Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Gazing at the mesmerizing azure lines of hyperspace through the viewport, Omega leaned against the side of the pilot seat as Tech double-checked the helm controls. “I’ve never been to Yavin IV,” she murmured, her eyes glowing softly.

“Nor have I, but I am looking forward to adding notations of their atmospheric composition, as well as the indigenous sentient and non-sentient life to the ship’s database. Apparently, very little has been documented about this remote planet, an oversight that I plan to correct,” Tech asserted, his attention on the navigational displays.

Hunter lounged in one of the secondary chairs in the cockpit, sighting down the length of the vibroblade in his hands. “I’m not wild about coming all this way with just a name,” he growled. “No references, no job description, just landing coordinates; who is this Declan, anyway?” He slid the blade home in its forearm sheath and pushed himself off the chair, nearly bumping into the looming Wrecker.

“Not sure, but it must have come through one of my contacts with Rex and the resistance network he’s organizing; it was directly to our personal frequency,” Echo replied, swiveling his body in the copilot’s seat to face Hunter as best he could.

“So they’re part of the rebellion against the Empire?”

“Well, no…at least I don’t think they are,” admitted Echo. “Anything this far out, without a name for themselves…” He shrugged. “If there is a rebel cell out here in the middle of nowhere, it can’t be very organized.”

“But whoever it is also sent a transfer of 500 credits just to show up! That means they’re serious, right?” Omega’s diminutive figure looked even smaller as she spun around to look up at Hunter and Wrecker, her earnest face puckered with her inquiry.

“Right!” Wrecker’s voice thundered in vigorous agreement.

“No, that means they have 500 credits,” Tech retorted, flipping switches above his head. He paused, then continued, “Well—now they have less that, actually.”

Wrecker was silent for a long moment, then another. When his eyes lit up, he gave Tech’s chair a hearty thump. “Hah, that’s funny, they do!”

“People often pay money for many things: bounties, cargo runs, information…” Her slender fingers fanned out slowly as Omega ticked them off.

“Right!” Wrecker was nothing if not consistent.

“There are some that would also pay for turning over deserters to the Empire. And for you,” Hunter finished, crouching so he could stare Omega level in the eyes. At his words, her gaze faltered and dipped to the floor, slightly chastened. “Don’t forget, we’re also supposed to be laying low. So, I guess Yavin IV is as good as any place. It’s isolated enough.”

Wrecker’s shoulders slumped as he peered down at Omega, a massive finger pointed at Hunter. “He’s right.” Omega giggled, her smile returning. Hunter laid a hand fondly on her thin shoulder.

“Yeah,” Hunter rasped, standing up to stare out the viewport as the Marauder exited hyperspace to hang suspended over the verdant planet, “for what we need, middle of nowhere sounds perfect.”

*  *  *

Disembarking from the Marauder and descending the gangway was almost like stepping directly into the heart of the jungle. Carved straight into the rainforest, the crumbling tiers rose to a point above the canopy, but barely held the dense vegetation at bay. Overhead, the tropical sun baked down on their shoulders in this small clearing, one of many that pockmarked the encroaching wilderness that threatened to engulf the final stones of the ziggurat. Dozens of humans milled between freighters scuffed by solar winds and a few battered pre-Empire fighters. Some of their glances were curious, but no one appeared to be expecting them.

“Which one of them is Declan, do you suppose,” Echo muttered to Hunter as they wove their way through the trickle of bodies that had beaten a faint line through the stubborn moss to the dark earth beneath.

A couple of inquiries led them further down to where a middle-aged man in a blue tunic stood, supervising the offloading of several speeder bikes. “We’re looking for Declan,” Hunter said as they approached. “Is that you?”

“Depends. If you’re the owner of that blue freighter, you’ll get the rest of your payment when we get the rest of your cargo, not before.” Turning, the man raked his pale blue eyes rapidly across the group, his deeply lined face creasing in mild confusion. “Oh, obviously not. Well, let’s see your manifest, then,” and he held his weathered hand out expectantly.

“We don’t have a manifest, we’re here because you told us to be here!” Hunter replied indignantly.

“If that were true,” Declan rumbled, “then you’d have a manifest. How did you get the coordinates to this landing pad, anyway? It’s not even registered.”

Tech glanced up from his datapad. “Landing pads are level. These clearings are…anything but.”

“Well then, who hired us?” Wrecker grumbled, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

Looking baffled, Declan rubbed the back of his head. Suddenly, his eyes widened, then narrowed angrily. “Oh, she better not have...”

“She?”

“Call it a hunch, but I’m betting that one of my assistants has been taking liberties with my authorization codes. Did she send anything else besides my name?”

Hunter shook his head. “No, just the coordinates.”

Covering his eyes as if to ward them from the light and heat, Declan sighed. “Synnovea...tends to do things her own way. I'm so sorry for the misunderstanding...if you would just let me try to get her on comms...She’d better answer,” he muttered.

“This is becoming a rather expensive detour,” Echo observed.

 *  *  *

“Come on, Tech, you’re taking forever. It isn’t every day that we get to explore an ancient temple!” Omega argued, running one hand along the rough wall as she raced down the narrow corridor that led down into the temple.

“Hunter refused to let you go exploring on your own, and with good reason. I only agreed because I wanted to take some readings inside the temple, which I now see is something of a wasted effort. It appears that time has scoured away most of the inscriptions these walls might have contained.”

“Do you hear that? It sounds like fighting.”

“Most likely we’re nearing where the recruits practice combat training.”

It turned out to be true. Opening into a larger room, missing bricks formed natural skylights that dropped pools of sunlight between pairs of men and women in various stages of training: aiming blasters at targets, hand-to-hand, and a few perusing the finer points of bladework. The shouts and blaster fire echoed less with the ankle-deep sand that filled the training area. Over the sounds of the recruits came the crackle of an angry voice through a nearby commlink.

“I think that’s Declan’s voice, but it’s faint,” Omega murmured, casting about for the source.

“It’s coming from over there,” and Tech pointed across the grounds to a human woman in faded brown leathers crossing the sand, the recruits parting around her as if made of water. Twirling a thick wooden staff, she appeared to be yelling back at a voice on the inside of her wrist.

“Damnit, Declan, we’ve been over this before. I don’t have time to saw through your bureaucratic red tape—” She slammed the butt of the staff into the sand, her thick black braid twitching on her shoulder.

“This is more than that, you insane little stintaril, now you’re giving out my private landing code? You’re hiring personnel without my permission?” Declan’s voice sounded tinny but clear, more than clear enough to convey his irritation.

“Private what?” She knelt quickly and, grabbing a handful of sand, sifted it through her fingers as she spoke choppily. “I can’t—if there’s any—try to find another—”

There was a long silence at the other end. “Synnovea, I can tell the difference between static interference and you dribbling sand over your commlink. You weren’t even around to greet these guys that you want here so badly—”

“We’re shorthanded in training. Either stop accepting new bodies or find me more defectors that learned a few things before coming here. Then I’ll throw necklaces of flowers over anyone you want,” Synnovea contended, tearing her eyes away from the recruits and looking up, slowing to a stop as she passed the newcomers. “Hang on,” she drawled, lazily bracing the staff across her shoulders with her hands. “Sorry kid,” she announced, not unkindly. “Adults only for afternoon training.”

Wordlessly, Omega pulled her bow from her back and took aim at one of the targets across the sand. Two salmon-tinted bolts of energy hissed through the air, singing neat holes in the scarred paint of the bullseye’s edge. She lowered her bow with a smug grin and turned to the woman.

Synnovea narrowed her eyes shrewdly. “All right, all right, you’re not just a kid, I hear you,” she asserted. She looked them both over a second time. “I thought there’d be more of you…”

“There are. I mean, there is.” Omega took a breath and tried again, inexplicably nervous beneath the regard of those gray eyes. “I mean, there are five of us.” She felt a bit more confident and ventured boldly, “You’re the one who sent for us, aren’t you?”

Peering down at her, Synnovea’s expression dissolved into amusement. “Yeah, I suppose I’ll be getting in trouble for that,” she admitted with a crooked smile. “But where are our manners?” Rolling the wooden pole off her shoulders, she caught it with a flick of her wrist and tapped her commlink. “Declan, our guests have come such a long way, surely the least we can do is buy them a drink before we get down to business. I found two of them; we can all meet in the bar off the main dining hall.” Leaning her staff against one of the empty racks lining the wall, she passed them both, crooking her finger at them as she entered the dusty corridor. “Stay close. Wouldn’t want you to get lost. Or worse—run into something dangerous.”

“What do you mean?” Omega asked as she fell in behind Synnovea.

“Well, you know that this is an ancient temple, right?” Synnovea’s voice dropped to a dramatic whisper. “It’s supposed to be haunted, or something.”

“Obviously, these are apparitions caused by hallucination, either from stress-induced insomnia or imbibing too much alcohol,” Tech muttered, ducking below a thick root that had broken its way through the brickwork.

“Let me know if you still believe that next week,” was all Synnovea said. A branching hall took them up one level and led them past a honeycomb of smaller rooms until the corridor opened up. Someone or something had sheared away the outer wall, revealing a cluster of battered tables and a long counter that served as the local watering hole. Dozens of men and women seeking refuge from the afternoon heat found themselves here, listening to the seven tracks the broken jukebox could still play.

Threading her way through the crowd, Synnovea headed for one of the larger tables in the back, where Declan and the rest of the squad had already congregated on mismatched seating. Throwing a leg over the bench that ran the length of the table, she sat down facing the older man.

He eyed her balefully. “There’s no point in reprimanding you for this, is there?”

She softly held his gaze as her head swung left and right.

“Well, then I hope you’ve planned a pitch for them, because you were the only one who knew they were coming.” He turned to the middle of the table. “This impertinent womp rat is Synnovea Beryl, one of my advisors…when she remembers.”

Synnovea looked down at the tabletop, tapping the surface restlessly with her fingertips. “Well, I think I can make it simple.” A service droid came to the table with cups and pitchers, and she snagged one, taking a long pull before setting it down, jabbing a finger west. “Half a continent away is an Imperial expedition force. I want them off my planet. That’s where you guys come in.”

“Correction: that’s where we’re out.” Hunter shoved away from the table and stood.

Omega snatched his hand. “Hunter!”

“Looks like five hundred credits didn’t buy me much.” Synnovea swirled the contents of her cup around before drinking again. “I would have thought you’d have a bit more fight in you, from all that I’ve heard.”

Hunter planted the heel of his hand on the table. “This is the Empire we’re talking about,” he gritted. “You don’t fight the Empire, you run.”

“Run,” breathed Synnovea, staring blankly at the table with wide eyes. “Wow, why didn’t we think of that…”

Hunter rolled his eyes and stepped back. “Look, you could’ve saved us both a lot of time if you had just told us up front what you were looking for. But unless you have a real army hidden away here somewhere, you don’t have close to the manpower needed to repel an Imperial invasion. As for us, we have our own reasons for wanting to stay off the Empire’s radar. If you’re smart, you’ll get out of their way.”

“If only that were an option. But with the exception of the die-hards you see around here, the rest of the farmers and settlers are scattered across all four continents. We’d never get them all rounded up and off-world in time. And then what? Run to the next planet, until they start mucking about with that one? Run up the white flag? Look around you.” She threw up her hands, the gesture encompassing the spartan surroundings and its fatigued occupants. “We’re barely even a militia, but you and I both know that the Empire won’t take us on as slaves. We turn them back before they find this place, or we’re dead. There’s no running for us.”

“With no central government or population densities, it’s possible that the Empire believes this to be an uninhabited moon, like so many other planets in this sector. Most likely they will divide their company into platoons that will penetrate the jungle more easily than a larger force.” Tech tapped the display of his datapad with the back of his hand for emphasis.

“Okay, so the Empire is trying to determine what’s worth claiming on Yavin IV.” Hunter relented, easing himself back onto the stool. “Why haven’t the rebels stepped in?”

Sitting sideways on the bench across the way, Synnovea leaned in confidentially. “Most of the standing army got slaughtered by the Separatists. Then the Trandoshans trickled in when they left. Keeping the oversized lizards from picking off the farmers is about all the reduced forces can handle. Besides, this doesn’t call for dozens of troops. This calls for a handful of people who know exactly what they’re doing.” Her fingers flitted back and forth across the surface of the table. “In, then out again before they even know we were there. We scramble any data or samples they send back to the fleet; we drag their supplies out into the jungle and let the local wildlife tear it up; anything we can do to surreptitiously undermine their expedition.” Quirking her mouth to the side, she waggled her palm. “Failing all that, we blow the whole lot of them into orbit and invite everyone to play.”

“Wait, are you seriously suggesting that the five—sorry, six—of us take on an Imperial expedition force?” Hunter choked down the volume when he noticed the attention of nearby tables.

“I believe that is exactly what she is suggesting,” Tech offered helpfully. “Or complete and utter chaos if her first idea does not succeed.”

Echo glanced all around the table. “All right, so you need our help. What’s in it for us?”

“Right,” Omega interjected, nearly forgotten by everyone. Her face was unusually stern. “If we're going to stick our necks out, we'd need compensation. It'd cost you...double. And-and we’d need to, uh, talk about it,” she finished unsteadily as Hunter’s brow lowered.

Declan pointed at Omega. “She’s your negotiator?”

“Double is acceptable,” Synnovea remarked, crossing her arms over her chest, her expression as serious as Omega’s.

“Wait a minute,” Hunter grated, his hand making a sweeping motion over the table.
“We came to this place because it was so far off the beaten path. Taking on the Empire, even a small force like this, that isn’t laying low, that’s waving a big ‘come get me’ sign!”

“We can’t just stand by and do nothing,” Echo replied doggedly. “These people need our help!”

Hunter whipped around to face Echo. “When every one of us is on a bounty puck somewhere? This is not the time to be an idealist. I—”

“Triple,” Synnovea snapped, observing the heated debate between the two. Her eyes bored into Hunter’s.

Declan sputtered. “We can’t possibly—”

“We can,” Synnovea disagreed, interrupting him. Rising from the table, she opened a wall locker in the alcove and dragged out a small gray case, laying it on the many-times scrubbed ferrocrete surface as she sat back down. Pressing two buttons, the case popped open, and she spun it to face Hunter. “Triple. Unmarked credits. Half up front. If not, you keep the five hundred I already sent, no harm, no foul.”

Grimacing at the neat golden rows, Hunter’s gaze rose to hers. “Deal.”

“Synnovea,” Declan’s craggy face darkened. “Give me one good reason wh—"

“I’ll give you three,” Synnovea countered, swiveling abruptly to face Declan, who reflexively jerked back in surprise. “One, I don’t exactly see any other teams crazy enough to help us queueing up outside. Two, credit doesn’t spend if we’re all dead or worse, captured. Three, you can get more money, more supplies, but the one thing you can’t get more of is time.” Her stern expression softened slightly, and she laid a gentle hand on Declan’s forearm. “Lately your son has been asking me if you’re going to come home. Not when, if. I told him not to worry. Don’t make a liar of me, Declan.”

At that, Declan deflated. “I had no idea Sorj was worried like that. Well, all right. We’ll try it your way. You’re going to do it whether I agree or not, so—" He shrugged.

“Can they have the fourteenth barracks? It’s empty; they’d have it all to themselves.”

