, and the Rebels seized the moment as they opened fire on the disembarked Stormtroopers with everything that they had. Lucy rushed over to join the battle, watching the sky as the gunships turned to engage Liberty Prime. With their troops disembarked, the pilots directed every weapon they had at the droid,  beginning to fly backwards as they did so.

 

An avalanche of green fire poured forth from the gunships, slamming into the goliath droid like a wild firestorm. For a moment, it almost seemed like the Rebel’s new weapon had been destroyed, but when the fire ceased and the smoke cleared, Liberty Prime stood undeterred, with little more than superficial carbon scoring to show for the droid’s efforts. In response, Liberty Prime opened fire with an ion cannon mounted on his shoulder, a flurry of blue bolts hastily disabling both gunships, causing them to crash into the ground just as their wingman had.

 

Despite the radical change in the battlescape, however, the Stormtroopers continued their assault practically undeterred. Professionally and rhythmically, they took aim at the Rebels and hastily pinned them down with overwhelming blaster fire. Lucy arrived just in time to protect Sarah from Stormtroopers as she tried to get Tristan into better cover. He’d been hit twice, both rounds hitting him in the chest, but his armor seemed to have just about saved his life.

“Go, I’ve got this!” Lucy told her, prompting Sarah to redouble her pace as she dragged Tristan out of harm’s way. 

 

The Stormtroopers obligingly shifted her fire over to her, and Lucy quickly found herself struggling to keep up with the onslaught of precise, consistent fire. Some of the Rebels returned fire to try and help her, with Fawkes and Val managing to kill some of the Stormtroopers with their cannon and underbarrel grenade launcher respectively, but it was not enough to suppress the well-disciplined Imperial soldiers. Some of the Stormtroopers even prepared rocket launchers, aiming above her at Liberty Prime.

 

Just as Lucy was starting to be overwhelmed, however, she heard Liberty Prime’s booming voice speak once more. “ Tyrants detected on Republic soil! Emancipating! ”

 

Lucy didn’t get to see exactly what weapons Prime brought to bear, only seeing a hailstorm of fiery red blaster bolts descend into the ranks of the Stormtroopers. Despite taking cover, the veritable wall of fire thrown against the Imperial Troopers wrecked havoc amongst their lines. 

 

After a few seconds of the overwhelming fire, Prime followed it up by launching some kind of explosive into the Stormtrooper’s lines, which detonated with far more force even than a Thermal Detonator. A large portion of the compound’s wall and several of the buildings were blown away as the entire compound shook, with at least a dozen secondary explosions and fires breaking out. When the smoke cleared, not even one of the Stormtroopers had survived.

 

As the fighting drew to a close, and the danger the Force warned Lucy of subsided, the momentary silence was broken by Liberty Prime. “ Score one for the Republic! Proceeding to target destination! Utapau will be liberated! ”

 

With no further delay, Liberty Prime turned around and marched through the compound to the entrance. He only stopped briefly to force the large durasteel blast doors open, pushing them aside as though they were mere annoyances.

 

“Lucy, over here!” Kyle called out. Following his voice, she saw him gathered with the rest of the Rebels, where they were tending to their injuries and preparing themselves to move out.

 

Running over to his side, she could sense the immense conflict within him, echoed by the rest of the Lyons’ Pride. The harsh sorrow at the loss of Glade was blended with a grim satisfaction at the swift and brutal vengeance that the Empire had promptly suffered.

 

“Look at that...” Val whispered, awestruck as she watched Prime march onwards. “Will he hurt any of the civilians?”

“No,” Lucy and Kyle both answered simultaneously, before Kyle gestured for Lucy to continue. “He’s only programmed to return fire after he gets shot at. He can also recognize unarmed targets, but just in case our programming’s not great, we shouldn’t linger for too long.”

 

Val nodded, her eyes drifting back to where the droid had once stood, where Sarah was kneeling beside Glade’s body. Lucy walked over to see her retrieve a glowing ID tag from around his neck, and sling his satchel of thermal detonators over her shoulder. “You’re right, we need to keep moving. I’ve rigged Glade’s armor with a detonator on a timer, I’m not letting these bastards get ahold of his body.”

 

Sarah’s voice conveyed only fury, but through the Force, Lucy could sense the sadness and despair in her heart. Despite the grimness of what Sarah was doing, and her immersion in the Dark Side. Lucy knew better than to argue, and at least understood where Sarah was coming from, remembering what Sarah had said about the fate of her father.

 

Knowing that she wouldn’t get another chance, Lucy spared one last look at Glade, taking solace in the knowledge that he would find peace in the Force. She was distracted, however, when Kyle softly spoke to her.

 

“I tried to save him,” his voice was hoarse and shallow, the polar opposite of the wrath that Sarah had conveyed. “I... we should go.”

 

Lucy nodded, knowing as well as Kyle did that it was simply something they would have to address at a later time. For the moment, she reached out and briefly held his armored shoulder. “I’m right behind you.”

 

Satisfied that the fear and regret in Kyle’s mind seemed to at least lessen with her reassurances, Lucy followed him and the rest of the Rebels to the gate. There, Val and Peter were busy hotwiring a pair of hoversleds, the wreckage of several others confirming that they were the lucky few to avoid the carnage of the battle.

 

“There!” Peter called out as the first hoversled activated. 

 

Val’s own hoversled similarly whirred to life a moment later, amid a flurry of swearing in her High-Galactic accent. “Damn thing... got it! Pile on lads, it might not be a speeder, but it beats walking!”

 

“It is not as though we are in danger of being outrun by the droid,” Fawkes dryly pointed out, noting Liberty Prime’s slow pace as he marched down the road to the Labor Camp. “It appears that speed was not one of the Empire’s priorities when designing it.”

 

Lucy took the extra moment to ensure that ED-3 was magnetically locked to the leading hoversled before she hopped on, accompanied by Kyle and Sarah. The rest of the Rebels dispersed themselves between the two vehicles, and while it was a tight fit, it was at least enough to save them a long march behind Liberty Prime.

 

“It gives us a chance to catch our breath,” Sarah pointed out. “All aboard? Good, let’s move out!”

 

Author’s Notes: My apologies for the delay between uploads, I’ve been busy with other projects and real life conundrums. This story in particular is one I have a ton of fun with, and one I’ll try to update at least a bit more often.

Chapter 11: Emancipate and Eradicate

Heavy thudding footsteps echoed across the fields of Utapau as the Dark Trooper Technology Test Bed, now reborn as Liberty Prime, marched towards the monolithic Labor Camp in the near distance. The droid’s slow pace was compensated for by its massive stride, but even so, Peter and Val had to keep their Hoversleds at a very slow speed to stay some distance behind the droid. At the very least, it meant that Lucy didn’t have a hard time staying on the lead vehicle, even though it was fairly crowded.

 

In the distance behind them, Lucy heard an explosion ring out from the Weapons Development Facility that they had left in ruins. Her heart panged at the recognition that it had likely been the Detonator used for Glade’s macabre funeral pyre. The brief chatter of the Rebels briefly died out, before Sarah brought them back to the present with an order. “See anything, Kyle?”

 

Beside Lucy and Sarah, Kyle watched the Labor Camp through the scope of his blaster rifle, before lowering it and facing her. “They’re looking at us. Lots of Troopers on the walls... not sure what they’re waiting for, especially with those big guns.”

 

“Orders,” Sarah hypothesized, before issuing her own commands over the comms. “Val, Peter, stop us here. Let’s try to not get blasted by those turrets until Prime takes them down.”

 

Peter halted their hoversled, and the Rebels disembarked and spread out, a trained instinct to avoid attracting attention from any explosive weapons. “What if they don’t shoot him?”

 

“Somehow, I have a hard time believing that they won’t,” Tristan noted. “Dusk, Colvin. See any targets of opportunity?”

 

The two snipers of the Lyons’ Pride weren’t positioned that far from Lucy; armed with long precision blaster rifles, if anybody could make such a long shot, it would probably be them. However, Colvin’s reply over the comms was not so encouraging. “Not if you want us to hit any of ‘em. Our bolts travel fast, but not that fast.”

 

“Hold your fire,” Sarah reinforced. “They might be out of range of our blasters, but we’re probably within range of those cannons.”

