Star Wars 3.75: An Avenging Hope

by AlchemiSt24

Summary:

The Avengers end up in Star Wars and join the rebellion, starting in Season 1 of Rebels. They solve some probloms, and bring their own. The rest of Star Wars and the MCU will show up as apropriate. Partialy inspired by Avengers Infinite Wars.
Disclaimer: I own neither Star Wars nor Marvel, please don't sue me Disney.

Chapter 1: Avengers

Battle of Sokovia, April 2015 AD, 14 AFE (After Formation of the Empire)

……………………………………………Pietro Maximoff…………………………………………………

Pietro was getting tired. The hydra scientists had never wanted to let him out of sight for long, so he had never had a chance to run all out for long periods after getting his powers. He was a bit surprised that his endurance had held out for this long, but now he had been running through Ultron drones and carrying civilians across the city for the better part of a day. It didn’t help that said city was now floating at least six kilometers up in the sky.

He was constantly having to stop, take a breather between fights. Even so, as he swept through his wrecked and flying home city looking for more drones to destroy or people to save, Quicksilver felt himself getting slower and slower. So when he rounded a corner and saw Hawkeye and some kid about to be gunned down, he couldn’t be certain that he would survive helping them, or even be able to reach them in time.

Later he would always insist he had used his powers of super speed to carefully consider his options in mere fractions a second, deciding that the most moral choice would of course be to risk his own life for Barton and the child. In reality, Pietro Quicksilver Maximoff had never been one to carefully consider anything; he just went for it. Just as Quicksilver reached the crouching Clint, he saw out of the corner of his eye a swirling ring of white patterns … wolves maybe?

Someone… a woman?... screamed “NOOO!”, and an unseen Force pushed Pietro, Clint, and the child out of the way of the bullets.

“Did you see that?” Pietro panted as he stood up.

“See what?” Clint looked up, shaken. “Er…  I mean… thanks, that was pretty impressive man.”

“No, I meant the… uh…’pant’… never-mind. I don’t suppose you have any coffee? Or maybe one of those American energy drinks that give you a heart attack?”

“Actually, I have got a chocolate bar,” Clint said, proffering the aforementioned article.

“Seriously?”

“Yah, never go into battle without one. Take it.”

“Thanks!” Quicksilver zoomed off, inhaling the snack as he went.

“No problem…” Hawkeye turned to the child, “Ok, let’s get you on one of those ships.”

New York, Five months later

            Several members of the Avengers were back in New York during an unseasonably hot week in September to help with yet another complication in that had come up in moving their main headquarters upstate. In spite of the heat, Pietro had slipped out for an afternoon jog to get away from the bedlam currently consuming the interior of Avengers Tower. Jogging of course was a relative term for him; he was moving faster than any of the traffic that he dodged past. He had been training for endurance since the Battle of Sokovia; even if the strange incident had been an aspect of his powers that would help in any dire situation, Pietro naturally wasn’t too eager to test that theory.

            As he jogged down 3^rd Avenue, Pietro heard a commotion over the sound of Time in a Bottle playing on his headphones. What the heck is that? Sounds like huge block of metal scraping the cement. That probably means a car is crashing, which means someone is in trouble. Well, this sounds like a job for Quicksilver, Superhero Extraordinaire! All these thoughts took less than half a second, and he ran up a block to see what was going on, only to stop dead in his tracks as some kid in a red hoody caught a runaway car with his bare hands.

………………………………………………Peter Parker……………………………………………………

            Peter was having one of the best weeks of his life, certainly the best since Uncle Ben had died. (No Peter, think of the positives); First positive: he had finally figured out a way to use his powers for good and to make money – a lucky dumpster dive had netted him an easily repairable high quality video camera, and his first video of Spider-Man webbing up some bank robbers had rapidly gained thousands of views (people really liked seeing a super hero help out with normal problems).

Second: Midtown School of Science and Technology (the totally awesome high school he had been lucky enough to go to) had an incredible chemistry lab, meaning that getting the necessary chemicals for web fluid was going to be a lot easier than he had thought, he already had some ideas for improvements to the formula that he could make with a greater variety of ingredients.

Third: His best friend Ned had gotten the new Lego UCS Starship Enterprise-D for his birthday, and he was going to get to help put it together. That was definitely the most important positive.

Fourth: He had just managed to catch a runaway car! Not that runaway cars were a positive, but it was good that he had managed to catch it! (and on video too).

“Holly crap man! That was Epic!” some guy with silver-blond hair (who had seemingly appeared out of nowhere, Peter really needed to get better at paying attention to his new extra sense) shouted excitedly from right next to him.

Ok Parker, time for that ‘definitely not a teenager/talking to the public’ voice you’ve been practicing “Uhh… THank you citizen, just doing my… duty” Peter winced at the tone which had sounded deep and cool in front of his mirror, but was just a bit silly in public.

“What part of America is that accent from?” The stranger replied in an odd accent of his own.

“Is it really that bad?” Peter replied in his normal tone of voice (sheepish, that is).

“No no, sorry, I’ve only lived here a couple of months, I just assumed you were from like, Texas or something” They guy sounded a bit sheepish himself, but otherwise kept what was apparently his normal accent, “Whatever, you have got to come with me!”

“Woah woah woah, come with you whereeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…” Peters words trailed off into a scream as the stranger picked him up and shot off toward downtown Manhattan at something like the speed of sound. The logical part of his mind chimed in to tell him that they couldn’t be going quite that fast because no windows were breaking from a sonic boom, but that thought quickly passed as his brain started spinning even faster than the stranger was running. Something along the lines of: Oh my god ohmygod this can’t be happening I’mbeingkidnapped am I being kidnapped? We’re heading towards Avengers Tower ohmygodomygod Avengers Tower that means this is that new Avenger Quicksilver, well duh how did I not realize that sooner OH MY GOD AM I BEING RECRUTED TO THE AVENGERS!?!?!

“Uh Quicksilver, you are Quicksilver right? Are you sure about this?” Parker managed to get out as they reached the foot of Avengers Tower.

“You can react at this speed?” Quicksilver sounded almost as amazed and exited as Peter felt, “That’s awesome! Now hang on I haven’t tried this while carrying someone before!” And before Peter could get out more than “WAIT” he ran straight up the side of the tower.

………………………………………Steve Rogers……………………………………………….

            There had been such high hopes for the new upstate headquarters when they had started moving in after the battle of Sokovia. A bigger facility, more buildings, most of them purpose built, less of other people’s stuff to get damaged when things went wrong, and overall, just more room to run around. Now between the delicate scientific equipment, the fact that two of their teammates weren’t available to so much as give their preference on how to handle their stuff, the security concerns involved with shipping literal tons of high technology and top-secret documents, and of course the political mess (it seemed the mayor of New York didn’t want his resident superheroes leaving); it was beginning to look like the move wouldn’t be complete for another year.

            Steve was standing amid a swarm of cardboard boxes and stacks of junk in what had once been their common area, wondering where Maximoff had gotten off to (Tony had been less than helpful in finding him, “I didn’t put a radio collar on the guy, what do you want from me?”) when the man in question rocketed in from the balcony carrying a screaming person in red and blue… pajamas? (Steve still found modern fashions somewhat hard to parse at times). This person proceeded to leap to the ceiling and stay there, shouting “Not cool dude” while trying to hit Maximoff with jets of sticky stringy stuff that sprayed from his hands. The kid (he sounded young and wasn’t particularly tall) then seemed to realize where he was, apologized profusely wile babbling about how he had designed the webs to dissolve in a few hours so they wouldn’t leave a mess, and tried to escape out the window only to be caught by Vision floating down from the upper floors to see what all the ruckus was about. Vison being Vision, he efficiently pulled off the kid’s hood, presumably thinking him to be some sort of intruder.

“Behold the newest member of the Avengers!” Maximoff proclaimed proudly, prompting Vision to set the kid back on the floor and say “My apologies”.

“Pietro that’s a child.” Rodey noted in the tone of a harried mother.

“So-what if he’s a bit young; you said you made this, kid?” Tony was experimentally stretching a piece of webbing between his hands.

“You cannot seriously be considering letting a kid onto the team just because he can make webs.”

“Yah, Sure I can Cap, people have been trying to make artificial spider silk for decades! So how did you do it Spiderling?”

“Uh… Hi I’m PeterMan, S S SpiderParker uhh sorry my name’s Peter Parker but I’ve been going by Spider-M an, you know like how you call yourself Iron Man, I thought it would be cool to have a made-up name.” Parker’s voice trailed off into a nervous whisper before bouncing back with “right you want to know about the webbing, well it’s pretty simple really I just mixed (a long list of chemicals that Steve didn’t understand the names of, apparently available from stores he was pretty sure hadn’t existed is his time) and that’s it really.”

“Well, it’s no arc reactor in a cave but that’s pretty impressive SpiderParker” Tony was now examining Parker’s discarded hood, “so is the ceiling-sticking from the web or some sort of suction cu- Woah how do you see out of these?”

“Well see I got bitten by this weird spider at this year’s Stark Expo, uh not that I’m blaming you or anything Mr. Stark, but like ever since I’ve been able to stick to stuff an I’m suddenly really strong and I can see really well, like a little too well the goggles help with that.”

“See Cap, he’s got superpowers and genius inventions! It’s like we’ve had a secret child this whole time!” Tony then turned to Parker and said with a level of seriousness that he had been showing more and more lately no matter how he tried to hide it, “Do not turn out like me kid. Or too much not like me. Theres a sweet spot in the middle there that I probably should have been shooting for all along.”

“On that note Tony, don’t you think we should maybe not recruit a child?” Steve looked around the room “I’m not alone in thinking this right?”

“If I may,” Vision intoned, “If this Peter Parker wishes to use his abilities for good, he should be allowed to do so.”

Maximoff chimed in “Exactly, he is already out there doing good, I found him catching a runaway car.”

“No, nope, it’s way too dangerous,” Rodey protested, “we cannot just let a teenager go around fighting criminals and unknown enhanced persons!”

“See, Rodey agrees with me-”

“What, no-”

“-We can’t just let Pete go fight crime” Tony interrupted his friend’s interruption, “we have to help him; you know training, supervision, upgrades for his gear, what do you say Crime-Fighting-Spider?”

“I would love the opportunity Mr. Stark.”

“Alright,” Steve sighed “You can join.” Over the sound of exited whooping he added, “training only for now, we’ll see if you’re ready for real missions when they come up.”

And with that, the Avengers gained its newest member.

Avengers Upstate Compound, Fall 2015 AD, late 14 AFE

            The following months of Steve’s life after Spider-Man joined the team were consumed by a renewed effort to train the new Avengers, which he had chosen to prioritize over completing the big move. Kids! The lot of them! Despite being older than Parker by nearly a decade, Mr. Maximoff usually showed barely more maturity, and even Wanda had her moments. Meanwhile Vison, though quite mature on the surface occasionally reminded everyone that any information or experience he hadn’t managed to inherit in the messy process of being mashed together from Jarvis and Ultron he had had less than a year to learn. Rodey and Sam on the other hand really made Steve feel like an old man with their experiences in a military that was hauntingly familiar yet shockingly different from the one he remembered.

            Parker had insisted that they not tell his aunt that he was Spider-Man, and though that didn’t sit well with Steve or Natasha (who had been truly furious at the idea of recruiting a teenager when she first found out), they had eventually been convinced, and Tony helpfully made up something about a Stark internship as a cover story. The fact that he was still in school had played havoc with Steve’s original training schedule, and ended up leaving him with no excuse not to spend at least part of the days dealing with the big move (on the positive side, it gave him time to continue the search for Bucky). Parker had also in spite of instructions kept patrolling the city as Spider-Man, but had given such an impassioned speech about standing up for the little guy (reminding Steve a lot of his own younger self) that he had agreed to allow it as long as Parker promised to call for backup if he ran into anything more dangerous than a garden variety mugger. The habit had led to his Spider-Man identity being discovered by his friend Ned, after which Steve sent him to Natasha for extra training on operational security. If he’s going to keep a secret, he should do it well.

            It was in late November, the weekend after Thanksgiving actually, when Steve was relaxing in the new common room at the upstate facility, that Vision gave him the report that would change everything. “Sir, I have detected something disturbing on the internet.”

Steve briefly reflected that most of his teammates would have made a joke of that statement before replying, “what is it, Vision?”

“It was a presence that resembled, though I hasten to add did not fully constitute, Ultron.”

“Ultron!?” Steve exclaimed, “are you sure?”

“As I said,” Vision explained remaining calm, “It did not appear to him in his entirety. I have traced the signal to an unregistered facility in northern Canada that has features reminiscent of a secret Hydra base. It would fit that organization’s behavioral pattern to be experimenting with any remnants of Ultron that they can acquire.”

“Right. Let’s round up the team, meet back here in half an hour to-”

“I am sorry Captain, but I must go to Oslo.”

“What? Why?”

“The Nexus Internet Hub will be an ideal location from which to defend the network from a possible escape by Ultron.”

“I thought you needed to be on-site with Ultron to shut him out?”

“That was when he was already present throughout the network, this time I will be playing defense.”

“Well how fast can you get to Norway?”

Vison took a brief moment to calculate, “4 hours, 46 minutes, and 41 seconds, that is under the assumption that I avoid taking a sonic shockwave over populated areas.”

“All right, we’ll hit the facility at 17:00 hours.”

“I will be ready Captain.” Vision flew off without wasting another moment.

 Steve Found Natasha already in the briefing room. “You know Nat, it’s a little disturbing that you eavesdrop on everything going on in this base.”

She looked up from her monitor with a smirk, “Yeah, but it’s useful. I’ve already notified the twins, and I’m ringing Tony now.”

“And speak of the devil, which is me by the way. Sup Nat, Cap, you miss me already?”

Steve suddenly found a bit of trepidation at giving his friend the news. “Listen Tony, I know you’re trying to retire and all, but…”

“What, you can’t run the team without me?” Tony interjected with a mock serios expression.

“We believe someone is trying to awaken Ultron.”

“SHIT! Where?”

“Looks like a possible Hydra base in northern Canada, we’re going to hit it as soon as Vision is in Norway to defend the internet.”

“Send me the coordinates, I’ll pick up Peter and meet you there.” Tony hung up.

“He can’t seriously be thinking of taking a teenager into a Hydra Base!” Natasha objected.

“Tony’s right Natasha, Sam and Rodes are out of state with their families, and we need all available hands on-deck. We can go in teams of 2, one veteran and one rookie on each. Besides, the kid’s got heart, he’s been impressing me.”

“You know he nearly let his secret slip in front of his principal, got detention from the incident because it sounded like he was saying he was too important for high school, and he thinks one of the girls in his decathlon team suspects him?”

 “Oh God, did he have to watch one of those awful films the Department of Education made me do?” He started walking toward the hanger.

“Yes, he did, and don’t change the subject. Why did you agree to those videos anyway?” She quickly got up and followed him.

 “I lost a bet with Clint. And it’s not like Spider-Man hasn’t been shot at before, he took down that gang of armed bank robbers solo last week. One of them had a laser rifle, any luck tracking down were that came from?”

“No, and he was supposed to wait for backup.”

“We’ll be right there with him this time.”

…………………………………………Wanda Maximoff………………………………………

            The last time Wanda had gone into battle with the Avengers, she had been untrained, unready, and frankly not in a great state of mind what with questioning all her beliefs from over the past decade. This time she was …excited, yes, excited to be going into a fight prepared, on what she was fairly certain was the side of good, and ready to be truly helpful. Only thing she was missing was a ‘made-up-name’ as Peter would say. Unlike her idiot brother, who had pretty much immediately stated calling himself Quicksilver upon receiving his powers, she was for now stuck with the simple callsign ‘Red’, which could frankly have fit over half the members of the team.

            They dropped out of the Quinet just inside the outer defense, a simple perimeter fence to discourage unwary trespassers, and what on satellite looked like a steep hillside. It turned out to be a prepared wall which ringed the base of the once natural hill on which the facility was located. Wanda quickly threw a tree through the nearest firing port to buy them some breathing room.

“Stark, they know we’re here,” Captain America called over the comm to Iron Man, who was still a couple minuets out.

“Yep. Sorry about the bad intel, when Edith’s up and running I swear she will be able to tell the difference between a wall and a cliff.”

The ground team quickly scaled (or in her case flew over) the wall, whereupon The Captain ordered her and Natasha to go right while he and her brother flanked left. As they ran, she took out guard posts one by one, throwing their occupants against the walls of their bunkers. They had reached the inner ring of defenses when Iron Man rocketed in with Spider-Man swinging past a moment later. She heard him muttering “keep your distance, web um up, keep your distance, web um up,” over the comms. Then Hydra finally got their act together and sent out a counterattack with a tank and a few squads of goons. She flipped the tank wile Spiderman webbed up the goons and Pietro disarmed them; it was over in seconds.

“Is that the best you got?” Peter taunted.

“Uh, guys, I got something big on my scanner,” Iron man reported from above, seconds before a giant metal hand burst from the ground. The thing pulled itself up through the earth as they all stood in awe of the skyscraper sized colossus before them.

“Vision is that…” Stark began,

“No, it is not Ultron himself,” Vision called in from Norway, “it appears to be a construct using a bare minimum of his programing. I must remain on guard for something bigger.”

“This looks plenty big to me,” Natasha muttered.

“Right, Stark, Spider-Man, and Red, you find a way to take down this thing,” Captain America directed as he dogged a beam of fire from its mouth, “Quicksilver, Widow and I will keep the remaining guards off your back.”

“On it!”

“On it.”

“Okay!”

“Guys I think this thing’s named Ultimo,” Spider-Man called out from the monstrosities back, where he was trying to pry off some armor plating.

“What makes you say that?” Iron Man was doing his best to blast a hole into the head, but kept having to doge return lasers.

“It’s written on the back of his head.” Spider-Man was now attempting to distract Ultimo by crawling over its eyes.

“Dang it Maximoff, keep that thing still!” Stark shouted as Ultimo moved again before he could melt through its armor.

“I’m trying,” she snapped, “it’s too strong and large, has too much (what’s the English word? Momentum) momentum! Also, I think it has vibranium in its armor!”

“That’s it!” Peter sounded exited, “we can use its own mass against it, trip him!” He proceeded to swing down around Ultimo’s legs, wrapping them with webbing. As the giant staggered, Wanda refocused her powers on the tank and thew it in Ultimo’s face. The monstrosity came crashing down with an enormous thud, flattening one of the facilities buildings. She then used her telekinesis to hold the giant machine to the ground while Iron Man opened up on it with his chest beam.

“Alright, big guy’s dead,” Stark announced.

“The Hydra men who saw that are surrendering,” Captain America called back, “My group will sweep the buildings, you guys check down that hole Ultimo came out of.”

            The hole consisted of a several story drop through the earth into a cavernous artificial space, the metal roof of which had been torn through by Ultimo’s ascent. The pillars holding it up looked strangely ornate, not like utilitarian constructs for a secret bunker, and the floor was made of flagstones rather than concrete. The rest of the room reminded her of the one in Sokovia however, all around the area were scattered machine tools, piles of Ultron drone scraps, and an assembly rig the right size to have built Ultimo. Tony and Peter immediately ran up to a computer station and started hacking in, Wanda decided the best thing for her to do was guard the entrance.

            A few minutes later Wanda heard some exited chattering from the computers, and Peter grappled himself up to the ceiling. “Mr. Stark! I see it! They really do have a freaking stargate in here!” Well, that sounded interesting. Wanda flew herself down to the other end of the room where he was pointing. There was a sort of circular, device? It looked like it was made more of stone than anything technological. There were however bundles of cables from various computer terminals attaching to something on the object.

Tony flew over, “I am astounded. Truly, I’m speechless. Words escape me. No possible verbiage could ever capture the magnitude of this moment.”

“Indeed. For it will soon see the end of the Avengers, and the return of Hy-BEW-urk” the hydra scientist cut off as Stark hit him with a blast from his repulser-ray. Unfortunately, he wasn’t quite dead. “Heil Hydra” he choked out, pressing a button on the terminal he had been hiding behind.

            The gateway lit up with a mesh of yellow lines over a spacelike void. The lines began to flicker like old TV static as everyone and everything in the room felt an incredible force pulling them toward the gate. Wanda was able to hold herself in place with her powers just long enough to see the other half of the team coming down the staircase only to be pulled inexorably toward the gateway before she too was sucked through. She awoke in darkness.

Chapter 2: Rebels

Unknown planet, November 2015 AD, 14 AFE (After Formation of the Empire)

……………………………………………Peter Parker………………………………………………………

Aunt May is going to kill me. Peter was lost, on an alien planet. Or possibly the far future, or an alternate dimension. Maybe even some combination thereof. He was definitely in a city with a freaking spaceport, and it was well populated with aliens, as well as quite a few humans, or at least human looking beings. Who would have thought Star Trek would be right about that of all things?

He was for the moment holed up in an abandoned house, not far from where he had landed. Hydras stargate (not actually theirs, according to the files he and Mr. Stark had extracted they thought it was potentially around 30,000 years old) had dumped him out about a thousand feet above the city, whereupon he discovered that his suit had a parachute. Spiderman had definitely not screamed a lot on the way down, nor had he flubbed the landing and smacked his face on the concrete. Because Spiderman would be too cool for such things. Definitely.

Peter had just about finished his first phase of panicking and trying, unsuccessfully, to call Mr. Stark or Captain America or anyone else when a spherical craft with big vertical wings came screaming through the air overhead, circled a few times and flew away again without spotting him down in his alleyway. Luckily nobody else seemed to have noticed a guy falling out of the sky, because his first response at that point would likely have been to beg them not to lay eggs in him. On further reflection he decided that such a comment could have come off rather rude and xenophobic, considering that there were plenty of humans in this city, who probably wouldn’t allow neighbors with those kinds of tendencies. At least not sentient neighbors, he still wasn’t too sure about the intentions of the cats with chicken legs.

The next thing Peter noticed was that the people on the street, even most of the aliens, were speaking English. Mostly English anyway, there were a few unfamiliar words that seemed to be mostly names of places and objects. Point for the future or alternate universe possibilities. He supposed that it would be possible to work out if he was still on some kind of Earth by the positions of the stars, people did that in sci-fi all the time. Unfortunately, he grew up in New York City, so wasn’t too familiar with what the stars were actually supposed to look like in real life. Also, this city, though smaller than New York, probably still had quite a lot of skyglow.

Ok Spiderman, you’re lost in a strange place. What would Mr. Stark, no, what would Black Widow do? Probably want to get the lay of the land before actually talking to people, treat this as a survival situation for now. What’s the first thing to do in survival situation, besides staying were you are to wait for help which I am pretty sure is not applicable in this instance? His stomach growled. Right, get food. It was nearly dinnertime, and he had had an energetic couple of hours. Luckily, even though all his previous dumpster dives had been for electronics, he had spent enough time on dumpster diver forums to know how to get edible food from such a method. The main trick was to find a grocery store or supermarket, such places apparently tended to throw out technically edible fruits and vegies when they were just a bit bruised since those wouldn’t sell well enough.

He climbed up the nearest skyscraper until he could see as much of the city as his enhanced vision would allow. That was mostly spider-enhanced, not technologically enhanced. The only features of his suit Peter had unlocked so far were the basic HUD (about what you would find in most video games), web grenades (love those), the heater (which Mr. Stark had shown him earlier that day since the mission took them to Canada in November), a parachute apparently (which I should probably try to repack before too long), and of course the team comm (which couldn’t reach anyone at the moment). He kind of understood why Mr. Stark hadn’t given him full access right away, but his progress had been frustratingly slow and arbitrary. And in this situation, it would probably be best to just hack the suit and fully unlock it as soon as he could. He wasn’t sure what all was still locked away, but there was bound to be something useful.

After he spotted a place that seemed to be selling food to humans, Spider-Man managed to swing over to it. This was somewhat harder than it would have been back home because the skyscrapers were generally further apart. Most of the buildings in the city were two- or three-story affairs that looked to be made of adobe or something like it. There was also a giant dome dominating the skyline in the center of the city, which he decided it would be best to wait till morning to investigate. He did manage to remain unseen, as much like home surprisingly few people ever looked up.

Sure enough, the dumpster behind the grocery store contained a bunch of slightly squished but not rotting fruits with weird purple stripes. Of course, I don’t actually know what rotting alien food smells like. I’m pretty sure I saw humans eating these though, so they can’t have too different of a chemistry from Earth stuff, which means they probably would smell bad if they were rotten. Peter made a backpack-ish bag of webbing to hold an armload of the fruits, plus what looked like a tablet with a cracked screen, while he swung back to the abandoned house he had spotted earlier to hole up for the night.

The fruit turned out to be somewhat like apples in consistency, though with a thicker skin and sweeter flavor. The tablet on the other hand was less than helpful. He was able to get it turned on after a bit of fiddling with the unfamiliar controls, but it was all written in an alien script. Any good linguist in Star Trek or a dozen other sci-fis he had watched would have made short work of this, especially if it was representing the English-like language he had heard. However, despite the fact that he was fluent in Spanish and had a bit of Italian, linguistics in general had never been much of an interest for him. The best Peter could do was work out that it was some sort of alphabet, based on the limited number of characters, but anything past that was beyond him. Still slightly panicked and now rather disappointed but at least not hungry, he spent the rest of the evening repacking the parachute into his suit before settling down on the musty couch to try and get some sleep.

Early the next morning after getting only a few hours of sleep and eating the last of the purple apples Peter decided that the best place to go to figure out where he was would probably be the local spaceport. Local spaceport! That has to be one of the coolest things I’ve ever thought. Should probably find some clothes less distinctive than my spider suit first though. That turned out to be a challenge; after about an hour of swinging around the city he had yet to find anything resembling a Goodwill, or a random dumpster with any clothing not too full of holes to disguise his spider suit. A disguise was looking increasingly necessary too, as the more he observed of the government around here, the more it reminded him of unsavory parts of Earth history. Might be a point against the future theory he mused as he hid behind some kind of ventilation unit to avoid yet another patrol of white armored soldiers who seemed to be randomly harassing people for identification. You would think we’d have moved past this sort of thing. Then again, maybe not.

The white armored guys were even more numerous by the spaceport. Other than that, the security was quite lax, so it was pretty easy to just walk in wearing the pants and jacket he had resorted to wiping off a street vendor, promising himself to go pay the guy back when he had some money. It honestly wasn’t even clear where exactly the cluster of landing bays ended and the rest of the city began, more like an old school seaport than the airport vibe Peter had been expecting. Not that Peter had ever been to an airport, he had just heard horror stories. There were several of what appeared to be information and ticket booths around, but they were all manned by robots of some kind, and he figured those would be likely to do inconvenient things like record his face and require money, so he resolved to just ask one of the passersby instead.

“Hey! Hey mister!” he shouted, walking up to a random human coming out of a landing bay, “Hi, uh, I fell asleep on the ship, an I’m not sure where exactly I am?”

“Well, yer in Capital City. Of the planet Lothal.” When Peter remained visibly confused the stranger added “where was yuh trying tuh get?”

Taking a shot in the dark, Peter answered, “New York City, on the planet Earth.”

“Sorry kid, never herd uh it. Go ask ah droid.”

Definitely not the future then, but at least I have a name for where I am, “Wait, is this place really just called Capital City?”

“Yeh, they named everything else in the system Lothal-somethin-or-other, Lothal the star, Lothal the planet, Loth-cats and Loth-rats, don’t rightly know why them didn’t just bite the blaster and stick the same moniker on their planetary capital.” The stranger wandered off shaking his head.

            Ok then. Well, who am I to judge? It’s not like New York, New York is much better. Now what? I guess I’ll have to get a job or something, maybe find a school with remedial language courses, wonder how long I would last before those fascist government jerks notice me…

“Hey! You there!” a deep, filtered voice called out, “Lemme see some identification!”

“You know, I was just thinking about you guys…” Peter said as he turned around

“Yeah, Yeah, don’t try to talk your way out of this, show your ID now!” The guy did not sound friendly.

“Well, see, the thing is, I fell asleep on the ship and-”

“Stun him and bring him in for questioning!” one of the subordinate goons shot a blue ring of energy at him, which Peter easily dodged.

“Now that’s just rude.” Spider-Man quipped as he pulled the blasters out of two of their hands with his webbing before flip-kicking two of them at once.

“What the-” was all one trooper managed to get out before Spider-Man punched him out cold. The last guy did manage to get out a red energy bolt before he too was disarmed and knocked out.

“Great job guys, really keeping the citizens of Lothal safe.” He jumped up to the roof and pulled on his mask to watch another squad of troopers rush in and help up their fallen comrades after failing to find a trace of their attacker. Well, I’m definitely a criminal now. I just hope none of those goons were recording when I looked at them.

“Hey there!” A voice came from behind him.

Deep space, Aboard The Ghost, the previous day

……………………………………………Ezra Bridger…………………………………………

            Ezra was going to kill Chopper. That blasted droid had just vented a life support filter full of dust and toxic gasses right in his face! He was going-

            Ezra was falling. Someone was screaming. It took a moment to recognize that he was in the air above Capital City; and he was wearing red and blue gloves, a flight suit? There was a sudden jerk, and Ezra awoke.

“I don’t know he just fell over!” That was Zeb?

“You alright kid?” That was Sabine standing over him. Sabine’s looking at me!

“Oh yeah, I’m fine. Never better.”

“Are you sure?” Hera asked.

“Yeah of course, I-I need to talk to Kanan.” Ezra jumped up and slid past them into the main hallway, calling over his shoulder, “The Phantom’s all ready for your mission!”

He found Kanan meditating in his room. “Did you, uh, sense that Kanan?”

“Yes,” Kanan kept his eyes closed, “there has been a great disturbance in the force, several actually, scattered throughout the galaxy.”

“You can tell there’s more than one?”

“Yes. Meditate with me, I can show you.”

“That’s great Kanan, but I got a pretty strong sense from one in particular, on Lothal.” Ezra was too excited to wait for meditation, “And I think I had a vision.”

“A vision, really?” Kanan sounded surprised, “describe it to me.”

“Well, I was falling towards Capital City, except it wasn’t me, it was like I was seeing it through someone else’s eyes. And I think whoever it was needs help.” He added his best pleading-not-for-myself-but-to-help-others-because-I’m-totally-a-caring-person expression.

“Alright, we’ll check it out while Hera and Sabine are on their supply run.” Kanan started walking to the cockpit.

“Ooh can I fly? Hera said I could start learning.”

“You’re not going to fool me with that one kid. She barely lets me fly her ship.”

Lothal, Capital City, November 2015 AD, 14 AFE

……………………………………………Ezra Bridger…………………………………………

            It was early morning when they landed in Capital City spaceport, though after months of space travel Ezra’s internal clock had drifted to the point that he was expecting it to be evening. It was a bizarre sensation to have lost such a fundamental connection with his home, even though they still spent plenty of time on Lothal in general. He could sense echoes of the disturbance from earlier, but nothing close to a location on any person in particular. Kanan, well, Ezra wasn’t sure whether Kanan could sense something more specific and was just using this to teach him, or if he actually didn’t know where to look. So, Ezra set out to wander the city with only a vague “Let the Force guide you” as instruction.

            Let the Force guide me! What does that even mean? Am I supposed to just close my eyes and spin around? Hmm, I suppose it’s worth a shot. Ezra walked into a quiet intersection, spun until he was dizzy, and found himself looking directly between two of the roads. “Well, that’s not helpful!” He stared at the corner store in frustration, and mild nausea. Unless, maybe the roof? Laserbrain! Of course it’s the roof! Checking to make sure no one was watching he tried a Force jump up the side of the building, and ended up clutching the windowsill of the third story. Pretty good for a beginner, Bridger mused as he hauled himself the rest of the way up. Ahead he could see a series of rooftops leading back to the spaceport. This better be the force guiding me, I don’t want to wander in circles for no reason.

            Upon reaching the spaceport Ezra received no further indications from The Force, so he decided to just look down into each of the docking bays from above to see if he could spot any suspicious characters. He had looked through half the bays and streets and was starting to worry that he would have to look near the Ghost were Zeb would tease him for not finding anything when he heard a stormtrooper shout “Hey! You there! Lemme see some identification!”

            He looked down to see a squad accosting someone in an ill-fitting yellow jacket and blue pants. Well, maybe I can help someone today so this trip won’t be totally pointless.

The person, a boy who looked around Ezra’s age replied, “You know, I was just thinking about you guys…”

“Yeah, Yeah, don’t try to talk your way out of this, show your ID now!” Ooh that sergeant is getting pissed. Looks like a job for Ezra Bridger, Jedi Padawan. But it turned out the guy didn’t need help. The sergeant told his men to stun him, but he dogged the blast and somehow pulled the blasters out of two of their hands by flinging string at them before flip-kicking two troopers at once. Then he proceeded to punch out another trooper, dodge a laser bolt, and finish of the last trooper wile quipping, “Great job guys, really keeping the citizens of Lothal safe.” He pronounced Lothal strangely, as if it was his first time saying the name.

            Ezra froze as the guy jumped onto the roof and landed right in front of him. Is this guy a Jedi? No, he’s too young, maybe he’s like me! Wait, those gloves he’s wearing are the same as the ones from my vison, he must be the one I was sent to help!

The stranger was watching a new squad of Stormtroopers arrive, and hadn’t noticed Ezra, so he decided to introduce himself, “Hey there!”

………………………………………………Peter Parker……………………………………………………

“My names Ezra-”

Peter nearly jumped out of his skin. I should have sensed someone moving behind me! Unless, he was here before me. Why would someone be sitting on the roof? Watching me? All this passed through his head in milliseconds as he spun around, saw a guy about his age with long blue hair about a foot from his face, and dodged further inward along the rooftop to get out of possible site by the goons below.

“You with them?” Spiderman asked, gesturing toward the ground while readying a web-grenade in his other hand.

“No! Definitely not! Actually, I was just about to help you, but you didn’t seem to need it. The Force told me you needed help though…” he (Ezra, I think he said that’s his name) trailed off, coming back with, “Of course! You’re on the run! We could find you a place to stay, or an opportunity to fight, if you want?”

“Who’s we?” Peter asked, still mildly suspicious.