Declan waved a hand. “That’s fine. You’ll see to it? Thank you, Beryl.” He heaved himself to his feet as though exhausted. “That reminds me, I saw that green bucket your Rodian pal calls a ship circling the pads before I came in. He better have the cannisters of rhydonium I asked for.” Glancing at the open wall, he shook his head. “I still can’t believe you convinced them to just chop part of this wall away.”

“Whatever these temples were used for, it wasn’t for housing a few hundred resistance fighters and their families,” argued Synnovea, warming to an old debate. “Putting in lifts would give us more access to the lower levels without having to navigate those ridiculous corridors. Also, the increased orders and traffic are going to require us to hack out more landing zones soon.”

Declan rubbed his temples. “You know those damnable plants wear out the charge on a vibroblade in less than two hours. Our workers can barely keep up with the landing zones we currently have.”

“I know, only look—” Synnovea dug a holo-projector from her belt and placed it on the table, activating it as she spoke to show a topographical hologram of the area. “If we doubled the landing zones we could allocate half of them solely to export—"

“Actually, you would be better off creating one large clearing between these two structures,” Tech interrupted, indicating the temples. “Comparatively, the aggregate space would be increased by approximately fifty-three percent, while negating restriction to most vessel sizes. In addition, maintenance of the perimeter would be less than it is now if you utilized the base of the pyramids to help delineate the clearing.”

Synnovea immediately leaned over the hologram, followed closely by Declan. After a moment of tense silence, Declan said, “He’s right.”

“We do need a proper outdoor staging area,” Synnovea acknowledged. She glanced at Tech appraisingly. “How much ‘crete would we need to cover the surface of something this big? The base wall could be opened for a hangar—”

“You realize that this is an ancient temple, thousands of years old?” Declan interrupted. “That means it used to be sacred to someone, like the Jedi temples…”

“Of course. And now, this temple can do something that no Jedi temple has done before: change with the times.” Synnovea lifted her cup to him in a mocking toast.

Declan muttered his goodbyes before pushing his way through the crowded room to the corridors beyond. Synnovea reached for one of the pitchers and tipped it over her cup.

“So, what are we supposed to call you?” Omega asked tentatively.

“How about my name? Really, I just oversee the handful of scouts we have and perform the occasional solitary jaunt. I see myself more as a singular instigator of chaotic events that inevitably wind up in my favor.”

Hunter snorted. “Sounds dicey. What kind of chaos did you cause to get all the way out here?”

For a brief instant, the gray eyes clouded over before clearing. Her look was candid. “Nothing that I wouldn’t do again if I had to.”

“Fair enough.”

“Some other time, perhaps, we can swap stories,” Synnovea offered, pushing herself up from the table. “I imagine that by the time you leave Yavin IV, you’ll have new tales to tell.”

Chapter Text

“I call dibs on these four bunks!” Wrecker tossed his case down on the ground with an audible thump next to the beds.

“There’s at least twenty bunks here, Wrecker, you don’t need to call dibs.” Echo sat down on one of the racks. “Why would you even want—” he hunched reflexively against the screech of metal on hard stone as Wrecker began to shove the chosen furniture together. “What are you doing?” he shouted over the noise.

“I am—finally—gonna make a bed that fits me.”

“Yeah, well, don’t get too comfortable,” Hunter tossed over his shoulder as he laid items from his pack out on an empty upper bunk. “Let’s just figure out what we need to get this job done.” He turned to face the room. “All right, listen up. Tech, we’re going to want charts and a transponder for transmissions back to base when we find those Imperial platoons. Echo, run a full diagnostic on the Marauder and figure out why that secondary fuel regulator light came on. If it leaks again, it could blow one of the hypernodes. Wrecker, give him a hand with the heavy lifting. I don’t want our ship out of commission for long.”

Sitting cross-legged on the bunk, Omega furled and unfurled her energy bow. “How are we going to find these platoons when we don’t even know where they landed?” she asked, aiming at the far wall.

“Since they’re not the ones trying to hide, I imagine it won’t be difficult,” Hunter answered, checking his holdout blaster for a charge before moving to strap it behind him. Suddenly, his knees seemed to pitch forward as something hard collided into him. “Hey!” Whipping around, he found a slightly dilapidated astromech rolling backwards, preparing to ram into him again. Angrily he palmed the scarred dome over its main orbital lens, which caused it to issue a series of indignant beeps that sounded more like honks.

“Interesting.” Leaning over the conical head, Tech adjusted his goggles. “This is an astromedic droid, a modified R5-RX hybrid unit capable of assisting with injuries to people or to starships. And it appears to be smaller than most—” He halted his inspection as a mechanical arm, tipped with a circular surgical saw, protruded from the center of the droid belligerently. “—But I suppose that’s of no consequence,” he finished, backing away.

“I think he’s adorable.” Omega slid off the bunk and approached the droid, which burbled pleasantly as she patted it. “ArEx? I’m Omega. These are my brothers. Were you looking for us?”

The droid’s head spun full circle, its sensor lights blinking rapidly as it chattered discordant tones.

“Hey guys, ArEx is here to take us to Synnovea! I guess she has some questions. Ok, ArEx; where is she?” Her forehead creased in confusion as the mech spat out a rapid array of binary.

Echo saw her expression. “What’d he say?”

“He says he isn’t allowed to—hey, wait!” Backing up several feet, ArEx swiveled and rolled out into the corridor with a two-tone chirp. Omega looked up at Hunter, shrugging. “I guess we’re supposed to follow him.”

*  *  *

“An infirmary?” Echo said dubiously as they entered one of the larger rooms.

So it was. Painfully neat rows of clean beds lined both sides of a central walkway leading to the familiar bank of computers and machines at the end of the chamber. Sunbeams filtered through the slotted windows at the top of the northern wall, kissing the beds and floor with narrow bands of light. A hint of pungent incense hung in the air, though no smoke was visible. Whereas most of the temple still looked and felt dusty and untouched, this hall exuded cleanliness and quiet purpose.

All the beds were empty; in fact, the only other person in the entire room was Synnovea, perched on a stool over one of the machines at a table near the main computer. As they followed ArEx up the wide path in the middle, the gentle clink of glass vials competed with the reporter’s muted droning about the successful Imperial occupation of Bandomeer coming from a small holo-projector, its hologram flickering unsteadily on the gleaming counter. Skidding to a stop next to the table, ArEx warbled a series of notes to Synnovea.

“Excellent. Now hand me that next ampule.” She looked up. “Settled in?”

“More or less.” Hunter’s eyes skimmed the meticulous rows of vials. “What’s all this?”

“We’ve been fortunate enough to acquire some samples of bacta and I’ve been cultivating them so we can grow it here. Most of the resistance members brought their families, so treating everyone can really add up, especially during a training accident or the cold season.”

“You’re a doctor.” It wasn’t a question.

“I worked in an infirmary not much different from this one on Coruscant. Of course, I had more staff there. Here, it’s just ArEx and me.” She smiled fondly at the droid, who squawked affectionately.

Omega cocked her head. “What did he mean he ‘isn’t allowed to say’ when I asked him where you were?”

“ArEx?” Synnovea frowned. “You know, I’m not entirely sure. I found him in the junkyard and powered him up to help me around here, but the darn thing wasn’t even working at first; after I flushed the lines and replaced half the wiring, he kept running off and getting stuck in corners. Probably sulking because he doesn’t like being demoted to gopher after aggressively stabbing uncooperative patients with tranquilizers.” She keyed in a sequence on the incubator, tapping the screen of the console next to her as numbers mutely flashed across the display before turning to accept the next sample. “Eventually I had to pull his main memory chip because he developed this real hatred for the repair droid on the ground level; kept hunting the poor thing down and welding its treads together. Even now—he still does—ArEx!—this sometimes,” and she snatched the vial it was waving just out of her reach, slotting it in the incubator with annoyance.

Whirling, ArEx let out a long, high-pitched whistle and slammed into the wall. Synnovea sighed. “He still knows how to swear, as you can see. I can’t seem to scrub that unless I want to rewrite his entire base programming. ArEx, knock it off, or I’ll hook you up to the distillation unit.”

“It looks like it was originally constructed to produce alcohol,” Tech observed.

“That’s exactly what it was. Here, we repurposed it to extract the essential oils from some of our plants—this batch is blueleaf—with the same process you use for liquor: steam distillation, condensation, and clarification.”

“The process is identical,” Tech admitted. “Simple, yet effective.”

“Altering the compound slightly has produced a significant reduction in sleep needs in human trials,” she explained, leaning back and crossing her arms, “although I can’t be certain about how it affects them long term, or other species. I can’t get anyone to agree to further testing.” ArEx whirred sadly. Synnovea turned her head to the droid. “That’s entirely your fault. See what happens when you stab people?”

“Your feisty little droid said you wanted to see us,” Hunter prompted, hoping to avoid another fight with the mech.

“Right.” Pressing the yellow initiate button, Synnovea pivoted away from the console. “Supposedly, you’re all clones from the Republic army before it became the Empire’s gristmill for galaxy control; you don’t much look like clones, but painting trooper armor doesn’t hide what it is.” Her eyes dared him to refute it.

“That’s right. We’re what’s left of Clone Force 99.” He sternly repressed a pang at the thought of Crosshair, wherever he was.

“You keep in touch with anyone still in the army? So much of the holonews is brainwashed drivel; they don’t really let civilians know troop movements.”

Hunter shook his head. “We still have friends on the inside but contacting them is dangerous. Everyone’s been kind of scattered to the winds after all the Jedi were killed.”

Nodding as if she expected that answer, Synnovea heaved a sigh. “It was worth asking. Having any kind of inside information about what battalions were sent where would be invaluable to the resistance.”

A Rodian entered the infirmary, his moss green scales clashing with his luminous purple eyes. He carried an empty metal cup, and his flight suit was covered by the folds of an oversized sepia vest with more pockets than seemed sensible. Crossing the room without hesitation, he knelt by the tall machine in the corner. Depressing one of the panels, he lifted it with his long fingers, dipping the cup inside.

Synnovea glanced over her shoulder, and just as quickly turned back, pressing her fingers to her temples. “Venth,” she said, exasperated, her eyes on the console keys, “last time we spoke, I specifically remember telling you that the lab equipment was not recreational.”

Pulling the cup out of the compartment, the Rodian calmly closed the lid and produced a worn flask from one of his capacious vest pockets. “Besides the bar, this is the only other ice machine in the place.” He poured the flask over the ice and pocketed the empty vessel.

“Then go to the bar. That’s for the condensation unit!”

Venth shrugged, sipping. “I was in Declan’s office. This was closer.”

“What are you doing in Declan’s office?”

“Oh, he had an issue because I had to raise my price on the rhydonium.”

“Your greed is gonna give my boss a stroke.”

“My dear Synnovea, how can you say that? I cut my prices for you as much as I can, but the explosion on Abafar took most of their reserves, and the Hutts guard their refineries jealously. Fuel is at a premium right now, and the Empire has eyes everywhere. You must pay for the risk as well as the demand.” His bulbous amaranthine eyes swirled slowly like microscopic galaxies as his head swung to take in everyone. “Not your usual crowd, as if you had one. They look just like you, though, all smiles and trusting faces,” he commented dryly.

“Venth, this is Hunter, Echo, Tech, Wrecker, and Omega. They’re here to help us with our little infestation problem. Everyone, this scaly ice poacher is Venth Flokko, one of our regular smugglers.”

“Merchant, please. Smuggler makes me sound like a pirate.”

“The distinction is lost to me, Frozen Bandit.”

Observing the men over his cup, Venth snorted. “Them, I get. You,” he addressed Omega as he bent over in front of her, “look to be knee-high to a runyip. What can you do?”

“I can fit that cup up your snout,” Omega said calmly, eyes flashing.

“Huh?” He glanced at his hand. “It won’t fit—"

Her young face was set with determination. “Oh, yes, it will.”

“You seem to have a knack for attracting small, vicious little things, Synnovea,” Venth muttered, batting ArEx out of the way before gathering another handful of frozen cubes from the distiller. The droid croaked a low blaaat and flung a utensil tray at his head, narrowly missing.

“Get. Out. Of. The ice!” Synnovea’s voice had an edge.

“I thought this machine was originally made for alcohol…” He set a boot against ArEx as the unit tried to shove him into the wall, pushing him away from the distiller.

“And your species originally lived in a swamp, but here we are. Close that lid before you contaminate something.”

“Don’t be like that, I’ll cheer you up; let me sing you a song.” Venth paused for effect. “You’re ok with Ithorian folk singing? It’s basically like four people screaming at once but without the fun part.”

“You’re the comedian the galaxy has been looking for.” She buried her face in her hands. “Now out.”

“Wait, waitwaitwait.” He tilted his head upwards as if remembering. “There was one other thing…oh, right. I almost forgot. Declan wanted to see you. He said Saw was arriving.”

Hunter started at the name. “Saw, as in Saw Gererra?” The brothers managed a four-way glance.

“That’s the guy,” Venth asserted, “you know him?”

“Actually, we were ordered to kill him once,” Wrecker admitted, rubbing his head. “But then we ended up not killing him, because he wasn’t a droid.”

“Lack of context notwithstanding, that statement is still true,” Tech replied matter-of-factly.

“We were told to put down insurgents on Onderon,” Hunter explained reluctantly. That botched mission still rubbed him the wrong way. “But they weren’t just rebels. There were families. Children. Old people.”

“Tell Declan I can’t, Venth, not today,” Synnovea declared. “I have to show them around the compound.”

“Bring ‘em.” Venth shook his cup, dislodging stuck ice from the edge.

She looked contemptuously skeptical. “Declan wants all of us in his little office? We won’t fit, not with Saw’s massive, bloated ego.”

“Maybe he packed his travel-size one.” The Rodian deftly pressed a long, narrow hand on Synnovea’s shoulder, propelling her towards the doorway. “C’mon, I want to get a good seat before the feathers start flying.”

“Saw Gererra,” Synnovea drawled, her manner dramatically haughty, her words echoing as they marched down the corridor to the next doorway, “Onderon’s favorite displaced son, post-adolescent mess extraordinaire, pontificating leader of the resistance cell of who-the-kriff-cares, something-something Partisansandthereheis! He’s right here.” Her last words came out in a tight pleasant tone as she stepped into the room, a forced laugh punctuating each syllable. Saw, who had been leaning over Declan’s desk, straightened up slowly. As they filed in, Synnovea snatched Venth’s arm, pulling him aside. “You said he was on his way,” she hissed under her breath.

“Coming here, already here, ohhh, see, us unevolved swamp dwellers aren’t so good with past and present tense Basic—”

“You couldn’t give me a heads up?” she whispered fiercely.

His eyelids narrowed slightly as his snout worked itself into what passed for a grin. “My way’s more fun.”

“Synnovea Beryl.” Saw braced his stance, crossing his arms over his chest as Synnovea shoved Venth away from her. “Still toting around that abrasive sense of humor, I see.”

She nodded at him coolly. “You could always use some more polishing, Saw. I’m just performing a public service.”

Saw’s eyes registered slight surprise as he took in the mercenaries. “It’s a small galaxy,” he said, the ghost of a smile playing across his lips. “Looks like you’ve picked a side, after all.”

“Not a side,” Hunter disagreed, “just a job.”