 

For a brief moment, Lucy pondered what reason the Empire might have for hesitating to fire, before the question was sharply rendered irrelevant as the laser batteries atop the walls and roof of the Labor Camp opened fire. At least a dozen red blasts from the cannons struck Liberty Prime, who’s taunting retort was buried beneath the roaring of the explosions, before his return fire joined the fray.

 

The string of laser bolts that rushed through the air between Prime and the Empire’s monument to slavery was so plentiful that it almost looked to be a solid red line. After a few seconds of fire being exchanged, Liberty Prime adjusted his footing, and a dozen missiles roared outwards from concealed launchers beneath his armor. The trails of smoke cleared the air with alarming speed, each one striking their target and silencing one of the turrets. With the application of one final barrage of laser cannon fire, Liberty Prime stood victorious, albeit burned and smoking.

 

“ Significant obstruction terminated. Proceeding towards Freedom! ” The droid’s booming voice announced as it resumed his march.

 

“I think we could have brought a column of tanks and failed to get that result,” Kyle noted, a tone of nervous awe in his voice. “I’m assuming the personality was your idea, Lucy?”

 

From beside him, ED-3 spoke up in protest, prompting Lucy to reinforce his claim. “His, actually.”

 

“Focus people!” Sarah shouted, snapping them all to attention. “Pile back on, we need to catch up!”

 

Sarah received an array of acknowledgements from her men as they piled back onto the Hoversleds, with Lucy taking her original spot back as she watched the battle ahead of them continue to unfold.

 

As Prime drew within a few hundred meters of the large gate to the wall, it opened to reveal a pair of tracked armored vehicles brandishing large laser cannons. The Occupier Tanks, as Lucy recalled, were an issue that was big enough to warrant special attention during the planning for their mission.

 

Both of the tanks rolled forwards, opening fire on Prime as they left the gate. The bolts struck Prime with some effect, causing him to stagger, evidently possessing more penetrative capabilities than the now-destroyed turrets.

 

In response, Prime steadied his footing. “ Feel the wrath of the Republic! ”

 

Reaching into an armored canister on his back, Liberty Prime retrieved some kind of proton charge that was the size of a speeder bike, twisted off some sort of safety cap, and threw it at the tanks. The resulting blast shook the plains for kilometers in every direction, creating a flaming fountain of smoke, white-hot chunks of durasteel, and soil that reached over a hundred meters into the air. Chunks of duracrete flew into the fields, likely originating from the now pulverized wall that had once held the gate.

 

“By the Force...” Peter muttered, his voice barely distinguishable over the resonating sound of the blast.

“Aw come on!” Dusk protested, her shouting far more audible. “That bastard’s not going to leave anything for us!”

 

“Quit your moping! You’ll have plenty of Imps to kill inside!” Sarah retorted, before muttering to herself. “Assuming he doesn’t blow the whole building down.”

 

A similar worry had reared itself in Lucy’s mind, but was quickly dashed as the smoke cleared. Retreating into the massive structure of the Labor Camp where several small figures, Imperial Soldiers, all of whom were able to retreat while Prime stood idle, not recognizing them to be enemies. 

 

Before long, the Rebels arrived at the crater that had once been the gate, swiftly dispatching several lingering Army Troopers who attempted to ambush them, with the help of some suppressive fire from Liberty Prime. With so much firepower behind them, the fight was over in short order, and when it was done, the momentary calm was disturbed by the sounds of aircraft flying overhead. 

 

Looking up, Lucy saw the U-Wings they had travelled in fly overhead, being chased by a trio of screeching TIE Fighters.

 

“This is Ryder-One to ground team,” Paulen’s voice came in over the comlink. “Picked up some bandits, I don’t suppose your new buddy could help?”

 

“Ryder-One, wait one,” Sarah replied, before turning to Lucy. “Can he?”

 

Lucy shrugged her shoulders. “We gave him an improvisation protocol. It could be dangerous, he might get unpredictable.”

 

“It won’t matter if we lose our pilots,” Sarah pointed out. “Do it.”

 

Nodding, Lucy briefly strode over to Liberty Prime’s side while the Rebel’s provided cover, before shouting up at the massive droid. “Hey, Liberty Prime! Override Code, Liberator! Target those TIE Fighters, keep our transports and any civilians safe!”

 

Liberty Prime turned around to face her, looking down at her as he stiffened his posture and saluted her. “ Revised Stratagem Accepted! For the Glory of the Republic! ”

 

As Prime spoke, Sarah finished relaying the update to Paulen and Gida. A few seconds later, their U-Wings returned, and Prime positioned himself as though he were about to attack, inspiring no small degree of anxiety within Lucy and the Rebels. After a moment, however, the TIE Fighters came into range, and Prime fired off a series of laser blasts that turned one of them into a fireball, and forced the others to turn away. The massive droid fired a pair of missiles at the fleeing fighters, but with their maneuverability and presumably some kind of countermeasures, were both able to avoid their respective missiles.

 

“Ryder-One to ground team, thank you, over!” Paulen called out. 

 

“Ryder-Two here, we’ll try to stick closer to him from now on,” Gida added on. “We’ll be on station when you need us. Ryder-Two, out!”

 

With their pilots now at least somewhat safer, Lucy returned to Sarah and the Rebels, who had gathered up by the largest of the entrances. “We won’t have long before the Empire brings something heavier along to deal with him. Tristan, take ED-3 and your team around to the landing pads, secure those shuttles so we can get the slaves out of here. Everyone else, with me, we’re clearing this place.”

 

“You’ll be badly outgunned, be careful,” Tristan warned her, but offered no protest as Colvin, Dusk, Kodiak, Gallows, and Vargas formed up behind him. “Good luck.”

 

“We can handle them,” Lucy reassured him, reigniting her lightsaber as she took a deep breath. Although the brief rest had helped, her lungs and eyes still burned from exertion of the battle. Nevertheless, she was still fresh enough to be confident in her abilities. 

 

Tristan nodded, taking his team and beginning the trek around the monolithic building as Lucy took point through the door, advancing cautiously with Sarah, Kyle, Peter, Fawkes, and Val close behind her. The bright sunny sky gave way to surprisingly spacious durasteel corridors, illuminated by sterile fluorescent lighting reflecting off of the floors and walls. 

 

Predictably, the group encountered Imperial Resistance almost immediately, with Army Troopers positioned behind any bit of cover they could find, from doorways to purpose-built barricades. Like the soldiers present at the Weapons Development Facility, they lacked the skill of the Stormtroopers, but remained a potent threat at such close quarters.

 

Staying in front of the Rebels, Lucy focused her efforts solely on blocking the incoming blaster fire, rather than deflecting it back at the Imperials. Instead, she left the task of returning fire to her friends, who with some difficulty, managed to kill or wound several of the Army Troopers, inspiring the survivors to make a fighting retreat down the various hallways branching off of the main corridor, or around the corner to wherever the corridor led.

 

“Imperial facilities usually have better chokepoints than this, we might run into more trouble up ahead,” Val noted. “Which way?”

 

“This corridor will lead us to the Cell Block; it is this wide so that the slaves may be controlled as they move through it.” Fawkes answered, his usually booming voice eerily hollow as he spoke. It was neither the time nor the place to ask, but Lucy had disturbing guesses about why he possessed such knowledge.

 

“Start gathering the weapons, we’ll need something to arm the slaves with,” Sarah ordered as she grabbed the blaster rifle off of a dead Army Trooper, slinging it over her shoulder as she stood back up. “Once we spring ‘em loose, the Empire won’t think twice about killing them.”

 

“If they haven’t killed them already...” Peter grimly noted.

 

The grim thought was one that Lucy already had, as the Sith certainly had no qualms about killing their own slaves to prevent them from being rescued in her time. There was, however, some reassurances that she could offer him. “I would have felt something like that if it happened, but that doesn’t mean we should slow down.”

 

“We’re right behind you.” Kyle reassured her with a nod of his helmet.