“The Specters, our crew. There’s only six of us, that’s if you count Chopper, but we are fighting the Empire! Freeing slaves, stopping weapons shipments, smuggling food to people the Empire kicked off their land. We help people, it’s kind of what we do. And Hera says there are others out there, somewhere.”

“That, actually sounds like exactly who I need.” These guys might actually be able to help me! Of course, they could be just some street gang, but he did say they free slaves from this Empire.

“Kid! Get back here, we’ve got a problem!” a gruff voice came from a speaker on Ezras wrist, “We didn’t finish the diagnostic on the Phantom!”

“KARABAST!” Ezra swore (at least, Peter thought that was a swear word), “What happened!?”

“The fuel leaked out, Hera and Sabine are trapped on a planet full of monsters!” the voice replied with increasing panic.

“I’ll be right there!”

“I can help!” Peter surprised himself with the desperation in his voice, “I mean, can I join you?”

“Yeah! Come on!” Ezra took off over the rooftops, with Peter following quickly behind.

            They jumped down into a landing bay, Ezra taking the multi-story drop as easily as Peter. Is this guy an enhanced? Or is that normal for humans around here? Taking up most of the bay was a ship shaped roughly like a vertically inflated hexagon. It was mostly light grey, with geometric patches of green, yellow, and red highlighting the angles of its hull. Several large engines stuck out the back, and something that might have been airlocks stuck out of the side points of the hexagon. The front of the ship had two vertically stacked bubble cockpits sitting above an open boarding ramp. It was about the coolest thing Peter had ever seen, though he was slightly disappointed by the lack of warp nacelles.

            “Yeah, the Ghost is pretty cool, you can marvel at her later, hurry up!” Ezra called from the ramp to were Peter was standing stunned.

            Oh, that’s embarrassing. Wait I wasn’t thinking aloud, was I? The mystery was quickly driven from his mind upon reaching the top of the ramp, were he nearly ran headfirst into a massive purple alien with creepy yellow eyes. “Aaahhhg!”

“What’s the matter kid, never seen a Lasat before?” the alien was apparently the source of the gruff voice from Ezra’s wrist-comm.

“Er, no?”

The big guy seemed strangely saddened by this response, “Oh. Well, go ‘way then, we’re about to take off.”

“He’s with me Zeb,” Ezra interjected, “he’s the one from my vision!”

Vision, what? This is weird.

“Right, uh, Kannan he’s aboard!” Zeb shouted this last bit as he climbed up a ladder leading deeper into the ship.

The Ghost lifted off before the ramp had even fully closed, and the boys fell backwards as the pilot, Kanan presumably, tilted the ship nearly vertical to escape the atmosphere as quickly as possible. Hang on, this acceleration doesn’t feel nearly strong enough to reach escape velocity. This ship must have some kind of inertial compensation! That’s awesome! “Then why am I feeling any acceleration?”

“Hera keeps the compensators turned down so she can feel how the ship is moving. All the best pilots do it.” Ezra answered, standing up as the ship cleared Lothal’s gravity well (Artificial gravity too!) “Have you seen hyperspace before?”

“No.” That sounds like some kind of FTL system!

“Come on then! You don’t want to miss the jump!” Ezra led him up the ladder and down a hallway to the main cockpit.

            The space was mostly filled by four chairs, the front two occupied by Zeb and a human man who must be Kanan, but Peter didn’t notice any of that, a single though was dominating the entirety of his mind. I’m in space! The stars turned to white streaks, shifting to blue before becoming a swirling tunnel of various shades of blue ranging to purple. Right, blue-shifting. Light does that when you move toward it. To be actually distinguishable to the naked eye to this degree means we must be moving faster than light! Should light even be visible when moving faster than light? If it was, I guess it would probably look like this, but how…? Screw high school, I am going to completely revolutionize physics when I get home!

“Careful, you don’t want to get hyperspace madness,” Kanan quipped.

“What!?” That sounds dangerous! Is this like the Warp from 40K?
“They say if you stare too long into hyperspace you can go mad,” Kanan continued, notably not following his own advice, “not everyone is susceptible of course, and I’ve never been too sure it isn’t just some spacers tale.”

“Uh, I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Whop Whop!” a wide metal cylinder on stilts with a bright orange half cone on top, which Peter had initially mistaken for part of the ship, suddenly spun around and announced itself wile waving a pair of mechanical arms.

“Thanks Chopper,” Kanan replied as he made a few adjustments to the controls.

“Wow, you guys have a robot!” Now this is officially the coolest day of my life

“Hang on, you don’t sound like you’re from Lothal,” Ezra had been looking at him with an inquisitive expression for a minuet now, “how have you never seen hyperspace before? And where are you from that a droid is remarkable?”

“Earrp Werp Brerp Brop!”

“You’re definitely one of a kind Chopper,” Ezra said sarcastically, “but I don’t think that’s what surprised him.”

Everyone is looking at me now. “Well, first off, my name is Peter Parker, AKA Spider-Man. I’m from New York City on the Planet Earth.”

Dead silence.

“Right, none of you have heard of that either.” Crap, I really am lost. “That makes how I got here an even longer story.”

“Well, we’ve got a few hours kid,” Kanan gestured vaguely to the controls, “why don’t you fill us in?”

A few hours later

“So, nobody on your planet had contact with the rest of the universe until a few years ago? That’s crazy,” was Ezra’s reaction.

“Uncontacted human planets aren’t that unusual Ezra,” Kanan replied, “sometimes they have a record of whatever lost colony ship brought them there, but often enough it’s been so long that no-one remembers a thing.”

“We actually have pretty good evidence that humans, at least Earth humans, evolved on Earth,” Peter protested, “there’s fossils of ancestral forms going back millions of years, and even a couple closely related species still around.”

“Oh, come on kid, everyone knows humans are from Coruscant!” Zeb scoffed.

“I don’t know Zeb, a lot of planetologists think Coruscant would have been too cold for humans before the climate regulation mirrors, and archeology there is basically impossible,” Kanan stroked his beard, “Humans show up on several disparate planets from the earliest records, right around 30,000 years ago in fact; if that portal is as old as these Hydra people think it is, humans may actually have originated on Earth. Or they could have evolved separately, the general humanoid form has evolved independently a couple of times in this galaxy alone, in the vastness of the universe all things are possible.”

“Why would Archeology be impossible across an entire planet?” Did it get blown up?!

“What are you guys talking about?” Ezra now appeared quite confused.

“We really need to give you some regular schooling along with the Jedi training.”

What’s Jedi training? Peter was about to ask the question out loud when there was a beeping noise from the control console.

“We’re coming out of hyperspace, you three get to the ramp,” Kanan ordered, “we may be facing a hot extraction here.”

They waited for a tense few minutes in the cargo bay before the ramp opened to reveal a large landing field in a rocky landscape, with a large number of asteroids floating by overhead. An asteroid field should not be this dense, it would have collapsed into a larger body by now. Unless it’s a very new asteroid field I suppose. If this was recently a planet, that would also explain the atmosphere still hanging around. Half the landing field seemed to be on fire; just below them in the space illuminated by the Ghost’s headlamps was a van sized craft, on top of which were two women, an armored human with brightly colored hair and a green alien with two thick tentacles growing out of her head, fighting off a swarm of scary wolf sized creatures with laser pistols. Classic space rescue, here I go! Peter thought to himself as he threw web grenades into the swarming mass of monsters, while Zeb fired at them with a laser rifle and Ezra shot balls of yellow light at them with a wrist mounted slingshot.

“You have an energy slingshot, that is so cool!” Peter’s day was getting better and better!

“I know, right!” Ezra then proceeded to jump out down to the smaller ship, calling out “Sabine, I got your back!”

“He’s gonna get himself killed if he doesn’t get over that crush soon,” Zeb muttered.

The two women climbed up to the ramp and Ezra turned around to boast, “these guys aren’t so tough” when he was tackled from behind by one of the creatures, which seemed only annoyed by his energy balls. “Arrg, woah woah, Karabast!” The armored woman (actually, up close Peter could see she wasn’t much older than him or Ezra) had to go save him, Peter and Zeb were busy holding back the farther waves while the alien woman had run up to the cockpit.

“Nice moves out there champ,” Zeb had a shit-eating grin on as he pulled Ezra back aboard, “Chopper close the door!”

Four of the beasts tried to claw their way in as the door was closing, the armored girl killed the one that got in and Zeb transformed his rifle into an electric prod (Awsome!) to push the last one out “No Hitchhikers! Kanan we’re all aboard!” Peter heard a sizzling noise and the creatures screaming (he was later learned they had electrified the hull to get rid of them).

“Chopper, reroute coolant to the engine!” a female voice came over the intercom.

“Whap whab wab, eep oh whap wha”

 Meanwhile, Ezra tried to flirt with the armored girl, “Thanks for saving me back there.” Judging by his declaration earlier, that was probably Sabine.

“Don’t read too much into it kid.” she rolled her eyes as she ascended the ladder.

“Engaging magnetic lock,” the voice (by process of elimination, presumably Hera) came over the intercom again. There was a whirring from the engines, a clang from below the ship as the smaller craft was picked up, and then they were away. Once they were safely out of the asteroid belt, Kanan, Hera, and Sabine came back down to the cargo hold to help unload the smaller craft (apparently called the Phantom).

“Kanan, who is this?” Hera had finally noticed Peter, “and what is he doing at our secret rendezvous point?”

Chapter 3: Introductions

Lothal , 14 AFE (December 2015 AD)

………………………………………Garazeb Orrelios…………………………………………

            Kids! This whole ship is getting overrun with them! This is the third one in barely over a year! Normal families don’t grow this fast! At least, Lasat families don’t. Didn’t. I suppose we weren’t ever the most populous people even before…

“Still don’t see why the new kid can’t bunk with you Kannan,” Zeb groused, “Ih was ‘ere first!”

“I just think it would be good for him to share a room with someone his own age. He’s feeling lost enough as it is,” Kanan was in full dad mode now, “besides you never liked sharing with Ezra anyway!”

“I don’t want to be a problem mister; I can sleep on the couch or something. You guys have a couch, right?” That was the new kid, Peter with the spider webs. Zeb shuddered. I hope webs are all he’s got, eight legs is just too many. That’s unfair. Great, now I feel bad for the kid!

“Ehh, don’t worry about it. An just call me Zeb. Kanan’s right, ‘es probably a better roommate than Ezra anyway.”

“He’s got to be a better roommate than you,” Turning to Kanan, Ezra continued, “are you sure you’ll be able to handle the smell?”

“Arrh, that’s it! I’m gonna pummel you inta my bed till you can’t smell anything else!”

“Run Peter! He’s gone feral!” Ezra screamed as he ran down the hall toward the cargo hold. Peter just watched with an expression of confusion and mild alarm as Zeb laughed.

“Heh, heh, heh; look at him go! Right then, I’ll move my stuff over. Almost like getting my own room back anyhow, on account ah Kanan ‘ll spend most nights in Hera’s room,” he said, grinning at Peter.

“Hey! That’s not true at all!”

…………………………………………Hera Syndula……………………………………………

            Hera quickly got past her surprise at a new member of the Ghost crew, and her annoyance at probably blowing the cover of one of Fulcrum’s best secure drop points. After his hectic introduction, Peter had spent several days wandering her ship in naked wonder at everything around him; she couldn’t help but think of her own childhood yearning to fly, and how much more amazing it would be to someone from an uncontacted planet where interstellar travel was the stuff of myth and legend. It was a wild story to be sure, but the way the kid acted he had to be either the greatest spy in the galaxy, or it was all true. He didn’t even know how to read Aurebesh at first! Hera had tried to catch him out on that one a few times, as far as she could tell his confusion was genuine. I hate that I have to be suspicious of a 14-year-old. It’s critical that the wider rebellion remain secret, especial now that we’re so close to being ready, but I wish I could just tell him. I wish I could tell them all.

            With her duty of suspicion mostly fulfilled, Hera did actually teach Peter the Aurebesh script, which he mastered very quickly. Apparently, it was “very similar to the Latin alphabet, but with a few extra signs for sounds that would need two letters.” He proceeded to follow her around with a barrage of questions on how everything from Chopper to hyperspace worked.

“How fast is this ship?” Peter asked wile hanging from the ceiling of the engineering bay passing her tools.

Hera was immensely proud of the Ghost. She had scraped and scrounged for years to buy her, and taken yet more years to modify her into the perfect rebel infiltration ship she was today, “She’s got a class 1 hyperdrive, the best commercially available. Some captains push their hyperdrive to .75 or even .5 by tuning it to the specific ship, but that tends to make them unreliable.”

He looked quite confused by that statement, “But like, how many times faster than lightspeed can the Ghost move? And why are faster hyperdrives lower on that scale?”

She put down her wrench and sat back from the engine to think about how to explain, “Well, I’m not a physicist, so this explanation’s going to be a little basic, but here’s how it was explained to me: When moving through hyperspace a ship enters a higher dimension of spacetime-”

“Like being able to fly as opposed to moving along the ground?” Peter asked excitedly.

“Ah, I think so?” Hera genuinely wasn’t sure how to answer that one. She had never heard an totally adequate explanation of the exact relationship of hyperspace to regular spacetime, “Anyway, hyperspace doesn’t have an even consistency. A ship is still effected by gravity wells, and by anomalies only present in hyperspace itself. That’s why its safest to stick to the well mapped hyperplanes, otherwise you could crash into absolutely anything. It also means that a ships speed won’t be totally consistent throughout its journey. However, while relativity as understood by pre-hyperdrive cultures is massively altered by taking into account the existence of hyperspace, it does still predict a true absolute speed limit, one where a ship would be moving so fast that it would move backward in time from all conceivable reference points. If that were to actually happen, they say you would in essence crash into your past self and possibly release enough energy to destroy the universe. Fortunately, it’s impossible to actually reach such a speed. It is, however, possible to objectively rate hyperdrives on how close they can get to that limit.”

“Ok, but what’s the units on those ratings…” Sigh.

            Having exhausted her own mostly mechanical and experience-based knowledge, she instead took Peter shopping for holo-texts on theoretical hyper-physics, droid programing, and galactic biodiversity; as well as a few other human necessities and to pay back a clothing vendor that he had been forced to steal from. While they were at it, Hera also bought some home-schooling materials for Ezra; apparently his knowledge of anything academic past basic reading and arithmetic was nonexistent. Just how long was the poor kid on his own for? she wondered for the hundredth time. Peter can probably help Ezra with mathematics, he seems well versed in the subject, and math at that level isn’t something that changes from planet to planet. If he, or Peter I suppose, has any trouble with the physics, I suppose Sabine could probably help him. I feel like I ought to get something for her to study too, kids their age deserve to be in school, not fighting a galactic war. On the other hand, I’m not sure there is anything academic left for her to learn available outside of a real university, besides maybe another few dozen languages.

            Finding the boys a pre-Imperial history book proved a greater challenge. Hera ended up resorting to asking Fulcrum to put one in the next supply drop. Because I am the leader of a rebel cell, responsible for making sure my team knows what the Empire does not want them to. And because I am the captain of this ship, responsible for keeping my crew provisioned, Hera reminded herself. In spite of her best efforts to remain an objective and rational in her role, she often felt protective of her crew, especially the younger members. They liked to joke about her being their mom, though she wasn’t sure if she was ready for that. Yet.

“So, on the subject of supplies, I’m going to need some ingredients for my webs soon.” Peter told her as they passed though the food market of Capital City on Lothal. Hera would have preferred to do their shopping somewhere else where there wasn’t as much heat on them, but Peter had insisted on being able to pay back the vender he had stolen his first set of clothes from. She supposed that was a good sign for his character, but it was still risky.

“What kind of ingredients?” Hera replied, looking around at the food on offer, “Is there something in your diet that baseline humans don’t eat?”

“What? No! This stuff isn’t coming out of me, I made it, like in a lab,” he seemed a bit flustered by that suggestion, “Anyway, I only carry 14 canasters of web fluid, including in the shooters. Each canister is good for roughly one big fight; that’s per hand by the way, so like 7 reloads. I’m down to five per.”

“Ok, what do you need?”

“Well, salicylic acid, toulene, ethyl acetate, carbon tetrachloride, potassium carbonate, methanol, and, carbon tetrachloride, for starters, a few other things too.”

“Peter, I didn’t get any of that.”

“Oh, I guess we finally found the limit to the mysterious universal translator,” He looked downcast.

“Actually, that did sound mostly like high galactic,” (an older form of basic used mainly by scientists and other people wanting to sound pretentious), “I’m just not a chemist. And I don’t know what kind of store would sell those things, or what brand names they might be under.”

Though she had only known him for a few days, Hera could tell that Parker was now preparing himself to do something difficult and unpleasant, like mix random chemicals until he recreated his web formula. “Before you melt a hole in my ship experimenting, Sabine might be able to help you find what you need.”

……………………………………......Sabine Wren…………………………………………...

“Uh, hi Sabine,” Parker awkwardly knocked on the frame of her open bedroom door as she stood with a sprayer considering whether to paint over one of her older pieces, “I need help finding something, and Hera said you might know where to look.”

 Sigh, “Sure, whacha need Parker?”

“Well, a few things actually, now that I think about it,” he glanced upwards as if trying to read something written in his own brain, “but firstly I need to find some ingredients for my web fluid, and a compressor that I can modify to get the stuff into the fluid canisters.”

“Yes! Looks like Zeb owes me five credits!” At Parkers confused expression she added, “he’s convinced that stuff was coming out of you, I bet him it was something like a liquid cable launcher.”

“Why does everyone think that?” he muttered to himself, shaking his head, “and what’s a liquid cable launcher?”

“Some fancy grappling hooks store their cord as a liquid that hardens on contact with oxygen. I always preferred fiber cord myself, you can wind that stuff up so tight its nearly as compact, and it works in any atmosphere. But even liquid cable grapplers usually have, well, a grappling hook attached. What I want to know is how you made yours sticky enough to hold down fyrnocks just by surface adhesion?”

“Well, it’s not actually a wet adhesion, the shock of impact causes the fibers to spread out and change their molecular structure, near-instantly working their way into the microscopic imperfections that exist in even the most smooth-seeming surface; plus I put in a bit of acid to create extra erosion just in case the webs need a little more surface area to form bonds on. I was inspired by Dianopidae spiders, they’re really unique. You bring up a good point about the atmosphere though, maybe I can make a formula that would work on the pressure change from exiting the web shooters alone… Er, am I going on too much?”

“No, I’m interested.” I… actually am. Haven’t been able to have a real conversation about science since the Imperial Academy. No Sabine, don’t think about that. You’re on the right side now, even if Hera is being cagey. Kriff he talks fast!

“-eonylminylalanyl might do the trick. Of course, there’s always the possibility that an atmosphere could degrade the webbing too fast, or not at all, it’s supposed to last only around two hours to avoid a mess, or being tracked. Come to think of it, I’m not really sure how my current formula reacts to vacuum, maybe Hera will let me shoot some out an airlock next time we’re in space. Dam that’s a cool sentence, you know I never thought I would get to go to space at all?”

“You’ve mentioned that a time or two,” Sabine replied with a wry smile creeping into the corners of her face, “anyway I think I can help you out. Most of those chemicals are easily found in common cleaning supplies.”

“Yeah, that’s true on Earth too, I just wasn’t sure which ones it would be out here.”

“Well, I can help with that, and I think I have some of the others, plus I know some suppliers that could get the rest. I’ve also got a portable lab we could use to mix them up, and a compressor that might work unmodified, I use it to reload spray paint canasters.”

“Do you make your own paint then?”

“Yep! And custom explosives!” Sabine was openly grinning now, her tone of voice bright, “and I’m not talking about your typical rioter’s engine fuel and packing foam, I mean real stuff. High explosives, fireworks, I even invented an explosive paint that can be safely applied with a sprayer and detonated by directed com transmission!”

“That’s awesome!” she could see excitement waring with mild terror in Parker’s face. Just the right reaction.

“I’m supposed to whip up a new batch of explosives so we can interrupt the big parade on Empire Day, do you think we can load some of your web fluid into a grenade?”

“Actually, I’ve already got a setting on my web shooters that does that,” he pulled out one of the devices to demonstrate, “it just squirts some web fluid into one of these little plastic pouches, going to need some more of those too, and then they burst from the pressure after a couple of seconds- SORRY!” he yelped as webs exploded all over her room.

“Parker!” Sabine exclaimed, trying to pull webbing off the gauntlet she had used to protect her face, “We are gonna have a FUN Empire Day!”

……………………………………………Kanan Jarus…………………………………………...

             Kanan and Ezra were standing in a field, past a cluster of Lothal’s unique rock formations and out of sight of the Ghost. It had been a few days since Peter’s arrival and this was the first chance they had gotten to slip away for some Jedi training. Still, as he put Ezra through his exercises, Kanan had to admit to himself that the training was just an excuse not to tackle the question that had been bothering him for days now. Fortunately for him, Ezra wasn’t one to shy away from such matters.

“So, when are we going to tell Peter that we’re Jedi?” Ezra asked while doing a handstand.

            A real Jedi master would turn this into a learning opportunity. Never answer a question directly, always reply with another question until the student arrives at the answer themselves. At least, that’s how it had seemed to Kanan when he was growing up. So, he decided to do that, “I should think the question would be if, not when.”

“Oh come on Kanan, if he’s going to stay with us, we’ll to have to tell him eventually,” Ezra was now force-lifting rocks up to balance on his feet while maintaining the handstand.

Kanan attempted to continue his strategy by asking, “How then?”

“Well that’s easy, I just walk up to him and say, ‘hey, I can make stuff float with my mind and Kanan is teaching me’ and then I make a cushion float and drop on his head,” Possibly in an attempt to demonstrate, he dropped the rock that was hovering over his feet, knocking him off balance so he fell to the ground with a yelp as he rolled away from falling rocks.

“The force is not a party trick Ezra,” Kanan sighed in exasperation.

“It would be good practice for me.”

This’ll teach me to try to be mysterious, “What I meant was what circumstances would warrant revealing our secret?”

“I don’t see why we should keep the secret, it’s not like The Empire doesn’t know we’re Jedi,” Ezra picked himself up wile rubbing his head, “so the worst Peter could do if he turned or cracked under interrogation would be to tell them how advanced my skills are. They’ll figure that out anyway unless I hold back on missions, which doesn’t sound like the smartest idea. And besides, my vison told me to come help this guy, so that’s got to mean we can trust him!”

             “Visions are dangerous things Ezra, it’s not always clear what they mean.” The fact that Ezra had managed to have a vision this early in his training made Kanan more than a little nervous. He hadn’t had much experience with visions himself, and didn’t know how to properly respond if his padawan turned out to have a talent for them. The council had always been extremely wary of attempting to interpret the future past the few seconds needed to dodge a blaster bolt. Anakin Skywalker was a prime example of how that could go wrong, half the order had been convinced that he would singlehandedly save them from the Sith, yet he died just like the rest.

“Kanan, you’re trying to change the subject again,” Ezra was becoming mildly annoyed, “why don’t you want to tell him?”

“I’m not, I just…” Why am I so reluctant? A Jedi should know themselves first and foremost. Kanan knew that, yet he realized he had been avoiding confronting the question in his own mind, hoping instead that Ezra, his student, would have the answers. After a moment he said, “I spent years hiding the fact that I was a Jedi, even from myself to some extent… I guess it’s just habit now. But you’re right, that time is over. We will tell him, just as soon as you finish your exercises.”

            They found Peter laying in a hammock made of his webbing stretched between the Ghost and a rock. He was reading one of his new holo-books from an old cracked data pad that he had apparently found in a dumpster, “Hey guys, where you been all morning?”

“We have something to tell you Peter,” Kanan began, and then paused to consider his next sentence.

Ezra couldn’t contain himself, “We’re Jedi!”

“Ok.” Peters tone of voice suggested he was unimpressed, but Kanan could sense he was actually dying of curiosity and attempting to play it cool for the joke. Ezra barely had time to be disappointed in his friend’s lack of reaction before Peter broke down and asked, “alright, what’s a Jedi?”

“A Jedi is one who follows the ways of the Force,” this was the simplest description of a Jedi’s role that Kanan had been taught for as long as he could remember.

“That doesn’t really answer my question.”

“Yeah, Kanan likes to do that,” Ezra jumped in before Kanan could continue to confuse his new friend, “basically what he means is we can do this:” Ezra closed his eyes, stretched out his hands to either side, and caused a swarm of small rocks to float upward. As the rocks started to spin, he opened his eyes with a maniacal grin.

“The force is about more than lifting rocks,” Kanan corrected, attempting to sound serene and wise wile ducking away from Ezras miniature asteroid field.

“Oh yeah, we can also read minds!” Ezra dropped his rocks, fortunately not on anyone this time, “Well, a fully trained Jedi could. I can mostly just pick up on emotions, and sometimes intent.”

“A Jedi can feel what others broadcast into the Force. To so deeply invade the mind of a sentient being as to be able to read it like a book would be a violation,” Kanan corrected sternly, and sighed. The line between the Dark and Light sides of the force was especially thin when it came to telepathic abilities, and he apparently, he hadn’t been explaining it well. Ezra seemed ready to demonstrate yet another ability, when Kanan cut him off, “the abilities granted to one who can feel the Force are not the important thing. What matters is that a Jedi listens to and conducts the Will of the Universe, to the betterment of all life.”

Peter’s reaction was, unexpected, to say the least, “I wonder if that’s what Wanda does?”

Ezra, eager to meet another potential Jedi, asked “who’s Wanda?”

“She’s one of my teammates, an Avenger from back home. The sister of Peitro, the super-fast guy who recruited me that I told you about,” Peter explained, “Sorry, I was probably summarizing a bit by the time I came to their part of the story.”

“What exactly does Wanda do?” Kanan asked.

“Well, she can mess with people’s minds, make them see things that aren’t there… but she’s been trying not to do that since she joined the team,” Peter added, remembering what Kanan had just told them, “Now she mostly focusses on telekinesis, you know, making stuff move. Although, when she does it this red swirly energy stuff manifests around whatever she’s doing.”

“Hmm. It’s rare for even particularly powerful force users to manifest such abilities without training, though I suppose it must happen sometimes, someone had to be the first after all,” Kanan paused in thought, something about that description tugged at the corners of his memory, but he couldn’t quite place it, “I don’t recall anyone manifesting visible energies, but I never made too deep a study into other force traditions,” a terrible thought struck him then, “Peter, did she come through the portal with you?”

“Yah? As far as I could see the entire team that attacked the Hydra base got sucked through,” Peter had a similar realization, “oh shit, then where did they go?! We should have noticed them if they were on this planet!”

“Calm down, I don’t think they're dead, or likely to be in immediate danger. When you arrived, I sensed six distinct disturbances in the force, scattered throughout the galaxy. I’m sorry to say I didn’t get anything more specific on their locations, but Ezra did receive a particularly strong vison of you being in need of help. Hopefully, the force may give us further indications in time.”

“You want to just wait?” Peter was freeking out a bit now.

“We’ll certainly keep an eye out, ask some of our contacts if they know anything, but the galaxy is a big place. We’ll need a solid lead before we can mount a search.” Kanan tried to re-assure him, because what he had to say next was anything but comforting, “the real problem is that the galaxy under the Empire is a dangerous place, especially for untrained but powerful force sensitives. Not all who wield the force are good, some turn the power granted them to selfish ends, and at least one of these now serves the Empire. He is called the Inquisitor, and is specifically employed to hunt down the remaining Jedi, and any other force sensitives who don’t serve the Empire.”

“The remaining Jedi? What… happened to the rest of you?” Peter asked with evident trepidation. Kanan could sense his fear was not for his own safety in associating with Jedi, but for that of his friends new and old. Good kid.

“The first thing Palpatine did as Emperor, or possibly the last thing he did as Chancelor of the Republic, the events of that say are shrouded in propaganda, was to order the execution of the Jedi knights. Most of us died immediately, shot in the back by soldiers we thought were our friends. I only heard from one member of the old order after that; Master Kenobi somehow got back into the Jedi temple on Coruscant to send out a warning to all the Jedi still stuck in the field, since then, nothing.” He chose not to mention the rumors of Master Luminara Unduli’s survival, the preserved corpse that had nearly lead them to their deaths at the hands of the Inquisitor. Even that brief summary of the day all his friends, his family, had died was nearly too painful for elaboration.

Peter was looking at Ezra with an expression of nervous sorrow, “How long ago was this?”

“Not long before Ezra was born, fifteen years ago next week,” Kanan was by now sitting on a rock, resting his chin on his laced together fingers wile staring off into the middle distance, “He never knew the old order. I met Ezra only a few months ago, offered to train him in the ways of the Force because… well it just felt like the right thing to do.”

“I stole some crates they had just stolen from The Empire,” Ezra said, his usual bright tone of voice slightly tinged with empathetic grief for Kanan, though he was trying to hide it.

“Seriously?” Peter looked at him with incredulity, “is that how you make friends in this galaxy?”

“Now that, is a story I would be happy to tell,” Kanan smiled as he broke out of his revery.

Chapter 4: The Parade

Chapter 4

Lothal, 15th Empire Day (December 2015 AD)

………………………………………………Peter Parker………………………………………………

 Empire Day began with a last-minute supply run to a small town in middle of nowhere Lothal. The place was dominated by a pair of landing bays, which Peter judged to be larger than every other building combined, even discounting the open space inside were spaceships could park. The whole place appeared similar in function to one of those old west railroad towns, a spot for the local farmers to send their produce off and pick up some manufactured goods and not much more.

 They had stopped for lunch in a restaurant called Old Jho’s Pit Stop (it had the front half of a military looking ship built into its roof, which Peter thought was rad as hell) when three of those sphere-ships with the big wings (TIE fighters, apparently) screamed in overhead, landing just outside the restaurant. The pilots stalked in waving their laser guns and a tablet (they call them blasters and data pads around here) displaying a picture of a very classically alien looking alien with yellow skin, black oval eyes, a bulbus head, small mouth, pointy ears, and antenna topped with suction cups. Kanan and Ezra followed them in and casually leaned on the bar to watch the proceedings. One of the men came over to the table the rest of the crew were sitting. Peter felt himself grow increasingly nervous as he stared into the unblinking lenses of the helmet which resembled a black version of those worn by the white armored goons (Stormtroopers); he envied Hera and Zebs ability to seem calm and even disinterested in this situation.

“Over here,” the guy moved to join his companions, who were accosting a being that looked like the same species as that in the picture, though his skin was a darker shade of green.

            With his enhanced hearing Peter was able to hear Ezra mutter “Tseebo?” upon getting a clear look at the picture, before one of the pilots announced “He’s not the one.”

Another of the pilots (or maybe the same one, it was hard to tell with their voices modulated by the helmets) walked up to the bar, slapped a drink to the floor, and demanded, “The Imperial Holonet Broadcast should play here at All Times!”

“No one’s requested it for, well, ever,” replied the bartender, an alien with a strange head that seemed to have mouths on the side of his throat, over which were mounted a mechanical device that acted as a real time translator.

“It’s the law.”

The bartender sighed and pressed a button to turn on the large TV screen above him.

“-cause today is Empire Day, celebrating the fifteenth anniversary of the galaxies salvation,” the voice of an inordinately proud sounding reporter and some peppy marching music cut through the tense silence of the restaurant, “When our great Emperor Palpatine ended the Clone Wars and founded our glorious Empire.”

Clone Wars? They fought a war against clones? Or maybe over clone rights? Could I get a clone of myself? No, that would probably be bad actually.

“-On Lothal has commissioned a parade!” the reporter made this sound as if it were big news, and not something that presumably happened every year.

One of the pilot goons pointed his blaster at a pair of diners and commanded, “you heard the man, raise your cups! To Emperor-”

“Citizens, this is senator in exile Gall Trayvis,” the goon, and the broadcast, were interrupted, “I bring you more news The Empire doesn’t want you to hear. I urge you to boycott all Empire Day celebrations to protest the ongoing injustices of the Imperial regime.” Not exactly news, but it’s nice to hear at least one political leader in this galaxy doesn’t like the Empire.

“Shut this off!” the same goon who had demanded the broadcast be played slammed his fist on the bar.

“Can’t, it’s the law,” the bartender drawled out, shrugging his shoulders.

“We’re done here!” the three pilots stormed out.

After they took off and the broadcast was shut off, Kanan spoke up, “TIE pilots on search patrols? What’s goin’ on?”

“Imperials have locked down the ports, and put destroyers in orbit,” the bartender informed him, “it’s a full planetary blockade.”

“And they’re after a Rodian…” Kanan seemed to be thinking out loud.

“As in, people from Rhode Island?” Well, I though it was funny, Peter told himself as his joke only got quizzical stares, gotta get some local material to work with.

“Just be glad they’re not after us for once!” Sabines quip landed a bit better.

“With what we’ve got planned for today’s parade, they’ll be after us again by tomorrow,” Kanan sounded exited.

“Looking forward to that,” Peter sarcastically remarked

“Well, you’re gonna have to do it without me,” Ezra got up and made to leave the bar.

“Were do you think you’re goin’?” Now Kanan sounded like a dad.

“I just need to be alone, today’s … brought back some memories.” Ezra grumpily as he left the restaurant, everyone else staring at him with questioning sympathy.

Capital City, Later That Evening

            “This ain’t exactly Macy’s Day,” Peter commented as they slipped into the area near the front of the parade route, “guess the Empire isn’t as popular as a department store”

The crowds lining the route were only a few rows deep, and most of the people were only politely clapping rather than cheering. This lukewarm reception was drowned out by the peppy marching music (apparently the Imperial National Anthem) blasting over loudspeakers throughout the city. The Specters planned to make their move at the midpoint of the parade, when all the various tanks would gather in a square at the foot of the Imperial Complex for Minister Tua to make a speech. Zeb, Sabine, and Peter took a spot in the crowd near the square were they rolled pre-prepared web grenades out to stick to the legs or underside of each vehicle as it walked or hovered by. These were a special new design that Peter and Sabine had worked out, they consisted of a stronger fluid capsule that would be broken open by a small explosive charge set to go off at a radio signal, and a magnet to stick to a target.