“Your talents are wasted out here past the Territories,” Saw informed him as Synnovea slipped behind Declan’s desk, leaning against the wall to his right. “We could always use another good squad as we liberate exploited planets from the Emperor’s grasp.”

Echo exhaled through his teeth. “I hear that your crew hurts just as much as it helps. Stores smashed, buildings destroyed, schools levelled, fields full of crops burned to the ground.” Raising his hand, he pointed at Saw. “If you liberate them any harder, Saw, you’ll kill them.”

“Better that they die in the service of the resistance than under the yoke of oppression.”

“A service that they never joined?” They were on one of Echo’s hot-button issues now.

Saw took a step forward. “Yet they benefit from it.”

“Maybe you could tell me,” Echo began, a steely note in his voice as they began to square off, “exactly what benefits have the innocent citizens you’ve ‘liberated’ enjoyed?”

“That’s enough.” Declan’s warning was like a bass note, more felt than heard. The two men turned away from each other. Returning his attention to Saw, Declan rumbled, “What brings you slumming it to the Gordian Reach? I thought you were thumbing your nose at the new stormtroopers back on Onderon.”

Saw’s face darkened. “Onderon has fallen,” he intoned, “but I will never give up on saving my people. The Partisans are stronger, now, more organized. With your help, we can cause the Empire pain. We all have our roles in this war. Mine is to fight, while yours is to provide defense and support. The sooner we all stand united, the sooner we’ll see the end of this Imperial tyranny.”

“Long way to travel with your cap in your hand, son.”

“I may be coming to you in need, but not empty-handed, Declan. I come bearing gifts.” He motioned grandly. “A shipment of pulse cannons. Six to a box, twenty-four boxes total. Brand new, and all yours.”

Synnovea’s mouth opened in a silent ‘oh’, and Venth whistled long and slow. No one bothered to ask from which Imperial warehouse the cannons had been stolen, or how. After a long pause, Declan looked up from his desk, one graying brow inching toward his hairline. “Quite the generous housewarming gift. Yet I wonder if I can bear the price.”

“Twenty crates of medical supplies, but I’m looking for more than that. The Empire’s been cracking down on their repository dockets; none of my suppliers have been able to get hold of any explosives since BlasTech’s contracts all got snatched up by the Emperor, and the smugglers’ rates are, well…” and he shrugged, gesturing to Venth, who waved his favorite digit in the air at Saw. Turning back to Declan, he continued earnestly, “besides, word is you’ve been building thermal dets and frag grenades from scratch.”

The calloused fingers paused over the worn surface of the desk. “Wait, who told you that?”

“Your landing pad techs are quite talkative, proud of your accomplishments here.”

“Those pad workers are going to run every step of this ziggurat in the morning,” Synnovea muttered. “Tomorrow is leg day, all day…”

“Is it true or isn’t it?” Saw persisted.

Declan narrowed his eyes. “Let’s say it is. What of it?”

Saw spread his hands. “I’m looking for five crates each, thermal charges and frags.”

“You’re joking.” Synnovea pushed herself away from the wall. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

“I understand your reluctance.” Saw looked sympathetic. “But we must work together to topple the Emperor. The resources your people possess can help us turn the tide.”

“We’re not talking about a blaster rifle, or even an E-web. Those frag grenades have a radius of at least twenty meters; you can’t always guarantee what you’ll be hitting! It’s impossible to always be able to factor in collateral damages. AT’s are one thing, but in cities…you’re talking about using terrorist tactics!”

“Sometimes shock value can be an equalizer. If you were in my position, fighting for your life every day against a brutal dictatorship, wouldn’t you do whatever it takes to win?”

Synnovea froze. “Whatever it takes?”

Saw nodded.

She laughed, a harsh jagged sound that didn’t reach her eyes. “You sound like Emperor Palpatine.”

“How dare you compare—”

Synnovea interrupted him. “Do you think Raxus understood ‘whatever it takes’? I mean sure, they’re still under the Empire’s thumb, but hey, at least their leader got away, right? And Sevarcos? Maybe the slaves there feel better that their civilizations were just swept up to supply the galaxy with spice, because, you know, ‘whatever it takes’?”

“Well—”

She continued over him, her voice hardening. “How about Ryloth? Because, you know, the Twi’leks have only been invaded all the time for the last thirty years? And the Republic was around for most of that. Or Kashyyyk? How do you think the Wookiees felt about their home planet being bombarded? Ohhh wait,” she chuckled, her tone chasing the edge of mania, “you can’t ask one, because they’re all dead or in the mines of Kessel or a gladiator pit somewhere. That,” she spat, “is what ‘whatever it takes’ looks like.”

“Synnovea!” Declan was there, yanking her out of Saw’s face and spinning her towards the door. “Go walk it off. Now.”

Storming to the doorway, her finger hovered over the button. “Saw, I know why you think this is the only way. But you don’t know who else you’re going to hurt!” Synnovea squared her shoulders, talking to the door. “You can have the medical supplies, and any foodstuffs from our storages. But no explosives, not one. I will not help you use the same tactics as our enemies. I will not help you indiscriminately kill.” She paused, and her gray eyes grew haunted as she lowered her head. “It’s not going to go the way you think it is. If that’s not good enough, take your damn cannons and fly into the nearest sun.” Then she was gone. It was impossible to slam a pneumatic door, but the punch she delivered to the closed portal had a similar effect.

*  *  *

The moon seemed to take forever to shed the heat of the day; Yavin was in full occlusion, hanging in the sky like an oppressive curtain while the deepening twilight stole the brighter colors of day, tucking them into the shadows. Hunter drew a deep breath of the cooling breeze that curled and eddied around the Marauder. Echo strode heavily down the gangway.

“Well, I have the diagnostics run, and you’re not gonna like it.”

“Just tell me.”

“No, it’ll just piss you off. Why don’t you let me talk to Tech first and ask Synnovea if we can rummage through their scrapyard. You know, whittle down the wish list a bit.”

“Skrag. Well, at least we’ll be able to afford it.”

“That’s if we can find all the parts.”

“Today’s just been nothing but good news,” Hunter groused, pushing himself up from the broken storage container he had been using for a seat. “Let’s head back in—wait. Is that…Saw?”

“And Declan,” Echo added grimly. Half-shrouded in the shadow of their vessel, they watched as repulsorlifts loaded stacks of crates onto a waiting ship. This close, their voices carried on the cooler evening air.

“I figured that you were going to tell me to pound sand, just like Synnovea.”

“Synnovea’s a doctor; she doesn’t understand how sometimes sacrifices need to be made in war, hard choices that cost you sleep for years to come. I don’t agree with your methods, Saw, but the Empire is here, on Yavin soil, and if they manage to make it all the way to the temple, I need those cannons to protect our families. These people are my responsibility.”

“Declan, I’ve got a feeling we’re going to become very close allies. You can count on me to return the favor whenever you need it.”

“I’m gonna hold you to that.”

Hunter squinted against the blast of air and dirt kicked up as Saw’s vessel lifted off the ground. From their vantage point, they saw Declan walking in their direction long before he saw them. Under their silent regard, Declan slowed his pace.

“Oh. You boys are up rather late.”

“Couldn’t sleep. Too many thoughts running through my head. You understand,” he rasped, scratching his shoulder, his eyes not leaving Declan’s. “You’ve got your people to take care of…and I’ve got mine.”

Declan didn’t bother playing dumb. “Synnovea is young. She doesn’t know how hard it is to keep a group of people this size going, keep them safe. But she’s passionate about what she believes in and isn’t afraid to speak her mind.”

“That’s for sure—wait,” Hunter paused, looking at him sharply. “Why did you tell her you wanted to see her, if you knew she was going to cause a scene?” Declan studied the darkening treeline. “You knew. You knew she was going to be upset and refuse to help him.”

“And then I went behind her back and did it anyway,” Declan agreed. “I’m not proud of what I did, using her like that. But we needed those cannons, and Saw was going to get those explosives one way or another, here or somewhere else. This way, he thinks he owes me a favor.”

“Huh.” Hunter studied him. “I first thought you were a pushover, but you’re a real bastard, aren’t you.”

 “Yeah,” Declan agreed heavily. “But only the real bastards are going to make it through this war.”

Chapter Text

“You in this round or not, Synnovea?” Venth tapped the deck in front of him. “Shut down the holonews: it’s nothing but depressing propaganda on every channel now. You look positively grim; did your caf machine finally give up the ghost? I know you hate how the bar droid makes his.”

“It’s molting season,” Synnovea groaned, closing the small holo-projector and slumping in her chair. She peeled the edges of her cards up from the table, peering at them. Her eyes darted narrowly to Venth, who promptly leaned back and became engrossed in shuffling his own hand. “Keep those Rodian orbs on your own cards, Venth. Both of them.”

Hunter raised an eyebrow. “Molting season?”

“Most of the recruits are ready to graduate to full-fledged resistance members,” Declan explained, assembling his cards. “Like any graduates they get drunk, rowdy, and usually there’s one or two that have enough liquid courage to try their luck with Synnovea.”

“If you’d let me break just one bone, we could stop this nonsense.”

“You can’t solve everything with violence.”

“Now, see, that just shows you lack imagination. I posit that a spiral fracture would solve a lot of my problems.” Behind her, a rowdy group cheered around a pair locked in arm wrestling as one man slammed his opponent’s hand into the table.

“Most of us are taking bets on how many of them you can make cry,” Venth commented, tossing another cred stick into the center of the table.

Synnovea looked up swiftly. “Oh, yeah? What’s the over-under?”

“Not helping, Venth,” Declan growled tersely.

“Why? It’s been a nice side hustle of mine, relieving the newly minted fighters for the Rebellion of their hard-earned credits.”

“Speaking of which…” Omega laid her cards down. “Twenty-three. Pay up.” She waved her upright palm toward her imperiously, and Venth swept the pot closer to her with a whispered curse.

“Can’t believe we’re losing to a kid,” he grumbled.

“I warned you not to let her play,” Echo said. He glanced next to him at Tech, engrossed in his datapad. “Why don’t you sit in for a few hands?”

“Sabacc holds little interest for me; once you memorize all the possible hands, the appeal is minimized.” The dim green display mirrored against the glass of his goggles. “However, if you insist, I shall participate once I am through combing their database for weak entry points.”

“That’s right, I meant to give you the passcodes for the import/export—” Synnovea twisted in her chair, reaching for her pack.

“That will not be necessary. I’ve bypassed the vulnerabilities in your system and located the manifest records and holocharts. There are some…disturbing gaps in your network threat management.”

Synnovea sat up tensely, laying her cards down. “But those files are encrypted—”

“Inadequately. I was able to uncover the key shortly after our arrival. You might consider replacing your database security protocols. This current program is, how shall I put this, woefully ineffective at protecting itself.”

“I designed that security program myself!” she protested indignantly, slamming her palms on the table as she stood.

“Ah.” Tech glanced up blandly before returning his attention to the device. “Your talents must lie elsewhere.”

“Hold on.” Hunter placed a hand on Synnovea’s arm, who looked ready to launch herself over the table. He turned to Tech. “Can you shore up their system so it’s more secure?”

“I am currently in the process of doing so.”

“All right, there, you see?” Hunter guided Synnovea back into her chair. “You’re not going to find a better slicer in the Outer Rim.”

“I figured he’d be slicing the Empire’s records, not ours,” she grumbled.

Tech tapped his finger, opening another file. “I can do both, once we locate them.”

“Believe it not, he does this for fun,” Echo explained.

“Fun,” Synnovea echoed disbelievingly.

“You’re killing the mood at the table, Syn. Ante up.” Cards shot from the deck as Venth distributed them to each player in turn.

“Don’t call me that,” she snapped, flicking a cred stick at him from the dwindling pile in front of her. Another raucous clamor of applause rose in the air from the nearest table.

“Then quit holding up the game. If I’m going to lose to a little girl, I’d prefer to get it over with quickly.”

“I have a name,” Omega muttered, emphasizing each word.

“Sorry. If I’m going to lose to a Little Girl with Four Scary Brothers, I’d prefer to get it over with quickly.”

Synnovea tucked one card over to the left in her hand. “Why are we friends again?”

“Because I’m an absolute joy to have around. Come on, admit it.”

“I threaten to kill you at least once a month.”

“Ahhh, that’s just your love language.” He discarded a Four of Flasks from his hand. “The day you start being nice is the day I start worrying.”

“You can’t kill him. He’s one of the few smugglers that still has clearance to Coruscant—or Imperial Center, whatever they call it now. I fold; this hand is straight ledwik.” Declan shoved his cards away from him.

Synnovea curled her cards downward, looking up. “But seriously, Declan—”

“You are not, repeat, not—look at me, Synnovea—going to break anyone’s bones.” He kept talking over her, raising an imperious finger. “Not a single one. As a matter of fact, I expect your behavior towards the recruits to be exemplary. It should raise the morale around here, not lower it.”

“‘Raise morale’, huh? Am I supposed to get up on a table and dance like a cantina Twi’lek?”

“At this point, I don’t care how you do it, as long as it doesn’t involve breaking things or threatening anyone.” He paused, thinking. “Or fire.”

“You’re no fun anymore.”

“There’s your fun right there, fixing your mistakes,” Declan retorted, jerking a thumb at Tech. “It wouldn’t kill you to be nicer to the recruits, then maybe you’d have more than just this quirky Rodian for a friend.”

“What did I do?” Venth objected, throwing up his hands.

Synnovea tried again. “Declan—"

“Synnovea, look at my face.”

Their eyes locked for several moments in silent combat, then Synnovea looked away, tipping sideways in her chair. “Nice,” she said sourly, rolling the word around in her mouth as though it tasted bad.

“Well, here’s your chance,” Venth muttered, shuffling the deck. “That whole table behind you is now looking your way.”

“Yayyyyyy.” She leaned forward on the table, her hands covering her face.

“C’mon, Beryl, Rils is on a roll. Think you can beat him?” One of the recruits roared, his invitation repeated by several others surrounding him.     

Removing her hands to reveal a brilliant smile, Synnovea almost choked on her own dissembling as she turned towards the recruit. “Oh, don’t let me disturb your game.”

“You’re one of the trainers for hand-to-hand combat. Don’t tell me you’re afraid to take me on,” Rils drawled, his speech only slightly slurred. “I heard you never turn down a challenge.” He slammed his fist on the table, during one of those inexplicable lulls that happen in a crowded room. “Prove it…sweetheart.” Heads swiveled as the entire bar became their audience.

Synnovea’s grin widened toothily. “If you insist.” She rose, pushing her way between people to reach the table. “Corellian rules?”

Rils shrugged. “Why not? Wait.” Rils peered at her suspiciously. “You aren’t going to kick me in the face or anything, are you?”

She smiled sweetly. “I promise not to.”

“Fine by me then. Somebody give up your belt or something.”

A wide leather thong was quickly procured, and Synnovea gracefully sank into the chair opposite Rils. He chuckled. “I knew you couldn’t turn me down.”

“You didn’t give me much choice.”

“It got your attention, though, didn’t it?” He propped his elbow on the table, wrapping her hand in his.

“True.” Her fingers tightened. “I must say, I feel…incredibly close to you right now, Rils,” she murmured, leaning towards him as two recruits wound the leather strap around and around their wrists, binding them tightly together. “I don’t even care if everyone is watching,” she whispered, inches from his face. “I think we should make this moment special.”