 

Proceeding further into the Labor Camp, Lucy found her focus divided as Stormtroopers began to make their appearance, launching flanking attacks on the group from the various branching hallways that fed into the main corridor. Despite being few in number, they were able to drastically slow the rate at which the Rebels could advance, attacking from at least three separate angles. At the same time, the Army Troopers rallied themselves and returned from around the corner, demanding Lucy’s attention. While she could protect herself and the Rebels, they were losing precious time.

 

“We can’t get cornered here!” Sarah shouted, before pointing towards the most problematic of the Stormtroopers. “Val, clear that hallway!”

 

“On it!” Val shouted as she took a knee, lined up a shot with her underbarrel grenade launcher, and pulled the trigger. The Stormtroopers within were either killed or wounded as a respectable blast impacted beside their position, the resulting cloud of shrapnel thoroughly neutralizing the threat.

“I have this one!” Fawkes declared, before leveling his D-313 Repeating Striker down the second hallway. The handheld cannon of the Old Republic roared three times, and although Lucy couldn’t see the devastation for herself, the absence of any screaming made it clear that Fawkes had laid waste to whatever Stormtroopers had been present.

 

Whilst Sarah and Peter traded fire with the Stormtroopers down the last of the flank routes, Lucy adjusted her motions to, with a bit of extra focus, redirect some of the incoming blaster bolts back at the Army Troopers ahead of them. Her efforts yielded results, and whatever Troopers managed to avoid her fire fell victim to blaster fire from Kyle, who was well-accustomed to supporting her in battle. 

 

With a final exchange of blaster fire, Peter and Sarah dispatched the last of the Stormtroopers, finally freeing them up to proceed. As they continued to move, however, Lucy could hear the sound of some kind of very heavy blaster cannon, seemingly from somewhere outside of the Labor Camp. Considering that she could hear it even with the entrance now far behind them, it spoke volumes as to how loud and powerful the weapons had to be.

 

A moment later, Lucy heard Tristan’s voice come through over the comlink. “Sarah, we’re making progress with the shuttles, but we need to pick up the pace. The Empire’s flown in heavy walkers, and Prime’s taking a beating. Our pilots are covering him, but they can only do so much.”

 

As if to punctuate Tristan’s point, the sound of a colossal explosion rang out from outside. The entire Labor Camp shook as Lucy briefly wondered if perhaps Liberty Prime had been destroyed. The rippling of several deaths in the Force, however, were enough for her to conclude that he’d likely deployed another of his massive proton charges against the Imperial Walkers.

 

“Copy all Tristan, just have those shuttles ready; we’re working on it.” Sarah replied, before gesturing for the squad to move forward.

 

The sluggish fight through the Labor Camp continued, with the Empire throwing everything they had at the Rebels to slow their advance. The more Imperial soldiers they killed, however, the more it became clear that they were running out of reserves. The most obvious sign of this was when the Stormtroopers and Army Troopers were replaced with armed technicians and prison guards, who performed far more poorly than their frontline counterparts. 

 

Eventually, however, Lucy finally exited the winding corridors into a cavernous chamber, made up of multiple levels around a central vertical shaft that reached several stories upwards. Each level featured a number of cells, with ray shields preventing the slaves within from escaping. Each cell contained at least a dozen Pau’an and Utai slaves, all dressed in orange jumpsuits. Upon seeing her, many of them began to shout out in various languages, but Lucy forced herself to focus on the sole remaining Imperial before them.

 

Standing beside a control console in the center of the massive vertical shaft, an Imperial Officer turned around to face Lucy. At first, he had his pistol raised, but upon being faced with a Jedi, he hesitated, before he dropped his blaster pistol and raised his hands above his head. “Wait! I surrender!”

 

Sensing no deception from the man, Lucy kept her lightsaber raised as she slowly approached him. “Step away from the console!”

 

“Whatever you say!” The officer answered, before suddenly cowering at something behind her. “Wait! No!”

 

Turning around, Lucy saw Kyle forcibly pushing the barrel of Sarah’s blaster rifle towards the ground. “What the hell are you doing?! He’s surrendering!”

 

Sarah seemed to be annoyed for a moment, before looking at Kyle and then the Officer, and slowly nodding. “You’re right... an officer could be useful.”

 

Lucy narrowed her eyes at their leader’s callousness, but recognized that now was not the time for a debate. Instead, she raised her voice as much as she could and addressed the slaves. “Stay calm! We’re going to get you all out of here!”

 

As she attempted to reassure the prisoners, which had only minimal success amongst the seemingly hundreds of frightened people, Peter and Val moved to the control console to deactivate the ray shields. Meanwhile, Fawkes and Sarah watched over the entrances to the cell block, as Kyle picked up a pair of binders off of one of the dead prison guards, and bound the Imperial’s hands behind his back. “Wise decision.”

 

“Why should I die for these people?” The officer asked, a nervous expression on his face as the shields containing the slaves began to shut down.

 

Steadily, the floor around Lucy began to fill with the orange-suited forms of the tall Pau’ans and the shorter, stubbier forms of the Utai. With the ray shields disabled, Peter and Val began distributing blasters amongst the prisoners, providing them with some means to defend themselves should the need arise.

 

As the floor began to get truly crowded, Lucy stepped out towards their presumed exit, knowing that she would be needed to lead the way out. The strange absence of Imperial Forces was one that she was wary of, but the Force around her was clouded with so much fear and anger that she found it hard to sense anything. 

 

While Lucy couldn’t sense any Imperials, nor what they were doing, she was still able, and surprised, to see a familiar Pau’an standing beside Sarah. “Port Administrator?”

 

Lampay Fay turned to face her, a startled look on his pale face. “What? I- you recognize me, Jedi?”

 

Remembering that she had been wearing a Stormtrooper helmet at the time they had met, Lucy opted for a brief summary. “We’ve met, it’s a long story.”

 

“I’ll be happy to hear it once we’re out of here,” Lampay said as Peter walked by and put a blaster pistol in his hands. “But there are nearly three-hundred of my people here! Do you have transport for us?”

 

“Leave that to me,” Sarah remarked, before keying her comlink. “Tristan, we’ve sprung the cell block, and have a little under three-hundred people to move. How’s our exit looking?”

 

The Rebel’s answer came through alongside the sound of blaster fire, but his voice remained calm as he spoke. “Prime’s getting hammered out there, but we’ve got five Sentinel Shuttles under our control. We’ve suffered injuries, but nobody’s dead yet; over.”

“Copy that, hold the fort, we’re on our way out,” Sarah replied, before turning to Lampay. “I don’t suppose any of your people can fly? We’re short one pilot.”

 

“I was a Port Administrator, if it’s a shuttle, I can fly it.” Lampay calmly answered.

 

“Good enough,” Sarah noted with a nod, before keying her comlink again. “Kyle? Take our new friend up to the front with us, I want him in my sight. Peter, you take Val and Fawkes and cover the prisoners, Lucy and I will lead the way out of here.”

 

“We’ll have to be careful,” Lucy warned her, cognizant of her dwindling capabilities. Even if the Force were clear, she had been fighting for hours, and it was beginning to take its toll on her. “There’s so much fear and hatred... the Force is clouded by it. I won’t be able to see much.”

 

“We’ll have to go slowly anyway,” Sarah replied, helping to assuage Lucy’s concern. “We can’t risk anybody getting crushed in a panic.”

 

Kyle arrived beside them only a moment later, pushing the Imperial Officer in front of him. His Old Republic Trooper Armor seemed to attract some attention from the prisoners, but at the very least, it seemed that nobody was mistaking him for a Stormtrooper. “Had to stop some of the slaves from killing him, I made it clear he’ll be useful to us.”

 

Glancing at Sarah, the Imperial Officer adopted a surprisingly smug sneer for a man in binders. “For such a savage, you have some disciplined people under your command, Sarah Lyons.”

 

“I couldn’t be happier to hear that even morons as insignificant as you are afraid of me,” Sarah growled in response. “We’re leaving, keep up, or I’ll let the people here trample you.”

 

The officer’s arrogant sense of superiority seemed to be hardly deterred by her threat. “I think you’ll find I’m quite-”

 

He was cut off, suddenly and violently, as a burning hole was suddenly shot in his chest, and he fell to the ground with a stunned gasp. For a moment, Lucy briefly wondered if Sarah had elected to kill him after all, before Lucy saw Sarah turning to face the true culprit, a team of Stormtroopers coming into view from further down the corridor. Taking cover and blocking off the Rebels route of escape, the Stormtroopers opened fire, as she leapt into the line of fire and began to hastily block every blaster bolt that she could. 