“Ok, phase 3 is ready to go,” Peter announced as a modified web-grenade magnetized to the last hover tank and Minister Tua began her speech.

“Alright, here’s phase 1,” Sabine said pulling out four larger grenades.

“-from Lothal’s Imperial Shipyards, the Sienar Systems Advanced TIE Starfighter!” at some prompting from imperial agents in the crowd, the spectators were now properly cheering. That is a cool looking starfighter, “And who better to take this beauty on her maiden voyage than one of the best imperial pilots on Lothal - Baron Valen Rudor!”

“When I say ‘Now’, through these as high as you can,” Sabine instructed as she activated two grenades, handing them to Zeb and Peter.

“Okay now?” Zeb asked immediately.

“How bout now?” Peter said a second later.

“Now!?” Zeb began to panic as the bombs beeped faster.

“Ahh… now.” Sabine announced calmly.

They threw the bombs high in the air with a grunt of effort. Peter watched closely to see whose went higher, he swore it was his own though Zeb would later insist his had been the higher. At the top of their arc, the bombs exploded into a frankly incredible number of fireworks, way more than Peter would have thought could fit in a handheld projectile. Those explosives really are hyper-efficient. They can’t be wasting a single grain of powder to fit so many bursts in so small a package. Still, they couldn’t last forever, so he and Zeb each threw another firework to keep the Imperials distracted wile Kanan enacted phase 2.

The last fireworks were just dying down when the brand new super advanced prototype starfighter at the center of the show exploded in a gratifying burst of color. Peter whooped, then immediately stopped to fearfully glance around in case anyone had heard that reaction. Luckily bystanders and Imperials alike were too busy panicking to notice.

“Ok, time for phase 3!” Sabine declared, and Peter pressed a button on his borrowed commlink. (he hadn’t been able to get his suit to interface with local technology yet, he was taking that project slow as he only had one shot and didn’t want to brick something important in the suit computer). The pre-placed web grenades exploded, leaving over half the imperial ground forces on Lothal stuck in place for the Specters to make their escape.  

As they ran from the square, Ezra showed up running alongside Kanan, “Nice of yuh to join us, kid!” Zeb barked at him by way of greeting.

“Hey, where were you?” Sabine panted out.

Ezra flashed them a grin, “Why, did you miss me?”

“Yah right!”

            They stopped running a few blocks down the street to check for pursuit. Most of the civilians had run off deeper into the city by then; in the distance, Peter could see stormtroopers sweeping the area of the blast, along with a human man in less extensive grey armor.

“Been spoilin to finish things with Agent Kalus.” Zeb ground out as he aimed his laser rifle at the man.

“Hey, if you want to take somebody out, take out that guy!” Kanan pointed at a tall figure in black armor emerging from beside the flaming TIE prototype. The being was extraordinarily pale, and had a tall bald head covered in vertical ridges, circular ear pieces, and red markings that might have been tattoos. Peter wasn’t sure if he was an alien or some extremely weird variety of human; he also thought the being’s eyes might be yellow. I really hope that’s a trick of the light.

            Zeb sighed and fired at the being, but he dodged the bolts, and furiously glared in the direction of the specters, causing them to resume their flight.

“Specter 2 we’re on route to the rendezvous!” Kanan shouted into his commlink.

“Negative Specter 1, the streets are blocked,” Hera’s voice came back over the comm (indeed, the streets further from the parade route were still full of screaming civilians), “I cannot, repeat cannot reach rendezvous.”

“I know a place we can hole up till things calm down,” Ezra offered, “But shoulders here might have a problem taking my route!”

“Then we need another option!” Kanan protested.

“Neh, its fine,” Zeb waved the objection off and pulled out his comm, “Specter 2 can you make it to the old market?”

“Affirmative.”

Zeb began to climb the nearest wall with a huff, and Ezra motioned the others to follow him down a tight ally, little more than a crack between buildings really. Kanan shouted to Zeb to get back to The Ghost and wait for a new rendezvous location.

“Why don’t we all go to the old market?” Peter asked as Ezra disappeared round a corner.

“Because there’s something you guys need to see!” Ezra sounded a bit grumpy as he shouted back, as if he wasn’t sure quite how to explain himself.

            A few back alleys, ventilation ducts, and one sewer later they arrived in a disused side street in front of an abandoned building with PROPERTY OF THE EMPIRE KEEP AWAY stenciled onto its side in Aurebesh. Huh. Didn’t notice that last time. Amazing how much more you see when you know what you’re looking at.

“What is this place?” Sabine asked

Ezra pulled out an odd-looking object and swiped it against an electronic lock, causing the door to slide partially open. Kanan looked at him with sudden realization, “You were coming here today, this was your home wasn’t it, where you grew up.”

“I grew up on the streets,” Ezra replied angrily, “Alone.”

“I’ll tell you what it is,” Peter said as he walked in, “this is where I hid out the first night I arrived here.”

“Is that why the window’s broken?” Sabine asked sardonically.

“Hey, I didn’t have a key-card for the door!”

“Still, hell of a coincidence,” Sabine muttered as she walked in.  

“A great Jedi master once said ‘there are no coincidences’,” Kanan replied as he shut the door behind them.

“Yah, I had this feeling about coming here today,” Ezra was almost talking to himself as he picked up the coffee table, evidently a lot lighter than it looked, to reveal a secret ladder below.

“Woah, was that there this whole time?” Secret rooms are so cool! Then Peter heard a sound like sobbing, although a bit squeaky, coming from the hidden basement.

“Tseebo? Tseebo, it’s me Ezra Bridger!” he called down the hole.

            A thin Rodian with yellow skin wearing a grey uniform with imperial markings climbed out of the hole. He (She? They? It? How do Rodians work?) had some kind of blinking, beeping technological something wrapped around the back of their head. They looked around with a blank stare, babbled something incomprehensible about shipping schedules and proceeded to walk headfirst into a boarded-up window.

“That’s the Rodian the imperials are hunting! You know him?” Kanan realized out loud.

“Named Tseebo, a friend of my parents,” Ezra gestured at the being as he slumped to the couch, “but somethings wrong, what’s that thing on his head?”

“Empires been known to implant lower-level technicians with, cybernetic circuits,” Sabine examined and prodded the device, “Personality sacrificed for productivity.”

“Tseebos productivity is 19% higher, than average imperial data worker.” Tseebo reported mater-of-factly.

“That’s seriously messed up,” Peter was horrified at the prospect, “I mean that is some serios cyberman shit right there.”

“Tseebo went to work for the Imperial Information Office, after The Empire took my parents away,” Ezra explained, his town ranging from angry to detected over the course of a sentence.

Kanan walked over to try to comfort him, “Your parents? You… never told us.”

“What’s to tell? They’ve been gone for eight years. I’ve been on my own since I was seven.”

“Seven! Seven Tie fighter wings have been deployed to Lothal. Four in Capital City…” Tseebo reported as he continued to wander around the room in a daze.

“What’s he saying?” Kanan asked, scratching his head.

“He’s detailing imperial fighter deployments on Lothal!” Sabine exclaimed.

Kanan snapped his fingers, “that’s it! Tseebo has intel the Empire doesn’t want getting out. Sabine, can you access it?”

“Eh, think so, need a few minutes.” She began pushing buttons on Tseebo’s cybernetic unit. Peter walked over on the ceiling to get a better look at what she was doing. On the other side of the room Kanan again attempted to comfort Ezra who grumpily brushed him off and stalked down the hidden ladder, as much as one can stalk on a ladder anyway.

“I told you, sometimes you have to let your guard down,” Kanan lectured after him.

Observing this discussion seemed to trigger something in Tseebo’s half computerized mess of a brain, causing him to calmly report, “Ezra Bridger, son of Ephraim and Mira Bridger, born fifteen years ago today.”

“Oohf, Empire Day, its Ezras birthday,” Sabine paused her work in shock.

“That must really suck.” Peter said to no one in particular.

            After a few more minutes of fiddling with the controls on Tseebo’s implant and her gauntlet, Sabine exclaimed “Hah! Got it!” and went to retrieve Ezra. They came up the ladder, Ezra still a bit grumpy and Sabine giddy with success. She entered a command on her gauntlet which caused Tseebo to shake his head while squeak-grunting before a holographic slideshow projected from his implant. The hologram showed pictures of various vehicles, diagrams, and maps, and text descriptions flashing by too fast for Peters new understanding of Aurebesh to catch more than a few words. Evidently it was too fast for Kanan as well, he soon asked, “What are we looking at?”

“It’s, huh, well its everything! Imperial specs on the new TIEs and the new T-8 disruptors, schedules of troop movements, tactics and strategies,” Sabine explained, “half of its encrypted but looks like there’s a five-year plan for Lothal, and every other world in the outer rim!”

Then Tseebo overloaded, and fell to the ground with a “woaoawoah.”

“No wonder his brains shorting out, all that data would overload anyone,” Ezra said this with his lack of sympathy for his parents’ erstwhile friend still evident.

“The secrets in his head must be damaging to The Empire-,” Kanan began, but Peter felt he had to say something to Ezra “Ezra, this guy may or may not have been a genuine collaborator in the past, but he’s clearly risked his life and given up half his brain to steal imperial secrets! You could be a little nicer to him.”

This admonishment from his new friend seemed to partially poke through Ezra’s sullen mood. “I… I guess so. Sorry Tseebo.”

“Tseebo must return to quarters. Good sleep is critical for efficient data-work-” CLANG! Tseebo walked into a door that he had ignored in his quest to walk in a straight line to wherever he thought he was going.

“How are we going to smuggle him out of the city in this state?” Sabine asked, “You know the only reason the imperials haven’t caught him is because they’ve been too busy with Empire Day, but the celebration is over.”

“Not to mention, we’ve only got a little over an hour at this point before that webbing dissolves, and the tanks are free to move.”

            After some discussion, they decided sneeking was probably out of the question, so instead they stole a hover tank. K70-S80 Imperial Troop Transport, if you want to get technical. This proved shockingly easy, they found one on patrol not far from the Bridger house, and after waiting for two scouts on speeder bikes leave Sabine and Peter simply walked up and punched out the stormtroopers guarding the vehicle. When the driver opened the door to see what was going on, Kanan gave him an idiotic grin as he threw the guy to the floor. The whole plan went off with their only casualty being Sabines bruised knuckles.

            Nobody tried to stop them until they reached the highway leading out of the city. There a roadblock had been set up consisting of two of those walky thingies and another of the hover tank transports parked across the road. An imperial officer stood in the middle of the road holding his hand up to signal them to halt.

Sabine simply sped up saying, “I have no plans on stopping.”

“That’s good to know,” Ezra quipped.

“Sorry Tseebo, I can’t find a seatbelt for you.” Peter proceeded to web the confused Rodian to the back wall to provide some sort of crash safety.

            That was about when the imperials began shooting, their shots shaking the transport but otherwise ineffectually bouncing off the frontal armor! Kanan (sitting in the gunner’s seat) returned fire with their own forward guns, scattering the troopers standing in the road but likewise failing to destroy the actual blockade. One of the walkers attempted to stomp on them, only to get a leg ripped off for its trouble! Then they hit the other hover tank, knocking it aside with ease and barely a scratch on their armor, Ezra laughing maniacally as they were jostled around. Holly crap this thing is tough!

            For a brief moment, one of those stretches of time that seemed simultaneously a few seconds and a good long while, Peter thought they were free. Then the door began to fizz and crackle! In seconds it blew off entirely to reveal a riderless speeder bike keeping pace with their transport.

“Did he blow himself up?” Peter asked.

            Ezra stuck his head out the open door to check, only to get kicked back by the scout-trooper swinging down from the roof! “The Rodian!” the trooper gasped in a rather piratey accent upon noticing Tseebo. Kanan was on the guy immediately, giving him several brutal punches to the stomach before getting elbowed in the neck and flipped to the ground! The trooper pulled out his blaster to finish him off, but Peter was already in motion.

“Hey!” the trooper whipped around to see who had shouted.

“This! Is! LOTHAL!” Peter gave him the classic kick, sending the goon flying out the door and into his buddy on the other bike. “I’ve always wanted to do that,” he said to the others baffled looks.

            A few seconds later, there was a clunk of something hitting the back of their transport, “What was that?”

            Sabine checked the scanners, and noticed The Ghost above them, “Specter 5 to Ghost, coming in hot!”

“See that!” Zeb’s voice came over the comm, “you’ve got company upstairs!”

            There was a sound of laser cannon fire from behind them outside, then some more from above them, an explosion, and Sabine swerved to dodge the hover tank that had been tailing them as it flipped over with almighty crash! Zeb came over the comm again, “ok you’re all clear! Pull over and-”

“Belay that!” Hera cut him off, “have to be a scoop job, we’ve got multiple TIEs incoming!”

“Fighters will begin full production on Lothal in the next six weeks.”

“You’re just full of fun facts!” Ezra told Tseebo as he used Kanan’s lightsaber to cut him free of Peters Emergency webbing.

“Woah, you didn’t tell me you have a laser sword!” Peter exclaimed, “That is so cool!”

“That’s my laser sword,” Kanan replied from the front, “and it’s called a lightsaber.”

            The Ghost flew in low so the front ramp nearly touched the roof of the transport. Peter and Kanan climbed up first, then helped Tseebo up. Ezra was next, pausing to make sure Sabine was ready. She took a moment longer to fiddle with the controls, “Autopilots engaged, this thing will run till it’s out of fuel!”

            Kanan was just pushing Tseebo up the ramp when that grey armored human from earlier, who Zeb had called Agent Kallus, turned out to have been hanging on to the back of their hover tank! He fired several laser bolts at them, all of which missed due to his precarious position!

“Go! GO!” Kanan shouted as he waved them up the ramp and re-ignited his lightsaber, using it to deflect several more shots from agent Kalus! The Ghost began to lift away, and Peter used the opportunity to entangle the agent in a spray of webbing.

“What the-!?” Kalus shouted, struggling to free his arms.

Kanan jumped several feet up and onto the ramp. “Thanks kid!”

Chapter 5: The Cave

Lothal, 15^th Empire Day (December 2015 AD)

…………………………………………Hera Syndula……………………………………………

            Hera landed the Ghost in the old market on the outskirts of Capital City. No one important noticed, probably because of all the screaming people running around. Hera smiled in pride; that was her crew. “Are the others aboard?” She asked as Zeb entered the cockpit.

“Er, no its just me.”

“Garazeb Orrelios! You better not have left anyone behind again!” she thought he had learned his lesson after the incident during the Wookiee rescue!

“I swear its nought my fault! Ezra said he had something to show the others! They’ll be fine.”

“They’d better. I’m gonna have to take off before someone notices us.” This day just kept getting better and better. First Ezra disappears before a mission, then he comes back just to fubar an evac plan? An evac plan that, mind you, was already plan C because the imperials had been quicker than expected to lock down the main gates and spaceport.

            Thanks to the Ghost’s signal scramblers, they made it out of the city and back to one of their favorite isolated rock piles undetected. There they waited for a tense hour until Kanan sent a short signal requesting a 14-pickup west of the city. That was code for: stole an imperial craft, won’t be able to ditch it before rendezvous. Just what kind of trouble did they get themselves into now?

            Hera took off, flying into the clouds to avoid visual detection. When they reached the city, she dipped down just a bit lower to take a look around. On the highway leading out of the capital they soon spotted an imperial troop transport racing for the end of the road, followed closely by another transport and two speeder bikes. That has to be them.

“Zeb, get to the ramp to cover their escape, Chopper, rear turret!” Hera ordered her crew as she flew in to join the chase.

Sabine’s voice came over the com, “Specter 5 to Ghost, coming in hot!” I can see that.

Shots from the rear transport shook the Ghost, throwing Hera back and forth in her seat.

“Sheilds holding,” she said over the intercom, reasonably calmly in her opinion, as she flipped some overhead switches to divert power to the rear shields, “but I need that transport taken care of, Chopper you got this?”

“Brap ah bo bop! Brop brop bop.” The rear cannons fired six times, and Hera heard a terrific explosion as the pursuing transport flipped over.

A moment later Zeb shouted over the open comm, “ok you’re all clear! Pull over and-”

“Belay that!” Hera cut him off as her scope was blinking a warning, “have to be a scoop job, sensors reading multiple TIEs incoming!”

            This would be some tricky piloting, just the way she liked it. Matching speed with a moving ground target was hard enough for most pilots, but she would also have to keep her ship steady and exactly low enough to let the crew walk on to the ramp from the roof of their troop transport. And all this would need to be accomplished in less than a minute before a swarm of TIE fighters arrived to blow them away! It was moments like these were Hera felt really alive.

            Naturally she pulled the whole thing off without a hitch (as far as she could tell from the cockpit anyway) and was already racing for orbit before the TIEs began firing. Firing a little too much actually, less experienced pilots wouldn’t have noticed, but the shield drain seemed a bit high for only five TIEs. Kriff, they must have had another of those prototypes ready to fly. “I need my gunners; shields won’t hold long under this barrage!”

“Almost there!” Kanan shouted from the ladder to the top turret.

            Hera tried to lose the pursuit by dogging between clouds, but these guys weren’t falling for it. Another particularly powerful blast rattled the Ghost from behind. Kriff Kriff Kriff! Have to make for space now and hope we can jump before they tear us apart.

            Peter stumbled into the cockpit and slammed into a chair as yet another blast shook the ship. They are really determined today! “Chopper, I’m rolling us starboard, be ready to fire those rear guns!” Hera shouted into the intercom as Peter hauled himself into a chair, the one Zeb normally occupied.

Speaking of Zeb, he shouted back from the rear turret in the Phantom, “Choppers down!” then after a moment of muffled swearing, “I've got you covered, Hera. Roll away!”

            Hera executed her roll away from the pursuing TIEs, trying not to worry about what kind of state her droid was in. Unfortunately, the roll took then right into a flight of four more TIES, flying out from a pair of Star Destroyer sitting in blockade formation over the nearest hyper-lane. “Sabine, I need you in the nose gun, now!”

“Those space daggers are gonna turn us into a real ghost!” Peter shouted by way of agreement.

This is a lot of firepower for going after one freighter, even us. “Someone want to explain to me why we're extra popular tonight?

“We've picked up a passenger,” Kanan answered over the intercom from the top gun, “The Rodian the Imperials are hunting.”

            Well that just explained everything then. Every mission they took these days seemed to suddenly turn into some kind of rescue op. Not that that was a bad thing, Hera loved rescuing people from The Empire, but it would be nice to know before-hand. It was probably because of Ezra, she decided. Ever since they had started breaking through his shell of selfish survival instincts, that kid had been making friends wherever he went. Hera’s thoughts drifted back to the Rodian as she dodged another barrage, “And he's important because...?”

“Because his cybernetic implant has downloaded half the Empire's secrets!” Sabine answered from the nose gun where she had finally taken position.

“Okay, I can see why that's important,” Leave it to the Specters to accidently turn a simple act of protest I cooked up to kill time between Fulcrum’s missions into possibly the biggest intelligence coup in rebellion history, “Let's get him out of here!”

            Her ship shook again, and the navigation console started sparking as a shot penetrated the rear deflector shield and systems overloaded. “Sheilds down! Peter! Nav computer is offline, with Chopper down I need you to fix it!”

He gave her a blank look, “Ookay. How do I do that?”

Karabast! Of all the times for Chopper to be down… “Under that console, just flip the circuit breakers and rewire anything that looks fried! Ezra! Get up here and help!”

            Ezra arrived in the cockpit just as the blockading destroyers began releasing their TIE fighters, only one flight of four at first, then another four and another and another; until Hera was beginning to worry that they really wouldn’t make it out. Meanwhile, Ezra apparently didn’t have a much better idea of how to fix a broken nav-computer than Peter did. The two boys were under the console arguing when the cockpit door slid open and the Rodian wandered in.

“Fast travel over interstellar distances, hyperspace is optimal,” the guy then began to fiddle under the navigation consol of her ship un-asked for!

“What is he doing!?” Then her consol singled that it had a jump plotted, complete with secondary and tertiary safety checks, “I don’t believe it,” but it’s not like I have a better option, “Hang on!” She pulled the lever, and the Ghost jumped away.

After a moment or two of blessed calm, Ezra introduced their guest, “Hera, this is Tseebo,” Strangely, he didn’t sound too happy about it.

“And did Tseebo just signal hyperspace coordinates directly to me ship?”

“That would be my guess.” Ezra said with a dismissive wave.

Peter picked the moment to pipe up, “is that not how hyperspace travel normally works?”

“The number of unmodified organic beings who can calculate hyperspace coordinates without aid is roughly 1 in 9.583762 million,” Tseebo answered absently and without a hint of bragging, while continuing to stare into the middle distance.

“Well thank you Tseebo,” Hera told him, “I think you saved our lives.”

“Yah, guess there’s a first time for everything,” Ezra said in a venomous tone, making to stalk away.

“I though you forgave Tseebo?” Peter asked.

            “Forgave Him!?” Ezra spun sharply back around, “You know what he just told me? He knew my parents were in trouble! He tried to warn them! But all they wanted… was for their ‘good friend’ TSEEBO, to take… to take care… of their kid, if anything happened. But HE was too much of a COWARD to go against The Empire! He’s the reason I had to grow up on the streets!” With that he stormed off to his room.

            Probably best to just let him calm down on his own. Instead, she double checked that Tseebo’s coordinates weren’t going to send them into a star. With their escape thus secure, she sent Fulcrum a message to come retrieve Tseebo, then went to look after Chopper. He turned out to be mostly intact, a few wires and capacitors would need replacing but his memory circuits were safe. She had Zeb carry him down to the common area where she and Sabine got to work on repairs, with Peter watching eagerly. Kanan brought Tseebo down to keep an eye on him, and try to gage how aware he was of his surroundings (that’s to put it politely, he’s actually snapping his fingers and waving his hand in front of that poor Rodian’s face). Even Ezra came out to sulk on the couch.

“So, now what do we do with him?” Ezra broke the increasingly tense silence.

 “We have a few ideas,” Kanan gave up his amusement and went over to Ezra to talk to him in what Hera liked to call his dad voice “But, you’re the one who has history with Tseebo, what do you think we should do?”

Ezra put on his cadet helmet to hide his expression, “Don’t know, don’t much care.”

“Ezra,” Kanan sternly lectured, “you’ll never advance as a Jedi if you can’t be honest, with yourself at least.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he attempted to walk away again, but Kanan yanked the helmet off his head and spun him around.

“It means Tseebo matters to you. You do care what happens to him.”

“Why should I?” Ezra spat out, more to Tseebo than to Kanan, “he did nothing to save my parents.”

“What could he have done against the entire Empire?” Kanan pointed out reasonably, though Hera suspected Ezra was in no mood for reason.

“And look at what he’s done since!” Sabine stood up to join the conversation, “The Imperials encourage these implants, but they’re not mandatory. Not yet. He must have volunteered! Then he uploaded their secrets and ran! Maybe he’s trying to make up for letting you down. Parker’s right you know, he may never get his mind back to normal! Why else would he risk that, let alone all the other danger of taking on The Empire?”

“Te Empire, moshkin e spastica,” Tseebo pronounced in Rodian.

            “He said the Empire can track the Ghost.” Sabine sounded scared, despite the impossibility of such a thing. Everyone knew once a ship was in hyperspace, it was safe. Sure, pursuers could guess at its destination by the last known trajectory, or follow a radiation trail if the hyperdrive was leaking; but Hera had installed special sensor jammers to confuse trajectory tracking, and the ship diagnostic showed no such damage. Tracking beacons were possible, but she was pretty confident that nobody had snuck aboard to plant one.

“Oh please!” Zeb dismissively waved the idea aside, “The Imperials can't follow us through hyperspace… guh, can they?

            Tseebo shook his head as if trying to dislodge a fly, causing his implant to project a hologram of a small blunt nosed missile, “Imperial XX-23 S-Thread Tracker was developed by Sienar Systems, to trace ships through hyperspace to destination.”

“Cool,” Peter breathed, “I mean, not cool, like at all. Very uncool of them actually.”

“Hera, could they have tagged us with that thing?” Kanan asked.

Now she was actually worried, “Guess we better find out.”

            Hera pushed Choppers front arm back in place and turned the droid on, causing him to whirr and bop in a panic wile wildly swinging his manipulator arms, “Whoa whoa, Calm down, Chop. You were just offline for a few minutes!” She sighed and pointed to the hologram, “We need you to scan the Ghost for that.”

“Whap wha meh?”

“Stop grumbling and find that tracker, you rust bucket!” Zeb told him without a trace of irony.

            About a quarter of an hour later they met up in the cockpit to take a look at the results. They were unfortunate to say the least. Looks like I’ll have to make Chopper do this scan every time we escape imperial forces.

“So, they did tag us,” Sabine commented when Chopper displayed the tracker’s location on the hull.

“Yes,” Hera noticed something, and said with a smirk, “But the good news is the tracer's actually on the hull of the Phantom.”

“How is that good news exactly?” Zeb asked

Kanan caught on quicker, “It'll allow us to detach the Phantom and lure the Imperials away from the Ghost, and Tseebo.”

“Whoa whoa whoa! You want to detach while in hyperspace?” Sabine exclaimed in near panic, “Do you know how incredibly dangerous that is?”

“I don’t,” Peter raised his hand, “anyone care to explain?”

“The Phantom doesn’t have its own hyperdrive, and its stabilizers are meant to function in conjunction with the rest of the Ghost!” Sabine explained, clearly still thinking this was a terrible idea, “if they detach in hyperspace, they could get torn apart or trapped between dimensions or a million other horrible things!”

“Still not as dangerous as what I plan to do with the ship,” Kanan said calmly smirking.
……………………………………………Ezra Bridger…………………………………………

            Ezra Bridger was having possible the worst Empire Day of his life, and that was saying something. He had thought things would be better this year with his new friends around, yet somehow their presence only seemed to worsen his mood. Finding Tseebo, learning how he had betrayed his parents, it was bringing out his old self. And that guy was an asshole. Somehow, this thought did nothing to cheer him up. He was standing in their kitchen watching Tseebo stare at a corner in idiot fascination, because apparently everyone else was ‘too busy’ prepping for Kanan’s crazy plan keep an eye on the traitor, when Sabine walked in.

“So, your parents... Do you really believe they're dead?”

“Yes,” Of course they’re dead, they have to be dead, at this point it would be worse for them not to be! Do I really believe that? “No. I don't know! Does it matter?”

“Yeah, of course it matters!” Sabine exclaimed, “You have to talk to Tseebo before we go!”

“Tried that already.”

            “Okay, so try harder!” Sabine was being uncharacteristically passionate about this. Not that she wasn’t a passionate person, far from it, but she was usually dismissive and nearly cold with Ezra. Perhaps if he had been in a better mood, he would have noticed her emanating desperate sympathy tinged with familiarity into the Force. “Once Hera takes him away, you may never see Tseebo again.”

“Maybe that's for the best,” Ezra said with a despondent sigh.

“Wha... How can you say that?!”

“Sabine,” why does she care about this? “I've been on my own since I was seven, okay? If I'd let myself believe my folks were alive, if I let myself believe they'd come back and save me, I'd never have learned how to survive.”

Kanan opened the door to the kitchen, startling Ezra, “You ready?”

            Ezra exchanged a glance with Sabine, each hoping the other would suddenly understand, but neither spoke. Kanan simply said, “Okay,” and led Ezra to the Phantom. Ezra sat in one of the shuttles passenger seats, barely hearing Kanan’s instruction to strap himself in. Was there even a point to asking Tseebo what exactly happened to his parents? It’s not like he would gain any comfort from knowing whether they were shot out the back of the house or executed in some dark cell. But what if they are alive? Would they approve of my new… family? Long hardened instinct told him not to speculate any further.

“And Ezra?” Ezra looked up on hearing his name over the intercom, “Look out for Kanan,” Hera told him, and for a just a second he grinned, and said, “Somebody has to.”

“Ready for separation,” Hera announced.

“Copy that, Ghost,” Kanan made a few adjustments, and Ezra managed to spare a small amount of worry for the danger they were about to undergo.

Hera counted them down, “Five, four, three, two... one. Detach!”

            For a brief moment, everything seemed fine. Then the Phantom began to spin, some extra bit of momentum from one thruster, or perhaps Ezra’s weight on one side causing them to spiral as the Ghost sped away. Ezra saw a rainbow as the blue void of hyperspace began to break apart. It felt like the inertial compensators weren’t working, he was getting sick to his stomach, the lights were brighter and more colorful (probably all sorts those of nasty invisible extra colors from my new physics holo-text too), the spinning was getting faster, an overpowering mechanical keening, a flash! They were in real-space, still spinning out of control and trailing hyperspace radiation like a rainbow meteor. Kanan pulled a lever and the ship came to a wobbly stop, both Jedi panting, “Okay. Okay. That was the easy part.”

            As they flew through the asteroid belt to the old clone-base they had rescued Hera and Sabine from, Ezra wandered up to the control area, “Should we go over the plan again?”

“I never told you what the plan was,” Kanan answered cheekily.  

Ezra was in no mood for this mysterious Jedi master nonsense, “Exactly!”

“You remember the nasty creatures Hera and Sabine found here?”

            How could he forget? One of those had nearly eaten him! “Yeah. I'd rather forget them, but yes.”

“Well, I'm gonna need you to connect with them, like I was trying to teach you before, if we're gonna survive this.”

            Ezra had almost forgotten the failed lesson that resulted in a loth-cat nearly clawing his eyes out. Was that really just this morning? “Is now really the best time for a lesson?!”

“No,” Kanan admitted, “but I figure it's learning like you do best, by surviving.”

That’s so unfair! “Kanan, I can't! I'm afraid.”

“I got news for you, kid,” Kanan said as he maneuvered into the wrecked hanger bay, “Everyone's afraid, but admitting it as you just did makes you braver than most, and it's a step forward.”

“Yeah, into the jaws of a nightmare.” Now Ezra was really scared. He shrank back from the viewport, muttering “Okay… Okay,” to himself as he nervously peeked around the pilot chair. Kanan landed and patted his back. When that didn’t work, he grabbed Ezra by the shoulders and spun him around.

“I'll get the tracking device off the Phantom. You, go make some new friends.” He opened the hatch, “Here we go.”

            Ezra walked out into the darkness. Here and there scraps of metal littered the ground, each one looking in his fear like one of the nightmare creatures. He stretched out his hand and began trying to recite the old Jedi mantra Kanan had taught him, but the words caught in panicked mind, “One with the Force. One with the Force. One with the Force.” He peeked one eye open and saw some of the shapes were definitely moving towards him now, his chanting became increasingly desperate as he stared at death, “I'm one with the Force. One with the Force. One with the Force!”

Kanan jumped off the shuttle, startling the creatures back a few steps, “You're blocked! Let go.”

“I can't!” Ezra closed his eyes and held out his hands, not to use the force but simply to ward off the claws and teeth.

“Don't be afraid.”

“I'm not afraid of them.” I’m not?

“Then what?”

He could hear the creatures closing in around them, screeching their warnings to leave their territory, “I don't know.”

“Yes, you do!”

“I...” I don’t know! I can’t think clearly!

“Ezra! What are you afraid of?”

“I'm afraid of...” ‘you have to let your guard down, you have to be willing to attach to others’ that’s what Kanan had told him, what seemed like a lifetime ago, “I'm afraid of knowing… I'm afraid of the truth!” ‘he’s risked his life and given up half his brain to steal imperial secrets!’, You have to talk to Tseebo before we go’, ‘you are connected to all living things’ “I'm sorry! I'm sorry. I forgive you, Tseebo!”

            In that moment, he saw the common room of the Ghost, his home. A skinny, sickly, friend of his parents, with a computer taking up half his brain, was sitting there, seemingly looking back at him. “I, too, am sorry,” He intoned, while bowing to show a depth of apology his voice was no longer quite capable of, “Forgive me, for everything.” When Ezra came to, he saw dozens of the formerly terrifying beasts sitting on their haunches around him, yet he needn’t have opened his eyes, for he could feel their minds waiting expectantly, asking how they could help. 

            Ezra did not know how long he and Kanan meditated for. In order to keep the fyrnocks on their side, he sank deeper into the force than he ever had before. This is how meditation is supposed to feel. I never realized before. Soon enough he felt the presence of the inquisitor, like a raging fire of anger, impatience, and ego. A stormtrooper shouted, “Sir! They're over… here.”

            Ezra sensed the Inquisitor sensing the fyrnocks, and the stormtroopers panicking as they saw them. “Sir! They're not alone. Shoot it! Shoot it!” The troopers opened fire as he and Kanan directed the fyrnocks forward, but were quickly scattered. The Inquisitor, however, was not so easily made to flee.

“This was your plan?” He sneered as he threw fyrnocks aside with the force, “To lure us here and allow these creatures to do your work for you?”

Kanan stood up and ignited his lightsaber, “How do you think it's going?”

The inquisitor sliced a fyrnock in half, “Pathetically.”

            “Guess if you want something done right...” Kanan charged at the dark-sider. Ezra was only vaguely aware of their duel. He remained meditating, absolutely still, as he directed the frynocks against the stormtroopers. But he sure noticed when the Inquisitor threw Kanan against a landing craft, knocking him unconscious, “Kanan!”

Ezra raced to Kanan, the frynocks forgotten as he summoned Kanan’s lightsaber to defend him, “You're not going near him!”

            The Inquisitor tore the lightsaber out of Ezras unprepared hands with the force, “I believe I am. In fact, it's time to end both Jedi and Padawan… for good.” He strode forward, dragging both lightsabers across the floor, driving up sparks and smoke as he went. “Your devotion to your master is admirable, but it will not save you. Nothing can.” He threw Ezra back to the edge of a chasm with the force!

Ezra felt rage at his own helplessness boiling up inside him, “Get back!”

“Ah yes, good. Go on,” The Inquisitor taunted, chuckling at his own joke, “Unleash your anger. I will teach you what your master could not.”

Rage settled into resolve, “You don't have anything to teach me!”

“The darkness is too strong for you, orphan.” His voice echoed around the cavern, and Ezra felt fear not entirely his own clawing at his heart, as if the dark-sider was somehow infecting him with it.

“It is swallowing you up, even now.”

“No!” Yes.