“I like the way you th—” Rils’ confident smirk froze as he heard the click of a thermal detonator, and he glanced down. In Synnovea’s free hand, the countdown light blinked between her fingers as a collective gasp began around the table and flowed outward.

Someone screamed, and pandemonium ensued.

Rils leapt to his feet, tearing at the binding. “Is that thing real? Are you serious?!”

“Wait, sweetheart, don’t you want to stare soulfully into my eyes?” Synnovea yanked him closer over the table, a death grip on his hand, her lips curving in an innocent smile. “It’s our first bomb together…”

“Is it real?!”

“This? No, it’s a tester dummy from the practice floor.” She pressed the button again, and the red light blinked to blue. At the same time, she slammed his fist backwards onto the table. “Hey, I win!”

“You’re crazy! Get away from me!” Rils shrieked as someone cut the strap, and he nearly fell in his haste to sprint from the bar, cannoning into several patrons on his way.

Synnovea sighed dramatically, rubbing her wrist. “I really thought we had a connection, too.”

Tech’s head tipped slightly to the side. “Unconventional, but a rather effective method of gaining attention and ensuring compliance.”

Hunter scowled. “How can you advocate the use of a bomb indoors?”

“A fake bomb, and sometimes expediency is paramount.”

Echo’s expression was a study in disapproval. “This is who hired us?”

Declan had managed to shove through the jostling crowd. “I give you one, one simple order—”

“Oh, come on, Declan,” Synnovea declared, brushing imaginary dust from her arms. “Show some compassion. I was dumped on my one-minute anniversary!”

“You really can’t keep a man,” Venth observed, shaking his head.

“Perhaps not,” she smirked, tapping Declan on the shoulder, “but you can say I boosted everyone’s spirits. I think I raised the heart rate of everyone in this room, at least. Besides, you told me to be nice; what’s nicer than sharing my personal ordnance?”

Chapter Text

A wisp of smoke trickled upward from Tech’s soldering gun, carrying with it the nose-wrinkling scent of burnt wire casing and overheated copper. He spoke without looking up. “Wrecker, this would proceed a lot faster if you would cease bumping me.”

“You’ve been working on that thing for two days now. What is it?” Wrecker grumbled, twisting on the upturned crate, his elbow hitting the barrel that Tech was using as a makeshift table in the shade of the Marauder. Tech sighed.

“This is a transponder. Once we locate the Imperial troops, we can trace them back to their landing site. This device will allow us to slice into their comm traffic with the Imperial fleet and relay it back to the receiver I’ve installed—” He paused in irritation as the barrel tipped again. “Do you have to sit there?” he objected, fixing his goggles as Wrecker stretched, his huge arms colliding with Tech again. “I thought you were helping Echo with the repairs to the Marauder.”

“Aahh, he has Omega working on one of the control panels, and they kicked me out of the cockpit for some reason.”

“I can’t imagine why,” Tech muttered, leaning over the transponder. “It’s not like it would be distracting to work on something delicate when someone enjoys mimicking seismic activity right beside you.”

“Let him work, Wrecker.” Hunter squinted against the brightness as he descended from the Marauder.

“I’m bored! Everything around here is either breakable or ancient—and breakable!” Wrecker complained, slumping on the crate. Tech quickly grabbed the pieces of transponder and held them aloft as Wrecker’s boot kicked the barrel.

Hunter caught the edge of the barrel, pushing it upright again. “The sooner that’s done, the sooner we can do what Synnovea paid us to do.”

“Yeah,” Wrecker chuckled, “or she’ll be mad at us, next.”

“What do you mean, ‘next’?”

“Well, she’s following Declan right now, and she looks angry.”

Sure enough, Declan had an irascible shadow as he wove from ship to ship. Bereft of her lab coat, Synnovea stalked behind him, having to take two steps for each of his one. “You can’t get away from me that easily, Declan!” she declared hotly, vaulting over a long parcel carried between two porters. “When were you going to tell me about this?”

“I was going to tell you as soon as I found you,” Declan answered, his voice guarded. “Preferably with less of an audience,” he muttered, dodging the offloading of two GNK droids.

“Marn and Banek didn’t report back and missed their rotation check-in. The other scouts came in earlier this morning, more than four hours ago. They were supposed to report to me, Declan, not to you. For this exact reason!”

“Will you—get over here and lower your voice,” Declan snapped, yanking her along as he ducked beneath an open wing-vent of a skyhopper. “You’ve said it yourself. Scouting is bloody dangerous work. We’re going to lose some from time to time.”

“Declan, I know these men, I trained them myself—” Synnovea started, but Declan cut her off.

“Then if you trained them properly, they’ll know what to do,” he answered sternly.

“You can’t just leave them! They could still be alive!”

He gave her a shake. “As I recall, you’ve refused every formal position in this militia I’ve offered to you. You begrudgingly help train our troops—and scare more of them than you instruct—when you aren’t holed up in that lab of yours. I can’t keep catering to your every whim, not when I have several hundred souls looking to me to make all the decisions. So, until you decide you’re more than a doctor, Doctor Beryl, all troops report to me, including my precious scouts.”

Shoving her aside, Declan stormed off. Synnovea glared after him, her jaw working as she tugged her tunic straight. “Yeah, okay,” she mumbled before heading for one of the stairs on the outside of the temple, running up the steep path with a speed that made Hunter dizzy just watching.

Tech stepped closer to Hunter. “Two scouts didn’t make it back to base?”

“Yeah,” Hunter agreed.

“It doesn’t appear that she took the news well.”

Hunter snorted. “Would you? She’s probably gone to cool off.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Tech sat down again, taking up his soldering gun. Something flashed and zapped among the wires. “Although,” he added as an afterthought, “she was headed in the same direction as the armory. So, I might have spoken too soon.”

*  *  *

Some ancient civilization may have enjoyed using this temple, but Hunter was never going to feel completely at ease in these corridors; he preferred the open air, never mind how humid or dry, blistering or freezing. Any terrain was better than these winding hallways and strangely carved rooms with tons of rock balanced above them. Still, even deep within the pyramid, he was able to sense a rhyme and reason to the passages and made his way to what he remembered to be the armory. This corridor wasn’t lit like some of the others; he slid his hand along the wall, looking for the door sensor, but found none. A similar inspection on the other side gave the same result. There was, however, a curved handle—a handle?—on the door itself. He gave a yank, pulling it aside into the wall.

Like the indoor training area, this room somehow made use of skylights strategically bored into the ceiling. Additional light bars were installed along the walls, illuminating the boxes and crates and stacked along the shelves. Off to his left, there was a grating, sliding sound, then a soft crash.

“Seriously?!” A string of Huttese followed, enough to make a Mid-Rim freighter pilot blush, and more heavy scraping. Hunter cautiously stepped around a rack of cycler rifles and saw Synnovea crawling out from beneath a pile of rectangular guard shields.

“Doing a little redecorating?” He took her forearm, helping her up.

“Sure, just trying to make this place a little more homey,” Synnovea returned smoothly, slapping the dust from her clothes. “Some shields on the floor, a few flares scattered for color, maybe a throw rug by the door. Whatever weapons are in season.”

“This room doesn’t have a door panel, just a handle.”

“That’s right. Current is still spotty in this place, and when there’s the occasional unexpected aircraft, we shut down the whole grid and go dark. That’s what we almost did when you guys showed up.” She pointed to the door handle. “You always want access to the armory, though, even when the power’s out…I should say especially when the power’s out.”

Hunter noticed the item in her other hand. “A Rodian throwing razor? What are you planning to do with that?”

“Knit a blanket.” She slid a dull metal vambrace onto her left forearm and shoved the razor’s handle into a slot on it. “Maybe milk a bantha.”

“Great. We’ve all been wondering if you had a sense of humor. Now I’ve seen it, and…it’s terrible.”

“I’m going after Marn and Banek. Just needed to pick up a few things first.” She selected a blaster from the wall, and a holster, buckling the latter on with some difficulty.

“I guessed as much. All by your lonesome?”

“I can take care of myself,” Synnovea grunted, tugging on one of the holster straps. “This isn’t your concern.”

Hunter scratched his jaw. “The way I see it, if those scouts have intel regarding the Imperial troops, it is our concern to protect that asset and help you retrieve it.” He crossed his arms. “I mean, that’s what you hired us for, right?”

Defiance warred with relief across her face in a matter of moments; relief won out. “Fine. But we’re leaving now.”

His smirk faltered. “What—now, as in right now?”

“No, the other now. The imaginary now. The hypothetical now—yes, right now.” Pausing as if coming to the immediate end of an invisible tether, she drew a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “They should have checked in hours ago. Time is not on their side.” She slid another blaster cartridge into her belt. “You can go or you can stay, but in thirty seconds I’m heading—” she stopped, looking around, then gestured vaguely in a direction that was more or less south, “—that way. It’s where their last transmission was.”

“Let me get the rest of the guys—”

“Sure thing…” Synnovea muttered in a sing-song voice, heading towards the door.

“Blast!” Hunter tapped his commlink. “Echo, keep Omega with you until we get back. Wrecker, Tech, stop what you’re doing and meet us at the south perimeter.”

Echo’s voice came over the line. “What are you doing?”

Hunter sighed. “Our job.”

*  *  *

Synnovea batted away a curious climbing fern tendril; the plant obligingly coiled in the opposite direction, winding into the shaggy purple bark of the nearest Massassi’s gigantic trunk. “We should be near where the scouts last sent a signal. Can your scanner pick them up, Tech?”

“I hope so,” groaned Wrecker. “We’ve been hiking in the same direction for three straight hours.”

Tech consulted his datapad, looking up after a few moments. “I'm detecting some sort of energy readings, although they're weak. One here, one 0.87 klicks northeast. Do those coordinates match up with your last known position before you lost contact?”

Looking over his arm at the screen, Synnovea frowned. “They do...but these readings show that the signal has split up. That doesn't make sense. If they've gone radio silent, that means they're hurt or worse. They'd know to stay put!”

“Why would they split up?”

She shook her head, her voice tense and low. “They wouldn’t...they'd hole up somewhere and wait for us to pick them up. In this forest, you don't go crawling through it if you can't run. You don’t go alone. And they’re not calling in? Something’s wrong.”

“You were going to go alone,” Hunter remarked pointedly.

“Yeah, well, everyone thinks I’m a bit off, anyway.”

“Hey, I’ve found something,” Wrecker announced, peering at the ground. “There’s a water canteen on the ground here, right next to the path.” He bent over, reaching for the dull brown flask.

“Wait, Wrecker—no!” Hunter swatted the arm away. Squatting down, he blew at the debris surrounding the canteen. Sharp serrated jaws of a hinged trap lay half-buried in the mulch and dirt. “That would have been a nasty pinch.” Gingerly, he slid the catch for the jaws of the trap to the side and flipped over the trap, holding out the bottle to Synnovea. “Hello…we’ve got tracks, and they’re not human.”

Synnovea pushed through the dense underbrush, ignoring the increased hum of buzzing insects as she reached for the water canteen. “This is standard issue from the stores; good ol’ army surplus. They were here.”

Squatting, Hunter traced the inside of the footprint with his fingertips. “Trandoshan. This one’s bigger than what I’ve seen before. And he’s not alone; there’s three, maybe four of them.”

“Ah, I like Trandoshans. Some of them squeak when you hit ‘em right,” Wrecker proclaimed, punching his palm with a meaty fist.

Seeing a flash in the dirt next to one of the footprints, Hunter pried out a commlink, scraped and worn. Tech peered over Hunter’s shoulder, taking it from his hand. “It appears to still be functional,” he said, wiping grime off the blue indicator light.

An unfamiliar gravelly voice issued from the commlink as he was inspecting it. “You managed to ssspot our little trap, humans. Are you following us? Perhaps you’ve…losst something?” A sickening crack echoed through the device, accompanied by a yelp of pain. “You know the rules of the jungle…findersss keepers. Keep following usss, and we’ll add you to the larder.” The device went silent.

Tech sighed, consulting his wrist computer and whatever was scrolling across his visor. “Taking them in the jungle will be difficult enough. If these tracks continue their current course, we will arrive at one of the areas on my map designated as one of the farming communities.” He looked at Synnovea. “This cannot be a coincidence.”

Her face was grim. “It’s not. They’re headed for the houses. They can do more damage there while we have to pull our shots. They might try to use one of the families as additional cover.”

“Wait, I thought you said the resistance fighters patrol the farms,” Wrecker interjected. “So why are you worried?”

Synnovea ran an exasperated hand over her head, giving her braid an angry tug. “This sector isn’t part of this week’s rotation.” She glanced around at their expressions and responded defensively, “We don’t have the manpower to monitor every farm on this continent!”

“We don’t have time for this,” Hunter grated, rubbing the dirt from his fingers as he stood. “You’re saying that we have no backup anywhere close to deal with these lizards? Can the farmers at least call for help?.”

“Declan won’t have them on our frequencies if they refuse to follow our safety precautions.” Yanking her water can from the side of her pack, Synnovea took a long pull before passing it around. “Neither side will budge on that. We can’t give up, though.”

Closing the cover of his wrist computer, Tech flipped his visor up and out of the way. “Obviously not, but the number of increased targets helps them and hinders us. The likelihood of encountering inhabitants increases significantly within the agricultural zone.”

“Right.” Hunter reclaimed his blaster from its holster. “We’re less than a klick from those farms on your map. Let’s go, and quietly.”

The edge of the clearing could be felt before it could be seen. There was the increasing sunlight erasing the shadows as they crept closer, but before that the temperature ramped up, the kind that darkened your clothes with sweat and made everything in your vision dance in invisible flames. The underbrush thinned slightly, and they hugged the last few meters of cover as the land before them gave way to fields of crops that had been painstakingly carved into the irrepressible jungle. The waving grain and neat rows wavered in the afternoon glare, but the patch directly ahead of them had been cleared recently, leaving a lumpy, root-laden area of dark earth waiting to be mellowed and planted again.

“Watch your step,” Synnovea advised, “that ground’s gonna be mud around the irrigation ditches. Luckily, it’s the dry season or it’d be worse.”

“Dry season?” Hunter scoffed. “It rained three times last week.”

“Yep. We regularly get over five meters of rain per cycle. Remind me to put that in our advert file. Come for the monsoons, stay for the soul-sucking oppressive heat.”

“My scan shows several lifeforms on the opposite side of this field,” Tech informed the group. “It looks to be…six. If your count was correct, Hunter, this means that the scouts are indeed still alive.”

“Do we have time to circle around and prepare an ambush?”

Before Tech could answer, a brassy reptilian bellow reverberated across the open ground.

“Unfortunately, no,” Tech replied unnecessarily.

Hunter crouched, peering through a pair of binocs; shapes were emerging from the shadows beneath the trees on the opposite side of the clearing. The largest one was dragging something. “This doesn’t look good.” He passed the binocs to Tech. “They’re coming out. I think they’ve got one of your lads in tow.”

It was so. Even from this distance without the viewer, what the large brown Trandoshan had in his grasp was clearly human. Two slightly smaller, but no less imposing green hunters flanked him, blaster rifles nestled capably in their claws, followed by a fourth dragging another thrashing body. At the beginning of the farmland, the big one yanked a tall metal crop sign from the earth, using it as a walking stick. Partway into the empty field, the two green reptoids halted, and the leader came forward several meters, dragging the scout unceremoniously behind him. His head swept left, then right, before lifting his chin.