 

Behind her, the prisoners began to shout and scream as they scrambled for cover. Some of those who had been armed, including Lampay Fay, fired back at the Stormtroopers alongside Sarah and Kyle. In such close quarters, the Stormtroopers suffered rapid losses, but quickly learned to shift their fire away from Lucy and towards Kyle and Sarah. Lucy was quickly forced to choose between protecting her armored friends and the frightened slaves, and recognized that there was little choice to be made. Maintaining her focus, Lucy could do little more than hope that against all odds, the Stormtroopers would not manage to land their shots.

 

With the eruption of the fighting, and the panic it had caused, the Force became even harder to parse through. Nonetheless, whether it was a moment of clarity, or her close connection to Kyle, she felt the warning that the Force gave her as one of the Stormtroopers lined up a shot at him. In desperation, she reached out with a Force Push to try to briefly stun all of the Stormtroopers, but it was too late.

 

Time seemed to slow to a crawl as the Stormtrooper took the shot, and Kyle crumpled to the ground with a pained cry as the blaster bolt struck his chest. For a brief moment, things around Lucy almost seemed to freeze entirely, her arm still outstretched in a hopeless attempt to stop what had already happened. The cascading darkness in the Force around her was like a stormy sea, and as Kyle fell, so too did the only thing keeping her afloat.

 

Time resumed as newfound energy rushed through Lucy’s body like a bolt of electricity, and a torrential blast of force flew out of her palm. The resulting push was easily five times the strength of what she had been trying to conjure, and blew away everything in the corridor. Barricades, storage crates, a small hapless Imperial droid, and all but one of the Stormtroopers. Each of them was catapulted off of their feet, their helpless screams carried away along with themselves, before each was violently silenced as they impacted the durasteel wall behind them, each slouching to the ground in unnatural positions. 

 

The lone Stormtrooper who had managed to maintain their footing, the same one who had taken the shot at Kyle, seemed to match Lucy’s narrowed eyes from behind their cold black visor. Her outstretched palm clenched into a fist, the Imperial’s weapon dropping to the ground as they were lifted into the air, helplessly reaching for their throat before their body fell limp with a sickening crunch, before she threw it down the corridor along with the rest of the broken Stormtroopers.

 

The dark power that surged through Lucy’s fingertips was truly unlike anything she had ever experienced. Small, pinprick pains picked away at her hand as she lowered it, but the Dark Side made it very clear that she had the power to kill far more than one squad of Stormtroopers. Eagerly, excitedly, it offered her the chance and power to kill everyone around her, the rest of the Imperials, the Rebels, Sarah, who herself radiated a mixed sense of awe and fear, and-

 

The Dark Side struggled to remain Lucy’s sole focus as she turned to look at Kyle, who had stumbled over to her, having lost his helmet at some point as he was frantically struggling to stand upright and saying... something. Lucy tried to focus, to listen, fiercely trying to hear him over the shouting and the disturbances in the Force. In response, the Dark Side protested, offering her power, strength, whatever she wanted, if only she would listen to it instead of Kyle. 

 

As Lucy’s awareness returned, so too did her Jedi training, and with it, she realized with horror what was happening. She had been consumed, the Dark Side had taken hold of her, and with newfound ferocity she pulled away from it. Her returning senses made her aware of the bitter, icy cold that had spread through her body as she fought and struggled. In vain, the Dark Side resisted her urges to cast it off, but she had made her choice, and banished it with as much strength as she could muster.

 

“Lucy!” Kyle shouted, before crumpling off of his feet. He would have fallen to the ground, had Lucy not hastily reached out to catch him. The burn mark on his chest piece continued to smolder, and even with her senses momentarily dampened, she could feel his agony through the Force. In spite of the terrible pain, he remained solely focused on her, pleading with her to stay with him. “Don’t- come back, please-”

“I’m here,” Lucy whispered, finding her throat painfully sore as she did so. Only then did she realize that, once Kyle had been shot, she’d screamed with such intensity that she’d substantially strained her voice. The chills throughout her body only continued to spread as she looked at the scene of carnage she had created, realizing what she’d done. “I’m-”

 

The once bustling and rowdy prisoners were now eerily quiet, watching her and the mangled remains of the Stormtroopers at the end of the wall with a mix of curiosity and fear. Kyle’s own fearful look was one of abject terror, being the only person present besides Lucy who understood exactly what had just happened.

 

“Holy shit...” Sarah muttered, before steadily raising her voice back to normal, laughing with delight at the carnage Lucy had wrought. “Why the hell didn’t you start by doing that?! Kyle, are-”

 

A fierce sense of protectiveness returned energy to her limbs, and Lucy looked up at Sarah with a glare that immediately silenced her. It came with yet more cold, the Dark Side tempting her once more, which she struggled to resist. Relying on Kyle as much as he relied on her, they struggled to stand as Fawkes pushed through the prisoners to reach them.

“I apologize for disregarding your orders, Sarah,” Fawkes said, his booming voice carrying a sense of calm, but firm authority. “But it is clear that I will be needed to lead the way out of here.”

 

Sarah, finding her words again, firmly nodded. “...Right. Come on people! Let’s get moving!”

 

Even as she shouted, Lucy noticed that some of the fire that she usually spoke with was gone. The cold that the Dark Side had left behind in Lucy’s body, coupled with the exhaustion she had already felt, made it difficult to walk even with Kyle’s help. At one point, they briefly paused to roughly apply some Kolto to his burn wound, receiving assistance from an Utai prisoner who seemed fairly confident in what they were doing. With the injury at least somewhat treated, and his helmet retrieved, Kyle did his best to support her as they followed the rest of the crowd.

 

Returning to the fight was out of the question, as Lucy found it increasingly difficult to remain awake. Mercifully, Sarah and Fawkes made for a potent fighting force of their own, blasting through the few scraps of Imperial Resistance that remained on their way out of the Labor Camp.

“It’s alright Lucy, I’m okay, we’ll be okay,” Kyle continued to her, even though she could feel the pain of his burns radiating through their connection. “Just keep moving, we’re... almost there.”

 

Lucy found it impossible to speak, not just due to the damage that she’d done to her throat, but out of fear of what she would say. Never in her life had she ever fallen so far, been consumed by the Dark Side in such a way. There had been glimpses, hints of it in the past, but never something as severe as what she’d experienced. The knowledge that she’d been very close to being turned away from the light completely filled her with absolute terror, and she clung to Kyle with newfound urgency as he struggled to keep them moving.

 

After what felt like hours of walking, but had likely only been minutes, Lucy and Kyle emerged back into the sunlight to see the landing pads, along with the five Imperial shuttles that Tristan’s team had secured. As far as Lucy could see, every single one of the Rebels was injured to varying degrees, with Tristan himself badly limping as he walked over to Sarah. ED-3 swiftly rolled over to Lucy’s side, bleeping with concern at her obvious distress, but despite wanting to, she found herself unable to reassure her tiny friend.

 

“We’ve sprung the trackers and transponders on the shuttles, but we’ve got to hurry, Prime’s on his last legs,” Tristan warned Sarah. “I don’t suppose you’ve found us a fifth pilot?”

Lampay Fay, with a bit of hesitation, stepped forward. “I can fly one of these ships, but I’ll need to know where to go.”

 

“I’ll go with you then,” Sarah offered, before issuing out her orders to the rest of the Lyons’ Pride’s pilots. “Peter, Vargas, Gallows, and Tristan, you take the other four. Everyone else, take the U-Wings out once the shuttles are airborne. I’ll see you all at the rally point.”

 

As the rest of the Rebels began the process of hastily organizing and carrying out the evacuation. Kyle all but carried Lucy towards the landing pads, sitting down beside them as she struggled to make sense of what was going on around her.

 

“It’s alright Lucy,” Kyle reassured her as the prisoners walked past them. “You came back.”

 

Despite her own immense, overpowering fears about her very close call with the Dark Side, there was another concern that still took precedence in her mind. One that she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about, truthfully, since they’d awoken from stasis. “I nearly lost you... again.”