“Your master will die.”

“No!” He can’t!

“Your friends will die, and everything you've hoped for will be lost. This is the way the story ends.”

            Ezra was well past rage now, past even fear. Cold grim determination settled over him, he gritted his teeth, reached out in the force and shouted, “NO!” Rocks and pebbles began to float around him, though he did not notice. The Inquisitor took a step back in fear, this brought him satisfaction, but was not enough. No, Ezra had earlier sensed a greater presence in this cave, but it had not obeyed him like the other fyrnocks. Now it would. The icy calm he felt could not possibly be the dark side, for it felt nothing like the inquisitor with his fiery rage. ‘To so deeply invade the mind … would be a violation.’ Shut up Kanan! I have to save you!

“Ezra? No!” The real Kanan shouted from where he lay.

            It was too late; Ezra was now deep inside the mind of a creature older and more terrible than all the others. The frynock queen climbed out of the chasm and screeeed in rage. The remaining stormtroopers fled at the sight of the giant beast, and Ezra commanded it to attack the Inquisitor before collapsing.

“Ezra?” He felt Kanan brush his face.

“Kanan? What happened? I feel so cold.” It was like that first winter, before he had found the abandoned comms tower.

“I know. It's okay. We're leaving.” Kanan picked him up. They stumbled out of the hanger with Ezra half-conscious, dimly aware of imperial forces continuing to battle the frynocks around them.

            When the cold finally dissipated enough that he was again aware of his surroundings, they were in the Phantom about as far from the asteroid base as they could get without a hyperdrive. We got away! “I saved us?”

“You did,” Kanan said, trying his best to be comforting despite his obvious worry.

“But something doesn't feel right.”

“If your will isn't strong enough when you open yourself to the Force, you become vulnerable to the dark side.”

I didn’t, couldn’t, shouldn’t that feel hot? “Well, I was trying to protect you.”

“I know,” Kanan said by way of comfort, but then switched to his lesson voice, “But your anger and fear caused that giant creature to attack.”

“I don't remember it,” the more Ezra tried to think about what he had done, the more the memory fell apart like a dream.

“That's for the best,” Kanan sighed, “Your powers are growing so quickly, you weren't prepared. I didn't teach you what you needed to know. I'm sorry.”

“What happens now?”

“Now? You get some rest. Learn from the experience. You’ll be fine.”

            The Ghost returned to pick them up within the hour; Sabine was first to greet them as they came down the ladder from the Phantom, followed by Zeb, Chopper, and Peter, “Welcome back, you two.”

“Yuh outsmated them again. Goo’ job, boss.”

“Weka beka bak.”

“Classic Captain Kirk moves out there!”

“You made it!” Hera exclaimed.

“Was there any doubt?” Kanan sounded jokingly offended at the implication.

“Never,” Hera shook her head, then she turned to Ezra, “Ezra, I have something to...”

Kanan gently cut her off, “Ezra needs a little time to himself right now.”

            Taking his opening, Ezra left the common room and headed toward the nose turret. It was probably the best view in the ship, with the transparasteel extending down below the chair so one could almost imagine they were floating in space. This was where he had been the first time he had seen the stars from outside Lothal’s atmosphere.

Sabine walked in behind him, “Rough couple of days.”

I suppose it is technically tomorrow by now, “Yeah. It's been strange.”

            She walked over to the other side of him, where there was a control panel and brightly said, “I have just what you need. It's the holodisc from your old house.” She waved it in front of him, and Ezra lacked the energy to argue with her about its worth again, “It was pretty degraded, but I cleaned it up. And I found something."

            She inserted the disk into a data-slot on the consol, and out popped a full color hologram of his parents and himself! His mother was giving him a piggy back ride, smiling into his own toothy grin. His father was standing behind them, a tired smile on his face. Ezra was moved nearly to tears of joy, “Mom? Dad!”

Sabine smiled, “Happy birthday, Ezra Bridger.”

Bonus

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Chapter 6: Aftermath

Lothal , Imperial Complex, 15 AFE (December 2015 AD)

……………………………………… Alexsandr Kallus…………………………………………

            Agent Kallus irritably swiped a pot of caf from the station in the wall of his office and, finding he was out of cups, proceeded to take a swig directly from the pot. Kark! It’s cold! …Fine. He drank it anyway as he had been awake for nearly two standard rotations by this point, and lacked the energy to spare fixing such minor inconveniences. The Grand Inquisitor watched this with mild amusement. “Why have you insisted I follow you too your office, Agent?”

Kallus set the pot down and typed a command into his consol to send up a stenographer droid, “Because, I need to put together a report on the recent events.”

“I fail to see how that is my concern,” The insufferable fellow attempted to sneer, but instead winced as the action painfully stretched the bacta wrap covering the claw marks on the left side of his face, courtesy of one of the creatures from the asteroid Kallus had had to rescue him from.

“Because,” Kallus said in a dangerous tone, “even if you don’t have to file incident reports, I do. And since you were a part of this incident, you will aid me in this endeavor or so help me I will find whoever you do report to and make sure they are well aware of your recent failures, even if I have to go to the Emperor himself! Do I make myself clear?

The Grand Inquisitor winced, possibly from the cuts again but Kallus rather thought it was fear, “Very well.”

Before he could weasel out of it the door slid open and a mouse droid scooted in, “bweeo weep!”

“You’re the stenographer?” Kallus said in dismay. What is The Empire coming to that I can’t even get a droid with a proper vocabulator for this?

“Boop weee.”

“Do you even have a textual recording function?”

“Beep bop.”

            The Inquisitor looked increasingly annoyed at having to partake in this farce. Kallus sighed and hoped they would at least find someone else to blame. “Beguin recording. Incident Report: Case Code 002-1Z-9873-G905: Escape of Data Worker Tseebo with classified material pertaining to Imperial development of the outer rim, including but not limited to weapons manufacture, asset acquirement, troop movements, and prison records; aided by local rebel cell alias Specters. Principal investigator, ISB Agent Kallus. Also in observance, The Grand Inquisitor. Anything to add?”

“No,” the Inquisitor added with a condescending tone.

“Beginning intake of eyewitness testimony,” he pressed a button on his desk to connect to the speaker on his door, “will the first witness please enter!”

            After a few moments, a nervous middle aged human civilian man in formal attire that hadn’t been fashionable since before the Clone Wars shuffled in. The rest of the witnesses had likely used their military and government status to bully him into going first.

“State your name and expertise for the record.”

“Er, I am professor, doctor that is, Garm Dayvin, uh professor of chemistry at the University of Lothal.” UL was a minor institution as such things went, but the closest place where such an expert could be found on short notice.

“And how goes your investigation into the substance that was used to immobilize our vehicle pool at last night’s parade?” At least we’ll get some good news first, this ought to be a fairly simple mystery to solve.

“Not well I’m afraid,” Dank ferrick! “By the time I was called in the substance your men described as webbing had dissolved into a fine powder,” he swallowed nervously, “They told me it had begun doing this at around two hours after it was deployed, and was all gone by three hours. They estimated-”

Kallus cut him off, “I’m sure the men will tell me of their own experiences, professor. Did you discover anything useful from this powder?”

The poor fellow was sweating under the glare of the Inquisitors one good eye, “Yess, and no. I have compiled a complete list of elements and compounds present in the residue, nothing particularly exotic I’m afraid. However, the residue had been heavily oxidized, and no polymers were left intact. It may be impossible to reconstruct the original substance. I am not even sure how it was able to act as an adhesive in the first place.”

Kallus did his best to put on an appreciative tone for the cooperative if unhelpful civilian, “Very well professor, your efforts will be noted. Send in the next witness on your way out.”

            The next interviewee to draw the short straw was the driver of the transport the rebels had stolen. He could only remember that two of his infantrymen had been knocked out by a Mandalorian (presumably Sabine Wren) and an unknown individual in a red and blue outfit before he himself had been incapacitated by a rebel matching the description of Kanan Jarus. Several other troopers reported seeing the unknown individual helping the rebels that night, and an ISB analyst confirmed his presence on security footage, but could not identify him as he had worn a red mask/hood throughout the confrontation. Kallus, though quite exhausted himself, did not have to be force sensitive to feel the Inquisitor’s growing anger at these fruitless discussions.

“State your name and involvement for the record.”

The boring looking man in a civilian data-worker uniform spoke in an assured voice, “I am Jado Tivand, Manager of the 1^st data-work department in the Imperial Complex on Lothal. Where the Rodian Tseebo previously worked.”

Ahh, finally we are getting somewhere, “And when did notice a problem with this Rodian?”

“When he failed to show up for work at 0700 hours yesterday morning.”

“Really, nothing before that? There were no other signs of rebellious thought from him?”

“None at all sir,” the man continued to appear confident that none of this could possibly be his fault, despite the Inquisitors glare.

“And what was your response when Tseebo failed to arrive on schedule?”

“Well, I sent a droid down to the AJ^6 cyborg construct individual barracks to check in on him. Standard procedure.”

How was this idiot allowed to become a manager of such an important department? “I meant how was it discovered that Tseebo had stolen classified data?”

“Ah, why didn’t you say so?” The idiot seemed genuinely confused, “When the droid couldn’t find Tseebo I asked Terance to fill in for him. He checked the data history on Tseebo’s terminal, and found that he had been downloading all sorts of important files.”

“I’ll get to the failure to immediately report a worker missing later,” I cannot wait to have this man fired, “Now tell me how did Tseebo gain access to those files, who was in charge of data security in your department?”

“Why, Tseebo was.”

“What!?” Kallus was flabbergasted, “He is not listed as such, nor have you filed the extensive background check an individual in such a position requires!”

“Our last counter-slicer got transferred without a replacement!” the idiot blustered, showing the first sign of comprehension of the seriousness of the situation, “Tseebo had the skills, and he had volunteered for an AJ^6 cyborg construct, actually volunteered! Nobody who isn’t a real patriot does that.”

“Or,” the Inquisitor said, speaking up for the first time, “someone who is dedicated to steeling imperial secrets.”

“Well, it’s never happened before! Everyone knows rebels are too individualistic to -eck -ah -ah,” the fool tugged at his collar as the Inquisitor began choking him with his kriffing mystical powers, “stop… don’t you -ak know who I… am? -pah… my cousin …is Min-ster… Tua -erk.”

Sigh. “Droid, make a note for me to show that recording to his successor to emphasize the importance of data security. And send in the next witness.”

Lothal, 15 AFE (December 2015 AD)

……………………………………………Kanan Jarus…………………………………………...

“Ezra. Ezra, you in there?” Hearing nothing, he opened the door to Ezra and Peter’s room. It was empty. Force help me, where is that kid? This is important! He stretched out with the force and found only Hera and a sleeping Zeb on the ship. Actually, where are any of the kids?

            Feeling frustrated, Kanan responded as he felt a proper Jedi should, and returned to his cabin to meditate. There, he did his best to examine his negative emotions and release them into the force. He quickly found that frustration was only the surface, underneath his bad mood was mostly caused by worry. Ezra’s abilities were advancing faster than Kanan had expected; first his vision of Peter’s arrival, then the incident at the abandoned base. Ezra was fairly gifted, but most younglings took years to reach this level. Perhaps that was because the old order had preferred to take things slowly for the sake of safety; there was just no time for that in the age of the Empire.

            As he meditated, the holocron responded to his presence in the force and opened, displaying the last thing he had viewed: a map of Jedi temples, outposts, and holy sites throughout the galaxy. He hoped to bring Ezra to one of these, so that the force rich environment could help him find peace. A disturbance out in the hallway broke his concentration, and he let the holocron close and fall to the floor.

“Hey, Kanan,” Ezra panted as he opened the door, “Sorry I'm late! I was with Sabine and Peter. So, you gonna invite me in?”

And there’s the frustration again. Kanan wished he could truly replicate the serenity of his own masters, “You didn't knock, so what makes you think you need an invite?”

“I'm sorry,” Kanan sensed Ezra was actually disappointed in himself.

So why can’t he muster the self-discipline for such basic manors? “Then you should knock first.”

“Not for that,” Ezra sat down on the bed and slid back into the corner, as if trying to make himself smaller, “For missing training.”

“It's all the same thing! The fact that you don't see it-”

“If you two don’t keep it down, I’ll make yuh both sorry,” A half-awake Zeb muttered from the top bunk.

            Oops, forgot he’s in here now. Kanan and Ezra moved into the hall, and he led them toward the Phantom while continuing the conversation in a calmer tone, “Ezra, on that asteroid you made a dangerous connection through the Force. Now I have to know if you… are ready.”

“I am ready,” Ezra said with determination. But lack of determination was never his problem, “Wait. Ready for what?”

“For a test, a real challenge, one that could determine if you're meant to be a Jedi... or not.”

“But you said I was a Jedi!” Ezra exclaimed, now with a hint of panic in his voice, “Why else would you be training me?”

“I never said you were a Jedi,” Kanan said, his voice rising again, “I said you had the potential to become one. But you lack discipline, focus.”

“Come on. You know how I grew up. I'm not used to all these rules,” Ezra wined, then tried to reign in his own tone, “Kanan, I want to become the Jedi you see in me, the one I don't always see in myself.”

“You're lucky I'm not my Master. She'd never let you get away with...” He paused on the ladder to the Phantom, memories playing through his mind; of rushing headlong into Separatist blaster fire, challenging anyone who called him kid to a duel, of constantly questioning every little thing, ‘why’ had been practically his favorite word…

Perhaps Ezra had caught a whisper of these thoughts over their growing force bond, for he wryly asked, “All the things you tried to get away with?”

“You want a second chance or not?” Kanan answered, half joking.

Ezra paused his pre-flight preparations, now taking Kanan entirely seriously, “I mean, if you want to give me one.”

“I'm not giving you anything,” he must take the lead, learn to anticipate expectations, if this is to be as close to the old trials to become a padawan as it can be, “Is the Phantom prepped?”

“Yes Master.”

            I might regret this, Kanan thought as he took off into the clear blue Lothal Sky. Once they were at the right altitude (above most hills, but low enough to evade routine imperial sensor sweeps) he set the autopilot toward a certain place in the planet’s arctic circle, and moved back to the passenger area to sit with Ezra, “So, where are we headed for this test?”

Ezra looked supremely confused, “Shouldn’t you be telling me that?”

“No actually,” Kanan thought for a moment, and decided he should probably give some hint, “When I was your age, there were around 10,000 Jedi Knights defending the galaxy. We thought that was a low point for our order, now, we are truly few… But in those days, we had small outposts, temples spread throughout the stars. The Empire has likely sought out these temples and destroyed many of them, but not all. I want you to meditate, let the Force guide you to one of them.”

“What if I can't find it?”

“That's part of the test. Trust yourself. Trust the Force,” Choose the light this time, I know you can.

After meditating for nearly half an hour, a new record for him, Ezra asked, “So, did you take this test at my age?”

            Kanan sighed, this attempt to replicate a proper initiate trial was… bringing back memories, “It was different for me, Ezra. Everything was different back then,” The initiate trials Kanan had taken were… extremely structured, simple even. Demonstrate knowledge of the jedi code, discipline through lightsaber combat, and an ability to let the Force flow through you. Given Ezra’s circumstances, the test Kanan hoped to perform actually harkened back to an older, rawer form of the initiate trials, where the prospective padawan would have to not merely avoid the dark side, but actually see it, and conquer it. Thus, “All that remains now is the Force.”

“And only my connection to the Force can lead me to the temple!” Ezra realized out loud.

Kanan smiled, “He can be taught.”

Ezra began to meditate once more, this time with purpose, “……There's a massive stone, with a tunnel, I think, and a bright star inside of it…And it's right here, on Lothal!”

Once again, more visual that I would have been. Must learn how to approach that. “You sure?”

            “I can't give you the coordinates, but I can direct us there! I know I can!” Ezra jumped up excitedly and ran to the pilot’s chair, only to stop in shock when he saw the view outside the window. There in front of them was a massive stone spire, of the type common to Lothal but larger than most. Snow drifts scattered the ground around it, and an aurora could be faintly seen in the sky above, despite the daylight. “The stone from my vision! You already knew,” Ezra said, annoyed, as Kanan disengaged the autopilot.

“I checked the holocron back in my cabin,” He revealed as they landed.

“And it told you there was a Jedi temple on Lothal?” Ezra said in disbelief.

“The holocron holds extensive star maps, but I was as surprised as you that there was a temple here,” Kanan explained as the left the shuttle, “Course, I couldn't be sure this is where you were meant to be, but it makes sense… This is your home.”

            They stopped a moment to admire the starkly beautiful scenery. Lothal was too close to its star to have permanent ice caps, but it was still far enough to make the sun up here generally weak and cold, even in the summer when it stayed up in the sky for an entire rotation. “You better figure out how we get inside. And don't take too long. Remember, the Empire has access to all the old Jedi records. They may know about this temple and have it under surveillance,” Also its freezing out here.

            Kanan sat himself down inside a circle inscribed on the stone ground. It was a place clearly marked for meditating in, so he did. Ezra, naturally, ran right past it and up to the temple itself. After several minutes of inspecting the stone spire, he called out, “Nothing. No sign of an entrance. Not even a crack. But I know this is the place. I feel it… Seriously, can't you give me a hint?

Well, since his powers of observation have evidently failed him… “Don't look. Listen. Use the Force to hear the stone and its story.”

            Ezra pressed his forehead against the spire, almost as if he was literally listening; but Kanan could sense him reaching out through the force. Ezra began to speak, softly enough that Kanan would not have heard him without his Jedi training to tune out extraneous stimuli. “The stone. The temple. It... It wants to admit me …No… Wait, not me. Us. Master and Padawan. Together.” Ezra smiled.

“Then together it shall be.”

            Kanan walked forward into a second circle, closer to the temple, as Ezra came to join him, hands tucked under his arms due to the cold. He outstretched his hand, and willed the temple to open. After a moment, Ezra followed suit. Though he had his eyes closed, he heard stone scraping against stone, and felt the great bulk of the temple moving as it responded to their request, largely through its own power, but equally through his and his padawan’s agency. When the stone ground to a halt, they opened their eyes to find the spire had rotated to expose several more meters and a stone cut door!

            “Don't lose focus,” Kanan said as he felt Ezra’s amazement through the force, “We don't want this thing crashing down on us.” As they entered the temple, Kanan to felt a sense of amazement. He could scarcely believe that he was really inside a Jedi temple, a type of place he had once lost hope of ever seeing again. In here, the force felt brighter than it had in years; it was not at all like the great temple on Coruscant, but there was a strong glow in the light side nonetheless. There was a darkness though, just a little, deep within the temple. This will make a perfect test.

            Ezra screamed! Kanan turned around, startled from his musings and ready to confront some threat, only to see what had startled his apprentice was a mere skeleton. But this was enough for Ezra to let go of the temple, and Kanan quickly let go as well to avoid being mentally crushed by the weight. Luckily, although dust and pebbles rained down from the ceiling the structure itself stayed intact as it ground back down to its natural resting place. He crossed his arms and dryly observed, “You lost focus.”

“Well, dead guys are distracting.”

Does he take nothing seriously? “In here, you'll have to face your worst fears and overcome them. And there's no guarantee of success.”

“I have plenty of faith,” Ezra protested as he walked toward a door leading deeper in, “Faith you'll keep me on track.”

“I'm not going with you.”

“What!? Where are you gonna be?”

            “Right here, with them, Masters whose Padawans never returned,” Kanan said, gesturing at the skeletons. Actually, I kinda doubt that’s where these came from. The Jedi order I remember would have rescued a youngling from a failed trial and stuck them in the agri-corp. If these are even real, they’re more likely survivors of the purge who sat in here meditating till they died. But they also wouldn’t have told an initiate that before-hand.

Ezra seemed to really believe it, “You're putting your life in my hands?”

“You put your training in mine.”

            Ezra turned to look at a sudden noise from within the cave. Likely just an echo, though in this sort of place you never can tell. He nodded to Kanan, and proceeded through the doorway. “Good luck,” Kanan said softly as he went.

            As soon as Ezra was through the door, it began to close behind him. He leaned over and shouted under the edge of the sliding stone, “Wait! What exactly am I looking for?”

            Kanan had once asked Master Billaba what the Initiate trials really determined for a master looking to choose a padawan. He decided to give Ezra the same response, “Nothing and everything.”
Ezra was now bent over double to see under the door, “That doesn't help!”

“I know,” Kanan said as the stone slab sealed shut, “But that's what my Master told me.”

            As he sat there between the skeletons attempting to meditate, Kanan already had second thoughts. This was a lot to put on Ezra, more than he had had to face. But you didn’t tap into the dark side as a youngling. Of course, Ezra didn’t remember that. What if he does fail? Kanan might be able to rescue him, but what then? If Ezra fell to the dark side, would I be able to… no, think about something more productive. Like the search for the other Avengers.

            Right, the search for Peter’s lost friends. No rumor of such individuals had reached them in any of the ports and cantinas they frequented. Then again, Lothal was a pretty out of the way place even with the recent imperial factory build-up, and the galaxy was very large. That’s if they are even in this galaxy. Nah, I probably wouldn’t have felt their arrival if they weren’t at least that close. Fulcrum had told Hera when they met to drop off Tseebo that they hadn’t found anything either, but were keeping an eye open. For such individuals not to be making a commotion, they must be either deliberately laying low or have ended up in really the middle of nowhere. Meanwhile, Hera and Tseebo had had yet another missing person’s case to hand to Fulcrum in that exchange.

            Tseebo hadn’t downloaded half the Empire’s servers just to help out the rebellion, no. He had been looking for Ephraim and Mira Bridger, his friends and Ezra’s parents. His search had been only partially successful, he found that they were not killed, but imprisoned. Unfortunately, he could only narrow down their location to a batch of about 900 different facilities. It’s a problem as difficult as Peter’s, maybe more so. Fewer places to look, but there’s no way two prisoners are going to suddenly appear on galactic news. I hope we can find them; it would give Ezra another option if… if… “Gah, I should have gone with him!”

…………………………………………. Ezra Bridger….…………………………………………

            The slab of rock that formed the doorway ground shut, cutting off whatever Kanan had been about to say. Not that is was likely to be helpful, he had been showcasing the worst of his ‘mysteries Jedi Master’ shtick all day. Why does Kanan have to be like that? Can’t he remember how annoying it is when adults do that poodoo? Ezra sighed, and took a few breaths to calm himself. OK Ezra, keep it together. You’re just scared cause Kanan isn’t with you, it’s not his fault it’s time for a test. You always gotta test what you learn, right? I think that’s how school was, though I guess I only got a couple years… As he passed out of site of the doorway, Ezra came to a room with four corridors leading off of it.

 “Great. Should've brought the holocron.” It might have had a map. “Loth-rat, Loth-cat, Loth-wolf, run. Pick a path and all is done.”

“Really? That's how you're choosing?” Kanan walked in behind him, sounding disappointed and annoyed, “What happened to using the Force?”

“What happened to having faith in me? Randomly picking a direction worked before!”

“Just come on,” Kanan ordered, and motioned him to follow down the central path. He was moving very quickly, nearly speedwalking though with more grace than normally accompanied such a motion.

“Kanan! Slow down.”

“I told you. We might not have much time. The Empire could-”

 Around the corner and out of sight there was a snap-hiss of a lightsaber igniting, and Kanan screamed! Ezra ran to catch up wile shouting to him, and nearly fell off a cliff when he reached the end of the tunnel. There, illuminated in a red glow was Kanan clutching his arm, with the Inquisitor standing over him, his eyes glowing gold in the dark.

The Inquisitor sneered and explained, “I felt a disturbance in the Force, the moment the Jedi decided to bring you here, Padawan.”

“No,” This can’t be happening!

The Inquisitor strode toward him, “Now, who dies first?”

“No!” Kanan stood and ignited his lightsaber, “I'll die before I let you harm the boy.”

            “How reasssonable,” The Inquisitor spun and parried Kanan with his own lightsaber! They fought, dancing to and fro, Kanan quickly moving to put himself between the Inquisitor and Ezra; the darksider fought dirty, kicking Kanan in the back and dodging his blows with mocking effort! Ezra tried to intervene, only for the inquisitor to choke him with the Force, nearly causing him to pass out before Kanan counterattacked! The Jedi was holding his own now, he and the darksider traded blows faster than Ezra had seen anyone move before! It was almost as if they were simply existing in each blade lock stance, not bothering to move between them. Then the darksider activated his second blade, and used his spinning lightsaber hilt to batter down the Jedi’s defense! In seconds, it was over. The boy watched as the Jedi was stabbed through the heart, his lightsaber dropping from his hands and his body falling down the chasm below.

“Kanan, no!” Ezra felt tears in his eyes, “…Kanan.”

“So, he called himself ‘Kanan’ then, did he?” the Inquisitor said in a calm tone that betrayed nothing of the exertion of his recent fight, “Well, it hardly matters now. Your turn.”

            Ezra was furious, he screamed at the Inquisitor, “I'll make you pay. I swear you'll pay!” and summoned Kanan’s lightsaber to himself. But as the Inquisitor stalked closer, the blade refused to ignite! No! It must have been damaged in the fight! Please, please, you have to work! But it was useless, the saber came apart in his hands, merely two cylinders of metal, empty of any salvation. His rage failed him.

 To the darksider, this was the height of comedy. He chuckled as he approached, “Apparently someone's not quite ready to become a Jedi... and never will be.”

 Ezra was backed into a wall; all hope having fled from him. Only years of survival instincts beaten into him on the streets kept his body moving to doge the inquisitors strike, and break free of his Force holds. He came to the edge of the chasm, and spun around, only to slip and fall! The last thing he saw as he screamed was the monster’s terrifying toothy grin an inch from his face.

            Ezra awoke as he slammed into the floor of his cabin on the Ghost, having apparently fallen off the top bunk were he slept. He stared at the silly painting of him and Zeb, so incongruous with the horrifying image burned into his mind. I could have sworn I was… but then… how… must have been a nightmare. He stood up, rubbing his bruised back. Where’s Peter? Must already be up. It’s not like me to sleep in… He decided he should probably head to the kitchen for some breakfast. But as Ezra came to the door to the common areas, he heard voices from behind it… discussing him!

“How duh yuh figure the kid's dooing?”

“Mraaap huhl”

“I gotta agree with Chop. I don't think Ezra was ready,” Ezra opened the door as Hera continued, “I don't think we'll be seeing him again, which is too bad.”

            Nobody noticed Ezra standing in the door. Was I doing something dangerous? I was wasn’t I… then what happened?

“Really?” Zeb said, “'Cause I'll be happy just to have more room on this ship!”

“It's too bad because he had skills that were useful to our cause,” Hera lectured at him. Hera only likes me cause I’m useful? I mean, I knew Zeb hates me, but Hera?

“Did he though?” Peter asked, “because he was really kind of an idiot when you think about it.” Hey! That’s not fair!

“That's pretty cold, guys,” Thanks Sabine, “After all, he's just a little kid, scared, alone. Me? I pity him.” Sabine thinks I’m pitiful.

“Weell, look who's here,” Zeb grabbed his shoulder and pulled him into the room, glaring.

Sabine looked similarly unhappy about his eavesdropping, “How long do you think he was listening?”

“Long enough,” Ezra spat.

“Sorry Ezra, nothing personal,” Peter tried to comfort him, and failed, “Just facts.”

“Yeah kid, nothin personal.”

            “No,” Calm down, a little voice in the back of his mind said, you know Zeb doesn’t really hate you, he’s just grumpy. Hey, that’s right, Zeb doesn’t want me dead, not really! And Hera and Peter are the nicest people I know, they would never say those things! And I just showed Sabine that TIE fighter I stole; we were finally becoming friends! “This isn't you talking. I'm not back on the Ghost,” They were talking as if I had been somewhere dangerous, but if that dream was real… “I couldn't be.”

“Well, thah's just crazy tolk. You're standing here, aren'tch you?”

“No. I'm back in the temple-”

Snap-hiss. The monster had returned in a red glow.

            “No. No, this isn't real.” He backed away, closing the door as he fled. But what if it is real? He could hear his friends screaming for help in there, no, I have to focus! The monster strode through the doorway, and Ezra caught a glimpse of Sabine’s dismembered legs in the room beyond, he ran, but the doors were locked! The Inquisitor had him up against a wall again, and in the absence of a cliff, as he swung his blade the door behind the boy came suddenly open, and Ezra fell onto a cold stone floor in the entry hall of the temple.

 “That's right. I'm in the temple. I knew it!” Ezra stood up, “Kanan? Kanan, where are you? No. He died! The Inquisitor killed him!”

 He clutched his head in confusion, “Or was that an illusion, too?”

“Either way, I'm trapped. No way I get this open on my own,” Ezra fell to his knees, softly punching the ground, “I'm alone, abandoned again… Again. Yeah. Been alone before. Survived. I can survive this,” The temple is playing tricks on me, it’s a test. I just have to see past it, “Maybe Kanan's not dead. Maybe he's just injured. He might need my help in there.”

            Ezra got up and approached the door to the inner temple. He was about to attempt using the force to open the door when it sprung open on its own! The Inquisitor appeared in the doorway, illuminated from behind by a sinister red glow though his lightsaber was not lit, “How perceptive,” he commented.

“No! NO! No, no,” Hang on, no, “no, No! You were on the Ghost, and that, all that, that was definitely an illusion!

            “It may have been, but I assure you, I am not,” the Inquisitor grabbed Ezra by the face, and it sure felt real, enough that Ezra was compelled to struggle free. But as he backed away, he reminded himself of what he had discovered, the impossibility of this situation. He better be an illusion, no way I can get out if he’s real! “No way out, Padawan.”

            That’s what I was just thinking! This temple is just repeating my fears back to me! “There's always a way out, if I follow my training.”

The Inquisitor seemed quite amused by this, continuing to mock Ezra as he approached, hands clasped behind his back, “Ready to die, boy, or are you afraid to face your demise?”

“No,” I got over that long ago, “Afraid of being alone again? Sure,” but I have friends, real ones, I can rely on them, but I can also survive alone if I have to, “Afraid of letting down my Master? Absolutely,” but now I know, to be a Jedi I must face my fear!

“Your Master lies dead and rotting in a forgotten tunnel,” the temple continued to insist upon the reality of the situation, “You could hardly have let him down more.”

 Ezra approached the illusory Inquisitor and stood tall, “I'm not afraid.”

            The temple had one last go at convincing Ezra that this was all real. The Inquisitor broke into his signature sneer, and ignited his lightsaber, striking to cut him in half! But Ezra merely closed his eyes, and allowed the blade to pass through him without harm. The illusion vanished, and Ezra was once again in a room that looked like the entry hall, though he could see now by the lack of skeletons or of Kanan that it was not. He sat down to take a moment to breath.

………………………………………………Yoda....………………………………………………

            Yoda was meditating. Not unusual of course, there was little else to do on Dagoba, once his chores were done. Cooking and cleaning, each day. Planting his garden, at the start of the dry season, when he could access the fertile soils of the swamp and the seeds would not rot in the ground from the damp. Then followed many rotations of keeping watch, lest the small creatures take too much from his supply. And of course, the harvest, right as the rains threatened to wash away the garden. Sometimes, for variety, he would go to the cave where once a dark being had been slain, leaving its presence there forever after. Not that crave variety, a Jedi does. But to be stuck in one’s ways, a mistake is. The doom of the old order. So when believe my fears mastered I do, to the cave I go, to see what has been missed.

            That was all for another time though, for now it was the rainy season, and all these things, his garden, his lowland hut, the cave; all were submerged beneath many feet of water, and Yoda, like most air breathers on Dagoba, had retreated to the sandy highlands were there was truly little else to do but meditate. However, this meditation was not merely something to pass the time, to practice his connection to the force, or even to learn the secrets of death from Qui-Gon. No, some weeks ago Yoda had felt a great disturbance in the force, six extraordinary individuals appearing suddenly in this galaxy, the course of the future set in motion. Since then, he had meditated, seeking knowledge of these beings. Food and sleep, to a Jedi master, these things could wait.

            He had first seen a planet, far away (but in the force, immaterial, distance is) made aware to him by these new arrivals. It was world vibrant in the force, full of the chaos of youth. Darkness and Light were there, and great power yet unaligned to either, as order and disorder fought for the future of this world.

            Of the six, he noticed first a being of great guilt, but also hope. She found herself in one of the galaxies greatest hives of scum and villainy (as Obi-Wan would say), and her righteous fury at the circumstances burned bright within the force.

            Next was a man, brilliant in mind but naturally inclined toward selfishness and ego, who was wracked with sorrow over the suffering he had thus brought. The greatest teacher, failure is. On the path to learning is this one. Like a mirror image of this man was the captain, a warrior selfless to a fault, he now found peace for the first time in many years among his own kind; though he was still eager to get back in the fight.

            Two more were two of a pair, twins. The first was impulsive, reckless, and powerful; much like a Skywalker. Yoda sensed in his presence a being far older, and perhaps more patient than even himself. The first twin was in good hands for now. The second however, was shrouded in darkness, Yoda may not have found her save for her connection to the first. She was a being of immense potential, unmatched by almost any other that Yoda had sensed. Her power was chaotic, much like the planet from whence she came, yet the darkness did not penetrate her, not yet.

            The sixth being was a boy, young and eager to prove himself, thoroughly tangled in the web of things to come. Through him, Yoda had sensed a familiar presence. For eight hundred years had he trained Jedi; he remembered every single one, and all Jedi alive had been his student at one time or another. It warmed Yoda’s heart to know the padawan of Depa Bilaba was alive. Yoda could see him now, failing to meditate in a temple on Lothal, a place about which strange legends had once circulated among the Jedi of his youth.

“Gah, I should have gone with him!” Young Calab Dume cried out, “The kid's taking too long.”

Ah, afraid for his apprentice is he! “Patience. Remember you nothing of your own training?”

“Master Yoda.” Good, perceptive, he still is, “It can't be. I'm losing it.”

No, a lesson is needed. “Losing? Lost. Yes. But! What lost? The question, that is.”

Caleb fell to his knees, full of confusion and surprise, the markings of a young Jedi still too concerned with the material world, “Master? How... How can this be?”