“That would be the leader,” Hunter remarked, his eyes narrowed as he scanned the scene before him.

“Probably, but how do you know for sure?” Synnovea asked.

Tech lowered the binocs. “He’s the biggest. Trandoshan hierarchy is synonymous with ‘might makes right’.”

“I know you’re here, humans,” he bellowed. “I can sssmell you. Sssomewhere…” He threw the scout contemptuously to the ground.

“Banek,” Synnovea whispered, her voice strained.

Lifting one leg, the Trandoshan stomped on Banek’s chest with his giant scaly foot, pinning him to the earth as he raised his fist to his toothed muzzle. A sibilant growl came over their comms. “He’s right here. Come and claim him, if you can.”

“He can’t pinpoint us,” Hunter muttered. “Luckily we’re downwind—for now, at least.”

“He’ll be trying to draw us out, next,” Tech commented, swapping his datapad for one of his blasters. “I believe that is what the scout is for.”

Wrecker sounded puzzled. He was the only one who did. “For what?”

“Bait,” Tech answered simply.

Hunter could see Banek’s limbs thrashing wildly beneath the Trandoshan, who brandished the sign pole over his head, the threat unmistakable. “Skrag,” he whispered.

With a cry sounding like a rusty cog that hadn’t moved in decades, the reptoid thug thrust the pointed end of the pole into the scout’s chest. The body beneath his foot jerked but made no sound.

Hunter caught Synnovea’s shoulder as she lunged forward. “You can’t help him now! Did you hear a scream? No. That means he pierced the lung.”

“I’ve got a medkit,” she managed through a clenched jaw, her eyes on the form struggling in the dirt. “We’ll stabilize him and call for pickup—let me go!”

Hunter’s fingers dug in, pulling her back. “You’re playing right into his hands, Synnovea. That’s exactly what he’s waiting for. And once you’re out there alone, his friends will pick you off before you ever get close. Lungs bleed out fast, I’m sorry, but he’s already gone.” His guttural voice hissed against her ear. “You go out there now, and you’re right where he wants you.”

Synnovea yanked herself free and stood stiffly, her breath coming fast. “Yeah. Yeah, okay,” she choked out.

Turning to the others, Hunter began talking rapidly. “All right, we’re going to deploy flanking maneuvers to compensate for the lack of cover, then Wrecker, I’m going to need a distraction while I try to reach the second scout; the last thing we need is another hostage situation. Tech, see if you can overload the fence, those two are standing close enough for it to hurt. Now—"

“Do you mean to try this after her attempt?” Tech queried, pointing to something past Hunter’s shoulder.

Hunter spun around; sure enough, Synnovea’s green hood flapped behind her as she sprinted across the fallow land toward the Trandoshan. “Of all the times—” he growled, drawing his blasters. “She’s gonna get herself killed!” He surged out from behind the broad-leafed bush, followed by Tech and Wrecker.

“She did say she would eventually come up with a plan,” Tech remarked offhandedly as they ran. “Our error was assuming it would be a good one.”

*  *  *

Synnovea pelted through the wavering heat lines of the empty field, ignoring the dirt clods exploding to the left and right of her as she zig-zagged toward Banek. Her blaster flashed in her hand. Most of her shots went wild, but a single bolt burned into the thigh of the Trandoshan leader, who squalled, more from humiliation than pain.

Hunter and Tech had almost reached the edge of the field. The ground buckled deceptively with every step, making footing treacherous. They were forced to pick their way across, dodging the shots from the two green Trandoshans at the opposite edge of the field. Behind them, the smaller brown reptoid yanked at his captive, hissing in anger, then jerked upright and back. Brown-black blood ran freely from a serrated crescent blade that now sprouted from his throat. Synnovea lowered her now-empty hand as Marn staggered back from the Trandoshan, who fell to his knees, gurgling as he clawed at the mortal wound.

“Tech, the fence!” Hunter yelled, snapping off a few shots before moving again. Wrecker was still reaching the field; no help there. Off to his left, he saw the big Trandoshan jerk the pole out of Banek’s body. The man instantly curled up on his side.

“Stupid meat-sack! I’ll tear you, I’ll rend you!” the big reptoid croaked, his neck ruffling with fury. He stepped over Banek to rush at Synnovea, swinging the sign like an axe. The improvised weapon bent with the sheer force of the swing as it collided with her blaster. The gun went spinning into the dirt, several meters away. The smashed pole went flying as well, and the Trandoshan splayed his clawed hands, crouched ready to spring.

“Wrecker, I need cover fire!” Behind him, Tech was working on the fence. Tech would get it; he had to.

Fiddling with her vambrace, Synnovea pressed a button. A buckler energy shield activated. As the Trandoshan leaped forward on his powerful legs, he raised a clawed hand over his head, bringing it down with a roar. She braced the shield over her head.

The scaled hand descended like a multi-pointed mattock; the shield and the arm that held it nearly bounced with the effort of resisting the strike, bowling Synnovea backward into the dirt. Her entire forearm felt numb to the elbow. If the shield wasn’t automatically attached to the vambrace, she would have dropped it. Raising herself on her elbows, she scanned the ground around her.

Bolts of energy whizzing past Hunter from behind told him that Wrecker had finally made it to the party. Pressed by both commandos, the green Trandoshans were obliged to retreat beneath the onslaught of the combined attack.

A low humming was the only warning. The hairs on Hunter’s arms stood at attention right before one of the green reptoids spasmed, a high-pitched squeal torn from his scaly muzzle as his body pitched forward, a sizzle of smoke rising from him that, ironically, made Hunter think of Tech’s soldering iron.

“I told you they squeak!” Wrecker crowed.

Tech’s voice came over the comms. “Perhaps I overloaded it a bit much.”

The moment of humor was short-lived. Crawling towards where she last saw her blaster, Synnovea heard the snarl before the shadow fell on her. Flipping onto her back, she brought the shield up just in time, tucking her knees beneath the vambrace to bolster her numb arm.

Once, twice, three times, the Trandoshan slammed into the small, infuriating energy disc with frightening speed. Each time, he battered the shield with such force that Synnovea’s body began to disappear into the soft, uneven dirt. On the third hit, the earth began to fold in on her, and she spat out the soil that tumbled into her mouth as the dirt began covering her face. Above her, the shield wavered, blinked, then disappeared with a crackling sound.

Glancing left, all Hunter could see was Synnovea’s arm; the rest of her was practically underground. “Wrecker!” he shouted. “Go play with the big guy! Tech—check on the scout!” He holstered one blaster, drawing his knife. “I’ll handle this one.”

No longer hindered by the shield, the Trandoshan reached down, his enormous hand engulfing Synnovea’s head, plucking her from the earth. Her hands caught desperately at the thick brown wrist as he lifted her off the ground, her legs kicking but meeting only empty air.

Circling the green Trandoshan, Hunter nearly took a blaster bolt in the chest. This was the one the fence had missed. Snapping off a short burst from his blaster, he closed the distance, bringing the vibroblade up between the lizard’s ribs, ripping outward. Fighting the Trandoshan suddenly became holding the Trandoshan, as the body sagged in his hands, claws weakly grasping at him. “Try fighting without a lung, ya gecko,” he muttered, yanking his blade free.

A large muscular arm encircled the big lizard’s thick neck, jerking his horned head up. “My turn,” Wrecker growled.

The reaction was instant. The Trandoshan frenzied, pitching Synnovea away from him as he leaned backward, slashing behind him. The screeching whine of his talons scrabbling against armor plates hurt the ears. Wrecker tucked his head down beneath the swiping claws, trying to snap the neck. But Trandoshan neck muscles were notoriously bulky, and this one was old, and wily. It opened its jaws, letting loose a creaking, high-pitched scream.

“Ahhhh, shaddup!” Wrecker howled as the reptoid wrenched free of his grip.

Swinging his powerful tail, the Trandoshan hit him in the back of the knees, sending him sprawling to the ground before turning his attention to Synnovea, crawling towards her blaster half-sticking out of the earth.

Shrieking with rage, the brown reptoid leapt on her, dragging her back through the dirt as her arms flailed wildly, trying futilely to slow her body from being pulled beneath the angry Trandoshan.

“I’ll disembowel you, human!” he screamed over her huddled body, reaching down to flip her over. “My face will be the last thing you’ll see.”

Synnovea held her blaster to his nose. “I beg to differ,” she gritted, pulling the trigger. The bolt burned its way through the leathery skin of his snout and tunneled out the back of the head; the Trandoshan slumped limply onto her, dead weight.

She pushed, kicked, then finally— “Excuse me! Sinking here!”

“Oh! Right…” Wrecker heaved himself upright, then rolled the dead Trandoshan off her.

Ignoring the blood that stained the front of her tunic and the dirt the clung to her hair, her clothes, everywhere, Synnovea scrambled to her feet, stumbling over the ground to throw herself on the fetal position of the first scout. “Banek!” She stabbed a stimpack into his neck, rolling him into her lap as she checked for signs of life.

Tech’s voice was quiet in Hunter’s ear after the noise of battle. “I have the other scout, Marn. He is relatively unharmed. I am unable to say the same for Banek, however.”

Synnovea let Banek’s body sag in her arms. “I was too late,” she panted, lowering her head. “He’s gone.”

 *  *  *

“We’re lucky that the family stayed inside; otherwise, we might have had additional hostages to deal with,” Tech remarked. “We’ve signaled the resistance base; they’re sending a hopper to collect us.”

Tech’s voice trailed off, and Hunter found himself turning to see whatever had caught his attention. At the edge of the fallow land, Synnovea appeared to be struggling with a rope near the Trandoshan leader’s body, thrown around a nearby tree limb. As he watched, he realized the reason for the odd angle; the reptoid was lashed to a post, and Synnovea was using the rope to drag the post upright.

“What does she think she’s doing?” Hunter snapped, beginning to jog across the field, followed by Wrecker and Tech. “It feels like we just did this…”

The post was sharpened at the bottom; as it was raised, the weight of the corpse was slowly sinking the pole into the dark, fertile soil. Slowing his gait as he got closer, Hunter waved an arm to gain Synnovea’s attention, his expression stern. “Care to tell us what’s going on?” he rasped, gesturing to the body of the Trandoshan, its head tipped limply to one side on the post.

“I’m almost…done,” she gritted, giving the rough rope a determined yank. The body lurched upright on its puppet stick, wobbling back and forth until it settled far enough into the ground. Puffing out her breath in a groan, Synnovea straightened, swinging her arm in a circle to loosen her shoulder. “I saved the smallest one for last. The other two are bracketing those houses over there.”

Hunter tried to think of how to word it diplomatically; that was usually Echo’s job. “Isn’t this a little…”

“Barbaric?” Tech supplied bluntly. He blinked in surprise when Hunter backhanded his shoulder, staggering back half a step.

“We used to put them in the crops to scare off birds, but the choku packs trampled the plants to get to the meat.” Jerking the rope to pull the loop from the pole, she tugged it free of the tree limb. “Now I just stake ‘em at the edge of the clearing.”

Hunter surveyed her handiwork with a jaundiced eye. “I take it subtlety isn’t your style.”

“Not that it’s precisely our forte, either,” Tech acknowledged. He turned to Synnovea, one hand uplifted in appeal. “I get that you’re trying to send a message, but displaying them like some sort of unconventional trophies…isn’t this going to escalate the situation, rather than alleviate it?”

 “It’ll scare them off for a while, until they get brave enough again.”

“Me and the boys didn’t sign up for this,” Hunter argued, cutting the air in front of him with a chopping motion. “I don’t know what kind of expectations you had, Synnovea, but we’re mercenaries, not exterminators. I mean,” he half-turned, giving the Trandoshan a dubious glance, “doesn’t doing this…bother you at all?”

Synnovea dropped the rope at her feet. She stood, looking down at the brown loops and coils on the yellow-veined plants that covered the ground near the fields. “You’re right. It should bother me. It’s excessive. Barbaric. That’s what I thought in the beginning, as well.” Looking up, her gaze settled on the rough, neat houses nestled between the field borders. “The first time, we took away all their gear and told them we’d spare their lives if they’d walk away and never return. They promised, so we set them free.”

A twisted strand of hair, pulled free by the early evening breeze, plastered against her cheek where a smear of drying blood darkened her skin. She ignored it, her voice now dull and flat. “That night, they came back with twice as many in their number. They razed the fields, the buildings. Slaughtered the livestock and left their bodies to bloat in the sun. And the families…they staked them out like scarecrows, all in a row. Including the children. I remember that the youngest was about five.” She swallowed visibly. “We offered them mercy. Perhaps it’s a concept that Trandoshans don’t understand.”

Her head swung creakily to face him, and her gray eyes carried an angry weight, burdened by horror and guilt. One of her fingers jabbed viciously at the bound body of the Trandoshan up on the repurposed fence rail. “This is what they understand,” she hissed, her voice low as the words spilled out faster and faster. “No bully in the history of the universe ever backed down from a display of kindness. No, they only listen to who or what can hurt them more. So, I give them a reason to listen to me, because it’s clear that sometimes compassion only leads to a higher death toll.”

Leaning down, Synnovea grabbed the armful of rope, throwing the disheveled mass over her shoulder and shoving through them, heading for where the final Trandoshan lay further down the slope. “Those bodies stay up where they are,” she snarled warningly over her shoulder as she stalked away. Hunter eyed her retreating form uneasily.

Chapter Text

Omega trudged listlessly behind the repulsor-cart, her gaze drifting over the scattered debris that lay between the random heaps of metal that littered the clearing. Ahead, Echo’s voice droned on as he read off each item on his list, his footsteps echoing faintly as his boots crunched through the broken seashells and gravel, brought in from the edges of the peninsula to keep the scrapyard from slowly descending into the dark brown loam beneath the canopy.

“Let’s see, four heat sinks, replace the housing for the fusion generator before it melts, find a cooler valve that doesn’t look like it’s been used for target practice, another control momentum gyroscope for the navicomputer because it did melt…Keep an eye out for any Mon Calamari vessels,” he added over his shoulder.

She kicked a rod that lay in the path. It clattered hollowly against a bent jumpseat that had seen better days. “Why.”

“Because aquatic vessels are lousy with pipe straps. Quarren would work, too, but Calamari specs are closer to what we’re looking for. You can never have too many pipe straps.”

“Fine.” Omega picked up the rod, whacking random things as she followed Echo deeper into the haphazard stacks of broken machinery and wires that passed for a rough organizational system of parts.

“Hey!” He grabbed for the rod after it smashed through the cracked viewport of a faded blue hopper. “Some of this stuff might actually work, if you don’t bludgeon it to pieces first.”

With a roll of her eyes, Omega released the rod, stomping up the nearest pile into the stripped-out interior of a small freighter tipped on its nose, dodging the hanging cables as she clambered inside. Echo stopped, lifting his head skyward as he groaned inwardly.

“Omega, wait…” He had to nearly bend double to fit through the crushed end of the ramp. Sliding down to the bottom of the cargo hold, he looked around. “Omega?”

One of the panels on the wall had been removed and set aside; conduit pipes and bundles of wires ran inside. Just as he was about to stick his head inside, a grease-smudged hand waved in the opening from above. “Fusioncutter.”

“Omega,” he ground out, trying to keep from sounding as exasperated as he felt, “what are you doing?”