 

“You didn’t,” Kyle quickly reassured her. “I’m still here, because of you.”

 

Lucy tried to nod, to let him know that she was listening, before the roaring of engines drowned out anything that either could have said. In spite of the heat of the sun, and the rushing hot air kicked up by the engines of the shuttles, Lucy still felt as though she’d been through a blizzard, and clung onto Kyle all the more firmly as a result.

 

She wasn’t entirely sure how much time had passed before the shuttles left and the U-Wings returned, but when they did, Val returned to help both of them up to their feet. “Easy, take it slow, I’ve got ya.”

 

Steadily, but hastily, Val helped both of them into the troop bay of Paulen’s U-Wing. As soon as they were aboard, Val sent a brief signal over the comlink to confirm that everyone had been safely recovered. Evidently, they were the last ones to leave, a realization that barely registered with Lucy as Val fastened them into their seats for them.

 

With no further delay, Paulen lifted off, allowing Lucy to witness the aftermath of the battle from the sky. The Weapons Development Facility in the distance smoldered and burned, and pillars of smoke likewise rose from the Labor Camp. The true devastation, however, had been wrought not by her, or by the Rebels, but by Liberty Prime’s rampage. Even in her state of near-total delirium and confusion, she was still awestruck by the carnage the colossal wardroid had caused.

 

The vast fields of Utapau around the Labor Camp were now the graveyard of what had to be, at bare minimum, hundreds of Imperial Soldiers. Three large transport ships of varying models were reduced to charred wrecks, burning amidst the grass as the wind carried the fire across the prairies. There were further crash sites of what had to be at least a full squadron of TIE Fighters, plus a few extra for good measure, and massive craters where Imperial Walkers had once stood. Knowing that there were more she couldn’t see, Lucy counted the remains of at least five of the metal beasts, including a pair of massive, four-legged walkers that looked to have stood impressively tall before they were reduced to shattered pieces.

 

Despite all that had been thrown at him, the mangled form of Liberty Prime still drew some breath. Despite having both of his legs reduced to scrap metal, and everything from his waist to his head charred and burning from the impacts of thousands of Imperial weapons, the formerly-Imperial droid stubbornly refused to go without a fight. Once every few seconds, he would stubbornly fire a laser cannon into the air, aiming at TIE Fighters orbiting overhead and forcing them to stay clear of the transports.

“ Liberty... is... eternal! ” Liberty Prime defiantly shouted, his voice still discernible in spite of the damage.

 

“It’s a shame we couldn’t take him with us,” Val noted with an impressed whistle. “Nice work you two.”

 

While Lucy appreciated her friend’s attempt to lift the mood, it was all that she could do to remain conscious. At the very least, she still did her best to give Val a smile, which the Rebel happily returned as Kyle raised his head to speak. “Where are we going?”

 

“Everyone else is going to Point Lookout, one of our old rallying points. Our new satellite is already set up there, so we’ll be able to get help from the rest of the Rebellion. We, however, are going back to the Lyons’ Den, where Paulen and I will look after our injured,” Val answered, before the sound of screeching TIE fighters caught their attention. “...Bloody hell.”

At first, Lucy worried that perhaps the Empire had elected to pursue them after all. After a moment, her eyes settled on a new formation of flat-flying fighters, resembling TIEs, but being distinct in their twin-hull designs. Rather than chasing the escaping U-Wings, however, they turned their attention to Liberty Prime. Stubbornly, he fired off one last shot from his laser cannon, narrowly missing one of the TIEs as they began to drop their payload.

 

As the battlefield left her sight, the doors to the troop bay gradually began to close, but not before Lucy saw the proton bombs fall, finally ending Liberty Prime as the sunlight faded from view.

 

Author’s Note: I’ve updated Chapter 9 in particular with some art pieces I had commissioned a while back, but figured I could insert into the story itself. The artists themselves are credited in the new Author’s note at the end of that chapter.

Chapter 12: A Step into a Larger World

Two weeks had passed since the mission to Utapau, and while Kyle had spent most of that time bedridden and recovering from the burn wounds across his chest, a great deal had happened while he had been indisposed. While Kyle, Lucy, and many of the severely wounded members of the Lyons’ Pride had returned to the Lyons’ Den on Verdant, Sarah had led the rest of their squad to the rendezvous at Rally Point Lookout. There, they made use of the communications satellite that Charlie had provided them to safely get into contact with the rest of the Rebel Alliance.

 

Sarah’s report of all that had happened had been thorough, covering everything from the survival of the Lyons’ Pride, to being rescued by Lucy and Kyle on Utapau, along with the discovery of valuable Imperial encryption keys, and finally their successful raid on the Imperial Labor Camp and Weapons Facility on Utapau. The man that Sarah had spoken with, General Jan Dodonna, had been pleased to hear the good news, and immediately dispatched reinforcements to provide humanitarian relief for the former slaves.

 

It had been a bit of a surprise for Kyle to learn that Lampay Fay, the former Port Administrator of Pau City that he’d deceived and inadvertently incriminated, had volunteered to join the Rebel Alliance alongside many of the liberated Utai and Pau’an. In conjunction with many of their people who were already serving in the Rebel Alliance, they would be creating a new Rebel Cell, one aimed at disrupting and resisting the Imperial Occupation of Utapau. Those who did not wish to join the Rebellion would be given some basic amenities and transported to various places across the Outer Rim, where they could hopefully start new lives away from the Empire.

 

The new Utapau Cell, however, would not be the only new unit that the Rebel Alliance would be creating. While the Lost Hills Cell was nearly entirely destroyed, Sarah had demonstrated her competence to General Dodonna and the rest of Alliance High Command, and had offered her a position of command of a newly-formed unit. Sarah had accepted, leaving behind her old title as the Sentinel of the Lost Hills Cell to become a Colonel in the Alliance to Restore the Republic. Her new unit would be the 201st Mobile Infantry Battalion, and their first order of business would be the restoration of the Lyons’ Den, their new headquarters.

 

About a week following his return to the Lyons’ Den, Kyle had been present to greet the first of their reinforcements, an entire Company from the Alliance Corps of Engineers who were now a part of the 201st. They had been followed by infantrymen, medical professionals, mechanics, technicians, operations staff, and many more beings from all walks of life. It was a surprise for Kyle to see just how many people had come to their aid, but as Sarah had explained it, the destruction of Alderaan and the Death Star had generated massive support for the Rebellion. Many of their new allies were new recruits, along with some older veteran soldiers, all ready and eager to take the fight to the Empire.

 

Amongst the litany of fresh soldiers and equipment, came people who Kyle had not expected. Archaeologists, historians, scholars, and all manner of individuals who had a special interest in examining the largely-intact remains of an Old Republic military installation, especially before it was renovated. An experience unlike anything anyone had expected, so in retrospect, it was really only a matter of time before they arrived once knowledge of Verdant became more available to the Alliance as a whole. Both Kyle and Lucy had already been extensively interviewed, including by a man named Arhul Hextrophon, the apparent Master Historian of the Rebel Alliance. It was an experience that Kyle personally found a bit daunting, and reminded him that a lot of what he had lived through was now ancient history to the rest of the Galaxy.

 

With a hefty amount of capable manpower and renovations to the Lyons’ Den underway, there was still the matter of supplying the new unit to contend with, something that Kyle had been attempting to help with. Much of that had come from providing his input on what sorts of ancient equipment might actually be useful, ranging from common blasters to the potentially useful airframes of the base’s once-mighty starfighter complement. 

 

The 201st, however, would not be able to operate solely off of ancient weapons and three-millennia old ration packs. To that end, the Rebel Alliance worked to scrounge together equipment, provisions, and starships for the new unit, but it was the starships which proved to be the biggest bottleneck. Recent defeats meant that the Rebel Alliance could only spare a trio of RM-09 Shuttles, which would all be occupied with the logistics of creating the new battalion for months at the minimum. At first, Sarah had been satisfied, until Alliance High Command had made clear that they wanted the Imperial Sentinel Shuttles that the Lyons’ Pride had captured for their own operations.