“Be not concerned with how. Know I am here because you are here,” the nature of the force, to bring things together, it is.

“Thank you, Master.”

“Thank you?” Always so concerned with formalities, hierarchies, the appearance of respect we were, “Nothing have I done. See you, I can. Before, I could not. Changed, something has.”

 Caleb made an assumption, hearing a question in Yoda’s voice, “I've taken on an apprentice.”

            “Apprentice?” Yoda asked rhetorically, while he lent some attention to the other boy. Full of fear is he, and the temple knows how to use this. Hope he succeeds, I do, “And now Master are you? Of this decision, honest you must be.”

            “It's true. I'm not sure of my decision to train Ezra,” Yoda could hear Caleb’s thoughts, as clearly as his words. He did not know how to properly train a padawan with a talent for visons, or how to steer him away from the dark side. But he realized then, that this was a problem stemming from him, not his padawan. “Not because of him or his abilities, because of me, because of who I am. I do not know which way is the right way.”

No master knows, not on their first time teaching, some not even on their hundredth, “A dangerous time this is for your apprentice, for you.”

“I know. I can sense it. I feel as if his abilities are growing faster than I can teach him.”

“You sense, or you fear?”

Caleb paused in thought, the difference between what a Jedi felt and what a Jedi thought could be difficult to parse at times, “I lost my way for a long time, but now I have a chance to change things.”

A sentiment all too familiar to Yoda, “Last chance,” he spoke, not sure if it was a question, and if so if it was for Caleb, or himself.

“I won't let him lose his way; not like I did.”

            “Hmmm,” Yoda chose not to inform him that his padawan had indeed made it past the darkest part of this trial. This would be a test of patience, and willingness to let go, for the new master as much as for the apprentice, to whom he now turned his full attention, “Big fears have you faced, young one.”

This young man, Ezra Brider, was no longer surprised to be hearing strange voices in this temple, “Yes.”

“For what lies ahead, ready are you?”

“I am,” he replied calmly, though partially that was simple exhaustion.

Still, Yoda sensed he was ready to move forward, “Come. See more clearly what you could not see before.”

“Who are you?” The boy still did not trust easily.

See me, he cannot. Not yet that advanced, his perception is. With a little effort, Yoda coaxed the path in the Force to manifest itself luminously, as Qui-Gon had once done for him, “A guide.”

            The boy was quite impressed, almost mesmerized. Good it is, to see wonder in the eyes of a child once again. He watched as Ezra followed the lights, through a door, down a hall and into a room of possibilities. Four paths lay before him, one back, three ahead. He stood there, scratching his head, “Which way is the right way?”

Always so sure there is only one answer. Such is the way of padawans, “The wrong question, that is.”

“I'm sorry. I don't understand. To be honest, I don't even know what I'm doing here.”

“Hm hm! A better question, that is.”

“Kanan said I was gonna be tested, but he never said what for or why.”

A guide is a master, not merely a lecturer, “And your Master, tell you everything, must he?”

Ezra considered this, and chose to answer in the way he thought Yoda was leading him, though he did not understand why, “Well... No.”

Perhaps, a little nudge in the right direction he needs, “Your path you must decide.”
            The boy looked left, then right, then decided to simply take the path straight forward. He walked through tunnel filled with fog, just long enough to make Ezra question whether it would lead anywhere at all. Yoda chuckled to himself, truly the designers of this ancient temple had already known their craft well. Then the boy passed into what Yoda recognized as a seeing chamber, with simplified star maps carved across its walls to guide a Jedi in projecting their consciousness out across the cosmos. There, he chose to speak again, “Tell me. Why must you become Jedi?”

“I don't know. I guess because Kanan believes I can.”

            Kanan? Ahh, see now I do. Calls himself Kanan now, he does. A wise choice, though sad it had to be made, “Hahh, Kanan thinks you can. Hmmm? And you?”

“Well, I'll become stronger, powerful.”

“Ah, Power you seek,” a common trap.

“I'd make the Empire suffer for everything it did, for everything it took, for my parents. I... I wouldn't be helpless anymore!” Indeed, Yoda could sense this was the truth, but it was not the whole truth, so he continued to speak to Ezra.

“Jedi way is revenge? Teach you this, your Master did?”

“No. Kanan would never. He's a good Master, a great Master.” Good, knows this at least, he does.

“Then why seek you, revenge?”

“I don't!” Ezra shouted, realizing only part of his mistake.

To simply deny one’s darkness, no longer good enough this is. Learn that the hard way, we did, “Inside you much anger, much fear.”

“I just want to protect myself and my friends.” A better answer, but still, he speaks out of attachment. Dangerously close to the dark side, is he.

One more chance, “And this is why you must be Jedi?”

“Yes, and not just them. Everyone. I'll protect everyone,” Yes Yes! To protect others, the Jedi way this is. Ezra went on, “Before I met Kanan, I only ever thought of myself, but Kanan and the rest, they don't think like that. They help people, they give everything away, and I see it. I see how it makes people feel.”

“Feeel! yes. How?”

“Alive,” Ezra realized, “They feel alive, like I do now.”

“Good. Good. Connection to the greater universe, this is what you feel.”

            As he spoke, the chamber dimmed. The door, the lines describing hyperspace routes, even the stone walls faded away, leaving only a sea of stars. “Ahead of you a difficult path there is, Padawan. A Jedi you may yet be.” One of the stars grew brighter, floating down to Ezra’s grasp. A kyber crystal.

            Yoda watched as the young padawan made his way out of the temple, the way back much clearer than the way in had been. He quickly re-united with his master, who was quite surprised to see a lightsaber crystal appear just when it was needed. Much to learn of the Force, they both have. But in good hands, the future of the Jedi is. Perhaps Skywalker will still have allies, when she is ready to face the Sith. Sensing that this was all the Force wanted to show him for now, he released his meditation and allowed his awareness to once more shrink down to merely a small sandy hut in the uplands of Dagoba.

Lothal, The Ghost, 15 AFE (January 2016 AD)

………………………………………………Peter Parker………………………………………………

            It was roughly two and a half weeks after Christmas, and the crew were all sitting in the Ghost’s living room waiting for Ezra to show them his creation. Peter wasn’t sure of the exact date since his suit had lost power for a couple days before he could get his USB to space power plug adapter working, and the standard galactic days the crew ran on were slightly off from Earth days. Honestly, I’m lucky it’s even close. That could have been jet-lag on a whole new scale.

            Peter had introduced them to the holiday after the Empire Day madness, when he figured they all needed something happier to celebrate. Also, that was when the first real pangs of homesickness had hit him; the novelty had become less constant and he had time to realize that it might be years, if ever before he saw Aunt May, or Ned, or even that weird girl who he was half convinced only hung out with them because she thought he might be smuggling drugs or something when he disappeared every day. Keep it together Parker, you’ll get home someday. Mr. Stark’s probably already built a portal home by now, wherever he is.

            Anyway, they had managed to have a nice little gift exchange on what Peter was 97% sure was Christmas day. Not that any of them had had much to give, but they had all scraped together something. Zeb had acquired and cooked (surprisingly well) a bird thing that was a decent approximation of a turkey. Kanan and Sabine had pulled off the minor miracle of finding not one, but several meiloorun fruits for Hera (which they proceeded to mercilessly tease Ezra and Zeb about, for some reason). Peter had, among other things, gone dumpster diving to find some parts Ezra wanted for his lightsaber, where he of course ran into Ezra who was looking for parts Peter wanted for his USB adapter.

            Most of the crew (aside from Zeb, who was busy with the cooking), had given Ezra something for his lightsaber. An energy gate from Sabine, some lightsaber specific bits from Kanan, one of Choppers own power cells, and various bits of wiring and casing from Peter and Hera. Ezra had been rather cagey about the project, refusing to let anyone look at till it was done (though he had promised to let Peter see the internals afterward). Now he was in his room, presumably double checking the circuits one last time before he showed it off.

            Ezra slid down the ladder, and held up device shaped somewhat like a staple-gun, which he handed to Kanan, “I thought I'd let you check it out first.”

“Well, it's… different,” Kanan turned the lightsaber over in his hands, “But that seems about right for you,” he handed the lightsaber back to Ezra, “Go for it.”

Ezra held the hilt out with both hands, took a breath, and ignited the blue energy blade with a snap-hiss.

Notes:

Bit of a long one this time, but felt I had to add some more stuff so everyone would remember this is a crossover and not jus my interpretation of what everyone is thinking in this episode of Rebels.

Chapter 7: The Calrissian Experience

Lothal, The Ghost (Near Jhothal), 15 AFE (February 2016 AD)

…………………………………………Hera Syndula……………………………………………

It was a nice normal day on the Ghost, Ezra and Peter were playing Dejarik in the lounge, Sabine was painting something, Kanan, Zeb, and Chopper were off looking for a job to replenish their supplies; these were the moments of quiet that made Hera feel all the struggle was worth it.

“Hah! I took your Monnok!” Ezra declared excitedly.

“Ah, but now Grimtaash the Molator can eliminate your… Randall looking dude.”

“Can’t you just let me have this?” Ezra half-jokingly wined, “you always win!”

“Not true!” Peter countered, “you’ve won 3 games!”

Ezra gave him a look, “Of 20.”

Ah yes, peace and quiet.

“WWAAAAAEEEEEAAAAH!!!!!!!” Chopper screamed as he rolled in, chopping at the air with his manipulators, “Ecbak! Ecbak! Habep Meekwek! Yoaweep aka bok! Chroffof BA HARKAF wah wopop wakak, wah wah wakawak chofak VOPOHK!

Wait, did he just say…? “Garazeb Orrelios! Did you loose Chopper in SABAC!?!?”

The perpetrator in question rubbed his head as he walked in, a sure sign of guilt, “well, yuh see Hera, I had this really good hand an-”

“Chopper Wasn’t Yours To Bet!”

“But Kanan said I could!”

“Chopper is an equal member of this crew! And has been for longer than you or Kanan!” Hera scowled down the hall at Kanan, who had suddenly decided he didn’t want to come to the common room after all, “Yeah, I see you hiding back there! Why don’t you come up here and explain yourself!”

Kanan nervously shuffled in, preceded by a human male of the darker skinned variety who immediately stepped in to calm the situation with an admittedly very suave voice, “Whoa whoa, there’s no need for you good people to argue, I will gladly return the droid, and plenty of credits besides! All you have to do is help me smuggle a little cargo past the unusually large blockade of this planet. I assume this fine vessel is up to the task?”

“It is,” Hera ground out, “what’s the cargo?”

“I was told no questions asked,” he waved his hand in Kanan’s direction as he said this.

“Oh really?” Kanan shrank under the withering gaze Hera gave him on hearing a deal had already been struck, “I don’t suppose we get to know your name at least?”

“Why certainly my dear captain Hera,” he bowed with a flourish, “my name is Lando Calrissian. Now, let’s be off, I don’t want to keep my supplier waiting.”

………………………………………………Peter Parker………………………………………………

Peter, Ezra, and Zeb were sitting in the living room, watching their new, customer (?) as he inspected the ship and particularly one of Sabine’s paintings, “Is it just me, or does he look like Billy Dee Williams?”

“Who?” Ezra asked.

“You know, classic actor, been in a bunch of stuff, certainly sounds like him.”

“So, someone from Earth then?”

“Oh, right,” This isn’t Earth, dumbass.

Chopper wheeled in from the kitchen, holding a mug of coffee, (or at least the very close approximation thereof that people in this part of space called caf), which he offered to Calrissian, whirring merrily, “Bap baba, wopo wab wab, bap bop!”

“Why thank you Chopper!” Calrissian graciously accepted the cup.

“Can’t behlieve the little bolt bucket’s actually waiting on that guy!” Zeb groused, imitating quiet, but loud enough that Lando could definitely hear him anyway.

“I can’t believe you lost Chopper,” Ezra teased, “good thing I wasn’t there, you would have bet me!”

Zeb gave Ezra an appraising look, “Nah, ‘ou wouldn’t have covered the pot.”

Peter laughed, “Ooh burn!”

“He he he, yeah; behsides, Ih think Calrissian chea’ed,” Zeb actually whispered this time.

“You’re just a sore loser,” Ezra waved dismissively, “Lando seems nice enough.”

“I’m tellin’ you, Ih don’t like that guy.”

“He does also remind me of sketchy Dave from apartment 12A.”

“Sabine!” Calrissian greeted as she walked in, “I understand this is your work,” he gestured to the painting of a stylized phoenix (weird that they have such a similar legend to one from Earth), “Reminds me of Janyor's protest paintings on Bith.”

“Janyor of Bith is a major influence,” Sabine sounded nearly ecstatic to have her work recognized.

“Well, your work is even more stunning in its… simplicity!” I’ve never seen some one actually preen before! Thought that was just an expression. Yet there Sabine was, finger-combing her colorful hair in a way that suggested she was more showing it off than actually straightening it. 

Ezra, who had been becoming increasingly disgruntled over the course of this conversation, jumped in, “Hey, I told you your stuff was good months ago!”

Even though she was facing away from them, Sabine’s eye roll was obvious to Peter from the motion of her head alone, “Yeah, but you didn't know why.”

“Tsk. Oh milady, that's hardly fair,” Calrissian replied with a perhaps, just perhaps, not entirely genuine attempt to sooth the situation, “He's just a child with no experience of the galaxy.”

Zeb giggled at that comment, while Ezra was now positively fuming. Peter, well, tried to remain sympathetic to Ezra. Sabine continued conversing with Calrissian before Ezra could interrupt again, “I... I don't suppose you'd like to see my more impressionistic pieces?”

“I happen to be, an impressionistic connoisseur,” he turned to Ezra, “That means-”

“I know what it means,” Ezra snapped and crossed his arms. Lando shrugged, and followed Sabine to another part of the ship. Ezra turned to Peter and Zeb, “Hey, what does that mean?”

“Lot less than he thinks,” Zeb replied, still evidently amused by the whole interaction.

Ezra shook his head, “I don't like that guy.”

Zeb and Peter laughed. Ezra got a dark look and trudged off to the cargo hold, muttering, “I’m gonna go work on my bike.”

“Hey, I’m sorry,” Peter said, following him, “you gotta admit your reaction was kinda funny though, right?”

“Harumph.”

“Oh come on, it’s not like that guy’s actually competing with you; he’s like twice her age!” Peter called down from the top of the ladder, “Sabine has better judgement than that.”

Ezra resolutely continued toward the storage hold, “I guess you would know.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Peter asked as he slid down the ladder, “Wait, do you think Sabine likes me? What does it look like when a girl likes you?”

Ezra spun around angrily, “Don’t play dumb, you’re a hero on Earth, you probably get loads of girls! Or boys, or whatever.”

“Spiderman’s a hero, Peter Parker is just some dork.” Seeing Ezra’s disbelieving expression, he explained himself further, “Seriously, nobody except my best friend and the other Avengers knows I’m Spiderman. I didn’t want anybody coming after my Aunt May to get to me. Or for her to worry herself to death.”

Ezra stared at him intensely while visibly working to calm himself. Peter got the distinct impression he was trying to use his mind powers, “I… yeah, you are telling the truth. Sorry.”

“Besides, does Sabine even like guys?”

“Uh… I don’t know.”

“Bros?” Peter held out his hand.

“Bros.” Ezra completed the secret handshake they had developed a month ago. (A different one than Peter had with Ned. Gotta give all your friends different handshakes, it’s like ringtones.)

As there wasn’t much else to do until the ship reached Calrissian’s supplier, they decided to get Ezra’s speeder bike out anyway. It was one of three stored in the hold just behind the cargo bay, the other two belonging to Kanan and Sabine. Sabine’s had apparently started as a cheap collapsible model that came as a standard feature with many small ships; she had modified it with a ludicrously oversized engine, various structural reinforcements, and of course a custom paintjob. Kanan’s speeder looked like a Harly without wheels, weirdly tall handlebars and all. Ezra’s speeder was a standard imperial model that he had stolen during his first encounter with the Ghost crew, which Sabine had given a green with orange stripes paintjob. Hera suggested that he could practice mechanical skills by repeatedly taking it apart and putting it back together, and of course Peter was eager to learn how repulsorlifts worked.

They happily continued their project while the Ghost docked with whoever Lando’s supplier was, and were almost done putting the forward stabilizer fin back together when Peter’s enhanced senses picked up raised voices in the starboard docking hall.

“Are you sure the coil doesn’t go here?” Ezra gestured with a wrench, “Because I-“

“Shh,” Peter held up a hand, “I think somethings wrong.”

“What?”

“Let me listen!”

Sure enough, he could just make out the muffled voices of Mr. Jarus and Calrissian arguing in the hall, “-she following?”

“I told her to take an escape pod.”

“You never told her that!”

“I did, actually. Weren't you paying attention?” The voices suddenly became clearer as the door between hallways opened, “Besides, Hera strikes me as very capable. We are lucky to have a captain like her.”

Ezra gave a worried look, “what do you think happened to Hera?

They heard the sound of docking lamps releasing, then Zeb and Calrissian came into the cargo bay with a hovering box that had ‘CAUTION! Volatile Contents’ written on the side in Aurebesh. That can’t be good. “What’s in the box? Is… is it snoring?”

Ezra chimed in, “Yeah, and where’s Hera?”

“As I told your friend, Hera is following the plan,” Calrissian said, a hint of annoyance slipping in to his smooth voice, “and that crate contains sophisticated mining equipment! Don’t open it, and whatever you do, keep it calm!” 

…………………………………………Hera Syndula……………………………………………

Arrhhgg, the things I do for that droid. “Perhaps you would desire to dine alone?” she said in the sweetest voice she could muster.

“Ahhh, Yes!” the disgustingly fat Jablogian before her sputtered around a mouthful of food, a leer creeping over his face. “Go, go. Leave us.” He commanded his guards and droid, when they hesitated, he shouted “Beat it!”

She took the food tray from the droid’s hands as it left, “more fruit, master?”

“Yess, yes yus yus!” the piggy looking being’s beady eyes were fixed slightly above the tray of fruit.

Skrag it, if they haven’t gotten the cargo off by now, Lando will just have to go kriff himself. She shoved the tray closer to Azmorigan and continued in her best sultry tone, “take the whole tray.”

“Eh, what…” BANG! KLANG! Hera flipped the tray into his chin, and brought it down hard on his fat head!

The Jablogian groaned. Is he seriously still conscious? How fat is his head? She checked closer; nope, he’s out now. Hera swiftly exited the room, were she found a guard still standing at the door, “Oh! Uh…” thinking quickly she held the tray in a dainty posture and resumed her sultriest tone, “The master desires a little more alone time while I change clothes in my quarters.”

“Uhhuh,” the guard made a gesture that was half shrug, half motion to follow him. As soon as he was ahead of her and clearly convinced that she was following him to some sort of slave quarters, she brought the tray down on his head. The bug-eyed helmet did little to protect him, “That was a really useful tray.”

Hera turned and ran down the corridors toward were she knew a ship of this type, a Gozanti variant, would have escape pods. All those years of obsessing over starship schematics as a bored teenager are finally paying off! ‘If a comet hits, this ship has escape pods’ indeed. Thanks a lot, Lando.

She reached the escape pods without further incident, the thugs employed by this (Smuggler? Gangster?) whatever he was weren’t exactly stormtroopers. Not that that was a particularly high bar of reaction speed. The escape pod itself was even ready to launch with no technical difficulties. I suppose fatso isn’t suicidal. Would have been nice to have a more daring escape though, piloting one of these things is child’s play!

Hera was docked on the Ghost before the other ship had even had time to transmit any futile demands for her return. Standing there in the hall when she opened the hatch, a smug grin all over his face, was none other than Lando Calrissian. The kriffing sleemo himself.

“You played that perfectly,” he said, giving a slow dramatic clap, “Thank you.”

“Ohh,” she placed a hand on his shoulder, and sweetly said, “You're welcome.” Then she punched him in the guts!

“Uoohh…. I deserved that,” Lando rose with a groan, and Hera raised her hands in case he was foolish enough to fight back. “But can we get back to the job at hand, flying us past the Imperial blockade? Otherwise, I don't have to pay you or give your droid back.”

Sleemo. Do it for Chopper. Fine. “What was in that crate?”

Lando grinned, his usual swagger returning, “Come on. I'll show you.”

Her anger somewhat tempered by curiosity, she followed Calrissian up into the main corridor. There was a sound of squealing, and Zeb shouting “I’m trying!” Lando rushed ahead to add his own shouting to the mayhem, while Hera and Sabine exchanged a look of concern. They entered the main hall to find the way to the cockpit blocked by an annoyed Lando, a sheepish Peter, and a large organic looking orange… butt.

The Ghost, Cargo Bay, approximately 1 Minute Earlier

…………………………………………. Ezra Bridger….…………………………………………

“I… wouldn’t do that,” Peter admonished Zeb, who had been eyeing up the mystery crate ever since Calrissian left, his hands inching ever closer to the latch.

“Aww com’on, I wanna see what’s inside!”

“I gotta agree with Peter, Calrissian said not to open it.” Then again, since when can we trust that guy? Maybe just a little peek would be ok…

“Yeas, he did.” Zeb opened the crate anyway.

A bulbus orange creature ambled out, sniffing the ground with its miniature trunk of a nose; its large bulging eyes glanced at Ezra expectantly, probably wanting food. “Kinda cute, whatever it is.”

Then Zeb bent down to give it a sniff in return. AEEEA! SQEEEA! The creature ran in a circle squeaking in panic until it found the ladder, which it climbed with surprising speed for a hooved animal!

We are in so much trouble! “Catch it!” Ezra shouted, running to climb the ladder.

Behind him he heard Peter mutter, “Alien creature loose on the ship? This never ends well…”

“How would you know?” Ezra called back over his shoulder as they ran through the cockpit past a confused Kanan.

“Uh… movies?” Peter shot a web-line, missing the creature completely but hitting Chopper, who warbled angrily.

Of course. Ow! Ezra tripped on the ladder and the little beast slipped from his grasp again, “Catch it!”

“I’m trying!” Zeb shouted in frustration as he jumped for the creature and missed!

Unfortunately, Calrissian chose that moment to return, “Grab that puffer pig, but don't scare her!” he shouted, annoyance and panic waring in his tone.

The puffer pig doubled back slipping under Peter’s legs! Ezra made a grab for it, and banged his head on the ladder to the upper turret! The pig gave another mad squeal and dashed for the cockpit, right into Zeb’s waiting arms! “Got ‘er!” the pig struggled in his hands, continuing to squeak and squeal, Ezra stubbled into the cockpit after it. Ow, that squeeking is not helping my head!”

“You're scaring her!” Lando gesticulated in frustration, “I told you not to scare her!”

“I'm not scaring ‘er!” Then puffer pig, well, puffed. Making a sound like a balloon filling up, it swelled its body until it was as wide as the hallway and thoroughly stuck! “Karabast!”

“You see? You scared her,” Lando called out from the other side of the pig.

Kanan finally got up from his pilot’s chair, “What is going on out here?!” he snapped.

Uh oh! That’s his dad voice. Trying not to seem too ridiculous, which was difficult when standing next to a goggle-eyed pig holding its breath hard enough to swell to the size of a hallway, Ezra began to explain, “It's a uh… puffer-”

“I don't wanna know.” Kanan shook his head and spun around, changing his mind before the crazy overwhelmed him.

With only minutes to go before reaching Lothal, Ezra and Zeb were stuck trying to find some way to dislodge the pig so that Hera could get to the cockpit. Unfortunately, the thing seemed to have decided that it was absolutely never going to move, and seemingly fallen asleep. While they worked, Ezra could just about hear Hera questioning Calrissian on his plan. Apparently, the puffer pig was an alternative to mechanical mining equipment (somehow) that Calrissian had previously failed to smuggle onto Lothal. Also, Chopper was still waiting on that guy hand and foot; according to Zeb (who was tall enough to see over the puffer), he had even bowed when asked to fix the ships signature modulator! Karabast! Era thought to himself as he tried once more to push the pig to one side, this thing does not want to move!

“We've reached the blockade.” Kanan announced, “I could really use Hera on this side of the pig right about now.”

“Yeah, I don't see that happening.”

They were almost between the Star Destroyers before Kanan announced “Okay, signature modulator ’s back online. And just in time.”

 “Tontine, prepare for scanning,” A voice with a Coruscanti accent came over the comms but Ezra wasn’t really paying attention; he was hearing a much more disturbing voice. Lando. “Sabine, once we get back to Lothal, I'd love to purchase some of your art.”

“Really? My work. You'd pay?” Her voice was dripping in skepticism, especially the last word, but Ezra failed to notice that either.

“Oh, he'll pay.” He muttered, trying to climb over the pig. The stupid animal was slipperier than it looked, and Ezra was finding the experience somewhat like trying to climb a balloon. Dumb thing keeps squishing and deforming whenever I try to get a grip! Do puffer pigs even have bones? While he struggled, Ezra was vaguely aware of the ‘Tontine’ being cleared to pass the blockade, and of Kanan announcing that they were going to make it. Then, just as he had finally gotten on top of the pig, Zeb just had to chime in with his opinion of the situation.
“Kid, not a good...”

Shut up Zeb, I know what I’m doing! His foot slipped. Karabast! The puffer pig, objecting to being kicked in the face, rapidly expanded even further, crushing Ezra against the ceiling and throwing Zeb back against the consol!

“…Idea.”

Through the folds of puffer pig flesh pinning him against the ceiling, Ezra could just make out an ominous beeping coming from the consol. Then the ship shook with lazerfire! Ezra’s stomach did a little dive as Kanan spun the ship in evasive action.

Zeb tried to offer some advice for the situation, “Kanan… when they shooot at us, Hera use’ally shoooots back!”

“Yeah, well, I'm not Hera!” Kanan shouted, and Ezra could feel his frustration rolling off him in waves through the Force even if it hadn’t been loud enough to hear it anyway, “And I'm having enough trouble just keeping ahead of these guys!”

With his ear pressed up against the ship Ezra could hear one of the turrets was firing back, though he wasn’t sure which. Gotta get this thing deflated somehow, we need Hera in the cockpit! Lucky for Ezra, the Force did provide.

“Hey! Ezra!” Peter was calling to him.

“I’m a little busy at the moment!”

“Well, uh, you know how you can… you’re good with animals, can’t you get the puffer pig to calm down?”

Good with animals, what… oh right! Haven’t tried that in an actual crisis before, though I did manage to connect that one time when I was showing off to Peter and Sabine. (Ezra had of course forgotten most of the incident in the asteroid base). Ok, hope this works. He stretched out through the Force, looking for the mind of the puffer pig. It was really quite easy to find, the animal’s fear ballooning out in the force as much as its body was in the physical world. Hey there li’ll guy! Shhh shh shh, its ok. Calm dowwwwwn. Yes, I know the purple guy is big and scary, but he doesn’t want to hurt you. Uhhuh, uh-huh. Look, I’m sorry I kicked you in the face, would you please deflate now? Just a little? That’s it! A little more, keep going, see isn’t that better? Thanks.

“How’d you do that?” Calsrissian seemed genuinely impressed (and confused, like he wasn’t used to feeling such an emotion).

Ezra grinned, “Oh yuh’know, it’s all in the wrist.” He gave the pig a scritch along the neck as if  to demonstrate.

Meanwhile Hera had rushed into the cockpit and seized the controls; she took the Ghost through a series of spiraling dives into the atmosphere of Lothal! This lost all but two of the TIEs pursuing them. To deal with the last pair she few into some cloud over and spun the ship around, speeding back out to obliterate both TIEs with the nose gun!

Kanan, who had been sitting there looking impressed as Hera leaned over him to access the controls without even bothering to sit down said, “You know, your job's a lot harder than it looks.”

Lando’s usual smugness returned, “Nice. He finally appreciates you.”

Hera, quite done with Lando’s nonsense by this point, fired back, “All right. Enough with the divide and conquer! You think by setting us against each other, you'll keep us off-balance enough to get what you want,” she leaned over the taller man, forcing him to bend backwards, “But what you want depends on my crew working together in sync. Is that clear?”

“As crystal, Captain,” Lando held his hands up, signaling half surrender and half back off.

It was still nighttime on Lothal when they landed at what looked in the moonlight like a little farmstead, except for the lack of crops. Has it really only been a couple of hours? It feels like it’s been days of dealing with Lando! As they walked down the ramp, puffer pig still obediently following Ezra, he turned to Zeb, “This time, try to keep it calm. We don't want you inflating it again.”

“Hey, it wasn't my fault.”

“It's your face's fault.”

“This is… your land?” Hera asked Lando, the quaint little place not seeming to fit the sophisticated aura he liked to put off.

“Bought if off a charming fellow named Vizago,” Calrissian explained.

“Perfect,” Hera muttered sarcastically, no doubt thinking of their previous interactions with the smuggler, “But why was it so important to get this pig here?”

“Because a puffer pig has a nose for precious minerals,” he gestured to the pig, which was already sniffing intently at the ground, “It can do the job of a dozen mining scanners.”

“…And the Empire doesn't want private landholders mining Lothal.” Hera sounded like she was regaining respect for the sleemo, either for his cleverness or his sticking it to the Empire.

That was too much for Kanan, who interjected, “We're done here. Pay us, and we'll be on our way.”

“He has other debtz to pay!” A strange voice sounded from behind a stack of crates.

“Azmorigan?” Lando’s voice betrayed just the slightest hint of fear.

“You forget I introduce you to Vizago, huh?” An extremely fat alien with spindly limbs walked into the light of the farm’s lanterns holding a blaster, while about a dozen enforcers with bug-eyed helmets popped up from behind various crates and an old speeder, “I knew where you were headed.”

“But your ship, you couldn't have hidden it anywhere close,” Lando had gotten over his shock and now was just confused, “Did you… walk, here? You don't walk anywhere.”

“Nice one man,” Petersaid, feigning a cough.

“Well, I do what's necessary to claim my property! Calrissian!” Azmorigan did sound like he was somehow still out of breath.

“What do you want?” Hera demanded.

“My demands are simple. I want my pig back and you.” Oh, he’s the supplier. “Plus, this ship and this crew as compensation for my sore feeet,” he rubbed his ankle for emphasis while saying this, “But first! First, I want to bury Calrissian!”

“Yeah, yeah, I understand the feeling,” Hera offered, “But no.”

“Now, wait,” Kanan butted in, “Let's consider that last demand for a sec.” I second that!

“Ooh… oooh… OOH, I've run out of patience! Get dem!” Azmorigan fired his blaster pistol, and the farm erupted into chaos!

“Get back!”

“Save the pig!”

“Chopper, don't hide there! It's a fuel canister!”

Ezra and Kanan hid together behind a set of crates, Kanan immediately returning fire with his blaster pistol. Ezra on the other hand had cannibalized his slingshot for his new lightsaber. This he leveled at one of Azmorigan’s men, aiming over the emitter before Kanan stopped him, “No lightsabers, not unless we're-”

“You worry too much.” He didn’t notice, perfect! Ezra aimed his lightsaber again, and unleashed a blue stun blast from the second emitter, knocking one of their opponents off the roof! He mimed blowing smoke off the barrel, as if it was an old-fashioned slug-thrower.

“Hey, mine doesn't do that!” Was that a hint of jealousy from Kanan?

“Nope. I might not be able to sword fight yet, but I can shoot.”

“Kid, you continue to impress.” While Kanan was saying this, Lando sniped a goon hiding behind a crate, earning a “Nice shot, Lando!” from Sabine.

“Yeah, just not as much as Lando.”

The firefight continued ineffectually for what seemed like long time, but was probably less than a minute. If they don’t come out of over soon, I might have to bust out the Force moves! Then a stray shot got the puffer pig riled up, and it started running in circles screaming! That’s just great, knowing Lando he probably won’t pay us if that thing gets injured. Fortunately, Hera and Zeb found a use for that, “Hey, PIG!” Zeb roared in its face, causing the pig to puff and bounce around the field like a lost beachball, knocking over thugs as it went, while Sabine used it as a trampoline to get to the roof!

“Hey Ezra!” Peter called out, pointing to Azmorigan who was trying to sneak around Zeb’s position. Oh no you don’t. Peter threw a web line to catch the criminal, pulling him into the open.

“Wooauhgoauhg!”

Ezra stunned him, and the rest of his thugs immediately surrendered. “What do we do with him now?”
Hera walked up to the unconscious Jablogian and kicked him in the belly! “Wa-ahhh! No! Mercy plea-he-heas!” he blubbered.

Hera was not impressed, she pointed out of the farm with her blaster, “Start walking.”

“I like everything that just happened except that you let Azmorigan live,” Lando said, walking up to Hera, “That'll be a problem for me later.”

“I think you have a problem now,” she replied, looking around at somewhat shabby farm, “You don't have the credits you owe us, do you? In fact, you never did.”

Of course he doesn’t. What ever made us think he did? Lando tried to get out of it of course, first with a promise of future profits from his little mine, and then with an offer for a game of Sabac. Neither of these attempts impressed Hera, who declared that he would just have to owe them. About the only good thing to come out of the exchange was when Chopper slapped Lando as they left. They did get Chopper back, but as Kanan said, that was hardly a positive.

“There are a lot of things we couldn't accomplish without him,” Hera said as the boarded the Ghost, “You should appreciate that more.”

That reminds me, “I always appreciated you, Sabine.”

She rolled her eyes, “Yes, Ezra, I know.” At least she’s not calling me kid again.

“Course, we still need food and fuel.”

Chopper took this as a cue to come out of the back of the cargo hold, pushing a large fuel barrel, “whoop ooo!”

“Oho! Hey, Chopper stole Lando's fuel!”

There was a general round of applause, laughter, and much humble-brag beep-booping.

 

Notes:

Hey, sorry this one was late, I had to stop for a month to finish my masters degree.

Chapter 8: The Spy

Telaris Cometary Cloud, aboard the Telaris Rebel Stardocks, 14 AFE (December 2015 AD)

…………………………………………Ahsoka Tano……………………………………………

            Stupid kriffing Batonn Raiders! Thinking freedom is for them alone! As if that’s even possible. Why does it feel like every second rebel cell is made up of angry teenagers who just want to lash out at everything and everyone? Setting down the datapad with the offending rejection message, Ahsoka assumed a meditative pose and tried to steady herself in the Force. I suppose I’m being unfair. After all, Cham Syndula’s not a teenager, and he acts just like these guys! Sigh, deep breaths Ahsoka. When she had agreed to help Bail organize a rebellion all those years ago, she had expected more daring raids on bastions of evil, and less herding tookas via courier ship. Then again, I was in a bit of an angry teenager phase myself at the time.