“You wanted a gyroscope, I need the fusioncutter to get it out.” She wiggled her fingers. “The ion exhausts are baffled on this ship.”

“Huh. Must be they didn’t want their trace emissions found,” Echo remarked musingly, digging out the fusioncutter and placing it in her hand.

She clicked the tool once, searing a neat line along the casing of the navicomputer. “Spy?”

“Possibly. More likely they were a smuggler, like our new friend Venth.” He sat down heavily, leaning his back against the wall. Muffled by the freighter from the sounds of the woolamanders and birds, for a minute or two there was only the thin whine of the fusioncutter. Wishing Hunter was there, Echo finally broke the tense silence. “Are you, uh, all right in there?”

Dull thunking sounds rattled around in the conduit shaft, and Omega’s boots appeared first, then her spindly legs. After a few frustrated grunts echoed behind the paneling, Echo reached up with his good arm, giving her belt a tug. The rest of Omega appeared, tool in one hand, and what looked like the carved-off corner of a large metal cube in the other. “Here,” she said, dumping both in his lap, avoiding his gaze.

Reaching into the chunk, Echo wrapped his fingers around the part and lifted it carefully out. “Perfect.” Looking down at her narrow frame practically radiating obstinance, he realized he was going to have to broach the subject. “All right, out with it. What’s with the one-word answers? Normally you never stop talking.”

“I want to do something useful, not just dig around a broken starship because I’m small enough to fit into tight spaces!”

“You think repairing the Marauder’s not something useful? We’re going to need it eventually.”

“You know what I mean! Hunter and Wrecker and Tech got to go with Synnovea on an adventure, while we stay here and solder wires together,” she mumbled, shoving her boot at the trash underfoot as she hugged her knees to her chest, resting her head on her forearms.

Echo sighed. “Look, maybe soldering wires together isn’t glamorous, but it’s a useful skill. You don’t always have to put yourself in danger to be a valuable member of the team. Sometimes, it’s the stuff like this, the boring jobs that others take for granted, that’s just as important as the ‘adventures’…sometimes more. How many times have we relied on the Marauder working well enough for us to get clear of a situation?”

Omega’s voice came from beneath her arms. “Every time.” Her voice became clearer as she lifted her head. “Sometimes we have to repair mid-flight, too.”

“Well, then, you see? The team is counting on us to make these repairs. To know how to do it, quickly and efficiently. To keep them safe. Who knows what else is going to happen while we’re here? You’re helping protect people with what you’re doing, just as much as they are.”

He could see her mull it over in her head and couldn’t help empathizing with her a bit. Sometimes action was infinitely preferable to the slower pace of…well, anything else, but after a couple hundred missions, he was glad to occasionally sit one out.

“I guess so,” she admitted finally, itching her cheek with the back of a greasy fist. “I just wish that fixing things was more…I dunno…fun…”

Echo put the fusioncutter back in her hand. “Here. Help me finish going through this list, and when we’re repairing the Marauder, I’ll show you a couple ways to sabotage a plasma line.”

“Really?” Her eyes lit up.

He held up a warning hand. “The whole list, mind you. We need to be able to tell Venth what to look out for. Now, take the extra spanner off the cart and see if you can pry any working hypernodes out of that stack of speeders. One or two might be big enough for what we need.”

“You’re on!” Omega slid down from the freighter fuselage, leaping nimbly to the ground.

As Echo consulted his datapad for the necessary couplings for the heat sinks, Omega tripped through knee-high broad-leafed crimson grass toward the pile of broken speeders Echo had indicated.

Kneeling on the debris, Omega’s hand ran across something…soft. Bending over to peer beneath the twisted durasteel frame of half a speederbike, she ran her finger s over the surface beneath. Some sort of tarpaulin, well oiled, tied in place with rope that was beginning to fray in the unforgiving climate. She gave the rope an experimental tug, and the sun-bleached fibers practically disintegrated in her hands. Rubbing her palms on her pants to get the dusty strands off her fingers, she began to peel back the covering. It was harder than she anticipated, so she spent some time moving the pieces of speederbike off, as well as a few decent-sized branches. Then she tried again; this time, the waterproof covering slid a few meters.

Scrambling over the junk surrounding the tarpaulin, she wiped a hand across the nondescript surface, wiping away smudges of dirt and rotting leaves. Her eyes opened wide.

“Echo!” she called. “Come look at this.”

*  *  *

Tagrif Chal rubbed his eyes, feeling the gritty ache of fatigue gnaw at his senses. Field work sounded interesting…until you were actually in the field, he thought, a baleful glance taking in the prefab room that served as a laboratory in the middle of this godforsaken jungle. At least they’d been here long enough to determine what was edible through the bioscans; Tagrif nearly gagged at the memory of the bland ration capsules, washed down with lukewarm water. They always seemed to stick to the back of the tongue and once swallowed, gave the uncomfortable impression of a full stomach, without any of the pleasure of getting to that point.

The maintenance droids continued to trundle into the next room, securing the joining of each plate with their careful, precise welds. The whining of their saws and lasers had gone on for over two days, but Tagrif had been explicit in his requirements. Everything must be done exactly to his calculations, or he couldn’t account for the outcome. Actually, he still wasn’t entirely sure that he could, but he kept that thought to himself.

Negative thoughts like that were dangerous. They would get him killed.

On the table in front of him, a holopuck trilled. With unsteady fingers, Tagrif rebuttoned his collar, adjusting his spectacles nervously.

“Lieutenant Mavarr,” he said stiffly, “the construction of the testing site is still underway.”

“It’s been nearly a week, Doctor Chal,” a man’s voice was heard before the hologram flickered into clarity. “I do hope that this won’t turn out to be the same sort of disappointment as Malpaz. Admiral Tarkin is not a patient man.”

Tagrif bit his tongue discreetly, managing to keep his expression neutral. He knew that an assistant recently elevated to Imperial scientist like himself didn’t rank very high in terms of importance, but he’d wager his last credit chip that Admiral Tarkin didn’t even know Elsen Mavarr existed. Yet the man consistently acted as if the two were on any sort of speaking terms whatsoever. No matter; his own honesty had suffered a questionable decline since his involuntary promotion. “Of course, sir. But we had trouble finding a sufficient location to begin building, and then, er, something ate two stormtroopers—”

“Ate?” Lieutenant Mavarr’s eyebrows rose in frozen distaste.

Tagrif winced, recalling that unpleasant morning. “Best as we can tell. We never did find their bodies, just…a few pieces.”

“I sent the additional materials and equipment you requested, Doctor Chal. I expect to see results, or I shall consider our informal agreement rescinded.” The slightly blurry hologram of the lieutenant made a show of plucking an infinitesimal speck off the cuff of his uniform and flicking it away. “You promised that your idea would work, if only you had enough specimens and the proper testing site.”

“It’s not that simple,” Tagrif objected, leaning forward earnestly. “We have the testing site nearly built, but the collection of—”

“I’m sure you’ll figure something out, and soon.” Mavarr’s prim, precise voice grew distant, observational. “How time flies. Your daughter, she turns five soon, isn’t that correct?”

Tagrif swallowed. “In seventeen rotations, sir.”

“Marvelous. Children are indeed very precious. Well, we must be sure to put all our effort into this little project, isn’t that right? You’re on the Empire’s time now. It wouldn’t do for those regular calls home to stop, now would it?” The lieutenant made a tch-tch sound. “How would your wife explain that to your daughter?”

“Please, lieutenant, I—” the hologram had switched off. “Little sleemo,” Tagrif muttered, wiping away the sweat beading on his upper lip. Slumped on his stool, he pressed his fist against his mouth, his eyes darting off to his right where a tangle of wires and lasercut mirrors lay strewn around an empty glass globe. “Please, let this work,” he whispered against his knuckles.

*  *  *

“She did what?” Echo’s voice rose an octave.

“Yeah. Each one of ‘em trussed up like a roasting nuna.” Hunter scrubbed at his face with a gloved hand, but the memory of those bodies spiked around the field remained.

“The same Synnovea that won’t cut into her nerf steak if its pink?”

“She was trying to save the other scout. The one that didn’t make it.”

Echo paused, then tipped his head in a matter-of-fact way. “Well, I mean, that makes sense. She’s a doctor, right? Running into battle to retrieve the wounded, that’s what ours used to do.”

Tech lowered his soldering gun. “Combat medics, Echo, not civilian ones. Exactly how much combat do you think a doctor in some infirmary on Coruscant saw?”

“What are you even working on?” Wrecker wanted to know as his teeth tore a chunk out of some unidentifiable seared animal on a stick.

“Does the kitchen know you took that, or did you even ask,” Echo interrupted severely.

Wrecker protested. “They offered!”

“I am currently repairing the shield of Synnovea’s vambrace. It was damaged during the fight with the Trandoshans.” Something popped in Tech’s face, and he jerked back reflexively. “This would be a less difficult task if I did not also have to undo whatever Synnovea has previously attempted by way of maintenance.”

Crossing his arms, Hunter glowered straight ahead, his eyes darting back and forth as he looked back on recent events. “I don’t know. Maybe we should just return the credits and take off.”

“But we already spent half of it ordering parts for the ship,” Omega protested, leaning down from her perch on the stacked boxes, her thin legs dangling over the edge.

“You did what?”

“You told me to get the Marauder up and running again,” Echo said defensively. “We salvaged what we could, but we needed to replace the housing on the hyperdrive if you wanted to be able to leave the sector, which, I figured, might become a topic of conversation eventually—”

Hunter groaned, sinking onto a nearby loading crate. “Fantastic. Anything else I should know about?”

“We are now the proud owners of fifty-seven pipe straps,” Omega told him proudly.

“What? Why?”

“You can never have too many pipe straps,” she informed him sagely. “Not only that, but we also found something else while poking around—”

Echo cut her off. “That can wait, Omega. This takes priority.” Turning to Hunter, he continued, “Look, even if we canceled the entire order with Venth, let’s not forget that the Marauder limped onto this moon. Giving back the credits just leaves us stranded here in more ways than one. Not to mention that we already know that no one else is going to help them.”

Omega chimed in. “Yavin’s only been a colony for a generation or two; they had no representation in the Senate, so they had no one to help them when the Separatists attacked. The Duros population was almost decimated; that’s why they don’t have anything to do with the farmers or the resistance on this moon. They just live in the jungle, hunting and foraging like their ancestors did. Sometimes they’ll trade, but they don’t trust humans much anymore.” She halted her litany as four pairs of eyes settled on her. “What?”

“How do you know all of that?” Hunter demanded, his eyes narrowing sharply.

She slid off the crates, looking at each of them in turn. “Synnovea told me. Us, actually; we were all there at the dining hall yesterday, remember?” Omega was rewarded with blank looks. Her face dissolved into perplexed frustration. “Honestly, if it’s not about ‘the mission’—” she hooked the first two fingers of each hand in the air, bracketing her words, “—it’s like none of you even care what’s happened, or what’s happening now. She’s trying to save her people. We can’t just walk away!” 

“Omega,” Tech began patiently, laying down his tools and lacing his fingers, “we are trying to help. However, one cannot ignore the growing number of anomalies that are complicating this mission, and most of them seem to be originating from our employer.”

Echo grunted. “A whackjob doctor that runs straight into blaster fire like she can dodge the bolts or something, and spends her time watching the holonews, losing at cards, or spiking bodies in fields. I know I said we should stay, but something’s not right with her.”

“I like her,” Omega asserted, prepared to argue the point.

“You like just about everyone,” Echo pointed out. “That doesn’t make her any less crazy.”

Hunter waved a hand. “Whackjob or not, her credit still spends as well as anyone’s…and it beats going back to Ord Mantell with nothing to show for this jaunt. We stay, and finish what we were hired to do.” His face hardened. “But this time, we do it our way.”

*  *  *

“Our way sucks.”

“Stow it, Wrecker. It’s just a little rain.”

“A little?” Wrecker swung his body to face Echo, water sheeting off his helmet as he turned. “There is a waterfall running down my back, right into my—”

Tech wiped off the drops puddling on the surface of his datapad. “Synnovea did say that this planet receives five meters of rain every year.”

Wrecker grunted. “Was it all today?” Lowering his DC-17, he let the repeating blaster rest on his leg and leaned his head against the fallen tree they were crouched behind. This far beneath the canopy, the flashes of lightning couldn’t be seen, but the thunder managed to vibrate the little hairs inside his ears. He felt jumpy and miserable. “Being in the rain and mud all day just means blisters and rust.”

Half-wading, half-hopping through the swiftly moving stream of water that was funneling between the trees, Omega’s wide eyes came into view through the downpour, the rain trickling over her strapped helm and coursing down her arms. “Cheer up, Wrecker. At least it’s warm,” she said encouragingly.

“Warm, nngghhh.” Wrecker shuddered. “Cold rain makes sense. Warm rain just feels gross.” Slogging along in Omega’s wake, Synnovea stumbled to a halt, leaning against the log. The deluge plastered her hair flatly to her head, but didn’t disguise the sparkling enthusiasm in her eyes. “And what are you so happy about?”

A grin split her narrow face. “I like the rain,” she said simply, loud enough to be heard over the pelting drops that hit everything around them.

“Yeah? Well good for you,” he grumbled, wiping his visor with the back of his hand.

Echo shifted in his crouch, tilting his head so that the rain slanted down the side of his helmet and not over the visor. “Visibility is poor, but it’s gonna be the same for the other side as well, and they don’t know we’re coming.”

“Great, I think my blister has a blister…”

“Come on, Wrecker, it’s just water. Focus on the mission!”

Tech’s screen lit up. “I just finished downloading the map Synnovea sent. Now I can overlay the signals from the Imperial’s helmets, so—” little red lights dotted the topographical lines. “I now have a clear location for all twelve targets.” Narrowing his eyes at the display, he tapped it. “Make that ten targets.”

Hunter’s voice was heard on the squad channel. “I’ve taken care of the two soldiers north of the encampment.”

Wrecker’s helmet snapped up. “How come he got to go first?” his deep voice rumbled in complaint.

“Already?” Omega asked. “What’d he do?”

“Er, there’s still some things about Hunter that can wait a few years before you learn about them,” Echo told her firmly.

“Haha, yeah,” Wrecker chuckled. “Most of ‘em have to do with how he takes that knife of his and—”

Echo snatched the neck of Wrecker’s chest plate, yanking him down an inch. “—And can wait a few years, I said!” he hissed.

“If those two troopers don’t radio in, the rest of them will be on their guard,” Tech warned.

“Then I suggest you get a move on,” Hunter grated.

“Right. Tech, begin laying the charges up here.” Echo’s visor pivoted. “Wrecker, swim down to the bottom and get ready to push their sledge into the path, but be careful. It’s a steep drop into that ravine.”

“Yeah, I know, I know,” Wrecker muttered. “Uggghhh…” With a creaking heave, he pushed away from the log, his powerful strides pushing against the rapid waterflow tugging at his heels as he trudged off between the trees, his head bent against the deluge.

“Omega, you and Synnovea’d better get into position before we set off those charges. Let us know if you run into any trouble.”

“Got it.” She looked up at Synnovea, who suddenly looked less cheerful. “Come on!”

Synnovea blinked back the rain running freely over her face. “Come on, where?” she said blankly.

“We’re climbing up there to release the vines when Echo gives the signal,” Omega explained matter-of-factly, slinging her energy bow over her shoulder. “I’ve got a cable set up already.”