 

While most of the work he’d been doing was from a makeshift hospital bed, Kyle had just about managed to be present for the resulting debate, which had threatened to get a bit heated. As it turned out, Sarah already had her own aspirations for the shuttles, without which their new unit would struggle to be able to actually launch any offensives against the Empire. General Dodonna had been firm in his declaration that the Alliance needed the Imperial ships elsewhere, but with Kyle’s input, however, a compromise would be struck. 

 

While the 201st would hand the shuttles over to the rest of the Rebellion, they would in turn be provided with a twelve-strong squadron of newly-built F/T-14 Nexu Starfighters, two of which would be delivered immediately. The two-seater multirole heavy fighters were a new design of the Alliance’s own creation, with a focus on providing atmospheric dominance over just about anything the Empire could field in the airspace of a planet. With their ample firepower, they were perfectly suited for supporting Commando raids, which suited Sarah’s plans perfectly fine.

 

That was about as far as Kyle got when it came to contributing. While their new medical personnel weren’t too worried about his injury, as they had seen far worse in their fight against the Empire, Lucy most certainly was. 

 

Lucy remained at his side nearly constantly, and while he welcomed her company, her nervous concern for him did get a bit overbearing at times. The worst aspect of her efforts to be helpful was her attempts to heal him through the Force. It didn’t hurt him, in fact, his wound had already healed a decent amount because of her efforts. However, Force Heal was an ability that he knew Lucy struggled with, and it drained a great deal of energy from her any time she tried to use it. 

 

The guilt that he felt from Lucy putting herself through pain for his sake made him feel so sick that even she had felt nauseous, and she reluctantly agreed to simply settle for easing his pain through the Force instead. Thankfully, that was something that was far easier for her to do, and while the burns still hurt, it wasn’t quite as bad as it otherwise would have been. That didn’t stop her from offering to heal him daily, which he continually refused, even if he appreciated the sentiment. Lucy had more than enough issues of her own to worry about, which, ironically, left Kyle in a similar state of anxious concern for her wellbeing.

 

Falling to the Dark Side, as Lucy had explained to him once, was a fate she considered to be far worse than death. Her encounter with the Dark Side at the Imperial Labor Camp was something that Kyle knew was weighing on her like nothing else she had ever experienced, and he had been trying to reassure her that everything was going to turn out okay. After all, they had managed to free the people who were enslaved in part because of them, and even delivered a punishing blow against the Empire.

 

Kyle was painfully aware, however, that victory hadn’t come without cost.

 

“Kyle?” Lucy grabbed his attention, and he looked up from the makeshift burlap hammock in the hangar that he’d largely been consigned to for the last two weeks. Lucy’s own seating was hardly any more comfortable, a plastoid supply crate from the Old Republic repurposed as a chair. Her expression bore a sense of caution, like there was something that she wanted to say, but was hesitating. “Is... something wrong?”

 

It was a rhetorical question, both of them knew it. Not only did Lucy know that there were a lot of things wrong, but through their bond in the Force, she likely also knew exactly what it was that was bothering Kyle in the present moment. Briefly, Kyle almost wished he could avoid the discussion, and he knew that Lucy would respect the boundary if he put it up. Nonetheless, he relented, speaking up because he knew that he needed to.

 

“I could have saved him,” Kyle quietly answered, the words still being a struggle to say even after he’d had some time to process Glade’s death. He vaguely remembered having nightmares of rewatching the moment where he had died, but they were foggy, and he wasn’t sure if it was just a trick of his imagination. “I had that bastard dead to rights, I could’ve-”

 

Lucy didn’t respond verbally to his growing agitation, instead reaching out through the Force to soothe the crushing weight on his mind. It was a subtle signal to him, a reminder to take a breath and collect his thoughts, which he did. After a moment, Kyle managed to speak up again, and what would have been fury had been replaced by a small amount of bitter tears.

 

“I should’ve been faster,” Kyle said, his voice still strained. “Glade should still be here.”

 

“He’s at peace now, he’s one with the Force,” Lucy attempted to reassure him, although she too wore an expression of sorrow. “Glade’s death isn’t your fault, Kyle. The Empire bears the blame for that.”

 

Not just the Empire. A small, vengeful part of Kyle’s mind reminded him. He’d gotten a glimpse at Glade’s killer, recognized the man’s armor and its distinctive markings. Agent Shepherd, a man whom Kyle dearly hoped was dead. Given that all three of the gunships had gone down in flames, it was a likely possibility, and one that gave him a grim degree of satisfaction. It was undercut, however, but the sense of disappointment that Lucy radiated as she followed his train of thought.

“He wouldn’t have wanted us to seek revenge, Kyle,” Lucy spoke up again, her tone gentle, but firm. “Vengeance isn’t the Jedi way. It isn’t yours either.”

 

Even before Kyle could begin to protest, he was confronted by the reality of just how right Lucy was. It didn’t take a lecture for him to realize it either, as even if his brief time with Glade hadn’t already given him a picture of what kind of person the Rebel was, his funeral most certainly had.

 

In the days after the Battle on Utapau, the surviving members of the Lyons’ Pride had held a service not just for Glade, but for the rest of the men and women they’d lost on Fondor. Every one of the members of the Lyons’ Pride had more or less the same thing to say about Glade, along with a few funny stories to share. Glade was a good man with a comedic, joyful heart, who lost almost everything he knew on Fondor, and still went into his last battle with a smile on his face.

 

It was very clear to Kyle that Glade wasn’t the kind of person who would want anybody beating themselves up over not being able to save him, or go chasing blind revenge against his killers. Revenge, after all, was not going to bring Glade back. If anything, Glade probably would’ve wanted his death to cause as little pain as possible.

 

“Thank you,” Lucy softly said, clearly seeing and sensing that he’d calmed down, and came around to her line of thinking. “I know I’m not one to talk, but revenge... it leads to the Dark Side.”

 

The weight and guilt in Lucy’s voice tore at Kyle’s heart like razor blades, and without really thinking, Kyle grunted as he sat upwards and climbed out of the hammock. The pain of his burns momentarily flared up as he moved, but he pushed through it, unwilling to be anywhere other than Lucy’s side while he knew that she needed him. Lucy briefly shifted in her seat, as though she were about to protest, but stopped herself, seemingly recognizing that she wasn’t going to change his mind. Even so, Kyle felt the pain in his chest soften just a bit, as Lucy answered his stubbornness with a bit of her own.

 

After the battle, Kyle had exchanged his Old Republic Trooper armor for his typical khaki Temple Security Force Officer uniform several days ago. The uniform covered the litany of Bacta-patches on his chest, which the Rebel medics had insisted were better than the Kolto that he had been using. As a result, him sitting beside her was a lot less awkward than it would have been were he in a heavy suit of plastoid. 

 

Lucy leaned against Kyle’s shoulder immediately after he sat down beside her, and he wrapped his arm around her shoulders as he held onto her. “You shouldn’t blame yourself either.”

 

“It was my decision,” Lucy quietly, half-heartedly argued. “I thought... that they took you from me, that they had to pay for what they’d done... So I chose revenge.”

 

Kyle held onto Lucy a bit more firmly, wondering what exactly the right words were to reassure her. To remind her that she wasn’t a bad person, just a good one who had made a mistake; perhaps a significant one, but not one that couldn’t be moved past. Unfortunately, he was no Jedi, and the Force wasn’t something he would ever truly understand. Fortunately, he did know somebody who was a Jedi, and did understand the Force very well.

“Have you managed to speak with Satele again?” Kyle asked, although despite the optimism he injected into his voice, he braced for disappointment.

 

Sure enough, Lucy shook her head, a sullen expression on her face. “No. I’ve been trying, but I’m out of balance. I was only able to talk to Satele with a clear mind.”

 

Kyle nodded, understanding the impasse for what it was. Satele couldn’t help Lucy find peace with what she’d done if she needed to be at peace to talk to Satele. “Then what can I do to help you?”

 

For a moment, Lucy remained, seemingly deep in thought, before the tension in her shoulders slacked and she let out an uneven breath. Her voice was quiet and strained as she answered him, her emerald green eyes clouded by the beginnings of tears. “Just... stay safe, please. I can’t lose you.”