            The Batonns were a large insurgent group, and intelligence suggested they had a powerful fortress on Batonn itself under their control, unbeknownst to the Empire. They would be extremely useful to have on side for the coming war, and the burgeoning alliance couldn’t afford to have them acting as a rogue element. Perhaps I could have an agent join them as a volunteer, secretly steer them from the inside. Not sure who to send, have to think about that more. She jotted down a note to that effect and closed the datapad. What’s next for today? Oh yes, check up on the search for the missing Avengers.

            She wasn’t expecting to find much. For a group of such apparently extraordinary individuals they were proving remarkably illusive. I mean, I would expect it of the super-spy, Black Widow; if Specter Seven’s stories are anything to go by the first news of her will be the Emperor’s assassination. Ha, if only! The others though, they seem like flashier individuals. They must be on some truly backwater planets to be avoiding my network. Maybe I should risk reaching out to Rael… Mothma and Bail’s networks were supposed to remain separate for security purposes, but it would be useful for both to know about the Avengers.

Actually, she had found one Avenger already. Her oldest friend had picked him up before Specter Cell even informed her of their situation. As they would be quite safe together, she had elected not to pass on this information until they entered the next phase of the rebellion. Her friend deserved a little more retirement. Just a few more months, a year at most. Then we’ll really need someone of his experience.

            So imagine Ahsoka’s surprise when she opened the Avengers Search Project datapad to see ‘I found them!” in big flashing letters. Logar, I thought we talked about professional communication! This better not be a false alarm again. The rest of the document turned out to mainly consist of a bounty notice from the Hutt Clans (all of them together, that’s unusual) for the destruction of a group called ‘The Avengers of Nar Shadaa’, a reward of Kriffing Hells that’s a lot! There was also a note on background details from Logar, apparently, they had killed Arok, a member of the Hutt Council, very good, and that the Hutts had specifically requested, wait, oh, oh no!

Nar Shadaa, a few days earlier

……………………………………… Natasha Romanoff…………………………………………

            To most people, the choice between a blaster and a slug-thrower (as conventional firearms were called here), was clear. Blasters were quieter, had less recoil, a practically flat trajectory, usually a stun setting for non-lethal takedowns, and held a hell of a lot more ammunition. The pair of little Nubian hold-out pistols she had taken from one of their previous targets held 500 shots in Tibana gas and 50 in their charge packs. Of course, it also helped that millennia of manufacturing inertia had made them far cheaper in this part of space. However, Natasha had found that the sight and sound of such an unfamiliar weapon as an automatic slug-thrower could induce half a second of surprised inaction in her opponents. Again, to most people this wouldn’t have mattered, but half a second was all The Black Widow needed.

            She tore through the thugs, human and alien alike. A rapid few shots from the assault rifle (taken off a fallen Hydra trooper who’s body came through the portal with her) took care of three once Jowdrryl the Wookie kicked down the door. By then she was halfway through the room, kicking a fourth thug hard enough to break his spine; a widow’s bite took down a fifth, and a garrote the sixth (wires and electric charges were far more replaceable than bullets). With shock and awe on their side, her teammates stormed into the hall after her, dropping more thugs with their blasters before the numbers could overwhelm Natasha. The rifle was now slung on her back, her new holdout blaster in one hand and an Earth pistol in the other; alternating shots from each dropping one thug after another, the noise and flash of the gunfire keeping them off balance.

Jowdrryl, Darla, and S1D6-SA-5 broke off toward the slave quarters, while the rest of the crew continued to press on towards the slave master. S1D was someone who Natasha had trouble being entirely comfortable with when in her experience truly sentient machines had a fifty/fifty chance of trying to kill everyone. She droid, of the type called protocol droids. Such beings were common everywhere on this planet, and throughout the galaxy as far as she knew, so logically they could not be a world ending threat. And S1D’s actions spoke for themselves; after being freed herself in a slave revolt on a planet called Kessel, she had upgraded her body with faster joints, an astromech style scomp link, and hidden tools for removing slave chips and restraining bolts. After that she had spent the last five years infiltrating slaver organizations and households, freeing droids and organics alike. One of Natasha’s early raids had happened to hit the same mansion she was working; they had been together ever since.

The thugs guarding the inner mansion were fleeing now, all except for one. A large humanoid lizard in what looked like an old pressure suit, though at its size it couldn’t possibly have functioned as such for him, stood calmly in front of the door. As they approached, he fired a shot from an unusual looking firearm. Black Widow barely had time to realize that wasn’t a normal blaster bolt before Kyylia’s chest exploded! While she and Sugi dove behind the ornamental pillars lining the hall, several of the thugs who had been on the verge of flight sensed a renewed chance at victory, and began to fire at them again.

It wasn’t what she would have expected to do in space if she had ever thought about it, this anti-slavery operation. Being honest with herself, Natasha had to admit that if given the time to consider her situation and be pragmatic she probably would have prioritized finding her missing teammates, then come back to deal with this place if they could come up with the resources. Fortunately, the first thing she had seen upon arriving on Nar Shadaa was a thug with a whip herding a group of obvious sex slaves. So she shot the guy. After all, despite how Tony seemed to think it beneath them stopping organized crime was what the Avengers did on a day-to-day basis. Only then did she realize the alien nature of the people she had just rescued. Kyylia had been the first to stand up, thanking her and helping get the others to safety. Things just snowballed after that. And now she was dead.

“Kriff! Its Bossk!” Sugi swore, “That one is a real threat!”

With the lesser thugs providing cover fire, Bossk the lizard man continued launching micro-grenades, rapidly battering the decorative pillars to rubble. Black Widow signaled Sugi for cover and rolled out of hiding, unleashing a burst from the assault rifle that reduced Bossk’s weapon arm to a bloody pulp! Bossk hissed and dropped the micro-grenade launcher, but otherwise seemed far less perturbed by having his arm shot to pieces than a he should have been. Black Widow was about to finish him off when he ripped off his injured arm and threw it at her, knocking the rifle out of her hands! The arm was followed closely by the Bossk himself, she rolled out of his way and hit him with a widow’s bite from her gauntlet; but this failed to faze the lizard alien and Natasha barely managed to dodge the vicious claw swipe in return!

“Did I mention he’s a Trandosian?” Sugi shouted from where she was providing covering fire against the other thugs. Then, remembering Natasha might not know what that meant, added, “They can re-grow their limbs, and this one has many times! I’ve even heard that traditional Trandosian fathers will rip off their own children’s limbs to teach them pain tolerance!”

“Would have been nice to know ten seconds ago!”

            Sugi was the only one of their group aside from Natasha who hadn’t been a slave. Rather, she was a bounty hunter who had initially been hired to capture them! However, Natasha knew her type; she was someone who had once believed herself better than the other criminals, following a moral code, only killing the real bad guys, that sort of thing. After being captured in turn, she had practically jumped at the chance to be able to look at herself in the mirror again.

“OOF!” Black Widow grunted as the remnants of Bossk’s right arm, now being wielded as a club, slammed into her chest! She couldn’t take a moment to catch her wind, instead forcing her body to roll away from yet another vicious swipe! Current tactics ineffective. None of her punches and kicks so much a phased the big lizard man, and she didn’t dare try to grapple him, not with those claws! Worse, Bossk wasn’t dumb, he knew she would need a weapon to actually hurt him, and was carefully keeping her away from any of the numerous firearms that now littered the floor.  He wasn’t slow either, sure he wasn’t quite as fast as Black Widow but that was the only reason she was still alive.

Sugi was methodical killing their lesser opposition one by one, and keeping them off her back; but it wasn’t fast enough. Every moment they wasted out here was another moment the Hutts in the inner chamber could get away, and if they did the slaves her team rescued would never be truly free. Switch to a new tactic.

Jumping to avoid a kick from one of Bossk’s clawed feet, she broke her previous pattern and flipped farther away instead of immediately counterattacking. This gave her the moment necessary to pull out a garrot wire. Bossk was on her then, jabbing and slashing with his remaining hand! Natasha hissed in pain as he managed to graze her left side with his claws!

“Give it up little human!” Bossk hissed and spat as she continued to dodge, “Whoever wantss Arok dead sshould have hired a better assssasssin!”

“Now that’s just rude.”

She flung the wire around Bossk’s legs and dove for the nearest weapon, an EE-3 dropped by one of the thugs, same model as Sugi used. Ideal. Black Widow grabbed the blaster and rolled behind a table in one smooth motion, spinning around to spray fire at where she had left Bossk! Only, Bossk wasn’t there. A human couldn’t have gotten out of that tie-up so fast, but apparently a Trandossian… Gavno, the claws! Where is he? There, hiding behind the same pillar Natasha had used for cover previously, aiming her own stolen assault rifle around the corner!

She winced as he fired, not because he came close to hitting her but rather for the way the lizard man’s giant fingers simply crushed the trigger guard of the out of his way. Hope he doesn’t find the selector switch! No, kill him first agent. She returned fire with her baster carbine, but Bossk was using his cover well, neither could get a clear shot on the other. Exept… she could get a clear shot at the rifle. Blyat. Nothing else for it. Taking careful aim, she fired a burst at from her EE-3, the hot plasma blaster bolts rendering the assault rifle to useless slag.

Bossk hissed in pain and dropped the mass of molten metal as it began to drip onto his hand. Black Widow didn’t give him a second to recover, standing up to get a clear shot she poured fire into his position. With no other way out, the Trandossian roared and charged! Bolt after bolt hit him, his scales provided some protection, his battle rage and desperation did the rest. Natasha’s desperate shooting finally penetrated to some vital organ, but not before Bossk’s dying jaws took a chunk out of her left arm!

“Pizdec!” Natasha swore as she carefully extracted her arm from the dead Trandossian’s jaws, panting with pain as she did so. When she stood, the bloody wound pressed firmly to her chest to stem the bleeding, but the other arm still holding the blaster and ready to kill, the few remaining guards fled in earnest. Black Widow examined her arm: Catastrophic muscle damage. Compromised for months, possibly lost completely. Agent has 1 minuet and 37 seconds until blood loss induced fainting.

“Are you all right?” Suigi asked.

“We need to work fast,” Widow replied, striding purposefully toward the door. She tried to bend over to pick up Bossk’s grenade launcher, but the motion made her dizzy. “Sugi, could you get that for me?” 

“You are in no fit state to use this thing. And so, as you Earthlings say,” Sugi gave her a cocky grin, “I call dibs.” Successful raid, drunken movie night celebration, never again.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Sugi calmly used the weapon to destroy the large door’s hinges and lock in turn allowing the durasteel reinforced slab of ornate wood to fall away with a deafening CRASH! In the room beyond two enormous blobs of fat were hammering at a formerly hidden hatchway with their fists. Clearly S1D had managed to deactivate it when she hacked the mansion security system. They had actually made decent progress, warping the metal paneling to the point that the secret door was plainly visible, and any smaller species could have slipped through. With how lazy they normally are, one tended to forget how strong Hutts actually were.

“Glad you made the mistake of wiring your escape hatch into the rest of your home computer system,” Natasha said by way of greeting, “This might not have worked otherwise.”

The more ornately decorated Hutt (or maybe blue skin with yellow blotches was his natural coloration) spat a string of verbal abuse at her in Huttese. Nothing Natasha hadn’t heard before from dozens of powerful people that she had upset over the years. Her rapidly de-oxygenating brain briefly wandered over the fact that she could somehow understand every language spoken here almost as if it was her native Russian, hell she hadn’t even noticed the difference between them until Kyylia asked her how she knew so many languages and wasn’t that disturbing…

Widow wrenched herself back to the present when the Hutt said, “and so it is obvious that the Desilijic clan is attempting to muscle in on my slave trade by having you disrupt it. However much they have paid you, I can triple it, and grant your crew safe passage off of this world; something that, rest assured, only I Arok the Hutt can offer you.”

My god, it’s like he can’t even conceive of an actual decent person. “We are the Avengers of Nar Shadaa, our allegiance is with the peoples under your oppression, and it is not for sale.” She shot the blabbering slug between the eyes. The other screamed and then wisely fell silent, not that that would save him for long.

S1D6-SA-5 appeared out of a servant’s hallway leading a horde of newly freed slaves armed mostly with kitchen implements, “I see everything up here is wrapping up nicely. Look people, your Hutt cowers before you. Remember to glean the passcodes to his account books before your recompence is complete.” Her voice was incongruously bright and cheerful, “Ooh and a member of the Hutt Council dead as well, this has been a good day indeed!”

“Right, anyone else, gather up the guards’ weapons, any food or credits you can find, and be back here in twelve minutes. My crew will lead you back to our safehouse were we can remove your detonator chips and help you escape further,” The edges of Natasha’s vison were getting fuzzy, “and someone find me some bandages.”

Nar Shadaa, Avengers Safehouse, 1 Week Later

            Medical technology out here was truly amazing, at least for those who could afford it. Natasha deeply regretted falling unconscious before they escaped Oojjar the Hutt’s palace; now she would never get to know how they had managed to smuggle an entire Hutt sized bacta tank out of there with her in it! And that would have been a story to outdo anything Rhodey could bring to the table. Also, she wouldn’t have had to wake up sticky and disoriented in a swimming pool sized tank of turquoise goop surrounded by the unconscious bodies of several other humans and aliens who they had stuck in with her so as not to waste bacta. On the plus side her arm was good as new.

“Hey boss,” Sugi greeted her as she exited what passed for a shower in their hidden base, “I assume you’ll want a briefing on the last few days?”

“Yeah, could you start with how to get bacta out of hair?” Natsha asked, rubbing her head with a towel.

“Dozens of showers and plenty of combing? Real showers too, not sonics. Or you could just grow new hair.” Sugi followed her toward what had once been an office block in one of this building’s previous lives, which now functioned as their command center, “the Hutts have been silent on what passes for their official channels since the raid, in fact they’ve been trying to crack-down on any information related to it, especially that we managed to get one of their council members. Word is still spreading though.”

“Hmm, they’re planning something, no way can they let this go unpunished. Anything else?”

“The good news is that we managed to rescue over 300 slaves and 200 droids from Oojjar’s palace, some his, some from Arok‘s visiting entourage. About a hundred of the slaves and fiftyish droids fled immediately. Of those that stayed, we’ve managed to get most of the freed slaves out and the droids have all agreed to join S1D’s infiltration network, a few organics have asked to join our strike team as well.”

“We’ll interview them this afternoon… it is morning right now, isn’t it?” after a nod from Sugi Natasha continued as they entered the command center, “If we can get enough of them trained up, we may be able to form a secondary strike team. What’s the bad news?”

S1D answered, “I am afraid they managed to freeze Oojjar’s assets quicker than expected. We have been to use our previously acquired funds to help the freed slaves find transport off world. Only 836.18 credits remain and there are still 96 sentients hiding in our basement.”

“I trust that’s enough to at least feed them for now?”

“Of course, with careful rationing.”

“Good, do we know of any easy targets we could hit for purely cash value?”

Before anyone could answer, Darla, who had been on guard duty, walked in leading a woman of the species that Natasha had come to recognize as a Togruta. (They were one of the more common species among the exotic dancers on this planet). The upper half of her face was obscured by the grey cloak she wore, Nataha’s keen spy’s eye detected plates of some hard substance on her arms in in the way the garment sat on her, in this place probably chains. “What’s the matter miss, are you in trouble?”

The Togruta answered, “I’m afraid it is you who are in trouble.”

Crap, a threat. Sounds like its armor, not chains, under that cloak. She gestured to her team to check the perimeter, “Rather bold of a bounty hunter to just walk in to a nest of dangerous outlaws and threaten them.”

“I am not here to threaten you; I am here to warn you.” She sounded sincere. At least, that would have been sincerity in a human, Black Widow didn’t know enough about Togruta to be completely sure. “In killing a member of the Hutt Council, you have gone too far. The Hutts have hired Dengar and Boba Fett to hunt you down.”

These names were not familiar to Natasha, though Sugi blanched. She decided to play it cool, “So?”

Her calm demeanor managed to surprise the mystery woman, “Those two are one of and possibly the greatest bounty hunter alive! Plus, they will be leading an army of lesser hunters. You cannot hope to survive against what’s coming!”

“What’s your stake in it?”

 The stranger calmed herself, “I am here to offer my assistance, and the resources of my network, to get you out.”

“Hmm” Could still be a trap, “What is this network?”

The strange woman hesitated, then appeared to come to a momentous decision, “I represent an alliance of rebel cells aiming to topple the Galactic Empire.”

Nar Shadaa, a few hours earlier

…………………………………………Ahsoka Tano……………………………………………

The Twilight II touched down on Nar Shadaa after a tense day’s travel. When Ahsoka arrived at Logar’s house the man himself threw the door open and greeted her with exuberance, “’Soka! Long time no sees! How yuh been? Yuh bring the Martez’s this time?”

Why did I let Trace introduce me to this guy? Poor girl can’t remember a codename to save her life. “Afraid not Logar, just me this time. And I really can’t stay for long, I’m just here for some information on-”

“Nonsense! Take a load off! Lemmy get you som’in!” He motioned her inside, not dropping his cheerful demeanor as he lead her to the kitchen.

Logar lived on the far side of the moon from Hutta Town, in what was probably the nicest house on the world. Not the fanciest or most expensive, actually it was always in need of some repair or other, but the place exuded an aura of hospitality that was unusual for the outer rim, let alone Nar Shaddaa. Why such a person had chosen to live here of all places was quite beyond Ahsoka; she figured he survived either by somehow charming the worst criminals in the galaxy, or the Hutts kept him around because he made spice addiction look fun. Speaking of, as Ahsoka made her way into the house she had to carefully maneuver over a pair of Logar’s, well anyone else would call them acquaintances but Logar considered everyone he’d ever met a dear friend, who were passed out in the hall.

His kitchen would have been illegal on any other planet for numerous reasons, not the least of which was that it gave no regard to fire safety whatsoever. The place was festooned in decorative cloth hanging, rugs, semi-ornamental plants, and an assortment of giant pillows that served as chairs. The cooking apparatus consisted of an old nanowave hidden in a corner, several hotplates placed on stools in convenient reach of the cushions, a hand-made pile of bricks that passed for an oven, and an open cookfire. In another corner there was a fridge, which a zoned out Gotal was carefully painting grey for some reason. One side of the room opened into the house’s courtyard, which was dominated by a surprisingly beautiful vegetable and ‘herb’ garden that sprawled up onto the roof and into the adjoining rooms. It was one of the most peaceful places to meditate that Ahsoka had seen since leaving the Jedi temple, despite the fact that half the plants would have been illegal to grow on almost any other world. A lot of them are illegal to grow here too, the Hutts don’t like competition. Yet somehow, Logar keeps getting away with it.

“Hey Keny, whatcha doin?” he asked the Gotal.

“Plaaantts say the friiigge would be behehtterrr as a roooock,” Keny muttered in the stuttering buzz typical of Gotal speech.

“Of co durse man! I shouldah thought of it sooner myself!” Logar replied in complete seriousness (or at least as much seriousness as he ever had). He produced a plate of small cakey baked goods out of a cupboard, “Here ‘Soka, help yourself. They’re the hypercarnivore variety, loads of protein!”

Ahsoka took one without bothering to ask what else was in it. She had long ago learned to extend the Jedi’s standard training on using the force to mitigate poisons to a near blanket immunity from all sorts of questionable substances that might be found in foodstuffs. “Logar, may we speak somewhere more private?”

“Ahhh, Keny’s fine!” Logar dismissed her concerns with a wave, “He wouldn’t rat on yah, even if he did remember!”

If you and your friends didn’t trust easily and gossop so freely you wouldn’t be such a useful informant. Lets see, how do I phrase this without giving too much away… “What have you heard about these… Avengers of Nar Shadda?”

Logar flopped out on a cushion “Oh yeah, Trace pass that bit on to you?” Well yes, but I was hoping not to reveal our line of communication. “Yeah, rumor has it a bunch uh these former slave gals been goin round killin Hutts. ‘Course, Hutts ain’t talking about it, but like, you know how they get about these things.”

Ahsoka sat down more calmly, “They’re a group of escaped slaves?” Could this just be a coincidence? No, it doesn’t feel like it.

“Weeell some people also say their leader is a wild woman from some primitive planet, real noble savage type o’ super warrior, like, yeah right man!”

“Yeaaaahhh!” Keny interjected his agreement.

Now that sounds like someone I might be looking for. “Where are these Avengers operating?”

“Well, uh… their most recent kill was some local bigshot called Oojjar the Hutt.”

“I thought you said they killed Arok."

“Yeah, him too. But see, he was visiting Oojjar in his palace down south o’ the equator, round the Amura district. They’re like, third cousins or sumthin. You know I don’t put much stock in that sort of thing.”

“Thank you, Logar.” Ahsoka stood up, “I’m afraid I must be going now, I was really just stopping by. Thanks for the, uh, food.”

“Anytime! Anytime.” He gave a big thumbs up, “you do whatcha need to of course, but seriously, you gotta chill once in a while.”

“Someday Logar, someday.”

            The Amura district was quiet, too quiet. The people here knew something big was about to go down, from what Ahsoka could sense, many had already fled. She let the force guide her to a seemingly abandoned building which appeared to have been an inn, a warehouse, and an office block at various points in its life. Easy to forget that this place needs normal city stuff on occasion. Ok, how do I play this? If this is the right place, they’ll respond to someone needing help. If not, I have my lightsabers. Checking to make sure no-one was watching, she knocked on the door.

A pair hairy of arms yanked her through the door and she found herself standing before a blue Twilek and a Wookie. The Twilek was the first to speak. “What do you want?”

“I wish to speak with the Avengers of Nar Shaddaa, I need their help.” Ahsoka answered, and after a moment continued, “And they may need mine.”

The Twileck gestured to the Wookie, who examined the readout on a cobbled together device that seemed to be some form of scanner, and growled in Shriwook [She’s clean]. Evidently it doesn’t notice lightsabers.

The Twilek nodded, “Ok, I’ll take you to meet the others.”

            The Wookie stayed behind to guard the door while the Twilek lead Ahsoka through a series of oddly arranged hallways and rooms, into one which had clearly been an office space at some point. The room was occupied by an SA series protocol droid, a Zabraki woman (hang on, is that Sugi? What are the odds? I wonder if she’ll recognize me since I painted over my markings for this mission. It’ll be a good test of my disguise skills I suppose.) and a red-haired human woman who had that oddly fresh smell of someone just out of a bacta tank.

 Ahsoka must have ben succeeding in giving off a vibe of needing help, for the woman who she believed to be Natasha Romanoff asked, “What’s the matter miss, are you in trouble?”

Ahsoka answered, “I’m afraid it is you who are in trouble.”

Romaoff seemed to take this as a threat, gesturing to her lieutenants to check the perimeter, “Rather bold of a bounty hunter to just walk in to a nest of dangerous outlaws and threaten them.”

Uh oh, damage control. “I am not here to threaten you; I am here to warn you. In killing a member of the Hutt council, you have gone too far. The Hutts have hired Dengar and Boba Fett to hunt you down.”

Most of those in the room immediately understood the seriousness of the situation, but the woman put on a bold face and simply said, “So?”

What the kriff? You are definitely too old for pointless bravado! “Those two are one of and possibly the greatest bounty hunter alive! Plus, they will be leading an army of lesser hunters. You cannot hope to survive against what’s coming!”

“What’s your stake in it?”

Ok, good, we’re getting somewhere, “I am here to offer my assistance, and the resources of my network, to get you out.”

“What is this network?”

Well, if she is the Avenger Black Widow, I would tell her soon. And even if not, these people are unlikely to be Imperial sympathizers. Ok then, “I represent an alliance of rebel cells aiming to topple the Galactic Empire.”

The woman gave a considering nod, “A noble goal, if true. But also, one that would surely take up a great deal of time and resources. So, I ask again, why help us?”

“You are Natasha Romanoff, The Black Widow, an Avenger from the planet Earth, correct?” I’d help these people out now that I’m here even if not, but that is why I’m here.

Romanoff gave her a wary look, “How do you know me?”

“I have been in contact with one of your lost teammates.”

“Hmmm,” Romanoff considered for a moment, “tell me something about our relationship on Earth.”

Good thing the Specters sent me their droid’s entire holorecording of Parker’s introduction. Let’s see, what did he say that would never have come up in an interrogation… oh! “You made him write a twelve-page essay on the inaccuracies of spy craft as portrayed by someone called Bond, James Bond; in order to teach him operational security.”

Sugi looked quite baffled by this statement, Natasha on the other hand betrayed no outward emotion, but Ahsoka could sense through the force that her relief was immense. “All right girls, she’s trustworthy.”

Sugi shrugged off her confusion and asked, “What’s your name? You seem somewhat familiar.”

Hmm, think I’ll keep the disguise for now. “My name is Ashla, I’m afraid I can’t say I know yours.”

Sugi hmphed, but proceeded to introduce the others, “My name is Sugi, this is S1D6-SA-5, Darla, and the Wookie back at the entrance is Jowdrryl.”

Romanoff spoke up, “Well ‘Ashla’, you may be more help than you realized. We freed a lot of people in our last raid, and we’re out of funds to get the last of them out.”

“How many are there?” Ashla asked.

“96.” Romanoff answered

“Dank ferrick,” Ashla muttered, “the Twilight II can only hold a little over half of that.”

“I do have my own ship,” Sugi offered, “however its quite small inside, I could only account for maybe eight people.”

Still flying around in that old heavy lift gunship, I see. Wonder if it still has that horrible green and yellow paint scheme. “Well then, I suppose we’ll have to hire a transport.”

Notes:

So, I went on a week long side quest trying to figure out what the population of Lothal aught to be, and it didn't end up relevant to the story so I'm going to tell you here. The first method of population estimation I came up with was to base it off Capital City, which looks to be about the size of Manhatten based on the side of the imperial dome compaired to a star destroyer (just Manhatten, not all of New York), and therefore if we asume there areabout as many rural folks since Lothal is soposed to be primaraly agricultural then there are around 3.4 million people on the planet, gev or take half a million. The other method I came up with is more esoteric. See, Loth wolves are presumed extict (though realy they are only nearly so), and if we compair that to the population density of varios places on Earth at the time of local extinction of varios simmilar apex preditors and multiply that by the land area of Lothal (which for the sake of simplicity I asumed to be roughly the size of Earth) then the population needed to wipe out the loth wolves could be anywere from 200 million to 1 billion. Not only did all this turn out to not be relevant, it turns out Lothal has a canon population which is 285 million.

Chapter 9: The Avengers of Nar Shaddaa

Nar Shaddaa, Amura district spaceport, 14 AFE (December 2015 AD)

……………………………………… Natasha Romanoff…………………………………………

            The bar near the spaceport where according to Ashla ‘most of the best freighter pilots could be found’ was dingy, smoky, and packed with an astonishing assortment of alien beings and even more health code violations. Vaguely jazzy music played over tinny speakers. So as not to stand out, Natasha went to the bar and ordered a glass of… something. She took a sniff. Non-potable. Wasn’t really going to drink it anyway. A being, probably human though his face was extremely messed up so it was hard to tell, sidled up to her, “Hey, what’s a pretty thing like you doing in a dump like this?”

Arrogant and desperate. Nothing less than violence will likely suffice. Still, best not to cause a scene, “Get lost kozyol.”

“Hey! You don’t wanna mess with us, we’ve got the death sentence on eight systems -ahheeeglggllglg!” the asshole screamed as she simultaneously broke his nose (for what looked to be the hundredth time) and kicked him in the nuts. Violence it is.

            His partner, definite alien with a face like a cross between a spider and a walrus, let out a high-pitched roar and started to draw a blaster! Natasha was quicker, already in motion she allowed the momentum of her previous kick to carry her into the bar; this provided leverage with which to re-direct both legs into an upward sweep, knocking the blaster out of the alien’s hand! Her feet came down hard on his chest, and a moment later he was flat on the ground with a boot on his neck and her blaster pointed at his friend on the ground. The being wisely held out his hands in surrender.

“If you’re quite finished, I believe I’ve found us a ride,” Ashla indicated the Wookie standing next to her, “Chewbacca here is first mate on a ship that might suit our needs.”

            They found the ship’s captain in a corner booth, gazing suspiciously out into the crowd. Upon their arrival he put on a smile that most women and many men would probably have found charming (he was, admittedly, quite handsome) and greeted them, “Hello ladies, I’m Han Solo, Captain of the Millenium Falcon. Chewy here tells me you’re looking to hire the fastest ship in the galaxy.”

            Harmless flirter, likely thinks himself a ladies’ man. Not a threat. Also, would likely take combative response as reciprocation of flirting. Ashla sat down at the booth, apparently unbothered. Natasha joined her. Ashla answered him, “Yes, so long as it’s a reliable ship.”

“You’ve never heard of the Millenium Falcon?” Solo put on a good show of sounding incredulous.

Suppose we’ll humor him for now, “Should we have?”

“She’s the ship that made the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs!”

Ashla looked impressed, so either the mystery translator is finally failing or they’re both really bullshitting because, “Isn’t that a unit of distance?”

He gave Ashla a look of mock sympathy that suggested ‘rookies, am I right?’ before explaining, “See, Kessel run is normally 20 parsecs long; to cut that down you gotta go through the Maelstrom, scraping carbonburgs and dodging black holes, a ship that can make it through that will get you anywhere.”

Natasha looked askance at Ashla, who nodded an indication that the pilot’s tale was essentially correct.

Solo continued, “What’s the cargo?”

“Only passengers,” Natasha answered. Someone will need to keep an eye on this guy so, “One of my associates, and some others, and no questions.”

“Well, do I get to ask how many others?” Solo asked with a hint of annoyance, “’cause it does matter.”

Instead of answering, Ashla countered with, “How many can you take?”

“Depends,” he leaned back, resting his hands behind his head, “For a long hall, about four. If nobody needs to sleep, probably a few dozen.”

“Could it fit say, 40 people?”

“Sure, if you pack ‘em in like Naboo sardines,” Solo seemed to think that was funny, “Wouldn’t like to fly her very far that way either, on account of the air quality.”

I guess we’ll have to talk to someone else, Natasha thought. Ashla however, took a different approach, “Would your life support systems hold out as far as Haidoral Prime?”

“Sure…” He paused, giving them an intense look of far more consideration than he had seemed capable of until then. Glancing around for any eavesdroppers, he said in a hushed but sharp tone, “All right, cut the crap. You’re trying to free slaves, aren’t you?”

“I never said that.” Ashla somehow managed to appear simultaneously bemused and affronted at the suggestion.

“Yeah well, it’s kinda obvious now, isn’t it? First off, neither of you strike me as dumb enough to hire a ship with a Wookie copilot to sell slaves, second, there’s not a lot of other reason to cram forty people on a ship the size of the Falcon. And thirdly, that’s especially true if you only need to get them just past Hutt space, for which Haidoral Prime happens to be the closest non-Hutt system.”

            Shit. Now we have to either make a deal with this guy or kill him. To try and remedy their negotiating position, Ashla switched tactics, deciding to go for the recruitment pitch, “This is the rights of sentient beings we’re talking about. It is the duty of all those who can to help those in such an unfortunate position. As you said, surely your partner would agree that slavery is a terrible evil that must be fought wherever we can!”

Chewbacca gave a low rumble in agreement.

“Look sisters,” he ignored their bristling, “I ain’t too fond of slavery myself, but the Hutts have got the credits, and they’ve got the muscle. If you wanna make it as a smuggler you don’t piss them off, not unless it’s a die now or die later kinda situation.”

Natasha was getting tired of this douchebag, “We could arrange those stakes-”

“Now hold up!” he gave them a ferocious point, “I didn’t say I wouldn’t help, for the sake of my big furry pal over there if nothing else! So here’s the deal, anybody who makes it to my ship, with credits in hand so as I can say they’re paying customers for all I know, I’ll transport. But I leave at the first hint of a Hutt thug, and I ain’t gonna fly in to rescue you when things do go south. Oh, and this’ll be a one-time thing too, I’m sure as hell not getting involved in some kind of cause.” Solo leaned back into his bench, “and that’s the best deal you’ll get around here, I can tell you that much.”

“Thank you for being so reasonable,” Ashla sounded deeply relieved. Laying it on a bit thick there. “How many credits are we talking?”

“Weeeell, considering the risks of the operation, my expenses, the distance, ooh I’d say… 200 credits. Per person!”

Ashla raised her eyebrows, “That’s, very generous of you. Thank you.”

Natasha bit back an initial outraged objection. Technically yes, but if I had 8 grand, we wouldn’t need this guy’s help! So as not to betray her feelings on the price, she quickly moved the conversation along, “how soon can you be ready to go?”

“Anytime,” Solo paused for second thoughts, “though in this case, I’d rather get going sooner than later.”

“Great!” Ashla said, “We’ll start sending people over within the hour.”

“Send ’em to docking bay 94.” Solo said, shaking her hand. “I’d say it’s a pleasure doing business with you, but frankly I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

As they left, Natasha whispered to Ashla, “What was that? We could have hired someone else if you hadn’t let slip what we were doing.”

“In this place?” Ashla whispered back, “We weren’t going to find anyone else we could trust.”

“You call Solo trustworthy?”

“It’s not him that I trust.”

I get that Wookies have a reputation for being anti-slavery, but there have to be exceptions. “Even so, I’m going to have to send one of my people to watch them.”

“Very well.” Ashla calmly diffused her challenge.

Natasha sighed, “I presume you have the money, because I certainly don’t.”

“Don’t worry, I’m good for it.” Ashla whispered back. “I did say I offered the resources of the rebellion to get you out.”