“We’re…climbing?” Synnovea craned her head. The closest branch was almost twenty meters high. “Up there?”

“Well, I was originally going to have you keep an eye on Omega, but the way you’re acting, maybe it’s going to be the other way around,” Echo noted disparagingly as Synnovea took a step back into a deeper puddle.

“Don’t worry, she’ll get up there; I’ll help you,” Omega said encouragingly, taking Synnovea by the elbow. “Now, you hold on here…”

“But…” any other words of complaint disappeared in the never-ending susurration of raindrops, and Echo turned his attention to planting detonators into the soft ground with Tech.

*  *  *

Tech pressed one of the explosives into the soft mud. “The seismic charges are calibrated to detonate at precisely 2.8 kilojoules, which should generate enough displacement to trigger the mudslide along the intended path. The soil composition here is optimal for the effect, with just the right amount of moisture.”

Echo glanced around at the pouring rain. This high up, the vegetation was sparser, and the water came in lashing sheets, spattering the mud around them. “Looks like the rain’s doing half the work for us.”

“Indeed. The saturation levels in the earth should enhance the charges’ effectiveness. I’ve also accounted for the runoff—additional flooding should speed up the erosion process.”

“Great,” Echo chuckled rustily. “So, when this goes off, we’ve got a big, wet mess coming down the hill. Are you sure this is safe?”

Focusing on syncing the charges to his datapad, Tech replied, “Now would be a prudent time to alert Wrecker. Make sure he doesn’t forget the density of the debris makes this mudslide more dangerous than a simple flood of water. Safety is paramount.”

“Alright, I’ll let the others know. Just don’t get too caught up in the math, Tech. We need a mudslide, not a science project.”

“I assure you, the science is precisely what will ensure the success of this operation.”

“Yeah, yeah. Just don’t forget to push the button when it’s time.” He tapped the side of his helmet, switching comm lines. “Hey, Wrecker, Tech wanted me to remind you when pushing their equipment into the mudslide—”

“I don’t tell him how to do numbers, and he doesn’t tell me how to push things! Usually!” Wrecker snarled over the line. “Just push the dang button!”

Echo looked over at Tech, giving a thumbs up. “He’s grumpy, but he’s good.”

The two half-ran, half-slid twenty meters downhill, skidding to a stop next to a solid granite outcropping. Huddling behind it, Tech intoned softly, “Charges are live. Standby for impact in three, two, one…”

“Whoah,” Echo muttered as a muffled thump preceded a swiftly moving river of brown that rushed past them. As it swept downhill, it broke branches, uprooted smaller bushes, and carved rocks from the ground, carrying it all in a swirling mass straight towards the Imperial encampment.

“I missed it,” Wrecker moaned, banging his helmet against the tree where he had wedged himself near the sledge carrying the scientists’ equipment.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Tech replied, “it’s coming your way.”

“That was a pretty effective charge you set,” Echo commented. The snapping and creaking sounds intensified as the roiling mass of mud and wood and stone continued downhill.

“Yes,” Tech agreed, then added hesitantly, “perhaps…too effective.”

“I hate it when you say things like that,” Echo growled. “Wrecker, hey Wrecker! You might want to get out of the way.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, be careful,” Wrecker blathered, pushing away from the tree as he heard the crashing sounds come closer. Already the troopers still at camp were pointing in alarm, and the scientists were stirring from their sleeping mats. But the mudslide was coming fast. As it swept through the deep runoff between the trees, Wrecker lunged forward, slamming into the sledge carrying two tonnes of machinery and sample cases. It swung clockwise as it shifted, groaning for a moment before the mudslide hit them both.

“WHOAH!”

Tech looked at Echo. “He’s caught in the riptide between the trees!” The two began racing down the mountainside, following the path of destruction. “Wrecker! Wrecker!”

The ground gave way beneath Wrecker’s feet, the earth buckling like a living thing as the mudslide surged forward. He fought against the pull of the wet, churning mass, his heavy boots sinking deep into the muck, the weight of the storm and the soil pressing against him from every direction. The rain pounded his back, mixing with the torrent of mud that clawed at his legs, dragging him down with terrifying force.

He grunted, muscles straining, heart pounding as he flung out his arm, his gloves finding purchase on a gnarled tree root that had been yanked from the soil. For a moment, his grip faltered, the mud threatening to swallow him whole. His body, built for brute strength, still screamed in protest as he tugged desperately, clawing at the earth for something—anything—to keep him from being swept away.

“Wrecker! Come in!”

His fingers finally locked around the root, and with a roar of effort, Wrecker hauled himself upward, his massive frame lurching against the pull of the slide. He barely managed to anchor himself against a wedged log that had caught between two boulders, the thick, soaked branches digging into his chest. But as the mud continued to churn beneath him, the chaos around unfolded in slow motion.

A pile of gear, crates, and thrashing bodies tumbled over the edge of the cliff, swept away like toys in a child’s bath. The frantic shouts of the stormtroopers were drowned out by the roar of the landslide, their cries turning into desperate screams as they were pulled into the abyss. Wrecker’s stomach churned, watching them vanish into the darkness below, swallowed by the relentless tide of earth and debris. The rain hammered harder, and soon, even the sound of their screams was smothered by the violent rush of mud.

For a long moment, all that remained was the deafening hiss of the storm, the wet slapping of mud against rock, and Wrecker’s ragged breath as he held on, knowing he had barely escaped the same fate. The world around him felt as though it was crumbling, and even his iron grip seemed like it might not be enough to keep him from being consumed by the earth itself. “That…that could’ve been me.”

“Wrecker!”

Hands were grabbing his arms, yanking him clear of the mud, pulling him further from the ravine that was slowly filling with mud.

“Errrgghh,” he groaned, shaking his head. “Do we still have to do things our way?”

*  *  *

Omega barely noticed Synnovea’s hesitant pace as she darted across the interlocking branches, each step fluid and confident. The child was a natural, unfazed by the dizzying drop or the storm that beat down from above. The logs were ready, tied securely to vines and positioned over the edge of the branch, just above the two unsuspecting stormtroopers below. Omega was already preparing her energy bow, fingers nimbly adjusting the setting.

The Imperial soldiers remained oblivious, their helmets pivoting disinterestedly beneath the rain as they trudged through the mud, never looking up.

“Be careful!” Synnovea hissed, her knuckles white against the vines.

“Charges are live,” Tech was saying.

“That’s the signal!” Omega whispered, pulling back the string of her bow. Synnovea gave the logs a shove. They dropped like falling stones, slamming into the troopers, sending them crashing into a patch of massive, dull purple blooms, Nebula orchids. The moment they hit the flowers a soft thwip sounded as Omega’s arrow streaked through the air, slicing through one of the vines. The orchids reacted, their vines shooting out from beneath the blossoms, coiling and writhing like they had a mind of their own. The soldiers screamed, firing at the vines, but their cries were muffled by the snap of the mammoth petals closing over their bodies with terrifying speed. The vines jerked and thrashed violently, dragging the stormtroopers deeper into the maw of the flowers. The air was filled with muted screams, strange crunching sounds, and the odd torquing of the closed blooms.

Slowly, the writhing stopped. The rain seemed quiet in the aftermath, as if the forest itself was holding its breath. The vines slowly released their hold, and the blossoms unfurled, revealed nothing but shredded pieces of armor and boots that tumbled to the ground, discarded like refuse. The soft patter of rain on leaves was the only sound left in the air, and the forest once again seemed to fall into an uneasy silence.

Omega felt a quiet sense of satisfaction settle over her as she turned and grinned at Synnovea. “See? Nothing to it.” Synnovea gave her a sickly smile before glancing downward and groaning.

She lifted her wrist, about to inform the rest of her squad when the com chatter went nuts.

“Wrecker! Wrecker!”

“He’s caught in the riptide between the trees!”

“Wrecker! Come in!” Tech’s voice was increasingly anxious, followed by Echo shouting in the background. Omega’s stomach dropped, the quiet pride evaporating instantly as she recognized the panic in their voices. Without thinking, her body moved, spinning on the limb, her heart pounding as she looked toward the direction of the ravine. She couldn’t see him, couldn’t hear anything but the comms, but the dread that surged through her was enough.

“Wrecker!” Echo’s voice cracked over the commlink.

Then an explosion erupted to the east, the shockwave reverberating through the tree limbs and rattling her to the core. Omega’s breath caught in her throat as everything shifted sideways.

*  *  *

Kneeling in the muddy brown water, Hunter crouched inside a bush whose springy fronds offered excellent concealment. The eel he evicted had certainly thought so, and he’d had to convince it to move on with a well-placed kick. The rain was softer here due to the thick branches of the Massassi trees overhead, but that wasn’t why he was here. Nestled at the base of one of the trunks, growing in profusion amid the epiphytic roots of glowing orchids that twined their way up the purple giants, were pale, spindly fungal stalks.

Hunter had been told by Synnovea of these grenade fungi during their planning. Apparently, the Duros gatherers had learned about their incendiary properties the hard way. Rough, but having a free stash of explosives right where they needed them was too easy for him to be able to pass up. He had been assured that finding these fungi during the rainy season would be no trouble, and that seemed to be the case. Now, all he needed was to wait for the signal…

“Standby for impact in three, two, one…” came Tech’s calm voice. Like he was ordering a round of caf, not shifting a few tonnes of mud into an impromptu graveyard. Well, that was normal.

What wasn’t normal was the absolute eruption of jabber that followed. What happened? They all knew the plan. What the hell had Wrecker done now? Turning again towards the stormtroopers, he saw that the commotion had also attracted their attention, and they began slogging in the direction of the tree where Omega and Synnovea were. He was rapidly losing the window of opportunity.

“Damn…” Sighting down on one of the waxy, grayish-white heads, he squeezed the trigger.

The explosion was a gratifying yellow-white series of bursts, the snapping sounds muffled by the downpour. The phosphorus clung to everything, bark, branches, plastoid armor and, once it burned down that far, skin. The troopers’ cries could be heard through their helmets as they dropped their weapons, running out into the drizzle. The water misting down from the canopy only made the phosphorus burn brighter, turning them into incandescent screaming filaments. He chuckled darkly, grateful for even that inappropriate humor to help him forget about the dank mugginess, but the next shriek that reached his ears chilled him to the bone.

“Omegaaa!!”

*  *  *

Omega’s boots had excellent traction. The tread was flexible but rugged, able to grip to a variety of surfaces. However, the manufacturer, Keenigh Footwear, had never set foot on Yavin IV. If any of their representatives had, they would have quickly learned that their tread could not withstand the combined slickness of consistent rain and the hearty layer of green algae that coated most branches in the forest. She felt the sole slip, pitching her forward from the limb…

“Omegaaa!”

The world tilted, and Omega felt the limb slide from her foot, its bark scraping against the sole of her boot as her balance faltered. Time stretched, every second bleeding extraneous detail until only stark lines remained. She could still see the raindrops filtering through the canopy, falling with her towards the patch of orchids below.

Her heart raced in sync with the pulse of the air. Every movement, every tiny shift in the breeze felt amplified—like the wind itself was pushing her down, urging her to fall. Her body felt heavy, like she was trapped in a dream, each second a vast, unending eternity in which she could replay this one mistake. Her last mistake.

She could see the ground rushing toward her as she tipped, the dull purple blooms swaying as their vines still writhed in silent threat, and a cold knot of fear twisted in her stomach. But then, something shifted. The trees, the leaves, the sounds all blurred, stretched out in a surreal haze. She saw a shadow, a sudden presence, light and dark and moving. Still falling, her limbs felt like they were underwater, but the figure’s hand seemed impossibly fast, impossibly sure.

The sound of her breathing grew louder, her heartbeat deafening in her ears, squeezing the air from her lungs. Time dripped by in slow-motion droplets, and just as she was sure she’d fall, a firm grip took her by the back of the shirt, yanking her back onto the limb with an abrupt crash.

The wind nearly knocked from her, Omega sat up, looking over her shoulder. Sprawled on the limb, Synnovea had one hand on Omega’s shirt, the other had a death grip on a protruding broken branch. Panting heavily, she gazed at Omega through the stringy curtain of strands that escaped her braid and now stuck to her skin like tendrils of shadow.

“Careful, Omega—falling’s not as fun as it looks, I promise,” she said, her tone light but drained.

“You…saved me—I’m fine! I’m fine, everyone, I’m fine,” she immediately began yelling into her communicator cuff, answering the chorus of increasingly agitated commandos. Turning back to Synnovea slumped on the limb next to her, she touched her arm. “Thank you.”

“Eh,” the doctor shrugged her drenched shoulders as she released her fistful of Omega’s shirt. “I was in the neighborhood. Thought you looked a little young to take a trip on your own.”

 Omega giggled. “You know, for a moment it felt like time slowed to a crawl. Everything was moving little by little, and my body felt heavy…”

“Yeah, adrenaline can do that sometimes,” Synnovea agreed, cautiously regaining her footing as she rose on the limb, extending a hand to help Omega up. “It can also make things feel like they’re moving super-fast, or even like time stopped. It’s crazy. But let’s get you back down to the ground before they all come climbing up here.” She looked down and blanched. “I don’t like the idea of this bough becoming any more crowded…”

Chapter Text

The addition of a gently used power cable breathed new life into the venerable jukebox, and two songs that were only half a cycle old had been added to its selection, adding that extra flourish to the merrymaking around the bar. Only one table had managed to avoid the infectious exuberant atmosphere, and Hunter wasn’t about to let that silliness leech onto it, either. It had become their customary tactic to simply swipe whatever bottle the bartender was pouring at the time, to the extent that the droid had begun simply handing it over whenever they entered the establishment.

Tipping their newly acquired bottle over each cup, Echo repeated, “I hadn’t seen him like that before, Hunter…I’ve just never seen him almost lose to something—”

Hunter picked up his cup, tipping a good portion of it down his throat. “He didn’t lose, Echo.” He cast a glance across the room. Omega was sitting on the bar top, regaling a third group of listeners with the highly detailed tale of her near-fall from the moss-covered tree limbs. Her story had been in high demand ever since they had returned.

“He almost did, and if you keep dealing from the bottom of the deck,” Echo said suddenly, whipping from Hunter to Venth, who clutched the cards as a finger waved threateningly beneath his muzzle, “I’m going to stuff you into one of your stupid pockets.”

Venth, spilling the cards from one hand to the other with practiced ease, leaned away from Echo’s hand. “Whoa, okay-okay, just making sure you were paying attention,” he crooned, peeling off the next set of cards from the top of the deck. “All right, last winner bets first.”

“Check.”

“I’ll go five.”

Echo turned in his seat. “By the way, I meant to tell you after you guys fought the Trandoshans. We found something in the junkyard that I think you should know about—”

“Incoming,” Tech muttered into his cup, tilting his head ever so slightly to the side. The only one at the table not playing, he had noticed before anyone else.

Glancing in that direction, Echo groaned. “Oh, no…”

“He’s had a rough day,” Hunter admonished gruffly.

“We’re going to have to tell him again about the explosion…”

Tech looked over at Echo. “The junkyard? And you’ve waited until now to tell us?”

“Well things keep happening,” Echo snapped, flinging out his arm in exasperation.

“I would think if it was important—”

His heavy boots thumping an unsteady tread on the floor, Wrecker plopped himself down on the empty half of the bench next to Tech.