 

A fresh wave of guilt rolled over Kyle, as he knew that he was at least partially responsible for Lucy’s present conundrum. Her attachment to him was what had caused her to embrace the Dark Side, and even if it had only been for a few seconds, Kyle knew that the Dark Side never truly left somebody once it had been accepted. 

 

Conversely, the fact that Kyle had managed to pull Lucy back to the Light Side was evidence of what Satele had told them both, that they would be stronger together, and be better able to resist the darkness with each other’s help. In that respect there was one thing that he knew he could tell Lucy that would help.

“I’m staying right with you, don’t worry,” Kyle reassured her, before planting a brief kiss on her forehead. “I love you Lucy.”

 

In response, Lucy very carefully hugged him, making sure to avoid his burns as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders. A small amount of tears gently fell from Lucy’s eyes as she answered him, choking back a sob as she did her best to keep a level voice. “I love you too.”

 

Holding onto her tightly, Kyle allowed himself to briefly be lost in the moment. Despite what had happened, they were still together, and still had each other, and they could take solace in that. Where Kyle otherwise would’ve lacked confidence, with Lucy beside him, he was all but certain that they could make things better.

 

The tender moment was sadly disturbed, however, when Kyle heard the sound of incoming footsteps. Looking up, he could see Val, Gida, and Paulen all approaching them, laden with equipment, blasters, and rucksacks. Val seemed to notice their poor state and embrace first, swiftly adopting an apologetic look. “Oh... bloody hell, I’m sorry... I-”

 

“It’s alright, we’ll be okay,” Kyle said, hoping to reassure everyone at once. Lucy, for her part, seemed to be unwilling to let go of him, momentarily ignoring the people who had come to speak with them, and leaving Kyle to speak on her behalf. “What’s going on?”

 

Val cleared her throat, and adopted a more somber expression as she answered him, her voice professional, but sullen. “We’re leaving. Charlie’s calling in his favor with Sarah, and he needs a pilot and a mechanic, so I’ll be going with him and Gida.”

 

Recognizing what was going on, Lucy finally released Kyle and stood up, wiping her face clear of any tears before turning to speak with them. “I’m... sorry to hear that. Are you leaving now?”

 

Paulen spoke up to answer her, his voice firm and confident. “We were going to, but if you need us, I’m sure that Charlie wouldn’t mind us being a little late.”

 

“He would,” Gida cautiously pointed out, before turning back to Lucy with a more mischievous look. “...But we can make him wait if you need us to.”

 

As Kyle looked up at Paulen from where he was sitting, he found it hard to believe that the confident Rebel pilot before him, clad in aviator sunglasses, was the same Imperial Pilot that he and Lucy had captured and inadvertently rescued. Over the course of what amounted to a matter of weeks, Paulen had his entire life turned on its head, and despite being faced with yet another major change to his life, he didn’t seem to be at all nervous about it. He was even willing to disregard orders purely for the sake of looking after his friends. 

 

Admittedly, it made Kyle feel a bit guilty, as he remembered assuming that Paulen was nothing more than another Sith thug, his hatred for the Empire leaving him willing to kill Paulen if the need arose. Instead, Lucy had suggested that they give him a chance, and Paulen was now living evidence to the fact that giving in to blind hatred meant needlessly killing people who had the potential to do good.

 

“Don’t stay for us... but thank you,” Lucy said after some hesitation. “I’m glad that we at least get the chance to say goodbye.”

 

“I should really be thanking you,” Val replied, her face now bearing a warm, reassuring smile. “Thanks to you, I’m still alive, and I get to go back to fixing things instead of fighting. I might not be able to stay here with you, but I’ve got a few friends to keep me company.”

 

While Val was talking, she patted her hand on Paulen’s shoulder, who seemed to brighten up at the gesture as he spoke up. “I wanted to thank you both as well. The two of you didn’t just save my life, you helped me find a better way to look after my mom.”

 

Kyle raised an eyebrow, unsure if he was missing something. He did remember the anxieties that Paulen had regarding who would provide for his mother now that he was no longer serving the Empire, and how he would be able to get word to her that he was still alive. What Kyle could not see was how he and Lucy could have helped. 

 

Lucy seemed to not know what was going on either, as she raised the question that Kyle had been thinking. “We did?”

 

“Well, you and Gida did,” Paulen clarified. “My mom’s a Botanist, and from what Gida’s told me... Charlie needs a Botanist.”

 

“The plants eat people where Cheyenne Company’s set up,” Gida clarified, her deadpan tone making clear that she was not joking. “So this works out for all of us.”

 

Kyle turned his attention to Lucy, who after a moment, managed a genuine smile. “I’m... I’m glad to hear it. May the Force be with you.”

 

“May the Force be with you, Lucy,” Paulen replied. “And with you Kyle.”

 

“Likewise,” Kyle replied, attempting to mimic the pilot’s confident aura. “Just don’t get into too much trouble without us.”

 

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Paulen reassured him, although the sly smirk on his face said otherwise. With their goodbye said, Paulen turned to his two companions. “Come on, we’ve still got-”

 

As the trio turned to leave, however, they could all hear the sound of running footsteps and a woman shouting. “Wait, wait!”

 

Hearing Sarah’s voice, Kyle looked out into the hangar to see both Sarah and Peter running over to them. Sarah stopped right before Val, and gave her a small smile.

 

“You weren’t actually going to leave without saying goodbye to me, were you?” Sarah asked.

 

Val awkwardly chuckled as she shook her head. “Oh, pish! You know I was going to! I’ve had a lot of goodbyes to say you know!”

 

Sarah warmly chuckled, before being handed a surprise in the form of Val’s DC-15A Blaster Rifle, along with its underbarrel grenade launcher. “...Wait, Val, don’t you-”

 

“I prefer small scale,” Val confidently said as she pulled what Kyle recognized to be a now-ancient Corellian K5 Blaster pistol from her hip and gave it a brief spin, before holstering it once more. “And besides, I’m going to be going back to fixing Starfighters. You’re going to need that thing a lot more than I will.”

 

Sarah examined the Republic Rifle in her hands with a conflicted look on her face, before she slung the weapon over her shoulder and gave Val a nod. “Thank you Val, may the Force be with you.”

 

“And with you, Colonel Lyons,” Val said, offering Sarah a brief salute. “Your father would be very proud of you.”

 

“...I hope so,” Sarah said, before turning to Paulen. “And thank you, flyboy. I haven’t forgotten that you saved all of our asses.”

 

“I aim to please,” Paulen casually replied, before turning to Peter. “Are you going to be okay with flying everyone from now on?”

 

Peter narrowed his eyes at Paulen, but couldn’t hide the hints of a smile on his face. “Oh... just get going, will ya?”

 

Paulen laughed, and the two pilots briefly exchanged a handshake, before he turned to Val and Gida. “Are you both ready?”

 

“As ready as I’m going to be,” Val replied. “Especially now that I don’t have to carry that damned thing.”

 

“Right behind you.” Gida answered.

 

Kyle couldn’t help but feel a bit melancholic as Paulen, Val, and Gida walked off, heading towards the same Phi-class shuttle that he and Lucy had boarded just after they had woken up. He worried about how they would fare in the future, but somehow, had a strange sense that they’d make it.

 

“You two look like you’ve been through the wringer,” Sarah commented. “Are you alright?”

 

Lucy hesitated for a moment, sparing a glance at Kyle, before nodding. “I think we will be.”

 

Sarah’s look of concern faded a bit, seemingly convinced by Lucy’s answer. “That’s good, because to be honest, I could really use your help.”

 

With some effort, Kyle stood up to stand by Lucy’s side. “What’s going on?”

 

“We’ve picked up an SOS signal on our new satellite, on one of the lines we used to use back at Lost Hills,” Sarah answered, her voice laced with a mixture of caution and excitement. “I’m not blind to the idea that it could be a trap, but if there’s even a chance that there’s survivors, I’m not going to risk leaving them behind.”

 

There was a brief moment of silence as the news set in, and Kyle could guess why it was that Sarah wanted to speak with him and Lucy. At the very least, there was a major concern he had to raise. “The timing is a little convenient, don’t you think? You lead an assault on an Imperial target and two weeks later we just happen to pick up a signal from survivors from Fondor?”