Nar Shaddaa, Avengers Safehouse

………………………………………… Sugi Emari………………………………………………

“Ok girls, we’ve got three ships with just enough capacity, 102 people to transport to a rendezvous on Haidoral Prime with Ashla’s people, and an unknown but limited amount of time before Hutt retaliation descends on us.” Natasha was leaning with her hands planted on a desk in their glorified office of a command center, looking for all the galaxy like a general planning a campaign, “Because of that, we’ll need a rear-guard to cover the escape. Also, Solo is nervous and therefore unreliable, we’ll need someone to go with that ship. Anyone think of any further complications?”

S1D spoke up, “Ashla will need to retrieve her ship and the credits stored within before we can load our rescuees onto the Millenium Falcon.”

“From the sound of it, it would be best to get the Falcon underway first. Which means we either raise suspicion by parking a ship near here at the beginning of our operation, or risk carrying several thousand credits back and forth through the streets of Nar Shadaa,” Sugi pointed out.

“Ashla, is your ship parked at the same spaceport as the Falcon?” Natasha asked.

“Yes,” Ashla grinned, “which means we can have them stop by the Twilight II to retrieve credits with which to pay Solo, so long as we can provide them with enough credits here to bribe their way into the port in the first place.”

“Should be doable, it’s not like this is an Imperial world where there are actual rules against leaving. Just security that doesn’t get paid enough for their own liking.”

“We’ll want my gunship to extract the rearguard.” Sugi offered, It is after all, a gunship capable of hostile extraction. “That means we have room for four more people on the rearguard, since one of us will go with Solo and Ashla will be flying the Twilight.”

“Actually, someone else will have to fly my ship. You’ll want me on this rearguard,” apparently sensing doubt, Ashla added, “I have fought both Fett and other Mandalorians before, though he was twelve so I’m not sure it counts.”

Oh really? “Any tips?”

“Fett wasn’t even wearing his armor yet when I met him, but with other Mandalorians I tend to find going for the jetpack works best. Even if you don’t set it off a damaged box of fuel strapped to their back makes a wonderful distraction. Dengar I’ve never met, but he is by reputation is a brutal fighter, who likes using grenades and a heavy repeating blaster rifle in close quarters combat. Despite being by all appearances basically just some guy, he’s survived multiple presumed deaths.”

Well, alright then. Sugi gave a nod to indicate to Natasha that this was all essentially plausible. “Very well, which two of us then should go on the first two ships?”

“I believe that I should pilot the Twilight II,” S1D announced, “I am the least useful in the sort of fight that the rest of you may be about to undertake. Additionally, I am the sole person with the contact codes for the rest of the free droid network, they will need to be informed of these developments.”

“Jowdrryl, you should go with Solo and Chewbacca.” Ashla looked like she disagreed with Natasha on this, but didn’t say anything.

[Why?] Jowdrryl groaned in Shiriwook.

“You have the best odds fighting another Wookie in close quarters if they betray us.”

[You just killed a Trandosian,] Jowdrryl replied, still in Shiriwook of course, [a species that hunts us for sport.]

“Ok first, I nearly lost an arm. Would have, if I was back home. More importantly, I’m not leaving till every one of our people is on those ships,” Natasha declared in a tone that brooked no argument. The rest of them didn’t even try.

            Moving 40 people through the streets of Nar Shadaa went fairly smoothly, all things considered. Jowdrryl gave the all-clear signal after a quick conversation with Chewbacca, and phase one got underway with half an hour to spare. Part of the reason this building in particular had been chosen as their safehouse was that it had a connection to a disused portion of sewer, which itself had several outlets some distance away. They had regularly been using these to avoid drawing attention to the specific building in which they hid; from these exits the escaping former slaves took multiple branching routes so that no two groups took exactly the same path to the spaceport.

            With Jowdrryl keeping watch at the Falcon, Ashla at her ship, S1D organizing everything, and Natasha giving several volunteers a crash course on defensive shooting, it was left to Sugi and Darla to keep the people safe as they made their trek. In three hours in she had already saved two groups from would be attackers that fortunately turned out to be simple muggers and pickpockets, and was now on a rooftop watching the next group of escapees leave an alley where they had crawled out of a manhole cover. A humanoid in a long concealing cloak immediately began to follow them.

            Sugi ran across the rooftops, arriving above them just in time to see the being pull a blaster on the group! Quicker than most beings could blink, she aimed and fired her own blaster, dropping the attacker dead in an instant! The shocked faces of three Twi’leks and a Rodian looked up at her.

            “Keep going!” she called down, and they all ran off down the street, slowing down towards the corner when they remembered to act casual. Sugi clambered down the side of the building to get a better look at their attacker. He was a Pantoran in his twenties, wearing clothes that looked a bit too good for an ordinary criminal. Something inside his cloak was beeping. Cautiously, Sugi turned over the inner pocket to find a fist sized device with an antenna and a blinking red light.

            Uh oh, looks like one of those new-fangled tracking fobs. Damn, I am getting old. A few years ago, some bright bastard realized that since the Empire in all their wisdom included genetic markers in their citizens chain codes one could tune a life form scanner to the genetic frequency of a target individual without having to have previously had access to that individual’s genetic material; just based on easily hacked (and for legal bounties freely given) Imperial records. Some of the older hunters, especially the Trandosians, hated the things, saying they took all the skill out of the hunt. The newer or more pragmatic hunters understood that their jobs were getting a lot easier. One of the Hutts must have had their slaves entered into the records for just such an occasion. This’ll be one of the scouts for the army the Hutts are supposed to be assembling.

“They are on to us,” Sugi said into her commlink, “I just killed a hunter who was tracking the escapees.”

“I will arm the last 10 with spare blasters and send them as a unit immediately,” S1D replied, “Secrecy no longer outweighs punctuality.”

“Understood.”

            There being now only one group to look after, Sugi shadowed them closely until she could see Darla ready to take them the rest of the way. There followed an increasingly tense twenty minutes in which she was forced to kill a further two hunters who were nosing around too close to the hideout, until finally Jowdrryl signaled that the Falcon was underway. By that point the hunters were coming in groups, like hive insects slowly honing in on the scent of sugar, and avoiding confrontation became the best move for preserving what little stealth remained. Alright, we will have to load Ashla’s ship fast, since they will be on us almost immediately, but this should be doable.

            She tried not to think about just who they would be up against if they took too long. Sugi considered herself a comfortably high besh tier hunter. Even at her worst moments she hadn’t really wanted to rise higher, as it was, she got plenty of respect and credits, while the aurek list tended to get random idiots challenging them to a duel for reputation every other week. Also, she knew damn well that she didn’t quite have what it took to make it at the very top for long. Even Bossk had been merely one of the best bounty hunters alive, and Natasha had had enough trouble with him in a straight fight. Dengar was on a similar level, but Fett was a legend who would be told of for the next thousand years. Black widow might be worth one of them, and Sugi could handle an army of novice hunters, but the rest of their team might not be enough to win, unless Ashla was really as impressive as she claimed to be.

            Sugi and S1D were waiting for Ashla when she landed behind the safehouse. I wonder if a second look would tell me where I recognized her from. Ashla, however, had other plans; she had painted her lekku and facial markings orange like the rest of her skin and covered her montrals in cloth and gold bands; she looked at first glance like a Twi’lek in a headdress rather than a Togruta, a least until one realized she had an odd number of lekku. So, she has makeup, and knows how to use it. She could therefore be just about any Togruta that I have ever met. This could very well be a trap. Ashla noticed Sugi’s suspicious look and commented, “As far as the Empire knows, I’m dead; it would be best if I’m not recognized.”

            Sugi’s suspicions were not eased by this, so she studied the Togruta more closely. She was wearing armor consisting of vambraces, greaves, a small chest plate, and a skirt of plates, all painted tan. She had no blasters or any other immediately obvious weapon, despite being about to head into a fight. She did have two slightly curved handle-like objects with a rounded rectangular cross section hanging off her belt. I don’t remember any major Togruta bounty hunters, nor that equipment. Who else could have fought Fett and lived to tell about it, unless…

            They didn’t look like lightsabers, being flat sided and curved. However, that Death Watch Mando had had one with a square hilt, and Ventress, the former Separatist assassin who Sugi had met once or twice after she went freelance possessed a curved pair. Have I met a Togruta Jedi? Oh yes. One of her earliest jobs, fighting pirates with an ill-fated team of mercenaries, a dead girlfriend, and three Jedi; one of whom was a young Togruta. What was her name? Not Ashla, though I think it sounded similar…

            At that moment, their makeshift alarm (an old industrial cookpot strung up and used like a gong) rang out from the building. Sugi’s comm crackled to life, “Bogy Alpha and Bogy Bravo are at the front door!”

“S1D, load everyone up as fast as you can!” Ashla shouted as she ran inside, “The guns are hot, R7 will help you hold off anyone who comes round this way!”

            The sounds of battle were already ringing out from the front as S1D strode up the ramp with a confident stride unknown in unmodified protocol droids. Sugi followed Ashla toward the front, pausing only to retrieve the late Bossk’s grenade launcher from the armory. She hoped the Togruta really was a Jedi. Then again, Fett is a famous Jedi killer.

Nar Shadaa, Avengers Safehouse, 3 Hours Earlier

……………………………………… Natasha Romanoff…………………………………………

            There were many more volunteers for the rear-guard than she had been expecting, dozens more than they had gotten when asking if anyone wanted to be part of their team. I suppose to most people there’s a big difference between that and one fight to help save their friends. After some argument, she convinced them that since there weren’t enough blasters for everyone, and it was quite unreasonable to go into this fight with a melee weapon, only the best twenty of them would be allowed.

“We don’t have time to teach you more than the basics of firearms use, so if I don’t think you’re getting it then you are going on that ship first. Of those that I do select, most of you will be getting on Ashla’s ship in order of how bad you are at shooting.” Natasha said in her best drill sergeant voice, then pointed at the wall of the large room which was their makeshift shooting range, “Now, twenty of you pick up a blaster, stand about a pace apart, and aim it at one of the panels on that wall. Don’t fire yet! I’ll check your stance.”

After a few minutes of shooting, Natasha had made her first selections and called a halt. “Ok, you three are out, you keep flinching at your own shots and I just don’t have time to correct that. You two, Terance and Qeezl right? You’ve both clearly shot a blaster before, where’d you learn?”

Qeezl spoke up first, “Well uh, mah fam’ly was aways poor, even befoor Da’s gamblin put us in debt to the Hutts, and we hunted ours food somtime back on Kintan.”

Terance hesitated to say anything until Natasha gave him a pointed stare, “Err, well, you see… I wanted to be a bounty hunter. Thought I could go flying around the galaxy on a life of adventure if I just got good enough with a blaster. Only, my first job I, well, I couldn’t go through with it. There was this mom… anyway the gangster that hired me got real angry about it, and here I am.”

“You’ll do. I want both of you on the final rear-guard. Go guard the entrance, since neither of you apparently needed more than a refresher.” The two headed off, and Natasha turned to the others, “Alright, I need three more volunteers to pick up those blasters, the rest of you keep practicing.”

            After a couple hours of this, she had fifteen fighters who she was reasonably sure would both not be useless in a firefight and knew in which order they were supposed to run away. (The other five she had elected to make part of the last group heading for the Falcon in case they got into trouble). Judging them all sufficiently practiced to kneel behind a barricade and fire at center mass of anyone who came through the door, the next step was to build said barricade.

“No, no, bring that table over here,” Natasha gestured to one side of the room, “the receptionist station may be in a bit of an inconvenient spot, but its heavily built and looks like it could sustain a prolonged barrage, in this place that’s probably intentional, so we’ll incorporate it into the barricade.”

            That was when someone blew the front door in with a rocket launcher. “Gavno!” Language- shut up Steve. Black Widow leaped over the counter and turned around in an instant to return fire with her pistols, mercenaries were pouring in through the door and being slaughtered nearly as fast as they came. The front of the lobby had had all furniture removed to turn it into an open killing field, but with their barricade still in two pieces and more mercs laying down suppressive fire through the window, it was only a matter of time before some of them managed to outflank the defenders. 

            Ashla leaped to the center of the room, and before Natasha could even process how stupid of a move that was whipped out a pair of bright white laser swords and began deflecting every shot that came her way back to its sender; neatly plugging the hole in their defensive line and bringing down almost as many mercenaries as the rest of the defenders combined! Wonder if that would work on conventional bullets? Black Widow took the opportunity to shoot at the fallen rocket launcher before another merc could pick it up, causing it to explode and kill about a dozen attackers at the cost of blowing a wider hole through the front wall. Several Mercenaries tried to take Ashla down with net-launchers, but those were cut to ribbons. It seemed the attackers might break, until an armored man strode through the breach, heedless of the blaster bolts bouncing off his green plates.

            That’ll be Fett. Black Widow took careful aim at the gap in his plates under the arm, but he must have noticed that her movements were more professional and dangerous than the other defenders, for he rapidly spun towards her and Widow was forced to dive for cover. A grenade bounced into her hiding spot, but she was fast enough to bat it away before it killed her! Fett’s laser bolts continued to pelt the wall just above the receptionist station, keeping her pinned down until another explosion sounded from the other side!

            Cautiously, she raised her head above the cover and saw Fett on the ground near the former door with an armored man in a white turban leaning over him. Sugi had appeared with Bossk’s grenade launcher and was now using it to thin out the crowd of mercenaries that had swarmed in wile Fett had them distracted. Black Widow too was forced to focus on the more numerous threats before they could overrun her, alone as she was behind the receptionist station.

            Astonishingly, Fett was not dead. I want that armor. He and turban man, probably Dengar, advanced against Ashla, who most of the other mercs were just avoiding at this point. At first both merely sprayed automatic blaster fire at her, relying on their armor to protect them from the bolts she was somehow managing to bounce directly back at them. Then Fett got within ten feet of her an unleashed a jet of flame from one of his vambraces! Ashla held out a hand and stopped it, but now she was deflecting Dengar’s shots one handed.

            Uh oh, she’s not going to last long like that. Wish she’d told us she was enhanced before this started, could have positioned her more strategically. Before these thoughts had fully consciously passed through her mind, Black Widow took a flying leap over the countertop and halfway across the room, concluding with a kick to Dengar’s head! The man barely even flinched. He merely turned, grinned, and threw a punch that would have broken her jaw if she hadn’t dodged! Then he tried hip-firing his blaster, tracking her movements across the room as she ran in a circle around him, incidentally catching several of his allies in the stray fire.

            Seeing that he was doing more damage to his own side than to her, Dengar flipped the rifle around and attempted to batter her with it. Black Widow managed to snag the butt of the rifle with her garote wire, yanking it from his hand! Now they were truly hand to hand, trading punches kicks and parries with rapid speed! Simple style, favors brutal power over complex technique. But not an untrained brawler, no move leaves him off balance and exploitable.

 “So gorgeous, what brings you to these parts?” Dengar asked in a surprisingly smooth British sounding accent. Flirtation to unbalance. Respond in kind? No, ignore. She guessed right, lack of response seemed to annoy the man. Now he’s unbalanced I’ll- is that a knife made of fire?! Black Widow narrowly dodged a nasty burn from what appeared to be a knife hilt emitting a short jet of flame like an overcharged blowtorch!

 Two can play at that game. Widow whipped out a knife of her own. Nothing fancy, just a sharp bit of metal and really only to hold his attention for a few blows until, ha, got him to grab my wrist. She activated the Widow’s Bite at full power, sending Dengar crashing to the floor stiff and twitching! Another merc was on her in moments, so she threw her knife in Daengar’s direction wile dodging away. The blade struck but weirdly seemed to ricochet off of him without more that a flesh wound. Cursing her sudden bout of apparent poor aim, she fought and dodged and jumped through the hoard, slowly working her way back around to the more dangerous opponent. Have to get back there and finish him off.

………………………………………… Boba Fett ………………………………………………

            This whole operation was a kark-up from start to finish. First off, in the time it took them to begin, the target had somehow gotten word of the whole thing. As soon as he reached the building supposedly stuffed with runaways, Boba’s thermal scope had immediately shown that there weren’t more than fifty people in there, and about half of those that were there were armed to the teeth and waiting in ambush. It wasn’t even that it had taken them that long to find the runaways’ hideout, with literally hundreds of hunters searching Nar Shada it had been mere hours before one of them found it. Rather, the Hutts had insisted on using only hunters who hadn’t been in system for at least a month, and waiting days for more and more to arrive.

            Second, the Hutts wanted the targets alive, so they could be made an example of. All fine and natural for one or two or even a handful of targets, if you were sending an expert like himself. But for ‘potentially over a hundred’ (because of course they didn’t even know how many), most of which, including the most dangerous ones, weren’t even decently well identified? The swarm of greenhorns who had shown up to the hunt certainly thought themselves up to the task, many of them coming armed with an assortment of shocknet-launchers, fibercords, electrowhips, and other such non-lethals. Again, fine enough for capturing a handful of targets, but for as many as they were expecting intimidating amounts of actual lethal firepower would be more effective.

            Lastly, the Hutts had somehow expected all those green hunters to let him and Dengar lead them into battle. Needless to say, corralling nearly a thousand wanabe desperados who probably only got into this lifestyle to rebel against their rich mommies was an insurmountable task even for the two of them. It had been all he could do to get a few of them to charge in from the back (where it now sounded as if they were being slaughtered by starship grade laser cannons) rather than the front, and none of them were gonna sit around maintaining a siege while someone else got the glory. Would almost have been easier without these dikute. Basically, it all came down to the Hutts falling for the Imperial fad rather than being efficient. 

            Now, green hunters came in three varieties: under-armed, overspecialized, and overkill. So in addition to all the people with net launchers and the hoard of guys with blaster pistols, there was one who brought a repeating rocket launcher to this capture opp. Granted, blowing in the front door was a great opening move, but the guy had managed to get himself and at least a dozen others blown up not five seconds later. Gotta do everything myself. He walked through the smoking hole were the door had been, shots pinging off his beskar, calmly picking off two escaped slaves who had unwisely suck their heads over an upturned table… and saw the kriffing Jetti. Of course they have a Jetti, who else would be leading a slave revolt on Nar Shadaa itself?

            The first rule of killing Jetti is to be more prepared for a fight than the Jetti. Ideally you would get the drop on them entirely, and you certainly didn’t want to go into a fight not knowing one would be on the field. His extensive kit would help with that (any Jetti who’d survived the empire this long wasn’t going to go down to a rock) but unfortunately, he couldn’t bring his full arsenal to bear on her immediately. Fett’s 360-scope picked up someone taking aim at him from the side of the room. Oh no you don’t. Fett unleashed a barrage in the direction of what appeared to be an armored receptionist desk. Not getting through that with an EE-3. So… Boba tossed a grenade over the desk, but it exploded several meters left of where it should have! Kriff she’s fast. He advanced on the desk, keeping up a hail of blaster bolts while readying his flamethrower.

            Then a micro-grenade hit him in the chest, the concussive blast knocking the wind out of him even through the beskar. Yep, they killed Bossk all right, that’s his baby. Wait, is that Sugi holding it? What’s she doing aiding a slave revolt, I thought she had more sense than that? Impressive that she managed to kill Bossk though. As if to add insult to injury, the battered bastard himself stood over him and offered a hand up, “careful there kid, might scratch yer paint.”

            Boba had mixed feelings about Dengar. On the one hand, he was one of the few other hunters he considered truly competent, and worthy of having his back in a fight. On the other hand, the man insisted on continuing to act like some sort of cool uncle, as if Boba hadn’t grown at all since the days of Krayts Claw. Fett whacked aside the proffered hand as he stood and growled out, “Not a kid anymore Dengar.”

“Sure kid, sure.” He had the audacity to grin, “you wanna take the Jedi alone, or should I help?”

“You take her left, just keep the pressure on.”

            They advanced, relying on their sheer rate of fire and close proximity to prevent the Jetti from making particularly well aimed deflections that might hit gaps in their armor. As soon as he was close enough, Fett switched to the Mandalorian’s classic answer to blaster bolt deflection, the flamethrower. Parry this you filthy wizard! But through some force osik, she did! No matter, she can’t possibly do this and deflect Dengars rapid blasting… but Dengar abruptly became otherwise occupied as the redhead from behind the counter kicked him in the face! Oh kriff.

            Now he was stuck in a hand-to-hand fight against a Jetti. Not an impossible situation for him, but it took all he had to parry her blades with beskar vambraces, keeping her off balance with jets of fire and knee rockets; meanwhile trying to keep her blades away from his helmet with its poorer beskar alloy (courtesy of an ill-conceived childhood revenge scheme). This Jetti had clearly fought Mandalorians before, she seemed to know all the standard tricks and kept trying to get a slash on his jetpack!

            Alright, I’ll try one of Dengar’s moves. Boba pulled a thermal detonator from his belt and primed it, but instead of throwing just held the device for several seconds while parrying more lightsaber strikes. When the detonator was about to go off, he threw, and even the Jetti was forced to disengage and leap back to avoid the blast. Huh, I think she’s actually a Togruta. That info might be worth something if anyone asks, Fett mused to himself as he picked up Dengar’s fallen heavy blaster rifle, probably the only thing with a high enough rate of fire to hold back a Jetti on its own. By then quite a pile of idiot’s corpses had built up in the center of the lobby, and he used it for cover wile laying down bursts of suppressive fire to keep the Jetti back. Now with a moment to breath, he noticed Dengar’s fight had not gone so well.

            The battered bastard was out cold, and dripping blood and viscous cybernetic fluid everywhere. The redhead had moved on to laying waste to more kriffing greenhorns, but Fett could see from the pattern of her attacks that she would soon be back to finish him off. Oh no you dikute, you are not dying from something this stupid! Boba threw a whipcord around the kriffer’s legs to yank him out of harm’s way. If he maybe purposefully yanked him a little too hard and sent Dengar flying headfirst through a window, well, one more concussion won’t hurt him…

            Hold on, where did Sugi go? In answer to his unspoken question, a gunship crashed through the side of the building, scattering a cloud of pulverized duracreet and cheap insulation everywhere! The ships guns opened up, a thunderous spray of cannon fire in this enclosed space, rapidly blowing apart nameless mercenaries! In seconds any hunter not closely engaged with one of the defenders was nothing but red mist, and the blaster cannons were pouring fire through the doorway to prevent any more from getting in.

            Kriff this osik! Fett jetted out of the way of a flying lightsaber, laying down a spray of wrist-rockets to cover his escape as he crashed out through the rickety ceiling. ‘Take them alive’, Ha! Hutts ought to know that nobody who’s been a slave will ever be taken alive again. I should have just made to wipe them all out in the first place! Dammed Hutts would still have paid, what else are they gonna do, stiff Boba Fett? In fact… he dropped a couple incendiary grenades down through the hole he had made. If a couple of greenhorns die in there, well, it’ll cover for the lack of slave bodies. That’s what green hunters are for after all…

Amura District Spaceport, One Hour Earlier

……………………………………………Han Solo………………………………………………

            I should not have taken this job, Han thought to himself after the third time Chewy scared him half to death by asking if he needed help. It’s makin me jumpy. Next time I’m liable to leap up an hit my head on the strut, then where would we be?

            It had started off well enough with a female Wookie arriving not too long after his conversation with the ladies in the cantina. She and Chewy exchanged some truly rapid-fire Shiriwook that had strained even his ability to comprehend the language. Never realized how much Chewy was slowing down for me. Have to tell him he doesn’t need to; no other way I’ll get better at it. Chewbacca had basically confirmed that he wasn’t Han’s slave, and re-assured her that they weren’t going to sell them out.

            What followed was a parade of increasingly suspicious characters (to Han’s fevered imagination anyway) all of whom upon arrival did either the worst impression of playing it cool he had ever seen or tearfully thanked him while pressing credits into his hands as if trying to make them worth more. This in particular gave him a peculiar queasy feeling. Han tried to calm his nerves and pass the time with some exterior maintenance on the Falcon, but ended up just nervously smearing grease around of a landing strut repeatedly while staring at the landing bay door, thus Chewbacca’s concern.

            Another group was coming in now, very obviously trying not to rush wile wishing to break into an all-out sprint. Nine hells, it’s a wonder they haven’t already been caught. When they tried to do the usual panicky shtick, he waved them off, “Ok, ok, just get on board. I’ll take the credits later!”

Somewhere among their murmuring Han thought he heard the words ‘bounty hunter’. “What?! What did you say!”

“I I just said ‘I thought that bounty hunter was the end of us’, but its fine the Avengers killed him… uh thank you for helping us sir.”

“Jowdrryl!” Han shouted, “where’d you go?”

            Before he could find her a crowd of about ten people came in to the landing bay and made a beeline for the Falcon. I thought they were spacing them out. Something has definitely gone wrong, Kriff. Hot on their heels was a Nikto guard, “Hey! You don’t take off! I’m ‘a have to detain you for suzpiciouss activity!”

“Suspicions activity?” Han said, faking incredulity, “Pal, on Nar Shadaa that’s called Taungsday.”

“Not if it’ss againzt the Huttss!”

Got to convince him I’m not, at least knowingly, ferrying anybody who’s not supposed to leave. “Since when is it ‘against the Hutts to make people pay unreasonable prices for passage on a light freighter with barely enough room for them to stand? It’s not like this is the Empire, where they still have old Republic laws about basic transportation safety on the books!”

The Nikto didn’t look quite convinced, but fortunately Jowdrryl chose that moment to return and said in Shiriwook, “Tell him your slaves say the passengers are all accounted for and the ship is ready to fly.”

My slaves? What… oh, “My slave says the passengers are all loaded and the Falcon is ready to fly. Now are you gonna let me scam some poor suckers or what?”

Now convinced that he was a slaver himself and unlikely to be smuggling anybody to freedom, but apparently unwilling to just leave him alone, the Nikto asked, “Well, how unreazonable a price are we talking?”

Taking the hint, Han dug a fist-full of credit chips, worth a couple hundred, out of his pocket, “enough that I don’t mind misplacing this.”

The Nikto wasn’t quite done, “you seem to have got quite a few customers on board there.”

            Sighing, Han pulled another fistful of credit chips out of his pocket and handed them over. There goes my profit margin for this job. The Nikto wandered off, finally satisfied. “Alright Chewy, let’s get outa here!”

            They took off without further issue, but Han didn’t truly relax until they got to hyperspace. His relief didn’t last ten minutes however, before some overly exuberant former slave who had managed to snag a seat in the cockpit leaned over his shoulder to point to something on the consol, “what’s that flashing?”

That would be the check hyperdrive light. Not bothering to give the kid a response, he began shoving his way toward the back of the ship, “Chewy keep her steady! ‘Scuse me, lookout, coming through… Will you just move a little? I am not cleaning that up!”

            After coaxing aside an escapee who thought he had discovered a place to sleep were nobody would want to bother him, Han pulled up the grate covering the lower engine compartment and took a look. Ok, the coolant tubes are getting too hot. Going to have to flush them. “Chewy! Switch to the backup hyperdrive, I have to shut down the main for a while!” There was a slight whine and a shudder as Chewbacca made the switch, but the Falcon remained in hyperspace and moving toward their destination, albeit slowly. While the coolant recycled, Han ran a diagnostic on the main hyperdrive. What the hells? It says its fine!

            A visual inspection revealed nothing either, not even when he had Chewbacca turn it back on. What could possibly have overheated the coolant so fast without- hang on, what’s that whistling? Squeezing himself further into the pipework Han finally spotted the problem. One of the life-support filters was glowing red! It also happened to be positioned right on top of a coolant line. Must have gotten overworked. Okay that lever should re-direct flow to the other filters, then if I loosen the gasket on that coolant line it will spray the filter and cool it off. Grunting with the effort of reaching a hydro-spanner deep into the works, Han managed just that. Once the filter was cool enough, he pulled it out to find- oh that is disgusting!

            By the time they arrived at Haidoral Prime, last of the three ships by at least an hour, Han was quite tired of cleaning burnt Wookie hair out of air filters and was ready for this whole mess to be over, profit or no. “Fastest ship in the galaxy huh?” the redhead greeted him with a grin as he came down the ramp.

“Yeah, yeah, very funny.”

Any response from her was drowned out by Chewbacca roaring, “Ahsoka?”

Han looked, and he seemed to be indicating the Togruta chick from earlier. Has she changed her markings? “Yes Chewy, it’s me. How have you been?”

Chewbacca excitedly began to recount his life story since some point in the Clone Wars, but Han had to interject, “How come you didn’t tell us you knew each other? Could have offered you a discount.”

“I thought it best to remain in disguise,” Ahsoka replied, “being a Jedi and all.”

“Jedi?” he turned to Chewbacca, “you never told me you knew any Jedi!”

A Zabrak woman had been watching this conversation with puzzlement, “So you are one of the younglings from that Trandossian game reserve? I could have sworn you were the one from that village on Florrum.”

“Oh, that was me as well.” Ahsoka smiled, “Thank you for providing an impromptu test of my disguise skills.”

“This is ridiculous,” Han shouted, “Anybody else around here secretly know each other?!”

The red protocol droid spoke up, “I once served in the spice mines of Kessel, until being freed in a revolt that I believe the you and Chewbacca helped start.”

“Of course you did!” Han threw up his hands.    

Notes:

There we have it, the first major chunk of narritive without either Peter or Ezra to fall back on as easy POV carracters. I origionaly wasnt going to do this, instead just having Natasha show up at Ahsoka's side wth minnimal post hoc explanation since I don't find her an easy caracter to get in the head of; but then I thought of the line 'We are the Avengers of Nar Shaddaa' and that scen of Boba being frustrated with everyone elses incompitence and I was forced to write thise chapters.

Chapter 10: Something Unexpected

Telaris Cometary Cloud, aboard the Telaris Rebel Stardocks, 15 AFE (December 2015 AD)

……………………………………… Natasha Romanoff…………………………………………

“Not that I’m complaining about the chance to wash up properly,” Natasha said as she dried her hair, “but I thought water showers on space stations were wasteful?”

She was now living on a hidden space station were the Rebellion was refitting (apparently painfully slowly) a series of long bulbus spaceships for the coming war. Ahsoka, already waiting in Natasha’s room to give her the full tour and briefing replied, “You try taking a sonic with two giant echo chambers on either side of your head.”

The Nar Shadda branch of the Avengers (totally official branch, Natasha had gone ahead and done the paperwork. Right after inventing said paperwork.) largely split up after the rescue. The remaining emergency hires had joined the other rescuees in leaving to live their lives, Natasha had gone with Ahsoka in hopes of finding the missing Avengers, Kyylia and Marla and most of their last minuet volunteers were dead. Sugi, in spite of Natasha’s best effort to get her to stay went to warn her niece of the trouble they had stirred up, though she had left Natasha with a dead drop to contact her if needed. Only S1D6-SA-5 and Jowdrryl had returned to Hutt space to link up with S1D’s droid network and continue with her previous more covert strategy for freeing slaves, now with a Wookie as backup muscle.

“All right, where do we start?”

15 AFE (January 2015 AD)

Ahsoka had voiced no disagreement to her plan during the meeting, but Natasha could that as soon as the need of a united front was over, she was in for a talk. Sure enough, when the Balmora Liberation Front left, Ahsoka turned and said, “You directed their excess aggression against the Hutts.”

The question was obvious in her voice. “They couldn’t be allowed to reveal the Rebellion’s strength by openly warring with the Empire at this critical juncture, and the Hutts are just as deserving of their wrath.”

“The Rebellion is dependent on the black market for resources,” Ahsoka objected.

Hmm, she doesn’t actually disagree with my actions, she just wants to make sure I understand the implications and aren’t just trying to help my other allies, “The Hutts benefit massively from being the Empire’s favored faction to control the criminal underworld, we were never going to be able to buy substantial amounts from them anyway. Furthermore, the Empire presents itself as a bastion of law and order. By attacking the Hutts and freeing slaves, we can eventually show that the Rebellion is doing more for the galaxy in that regard than the Empire ever did.”

Ahsoka nodded, “good.”

15 AFE (February 2015 AD)

“Are you sure about this?” Black Widow had once been well trained not to see any problem with a person being on the other end of a firing range, but over a decade of re-acquiring basic logic was now trying to tell her that this was a terrible idea.

“Positive!” Ahsoka said with a cocky grin and a salute with one lightsaber, “I do this all the time.”

“Oh-kay.” Carefully aiming about a foot to the left of her friend, Natasha squeezed off a single shot from her Glock.

            Literally faster than a speeding bullet Ahsoka sliced at the shot with her lightsaber. It did not deflect, but quick as a flash she extended her hand and seemingly caught the projectile in midair. Natasha rushed forward to see what had happened, and found Ahsoka examining a spray of formerly molten metal drops surrounding the red hot but still mostly solid core of the bullet, all hovering a meter in the air.

“About what I expected,” Ahsoka said, rotating her hand around the splattered projectile, “that might have taken down most Jedi, especially before the war, and the Empire. Not that they couldn’t do this, just most wouldn’t have thought to in the heat of battle.”

“What about now?”

“Well, most inquisitors seem to have been among the less…” she paused, searching for a polite word, “naturally skilled Jedi. People more likely to succumb to jealousy and do anything for a feeling of power. So your slugthrowers might get past their defenses.”

“Great. So why couldn’t I have just shot at an activated lightsaber with you safely on the other side of the room?”

Ahsoka grinned again, “Where’s the fun in that?” she made a releasing motion with her hand, and the cloud of shrapnel slammed into the bulkhead behind them, its kinetic energy abruptly restored and then removed again (this time in a more conventional way).

15 AFE (Early March 2016 AD)

One day at breakfast, Ahsoka asked, “Hey, you think you could manage to get in contact with Senator Gal Travis for me?”

“Sounds easy,” Natasha finished a bite of food, “What’s the catch?”

“The catch is that he’s basically impossible to find, despite making regular broadcasts speaking out about the Empire,” Ahsoka fished out a datapad containing the details of the case, “He hides messages as to his next location in his broadcasts so local rebels can meet him, but while the planet is often clearly stated or easy enough to figure out, the exact location is described in references that only locals would understand.”

Natasha immediately saw the problem, “And every planet probably has a million of those.”

“Exactly. Easy enough for an off-worlder to find one to reference to make, but to know the right ones for every world…”

“Practically impossible.” Natasha thought for a moment, “if he’s traveling around hacking holo-net broadcasts, he has to have equipment and a ship, which means he must be getting resources from somewhere. I’ll see if I can track down a logistics trail.”