 

“I hadn’t even considered that,” Peter noted, the look of reserved caution on his face making his opinion on the matter clear, before turning to Kyle. “There’s also the matter of where the signal’s coming from. Fondor is a long way from the Outer Rim, and none of our star charts even have a name for the system we’re hearing this from.”

 

“Although that does sound like a good place to lie low,” Lucy pointed out, her words carrying a cautious optimism. “Do you have any idea who it could be?”

 

“I’m not sure, there were a lot of Rebels at Lost Hills, at least a full Division’s worth,” Sarah answered. “Whoever it is, I’m going after them. Since Paulen’s leaving, we’ll have to take one of the U-Wings. I’ll have to bring a small team if I’m going to have room to bring anyone back, and you’re easily the strongest fighter that we have.”

 

Even before Kyle could speak up with further words of caution, Lucy stepped forward. “I’ll go.”

 

Recognizing the determination in her voice, Kyle recognized that there wouldn’t be any chance of her convincing him otherwise. Even before he could volunteer himself for the role, however, Sarah gave him a glare. “No- I know what you’re going to say, you’re staying! You can barely move, you’d be a liability if this is a trap.”

 

Sarah’s words were perhaps a bit harsh, but Kyle at least appreciated the firm honesty, even if it was frustrating. Knowing better than to argue with her, in no small part because he reluctantly recognized that she was correct, he instead turned to Lucy. She might have lacked the physical injuries that he was suffering from, but that didn’t mean she was okay. “Lucy... are you sure about this?”

 

“I’m certain,” Lucy replied, putting her hand on his shoulder with a remarkably confident look on her face. “I know you’re safe, and Sarah’s going to need the help if this is a trap.”

 

“And if it’s a trap, I’ll kill everyone who set it,” Sarah noted, her reassuring words somewhat undercut by the venom in her voice. “Listen to your girlfriend, Kyle. She’s a Jedi, she knows what she’s doing.”

 

Kyle wanted to argue, and Lucy seemingly recognized that, pulling him just a bit closer to her as a reminder that she was with him, and that everything was going to be okay. Knowing just how capable she was, Kyle opted to settle for one last request. “Just be careful, okay?”

 

“Don’t worry, I will,” Lucy reassured him, before turning her attention back to Sarah. “Who else are we bringing?”

 

“You’ll need a pilot for one,” Peter pointed out. “I can-”

“I can fly,” Lucy cut Peter off, seemingly surprising him before she continued. “And if you had anything you needed help with, I’m sure Kyle could help you.”

 

Feeling yet another bit of frustration, Kyle clearly recognized Lucy’s transparent attempt to keep him busy. It was nice to see that she cared and didn’t want to leave him with nothing to do but worry, but at the same time, it did feel a bit patronizing. Sparing a glance at Peter, he saw the smuggler wearing a similarly patronized look. “I’m starting to feel like you only wanted me around because I had a ship and you didn’t.”

 

“I have plenty of reasons to want you around,” Sarah slyly noted, before abruptly shifting into a more serious tone. “And if you want a new ship, the Star Shield still needs outfitting, especially since we’ll need something to intercept Imperial Signals now that Paulen’s leaving.”

Peter spared a look at Kyle, who gave him a nod, it was something that he could do. Starship maintenance wasn’t exactly his strong suit, but if it had to do with Old Republic-era computers, he was probably one of the only people who came close to being an expert, with him being able to think of only one other person who would know more than him. “It would probably help if we had ED-3 with us. Did you need him Lucy?”

 

“I think we’ll be alright,” Lucy answered. “Astronavigation isn’t really his strong suit anyway, I think he only has... maybe three lanes plotted in his system.”

 

“I do want to bring at least a few extra guns, Dusk and Colvin only had some minor injuries, so we’ll bring them,” Sarah noted. “Unless you have no other concerns, Lucy, I’d like to leave as soon as possible.”

 

Lucy nodded. “I’ll be right with you, I just need a minute or two.”

 

“Then I’ll see you at the ship.” Sarah replied, before turning and leaving to collect her squadmates.

 

As she walked away, Kyle could clearly see the look of conflict on Lucy’s face as she turned her attention to him, before gently pulling him into a hug. “Try to not worry, alright? If there’s anything I can handle, it’s Sith scum.”

 

Kyle nodded, but couldn’t help but lack the same confidence Lucy spoke with. He’d watched over enough funerals at the Jedi Temple to know that Jedi were far from invincible, and for as sure as Lucy tried to seem, she couldn’t hide her own concerns from him. Injury and death were not the only things that Lucy risked facing.

 

Despite his own doubts, Kyle wanted to support her as best as he could. Knowing that he was at least one source of concern for her, he put on as brave a face as he could manage. “Just don’t take any risks that you don’t have to.”

 

Even knowing that it was coming, Kyle was still caught a bit off guard when Lucy pulled him into a kiss. For just a brief moment, he allowed himself to enjoy the peaceful moment, before she reluctantly pulled away, giving him a small smile as she did so. “Be ready to give me another one of those, and we’ll call it a deal.”

 

Left a bit stunned, Kyle gave her a nod, and with no further delay, Lucy set off after Sarah. On the other side of the hangar, alongside the chatter of technicians and the whirring of power tools, he could hear the engines of Paulen’s ship firing up. Kyle’s mind, however, was still stuck on Lucy before Peter snapped him out of it.

 

“Not exactly shy, is she?” Peter observed with a chuckle, which quickly faded into something a bit more serious and insightful. “And don’t feel too guilty about being worried. Just because she and Sarah can hold their own doesn’t mean that I’m not worried.”

 

In spite of all that was on his mind, Kyle was still able to sense that something was off about the way Peter spoke, like there was more to say that he was holding back. Opting to test the theory, Kyle spoke up. “What do you mean?”

Peter hesitated for a moment, glancing down at the durasteel floor before he cautiously answered. “I care about Sarah, enough to notice; and do not tell her that I said this... but she’s not okay. She’s lost a lot, and I think it gets to her more than she wants to admit. Some of the others in the Pride told me she’s always been aggressive, but even they were surprised when I told them that Sarah was ready to execute a surrendering man.”

 

Kyle stood silently and took in what Peter was saying. In truth, he’d been a bit worried about just how far Sarah was willing to go from the minute he’d watched her behead Major Dauphin. He wasn’t naive enough to think that wars were anything other than brutal slogs, and despite his own reservations about the manner of Dauphin’s death, he recognized that the man had probably deserved the fate Sarah had given him.

 

At the same time, the Jedi’s teachings about being wary of anger and hatred were very well founded. Even for those who weren’t Force Sensitive, emotions like that were harmful and corrosive to the mind. Wrath inspired mistakes, degraded the ability to think rationally, and that made it self-destructive. 

 

Concepts like brutality and fury had defined the doctrine of the Sith Military, and while aggression was a necessary part of any offensive action in war, the Sith’s Military’s barbarity made them sloppy. Entire Fleets and Armies of Sith Forces had met their end when they fell victim to thoughtless aggression, usually thanks to their Sith Commanders, and then being cut off and destroyed by Republic Forces once they became overextended.

 

If Sarah wasn’t careful, she’d meet the same fate that they did.

 

“I’ve noticed it too, and so has Lucy,” Kyle said, recognizing that perhaps he had been quiet for a bit too long. “If it’s any comfort, Lucy won’t let her do anything like that. I know what she did when I got shot, and I won’t pretend like I’m not worried about her, but she’s a good person. She’ll look after Sarah.”

 

“I hope you’re right,” Peter nodded, although the look of concern remained on his face. “I know Sarah volunteered you for work on the ship, but if you’d rather rest, I’m not going to blame you.”

 

“No, I am sick and tired of being stuck in bed,” Kyle honestly answered. “I’ll pick up ED-3 and meet you on the ship.”

 

“Thanks.” Peter answered with a small smile.

 

As they briefly parted ways, and Kyle made his way over to ED-3’s charging station, he watched as both Paulen’s ship and one of their U-Wings lifted off. As soon as they left the hangar door, they headed in seperate directions. Unable to do more than wish his friends and lover the best, Kyle looked away, and did his best not to worry.