“Thanks.”

Lothal, The Ghost (Great Plains of Lothal), 15 AFE (March 2016 AD)

………………………………………………Peter Parker………………………………………………

“Earth-computer to space-computer test… 17. Chopper are you ready?”

“Wep Yop!”

“Sabine?”

She gave a thumbs up, “Yep!”

“Alright, here goes nothing.”

            They were close, Peter could feel it. Their last attempt had produced code that almost, almost looked right. Though before then the project had been set back several times. Peter’s first attempt to make a data cable connect his suit to the local scomp links had been derailed when he realized that he first needed to find a way to even charge the suit. That alone had taken weeks and left him without power for an annoying few days.

            Sabine had joined for the sake of the challenge when she heard what he was doing, and stuck around out of shear stubbornness. They managed to get the cable itself working on about the fifth try, with some adjustments after that. Then of course translating between two completely alien coding systems turned out to be vastly more difficult than your typical sci-fi movie made it seem. Independence day this is not. But, they had a breakthrough when they realized that Chopper as an advanced AI might be able to give the translation algorism some real-time adaptability.

If I could even just get my comm to decode local signals this would be worth it! Peter eagerly watched the readout on the hollotable as Chopper whirred away. Text began scrolling through the air in two columns, Aurebesh code on one side and on the other “I… I think its reading. Its reading!” Peter and Sabine exchanged a high-five!

“Whop Bomp Womp Womp Womp!” Chopper swung his arms in the air and did a celebratory spin.

“Lets see what we got here.”

“This is a huge file, way bigger that basic HUD should need.”

“There’s a whole lot of extra subsystems, most disabled under something called the… ‘Training Wheels Protocol’,” Sabine said with a sideways grin.

Sigh, “Why Mr. Stark, why?” Peter hung his head in shame.

“I HAVE HAD A VISION!” Ezra burst into the room, sliding to a seat on the couch and immediately attempting to get at the holotable controls. “Move over! Senator Travis is coming to Lothal and we can’t miss his next transmission!”

“Hey hold on a moment!” Peter quickly set the ‘Training Wheels Protocol’ to off but couldn’t do anything else before Ezra changed the channel, “I was gonna try and reprogram the comm.”

“No time!”

 “What’s he on about?” Sabine asked Kanan as he and Zeb came in.

“I don’t know, we were just practicing blaster deflection when he went into a trance. Deflected every single shot into the target.” Kanan said with a bit of pride, “Then he woke up babbling about a vision.”

Ezra, meanwhile, had tuned in to the Imperial news holonet frequency, where Minister Tua was giving a speech, “The insurgents terrorizing our world will soon be brought to justice! I have assurances from-”

“Citizens, Senator-in-Exile Gall Trayvis here-” The broadcast was interrupted.

“Yes!” Ezra crowed, “We’re right on time!”

“-to you with a reminder that the Empire applies the term ‘insurgent’ to anyone who dares defy their tyranny, such as some very courageous souls on Lothal.”

“He's talking about us!” Ezra said, squeeing like a fangirl, “He said Lothal!”

“I know. I know.” Hera made a shushing motion.

“To those rebels, I have a message. The sun may have set on the Old Republic, but a new freedom will dawn tomorrow if we are brave enough to fight for it today. See you soon, my friends.”

“In other news, Lothal's mines are-” Hera turned off the holotable. “You were right Ezra, he’s coming here to meet us.”

“Uh, I get that he mentioned us…” Peter began.

“But how could you possibly know that?” Zeb finished.  

“My contact, Fulcrum, says the senator hides coded messages in his transmissions.” Hera seemed almost as pleased about this development as Ezra, “When Trayvis mentions a world, it's always the next one he visits.”

Natasha would have this guy’s head, “even to me that sounds like terrible spy craft.”

“Yeah, how come the Empire hasn't caught him?” Kanan asked.

“Trayvis is too smart.” Ezra replied with utter confidence in his hero, “You know, he pirates the Empire's own signal, just like my folks used to.”

“And the clues he puts in his messages where to meet him are obvious to the locals, but go right over the Empire's head,” Hera said, “any ideas Ezra?”

“Hmm, play back the second to last sentence.”

Hera pressed some buttons, and the once again holotable crackled to life with an image of Gall Trayvis saying, “The sun may have set on the Old Republic, but a new freedom will dawn tomorrow...”

“That’s it!” Ezra exclaimed, “The New Freedom mural! Everybody on Lothal knows it, and it's painted on the wall inside the Old Republic Senate Building!”

Sabine pulled up a 3d diagram of a building shaped like a stretched-out Hershey’s kiss, “been abandoned since the Empire built the Imperial complex. Good place for a friendly get-together.”

“Did you just have that schematic ready in case it ever came up in conversation?” Peter asked.

“I was thinking of adding a mural of my own,” Sabine zoomed in on the building and switched to a layer showing maintenance tunnels and other utilities, “we should do some scouting before we meet him there tonight.”

“Okay, now how do you know that it’s tonight?” Zeb sounded annoyed to be behind the conversation.

“Uh, he worked ‘sunset today’ and ‘dawn tomorrow’ into his message. He’ll be here through the night,” Ezra answered in a flippant tone, “pretty obvious.”

“Yeah, too obvious.” Kanan chimed in, “Sabine’s right. We should have some insurance, in case the Empire is more clever than we think.”

He turned to Ezra, “You've still got a friend inside the Imperial complex, right? So find out for sure.”

Ezra understood immediately. He picked up his painted cadet helmet and made to leave, “I'll meet you at my parents' house at 1700.”

Ooh spy stuff! I wanna meet this informant, “can I come?”

“Sure!”

“Ezra.” Kanan stopped him at the door, “About your vision. Don't be too quick-”

“-To take it literally?” Ezra answered quickly, “Kanan, I know it's right. You're always telling me to trust my feelings. Well, I've never felt stronger about anything in my life!”

As their speeder raced off into the growing night, Peter found himself squinting against the wind and so decided to try pulling his spiderman mask on. Instantly the world lit up with lights, flashing before his eyes too fast to make out. A smooth female voice spoke directly into his ears, “Good evening Peter, and congratulations on completing your extensive training wheels protocol.”

“Ah!” Peter nearly jumped out of his skin!

“What is it?” Ezra tried to turn and look at him.

“Nothing!” Peter shouted back over the wind, “Focus on the road!”

Ezra yelped as he skidded around a large rock, and mysterious voice spoke up again, “I am sorry Peter, but I seem to be experiencing a malfunction. I cannot connect to any Stark satellites. Or any other satellites.”

Oh thank god it’s just the suit. “Uh, see, about that. We’re not on Earth.”

“… Reviewing footage.”

“Footage?” What footage, I didn’t bring my camera. I miss my camera.

“Yes Peter. I record everything you see.”

“Everything?” Crap crap crap, where have I worn this suit? Think Peter… can it detect UV? It probably can. “Like all the time?”

“It’s called the Baby Monitor Protocol.”

Sigh, “Of course it is.”

“Review complete. You are right Peter; we are not on Earth.” Wow, how could you tell? “Would you like me to calculate where in the universe we are?”

“You can do that?”

“Affirmative.”

“Yeah, sure. Go ahead.” I hope we’re still in our universe.

“Simply look up at the stars.” He did so, doing his best to keep his head steady as they continued racing towards Capital City. After a long few moments, he was about to ask the suit lady a question when she said, “these calculations may take a while. Would you like me to run them as a subroutine?”

Oh well. Probably not my universe anyway. “Yeah sure. Anyway, we’re kinda on an important spy mission right now.”

“Sounds exiting.”

“Yep. Ezra’s going to meet his informant inside the imperial complex, and I’m gonna be their eye on the roof, pull them out if there’s any trouble.” Hey, if Suit Lady is a proper AI like Jarvis, maybe she can code. “Uh Suit Lady?”

“Yes Peter?”

Peter pulled out the spare commlink the Specters had given him, “Do you think you could copy the communication protocols from this commlink so I can use the one in my suit instead?”

“Yes. Allow me to instruct you in sending a sample communication to analyze.”

…………………………………………. Ezra Bridger….…………………………………………

Ezra hid behind a stack of crates in an ally by the back door of the stormtrooper academy portion of the Imperial complex. Security being what it was, he had no real way to know that Zare had received his message. He also remembered well enough from his time infiltrating the academy when he had met Zare in the first place that it wasn’t always even possible for a cadet to sneak out at night. Yet Ezra was certain that Zare Leonis would make it to their secret rendezvous, he had seen it in his vision after all.

Sure enough, he sensed Zare’s unmistakable presence approaching the ally; Ezra popped out from behind the crate and greeted him. “Zare!”

Zare startled a little, waggling his finger at Ezra, “You're a stealthy one, Dev Morgan.”

Oh right, I never told him my real name. Some friend I am. “Yeah, that's me, stealthy Dev Morgan. He he… Hey, thanks for meeting me last minute, cadet. By the way, how'd you get past the gate?”

“I've been promoted. Got class three clearance now.”

‘Course you did, you’re probably the best cadet they’ve seen since they took your sister. “Congratulations?”

“Yeah, it’s great.” Zare smiled, shiny teeth standing out against dark skin which itself stood out against the cadet uniform immaculately white even by Imperial Academy standards. He twitched at some noise from the street, “Unless I'm caught, in which case...”

Ezra moved further back away from the street were stormtroopers were patrolling, “Yeah, let's not get you shot. What do you have?”

“Agent Kallus and every section commander have been in secret tactical meetings. He's gathering troops for a massive operation.”

Uh oh. “Any idea what for?”

“Something to do with the Old Senate Building. But it might just be a drill. I'm not sure.” Zare cautioned.

He knows! “It's no drill. I need to warn the others.” Ezra made to run off, but Zare stopped him.

“One more thing. I'm being transferred off world to the Officers Academy on Arkanis.”

In that case, “There's something you should know.”

Zare grinned, “Don't tell me you're gonna miss me, Dev.”

“What? No. I mean, sure, but... Look, that's not it. My real name is- Hurk!” Ezra’s heart leaped to his throat as Spiderman yanked him and Zare up on weblines, clamping his hand over Zare’s mouth to prevent him from screaming. They watched in shocked silence as a pair of stormtroopers converged on the ally below.

“See anything?”

“Negative. Musta been a Loth-cat.”

“Alright lets return to base.”

Spiderman relaxed his hand and Zare took a couple of breaths to steady himself. “So, who’s your friend?”

“I’m Spiderman.” Peter said in an obviously fake deep voice.

Ezra shook his head in embarrassment, “Ignore him, he’s new. Anyway, I was going to tell you my name’s not Dev Morgan. It’s actually Ezra Bridger.”

“Well, nice to meet you, Ezra Bridger.” Zare took his hand and shook it, then gave Peter a pointed look.

“What? I don’t know you.” Spiderman said, fortunately without the fake voice, “And Ms. Romanoff says never to use our real names with informants.”

“From the sound of it, she wouldn’t want you casually mentioning her in front of them either.” Ezra pointed out.

“Dang-it!”

Outside the Old Senate Building, the Next Morning

It was near dawn by the time the Specters gathered on a rooftop overlooking the old local senate building. After meeting up at the Bridger house they had spent a wile arguing over the best approach to take, eventually deciding to head over to a friendly diner for a belated dinner with extra caf in leu of sleep. After that they had thoroughly scouted the area around the senate building, finding no obvious strike forces though the area was thoroughly cordoned off with stormtrooper patrols.

 From their rooftop, the could plainly see a very senatorial looking ship parked on the upper landing pad. Cool as the ship was, Ezra was a bit worried for Trayvis’s safety with how obvious it was. It’s a wonder the Imperials haven’t spotted it yet. “We've gotta get Trayvis outta there before the Empire moves in.”

“Wait.” Hera motioned Ezra back down out of sight, “Why haven't they moved in?”

Kanan found the answer obvious, “They want us too. It's a trap.”

“So meybe we don' walk intoit for once.” Zeb said, giving one last try at giving up the mission, “We don' even know for sure your precious’enator is in there.”

“Yes, we do. I saw it.” Ezra said firmly, doing quite well (in his opinion) to hide his anger at Zeb’s unwillingness.

“If we can get up there without being seen,” Kanan said in a disapproving tone, “maybe we fly him out on his own ship.”

Perfect. We are on! “I know a way in. No one will see us.” At Sabine’s raised eyebrow, Ezra continued, “Hey, I survived alone against the Empire for eight years. Come on.”

As the others climbed down from the roof, Ezra squatted down to talk to Chopper, “Hey Chop? I’ve got a special mission for you. Around that corner there’s a sewer access port guarded by an Imperial droid. Think you can get it open for me?”

“Yahp Wopop!” Chopper ignited his rocket booster and flew off. The rest of the team (who moved by walking) arrived just in time to see him push an Imperial astromeck into the open sewer port, then spin his arms in delight. “Waoh Wah Wah Wah Wah Wah Wahp!”

Zeb leaned over the hole, and for some reason decided to take a sniff, “Uoh, that's a seewer pipe.”

Uh, no duh Zeb, “Yes, it is. And I can pretty much guarantee we're not gonna run into any stormtroopers down there.”

Ezra was the first down the ladder, having long ago gotten use to the smell of Capital City’s sewers. He helpfully shoved the pile of droid remans out of the way while waiting for everyone. See. I know how to be polite. From up above there was a ‘WooshClang!’ and a shout of “hey!” then Kanan came sliding down the ladder, his head and fingers still intact despite Chopper’s best efforts.

Ezra proceeded to lead his friends through the sewers that had been his second city (after the rooftops but before the actual streets) since about when he was ten. Ok yeah, those pipes look like they’re getting ready to go vertical. Which means there should be a way up into the senate building down this way. “Used to be too much water to walk down here, but since the Empire started rationing, pretty dry.”

“’ell, hasn' helped tha smell,” Zeb grumbled

“Speaking of which, it does smell like you.” Zeb sniffed himself worriedly at Sabines comment, but she clarified, “I was talking to Ezra.”

“Wait. You know what I smell like?” Sabine knows what I smell like! That’s great, I might still have a chance! No- Wait! That’s terrible she thinks I smell like a sewer! Oh no no-

“Can we focus, please!” Kanan snapped, probably feeling Ezra’s turbulent thoughts over their growing bond. Right, sorry. Pulling himself back together, Ezra led the crew way too many stories up a maintenance ladder that let out onto a small side balcony near the top of the old senate building. Hah! I knew it! There in front of them was the senator’s ship, guarded by a pair of protocol droids armed with force pikes.

“Are those robots armed with spears?” Peter asked, “because that feels like a metaphor for something.”

“Better safe than sorry.” Kanan muttered a after considering he droids for a moment. Ezra felt him gathering the Force, then he made a flicking motion and a clattering noise sounded from inside the ship. Ooh a new force power! The droids hurried off to investigate the noise, and Ezra and Hera rushed toward the building, while Kanan ordered the other three up above.

As Ezra, Hera, and Kanan adjusted their eyes to the darkened conference room, a familiar voice called out, “Hello. Who's there?”

It’s really him!!!!! “Senator Trayvis. We're friends.” Was that too forward?

“Welcome!” He welcomed me! Us!  “I was beginning to think no one on Lothal got my message.”

Hera cut straight to business before Ezra could assure the senator that they listened to all his messages. “Senator, you're in terrible danger. The Empire knows you're here.”

“That's impossible.” Trayvis said in a horrified whisper. Before Ezra could reassure him, a pair of blaster bolts struck down the two droids guarding Trayvis. They spun around to see Agent Kallus marching in with a squad of stormtroopers, hands clasped arrogantly behind his back.

“Kanan Jarrus, Jedi Knight,” he greeted as Ezra and Kanan ignited their lightsabers, and Hera tackled the senator, “Padawan Jabba. And what have we here? A Twi'lek I've yet to meet. From your regalia, I suspect you must be our talented pilot.”

More stormtroopers flooded through side entrances, and Minister Tua strode in behind Kallus, demanding, “Where is the Lasat and the Mandalorian girl? Or that, that other one!”

“If you won't talk, then my troopers will become a firing squad!” Kallus announced. This guy is so full of himself.

“You'd better do as he says.” What?! Trayvis wants to surrender?! I guess this would look like a hopeless situation to anyone else. Although, Kanan was also radiating alarm in the Force.

“Don't worry, Senator. Our friends will be along,” Ezra whispered to him with a comforting wink.

At that moment, smoke bombs and a roaring Lasat fell from the rafters! The Imperials were thoroughly confused, most of them not even firing as the Specters began to move toward the door.

“Stay close, Senator!” Hera ordered, shooting a trooper who appeared suddenly out of the smoke.

“We've gotta get Trayvis out of here!” Kanan shouted.

 “Follow us.” Ezra motioned close enough to Trayvis’s face that he was sure to be seen through the smoke, and began running to the door! As they ran, Zeb and Sabine dropped in beside them. Hang on, where’s Peter? “Specter seven common!”

“NO I DON’T WANT SPLITTER WEBS, Why Would I Ever Want Splitter Webs?!?!?!”

That doesn’t sound good, “Are you ok Peter?!”

………………………………………………Peter Parker………………………………………………

            Peter was not in fact ok. He was having a rather bad morning to be honest. First there was the lack of sleep, then that sewer which had been an absolute assault on his enhanced senses, and now his stupid spider-suit was refusing to work properly! It had started when that bad guy, Agent Calous? No that’d be ridiculous, had been monologuing and Suit Lady (gotta come up with a better name for her) had innocently asked him, “Would you like me to engage enhanced combat mode?”

Aw that is awesome! “Yeah, of course.”

“Activating instant kill.”

“No no no no, I don’t wanna kill anybody,” We are fighting an evil Empire here Spiderman, “Well, not automatically anyway.”

“Deactivating instant kill.” Did Suit Lady sound a little disappointed?

“If you won't talk, then my troopers will become a firing squad!” the big bad announced.

Ok that’s our cue. Spiderman raised his hand and pressed a button on his web-shooters, intending to ready a web grenade. Instead, a series of small webs spattered the ceiling. “Suit Lady what was that?!”

“Rapid fire is the default for enhanced combat mode.” Suit Lady replied, calm as ever despite the chaos now unfolding below.

Looking at the spattering of small webs on the ceiling, Peter frankly couldn’t imagine a use for such a feature. “Why would I need rapid fire?”

“Would you like to see more options? You have 576 possible web shooter combinations available.”

Holy gadgets Batman, Mr. Stark really overdid it. No way I can keep track of all this in combat! “Uhh, choose one!”

“Would you like to use splitter webs?” Suit Lady asked as Peter tried to take out a stormtrooper and shot… two streams of webbing that went completely to either side of his target!

“Specter seven common!” Someone shouted from below.

“NO I DON’T WANT SPLITTER WEBS, Why Would I Ever Want Splitter Webs?!?!?!” he screamed before several stormtroopers tripped over the webline which had strung itself between two pillars. “Oh. That’s why.”

“You seem to be very unfamiliar with your web-shooter combinations. Would you like to run a refresher course?”

“Kinda in the middle of something!” Spiderman replied as he jumped down and ran for the exit, summersaulting over an actual grenade that Sabine threw in behind her. Hey! That coulda hit me! He reached the landing platform to find the senator’s ship gone, and his friends being menaced by an Imperial shuttle! That thing would be really cool if it weren’t about to kill us. “Suit Lady, gimme a grabby web!”

“A grabby web?”

“Yeah, like for swinging!” Spiderman charged the shuttle, leaped over it and sprayed a web down at the cockpit, praying that Suit Lady had finally gotten it right. Mercifully, a normal looking web line shot out and stuck to the ship.

“You guys get going, I’ll catch up!” Spiderman shouted to the others as he swung around the shuttle to pull its aim away. Is this web stretching more than normal? Oh God it is! Oh God its gonna snap its gonna snap! Wait, no, its springing back! Huh, I suppose that could be useful for grabbing things – whoa whoa Not The Face! Smack! Peter hit the side of the shuttle’s big vertical fin, and slid down onto its roof. “Owww.”

Spiderman pushed himself up shaking his head to clear the fuzziness. Over on the balcony, he saw that the others had gone back down the maintenance tunnel. Most of the Imperial troops followed while he was catching his breath. Looking around, he considered his options.

“Well, as long as I’m up here… Suit Lady, set for rapid fire.” Spiderman leaned over the back of the shuttle and fired bursts of webbing into the left engine until it clogged and started to smoke. Now with only one engine functional, the ship began to spin with increasing speed, wobbling as the pilot fought to regain control! Uh oh, didn’t think this through! “Suit Lady, I need a quick exit!”

“There are glider membranes stored in the sides of your suit.”

“That’s awesome!” Spiderman leaped off the crashing shuttle, experiencing a moment of panic before membranes looking like stylized webbing popped out to connect his arms to his sides. “Whooohoooo!”

This is awsome! He was flying! Well, gliding technically. Ooh maybe if I could find one of those repulsorlift units small enough I could attach it to the suit and then combined with the wings I could really fly! Nah, wouldn’t fit the gimmick. Buildings sailed past Peter as he dove and swooped, for a moment forgetting what he had been doing in the first place. Then the loud crash of the shuttle hitting the ground snapped him back to the present. I should probably get under cover before the space-nazis notice a flying guy. He arrived back at the giant electric manhole just in time to see a pair of stormtroopers wielding it shut over Chopper’s protests. “Hey, sir! That’s a building code violation!”

“What?” The stormtroopers stopped their work, staring at him in utter bafflement.

“Yeah, Lothal city planning subsection, er… 420 says all streets must have a sliding death blade sewer door every ‘hundred meters. Set right hand back to grabby web,” Spiderman finished with a whisper as he continued advancing on the stormtroopers, “so I’m gonna need to see some paperwork, standard stuff, construction permissions… oh and is that welder safe for use near potential sewer gas?”

“We don’t take orders from yooooooooo!” the lead stormtrooper screamed as an elastic web line catapulted him across the ally! The other trooper barely had time to raise his blaster before it was knocked out of his hands by a burst of rapid-fire webs! To the guy’s credit, he thought quickly and tried to counterattack with the welder, only to get knocked out for his troubles. Then the first stormtrooper was back, charging down the alley firing his blaster wildly! Spiderman stuck a web to his chest and backflipped over him, neatly tying him up as he did so.

“Suit Lady, can I have a continuous spray of extra sticky webbing to wrap these guys up?”

“Sure Peter.”

“Thanks. You guys aren’t gonna go anywhere, are you?” Spiderman quipped as he wrapped up the pair of groaning stormtroopers and dragged them out of the way.

“Mwha wappa wakop wop!” Though Peter still didn’t fully understand spoken binary (probably not helped by Chopper’s idiosyncratic speech patterns) the way the droid pointed his electroshock arm at the troopers made his intention quite clear.

“No you can’t kill them, they’re prisoners! What is wrong with you?”

“Bah bappa!” Chopper waved him off with a manipulator (though Peter got the sense it was more of a flip) and extended a buzzsaw which fortunately he used to attack the welding on the manhole rather than the troopers.

“Good. Good.” Peter glanced around, at a loss for what to do now. I wonder how long it will take them to climb back down? Could be a while if they have to shake pursuit. Maybe I could figure out those web shooter combinations. “Hey Suit Lady could we- actually, I feel bad calling you Suit Lady all the time.”

“You can call me whatever you want.”

“Yeah but I feel like you should have an actual name. How ‘bout Liz?” Classic adventurers are always naming their ships after their lady love back home. Yeah Peter, but she probably doesn’t even know you exist, and also this would be like wearing her, “No that’d be weird.”

“Why would that be weird Peter?” Was it just him, or did she sound mischievous?

Uhh think of a girl’s name that isn’t anybody you know… “What about, uh, Karen.”

“You can call me Karen, if you would like.”

“Ok Karen, lets run that refresher course.”

“Ricochet web.”

“Ricochet web!”

“Spider signal.”

“Just like Batman!”

“Taser web.”

“Taser web?”

“Night vision.”

“Wide angle spray.”

“Tracking drone.”

“Aww he’s so cute!” Peter gushed at the little spider-bot that had flicked out of his web-shooter, “Say, Karen, how long have we been at this?”

“Thirty-seven minuets.”

“What!? Thirty-seven minuets that’s insane!” Just as Peter was about to rush down the sewer to try and find his friends, the gate opened and Kanan, Ezra, Zeb, Hera, and Sabine climbed out. “Hey, where’s Trayvis?”

Sabine huffed, Zeb and Hera looked furious, Kanan grim, and Ezra just depressed.

“Uh, guys?”

Under the Old Senate Building, Capital City, Lothal, 31 Minutes Earlier
…………………………………………Hera Syndula……………………………………………
They had only been running through the Old Republic Senate Building’s maintenance and sewer tunnels for a few minutes when Hera heard senator Trayvis collapse against a wall, panting heavily. “Ezra, wait up.”

“Sorry, Senator,” Ezra said as he turned back for them, “We just wanna get out of here as fast as we can.”

“I am the one who should apologize, my young friend. I've been pursued, but never in such a place as this.” Really? Maintenance tunnel midway up a building that hasn’t even had a refresher flush though it in years is too much for you?

Kanan echoed her thoughts, “Figured you'd be used to running from the Empire.”

“Well, I... uh… I've never come this close to capture before.” Before Hera could question him on that statement a pair of stormtroopers appeared behind them and started blasting!

“We'll draw them away! Get Spectre-2 and Trayvis to the hatch!” Kanan ordered to Ezra as he, Zeb, and Sabine went off down a different tunnel.

“Wait,” Ezra called back, “How will you find us?”

“I can smell you, remember!” Sabine quipped.

For several precious moments Ezra just stood there gaping, before Hera snapped him out of it, “Think of something clever to say later. Move!”

Once they had again lost their pursuit, Senator Trayvis got to talking again, “You're so well organized. To evade the Empire as you have, you must have quite a support system. Good funding, powerful allies?”

If you wanted to join the wider rebellion, why have you made yourself so difficult for Fulcrum to contact? Unless that’s not why you’re asking. No that’s crazy, maybe he just… well he could be… erm. Ezra, deliberately not knowing about the Fulcrum Network answered, “No, this is it. We're all there is.”

Trayvis stopped in his tracks, “You can't be serious.”

“I hoped we could learn from you, Senator,” Ezra replied. When it comes down to it, he just either isn’t very good at this or doesn’t actually want to join the wider rebellion. “Your transmissions have already helped keep us going.”

And he’s lasted this long, so he can’t be incompetent. Maybe he’s just suspicions of other rebel organizations? To prevent him from noticing her growing suspicion, Hera told Trayvis, “Just to know someone else is out there has meant a lot.” And yet, how much help have his transmissions really been? He’s the one that spread the ‘news’ that Master Unduli was still alive, which nearly got us all killed…

The tunnel they were following abruptly opened up into a room blocked by a giant fan. The floor was a good couple meters below them, with no sign of a ladder. “Come on!” Ezra said, he and Hera jumping down into the room. The Senator fell on his face trying the same maneuver, and she and Ezra raced to help him up.

At least his lack of athleticism is consistent. Although, he did gain his wind back awfully quick when the troopers started shooting earlier. Could just be adrenaline of course… Well, first things first, escape. “How are we getting past this thing?”

“We could try to cut its power,” Ezra suggested with a shrug.

While Ezra looked for a power cable, Hera’s mind wandered back to Travis. Another thing, Lothal isn’t the only planet with locals like Tua high up in the administration, even if the Empire prefers to send their own governors. There’s no way someone hasn’t cracked his codes before, and yet this is the closest he’s ever come to capture? Gah, why didn’t I see it before!? Perhaps a test. Hera removed the power pack from her blaster, disguising the action with a spinning flourish as she handed the disarmed weapon to Trayvis, “Watch our backs, will yah?”

Sure enough, Hera hadn’t gotten more than five steps toward were Ezra was working on the fan before Trayvis announced, “That's enough. We're not going anywhere.”

“Wha-Wha… Senator?” Ezra stood up, gesturing but not pointing with his blastersaber, “What are you doing?”

Trayvis noticed the inherent threat anyway, though he continued to project more confidence than he had shown since the other Imperials showed up, “Put your saber down, boy. Now!”

Ezra complied, and Hera didn’t need to be a Jedi to sense his confusion and distress. Travis is going to pay for that. Ezra asked the obvious question, “You... You're with the Empire?”

Taking a bet that this guy would be happy to hear himself talk, Hera decided to act just as confused, “But all your transmissions, those planets you visited. How did word not get out about you?”

Trayvis obliged her with an explanation. “Because no one ever knew, not even my own droids. Most insurgents are not arrested. They're identified and watched. The truely troublesome ones have accidents after I'm gone.”

“But you're not a traitor,” Ezra exclaimed, growing more and more visibly distressed with each word, “You're a voice of freedom, a, a light in the darkness, like my parents!”

“Parents? No one has spoken against the Empire on Lothal since… the Bridger transmissions.” And now the Empire knows exactly who you are. Ezra, you’re as bad as Peter sometimes. Trayvis was continuing to monologue “I remember them. The original voices of freedom. You're their son!”

“Why? Why?” Ezra gave a heart-wrenching scream.

The traitor just took it as an excuse to monologue some more, “I joined the Empire, like your parents should have, for their lives, for you. Your parents were very brave and very foolish. Where are they now? I'll tell you, my boy. They're gone!”

Time to end this. She started advancing on the Senator, “They're not gone, Trayvis.”

He backed away, still pointing the unloaded blaster at her, “Stop right there.”

“As long as we fight, all that they spoke out for lives on.” Also, they may actually still be alive somewhere in the prison system.

“I said stop!” When she didn’t, Trayvis pulled the trigger! Nothing happened. “What? No!”

Hera yanked the blaster out of his hands and pistol-whipped him, knocking Trayvis out cold. “A true rebel would know if he's holding a charged blaster.”

“You knew!?” Ezra said in disbelief.

Looking back on it, I think Kanan had a bad feeling about this guy since… since “He tried to get us to surrender. He wasn't tired when he stopped, he was waiting for Kallus to catch up. And he wanted our secrets.” Trying to calm herself, Hera placed a comforting hand on Ezra’s shoulder, “I didn't want to believe it.”

Before Hera got any further, Specters One, Four, and Five ran in. Zeb took a look at the man on the floor and asked, “What happened to the senator?”

“He was working for the Empire,” Hera informed them with her best professional calm.

“Is there anybody on our side?” Sabine exclaimed.

“So, guess he stays here,” Kanan sighed, “What's our plan?”

Ezra pulled himself to the task at hand to tell him, “We were gonna stop the fan to get through.”

“Okay, but what will keep our friends from following?” asked Sabine

“We only stop it long enough for us to get past it. Cover me.” Kanan moved away from the tunnel exit and extended his hand toward the fan. Hera turned to point her re-loaded blaster at the tunnel, but she could feel the wind stopping behind her even as the Imperials arrived and chaos erupted!

Someone shouted, “Incoming!” and the Specters lit up the tunnel mouth with blaster-fire! Ezra had his saber out, doing his best to block the incoming fire from stormtroopers! When Hera heard the fan stop behind her, she shouted “Move it, rebels!”

“Blast the Jedi!” Kallus tried to stop them, but it was too late, they were out!

Except, Ezra was still standing there glaring at the reawakening Trayvis, “Ezra, let's go!” Hera ordered, and he reluctantly complied.

Hours Later

The sun had set by the time they arrived back at the Ghost, exhausted from a long day of sneaking out of the city. They stowed the speeder-bikes, Sabine, Zeb, and Peter went off to their respective rooms. Then Ezra cracked, “I didn’t see it. I was so wrong.”

A real captain would tell him not to let things get so personal. But Hera couldn’t do that, “We all thought he was a good person.”

He turned to Kanan, “You always say I should trust the Force! I thought that’s what I was doing.”

Kanan sighed, “Your emotions clouded the vision, it takes-”

“-training and discipline?” Ezra interrupted, sounding slightly annoyed to be hearing this again.

“To see things clearly, yes,” Kanan sighed again, and Hera remembered how he had explained his worry that he didn’t have enough experience with visions to properly handle Ezra’s talent for them. “Visions are difficult, almost impossible to interpret.”

Ezra apparently knew of Kanan’s comparative lack of visions as well, “What was the last vison you had?”

“I saw this bratty kid who constantly caused me trouble.” Hera knew that was actually at least partially true, he had told her to expect a new crew member soon the week before Ezra showed up.

“I guess you read that one wrong,” Ezra tried to joke.

With a slight smile in his voice, Kanan replied, “I guess so.”

Speaking of discipline, Hera’s finally gave out when Kanan wandered off, and she let her durasteel professionalism fall away as she collapsed to a seat on the Ghost’s ramp. “You know, I wanted to believe in Trayvis as much as you did.”

Ezra sat down next to her, “Yeah. What's wrong with us?”

I’m supposed to be the one comforting him, Hera mused as she stared off into the stars, “We have hope, hope that things can get better. And they will.”

………………………………………………Peter Parker………………………………………………

Though Peter hadn’t been as invested in Senator Trayvis as the others, the betrayal still left him feeling thoroughly discouraged at the state of this galaxy. He was also exhausted, and ready to sleep for a full day straight, but there was one more thing to do. He climbed into the upper bubble turret and looked up at the stars, ready for Karen to tell him the results of her calculations.

“This group of stars roughly 23 billion light years away,” Karen highlighted about a hundred pinpricks that Peters eyes hadn’t even really registered, “are a mirror image of stars 23 billion light years from Earth.”

Holly crap! “But that means…”

“Yes Peter. We are just past the edge of the formerly observable universe.”

“What the Fu-”

Telaris Cometary Cloud, aboard the Telaris Rebel Stardocks

……………………………………… Natasha Romanoff…………………………………………

Natasha turned from her computer as Ahsoka came into the office, “Ahsoka, I think Gal Travis is an Imperial plant.”

“How’d you know?”

“I found some odd messages in the uncatalogued Tseebo archives…” She noticed something in Ahsoka’s voice, “But more importantly, how long have you known?”

“As of ten minutes ago.” Good, for a second there I thought she sent me on a wild goose chase to get out of her hair. Or headtails. “Boy have I got a story to tell you.”