“You’re looking glum, Wrecker,” Hunter ventured. “Cheer up a bit; we did what we set out to do.”

“More or less. Rather than any formulated plan we might come up with, our signature finish seems to be…by the seat of our pants,” Tech said wryly.

Wrecker’s sniff was loud. “Those charges started that mudslide pretty good, didn’t they?” he asked, his tone thin.

Hunter tossed a credstick into the small pile in the center of the table. He wasn’t winning many hands. Most of the wins were claimed by Venth or Tech, who joined the game ‘to keep Venth honest’, he said. Still, it passed the time. “It sure did, Wrecker,” he said soothingly.

“I didn’t get to see it,” Wrecker moaned, the picture of dejection. “Would you…would you tell me about it?”

“He’s already told you twice,” Tech said flatly, his attention on the cards in Venth’s hand.

“Then you tell me,” Wrecker insisted, his eyes focusing blearily on his brother.

“I told you. Echo and I set the charges, we detonated them, and the mudslide proceeded down the mountainside and through the Imperial encampment…sweeping you up in the process. We were able to extract you from the detritus before you ended up in the ravine.”

“That mud covered me up. I didn’t get to see anything. Tell me about the ravine.”

“I just…” Echo chuckled, and Tech rubbed his chin. “Actually, Echo had a better view of what happened than I did,” he said slyly, ignoring Echo’s silent gestures for him to quit.

Wrecker turned his hopeful gaze to Echo, who cleared his throat, glaring daggers at Tech.

“Well, it’s like he said, we nearly lost you into that yawning abyss—”

“Yawning abyss?” Wrecker’s eyes widened.

“You couldn’t see the bottom. That careening, churning river of mud—”

“—Churning river of mud—” Wrecker looked at Tech in miserable accusation. “You never told it like that.” Tech rolled his eyes.

“Swept you along in its inexorable grasp between the trees faster than anyone could run—”

Wrecker gasped. “No exes? How can they do that?”

Echo sighed, and Hunter chuckled. “Who knew you were such a poet?” he teased.

Narrowing his eyes, Echo pointed at him. “You know, Hunter never told you that while all this was happening, he was setting some stormtroopers on fire in the rain with those grenade fungi. Apparently they lit up in the swamp like glow-lights.”

“I always miss the good stuff,” Wrecker moaned, his massive fist banging on the table, setting everything on its surface airborne for a moment.

“Yeah,” Hunter mumbled, folding his hand. “It’s a shame you didn’t get to see it…”

“Then tell me!” Wrecker practically bawled, his words ending in a sob. Seeing him on the cusp of a tearful display had everyone at the table shifting awkwardly in their seats.

“Has anyone been paying attention to how much he’s drunk this evening?” Tech asked quietly.

Hunter stood, hooking his hand beneath Wrecker’s arm. “Come on, big guy. Let’s get you sorted.” He looked at Venth. “Deal me out for a few rounds. I’ll be back as soon as I get him tucked away.”

“Tell me again about the churning river of mud, like Echo said…” Wrecker was mumbling as Hunter helped him navigate between the other patrons.

“Sure thing, buddy…”

*  *  *

“…this time I jumped off the third step, and I only skinned my knee a little.”

“You need to be more careful, Massie,” Tagrif chided gently. His eyes never left the bouncing curls and excited face of his daughter. “You’ll get bigger in time, and then you’ll be able to leap off any of the porch steps with no problem.”

“I know,” she chirped, “but I’m practicing now, so when you get back, I can show you how far I can jump. When are you coming home, anyway?” Her ebullient mood turned wistful.

His grin faltered. “I’m not sure, kid, but believe me when I say that I’m doing everything I can to get home to you and your mom.”

“Will you bring me home a present?”

“Sure. Anything you want.”

Massie bounced up and down. “Anything?” she squealed.

“Name it.”

“I want a pet,” she admitted.

“Your mother’s not going to like it.”

“You promised!”

“All right, all right.” He leaned closer to the hologram, lowering his voice confidentially. “I won’t bring you one…but when I get home, we’ll pick one out together. How’s that sound? But,” he held up a finger, his voice dramatically stern, “you have to promise to feed it every day, or it will grow mean and eat you up.” Massie giggled. “Now run off to bed, let your mother read you a story, and I’ll call again when I can.”

The door behind him opened. For a moment, the brilliant sunshine streaming in disoriented him. With a sharp pang of disappointment, Tagrif remembered that he wasn’t home, but here, on the far side of the charted galaxy. He would have given anything for his next act to be reading his daughter The Little Lost Bantha Cub. Instead, he prayed that Massie would never read any of his research notes, would never learn exactly what the price of her safe childhood really cost. No kid needed that kind of nightmare.

He would just have to learn to live with his.

The silhouette of a stormtrooper filled the doorway. “Doctor Chal, we have the specimen you requested.”

“Yes, thank you.” He stood up, rubbing his clammy palms against his pant legs as he rose. “Bring…bring it in, please.”

The trooper ducked outside, returning with another—they always traveled in pairs—and proceeded to bodily drag in a heavily shackled green Duros male. Shorter than the soldiers but stockier, his struggles increased as the troopers jerked him across the room, his bare feet skidding across the polished steel flooring. His lipless mouth opened and shut, a distinct resonant warbling rising in pitch before being shoved callously into the collection chamber. Tagrif wasn’t certain what the alien was saying; Durese hadn’t been a requirement in his particular field. One of the troopers slammed down the locks on the door while the other turned to Tagrif. “Specimen secured, Doctor Chal. We’ll be right outside should you need anything else.” Their boots thudded dully on the floor as they exited.

The Duros had begun hammering on the inside of the collection chamber door as Tagrif moved to the computer on the wall. Moving a dial slightly, he heard the solar cells on the outside of the room activate, warming up. “I’m sorry,” he muttered. He knew the Duros couldn’t hear him, but it made him feel a little better to talk as though he could. “I wish it didn’t have to be this way…but I didn’t have anything else to offer…”

Pressing a button, part of the wall opened, revealing the embedded glass globe surrounded by three concentric metal rings, each with their own set of diodes running from various panels in the collection chamber. The rings, like the panels, were almost pure phrik, sturdier than Haysian ore but nearly as expensive, and harder to find than an honest senator. However, no other alloy had the tensile strength needed for this procedure. Just as no other scientist had Tagrif’s abilities, at least to his knowledge.

None left alive, that is.

Placing his fingertips on the smooth globe, Tagrif drew in a deep breath. “I really am sorry,” he whispered, focusing on the Duros just on the other side of the wall. In his mind, the room was shaded in black and white, the Duros almost translucent; what he could see clearly was his energy, the living Force for those who could sense it, flaring brightly like a lantern-bug in a jar. The outermost phrik circle spun to the left, clicking as it moved, until it sank deeper into the wall, glowing faintly green around its edge.

The banging on the other side intensified.

Gritting his teeth, Tagrif forced himself to concentrate. Inside the globe, an ethereal green mist began to swirl lazily inside, more radiant in the very center. Shapes too angular, too precise to be organic coalesced and broke apart, each time forming into something more complex and yet so minute.

As the second circle spun on the wall, the Duros’ cries rose to unintelligible shrieks, one of its narrow palms slamming frantically against the small viewport in the door. It broke his concentration, and the green mist within the globe was enveloped in a ruddy gas-like flame, drifting to the bottom of the glass as charred ash. Against the door, the knobbly fingers slid slowly down the window. There was no sound on the other side.        

“Blast. I had hoped…” Tagrif removed his glasses, rubbing his eyelids with his thumb and forefinger. He pressed the comm button on the wall. “Bring in two.”

*  *  *

Slipping stealthily from beneath the thin blanket, Omega stuffed one foot into her boot, then the other. She tugged the laces tight, then reached beneath the cot for her pack. Pulling it out by the strap took several anxiety-ridden moments, but once clear of the bed frame it swung silently in the air from her hand. She decided to carry it that way until she was out of the barracks. The others tended to be light sleepers.

Tiptoeing across the open floor, she was nearly to the door when her foot struck something heavy. It scooted forward with a loud scraping sound and rolled—someone’s helmet—and she screwed her eyes shut, cringing, waiting for half-asleep, grumpy commandos to descend upon her. When nothing of the sort happened, she risked squinting through one eye. On his row of bunks, Wrecker snorted, rolling over onto his back. Omega used the noise cover to quickly press the door panel, scampering outside and down the hall.

Once a good distance away, she set the pack down on the ground, noisily letting out her breath in relief. No one was ever in the corridors this early, so she was safe. Bending down, she re-tied the left boot more securely, then swung the pack onto her back, tugging the second strap over her shoulder as she straightened. Smiling to herself, she jogged down the passage, running her hand along the wall as she went. After several meters, her fingers ran out of wall; she had come to the intersection. She turned right.

A large hand descended on her shoulder. Omega jumped, a strangled noise stalling in her throat.

“Told you.”

She jerked her head up at the familiar voice, to find Tech and Hunter staring down at her. Neither appeared half-asleep, but Hunter looked particularly grumpy.

“You were right,” Hunter acknowledged to Tech. Turning to Omega, he scowled.

“For the past four nights, she leaves the barracks at precisely 0430,” Tech observed matter-of-factly. “The tracker in her com-unit shows she doesn’t leave the temple, yet when I asked around yesterday, none of the workers had seen her.”

“Care to explain?” Hunter drawled, raising an eyebrow at Omega.

“I was just going to the refreshers,” Omega said indignantly, tugging away from Hunter. “If that’s all right with you…”

“Right. With your pack on.” Placing his hands on both her shoulders this time, Hunter spun her in the opposite direction. “The refreshers…are that way.” Releasing her, he crossed his arms. “How about you stop lying and tell us what’s going on.”

“How do you always know when I’m lying?” she demanded.

“Because we’ve been getting into trouble longer than you have,” Wrecker answered, coming around the corner, followed by Echo.

“We didn’t know exactly what you were getting into,” Echo explained, “so we came in case you needed backup.”

“You two were in on this, too?” Omega exploded.

“Sure! I thought it was my acting that really sold it,” Wrecker laughed, swinging his arm to settle his shoulder.

Echo rolled his eyes. “That wasn’t acting; you actually fell asleep,” he said accusingly.

“Which, I think, made it all the more believable,” Wrecker said proudly. “I even convinced myself.”

“All of you are here because you don’t trust me,” she said reproachfully.

“Omega,” Hunter interrupted, “we wouldn’t be here if we weren’t worried about you.”

“I’m perfectly safe!”

“But you brought your energy bow.” Hunter gestured to the weapon strapped to her pack.

“That’s because you told me never to go anywhere unarmed,” she shot back.

“Regardless, I think we all deserve to know where you are sneaking off, and why,” Tech asserted.

She sighed. “All right,” she said ungraciously. “But you have to be quiet.”

The route Omega took through the passages emptied out almost halfway up the steep side of the temple. Scooting along the edge of the path, she swung herself over the side of the long, deep-cut stairs, climbing nimbly higher. This close to dawn, the air was actually cool, or at least it felt like it in comparison to just about every other hour on this planet.

“She’s not going to be happy about this,” Omega warned as they neared the top of the pyramid.

“She?” Hunter looked up ahead where the stairs would lead into some partially open structure at its peak and grunted in irritation. “Of course…”

“Why Omega, how you’ve grown,” Synnovea drawled, leaning against one of the pillars lining the open-air chamber at the top of the temple. “It seems like only yesterday you were just one person, now you’re…five.”

“Sorry,” Omega said apologetically. “I got caught.”

“What is this about, anyway?” Echo wanted to know as they all gathered in an uneven circle. “Omega’s young, so she doesn’t always have the best judgement. If you’re having her do anything shady…”

“You didn’t tell them?” Synnovea looked at Omega in surprise.

Omega shrugged. “I didn’t think they’d believe me.”

Synnovea’s hand slid slowly down her face, partially muffling some particularly virulent Huttese.

“Hey!” Hunter gestured to Omega.

“That’s okay, I already know those words,” Omega stated. Shrugging her pack off her shoulder, she opened it and rummaged around, pulling out two cannisters. “I brought caf,” she said, waving the flasks back and forth in front of Synnovea like a peace offering. “Made it last night. They should still be hot.”

Frowning at each face in turn, Synnovea regarded Omega, then took one of the cannisters. “All right, follow me.” As she walked past them, they wordlessly followed single file.

They didn’t have far to go. In two strides, she sat down at the top of the stairs. “Pull up a step. We’ve got a few.” Prying off the top of the caf cannister, she poured the steaming liquid into the lid. Omega shook additional metal mugs from her pack and passed them around, filling them with the other container. “She won’t share the one she’s got,” she informed them.

“What are we doing here?” Wrecker asked, downing the contents of his cup in a single gulp.

“Destroying my solitude,” Synnovea muttered, burying her nose in the steam of her cup.

“We wouldn’t even be here if you and Omega had just told us what you were doing,” Echo said defensively.

“What are we doing?” Tech wanted to know, perched gingerly on the edge of his chosen step.

Synnovea took a judicious sip, then another. “We’re waiting for the sunrise.”

“The sunrise.” Echo sounded incredulous. “We crawled up, what, thirty flights of stairs, to see what we could have just seen on the ground?”

“It’s better up here.” Synnovea topped off her cup.

“It didn’t happen yesterday morning,” Omega pointed out.

“True,” Synnovea agreed, “and it might not today, either. All we can do is wait and see. Think of it as a stakeout.”

“A stakeout,” Omega breathed, “cool.”

The sky was growing steadily lighter, lifting from the heavy grays and purples of night to a ruddy carnelian hue, valiantly trying to burn through the dense fog that rose from the sea of greenery that spread as far as the eye could see.

“It’s like the trees have their own clouds,” Omega whispered.

“Shhhh,” Synnovea whispered. “Here it comes.”

The skyline grew marred with fuschia and vermillion shades as the heavens grew brighter, until the first sliver of Yavin Prime winked over the horizon. Hunter threw up a hand as prismatic rays exploded through the clouds, ricocheting between the canopy’s fog below and the overcast skies. Spinning, twisting, refracting back and forth over their heads, the polychromatic display swirled above for almost a minute before the sun crept further out of hiding and blanketed the skyline in golden light.

“Whoah,” Wrecker breathed, “that was real pretty. Did you see that?”

“We’re right here, Wrecker, we all saw it. How is such a thing possible?” Tech mused, resting his forearms on his knees.

Synnovea was pouring her third cup. “Water droplets can create a prismatic effect, and we have plenty of those here.”

“Teth has a similar climate and doesn’t exhibit the same atmospheric anomaly,” he objected.

“Silica dust. There’s a lot of quartz in the mountains here.”

“Silica dust wouldn’t remain airborne in this humidity.”

“Little teeny tiny Corusca gems,” Synnovea murmured, sipping her caf, “brought into the atmosphere by neebray mantas.”

“There are no neebray mantas in the Gordian Reach,” Tech argued severely, his eyes on the datapad in his hands. “And Corusca gems are only found on Sarka.”

Synnovea threw up her hand that wasn’t curled protectively around her cup. “I don’t know, Tech. Okay? I don’t know why it does this, or what makes this day different than yesterday. Can’t you just sit here and enjoy the view, without debating its existence to death?”

Tech blinked, looking at her as if she’d grown a second head. “No.”

“It looked like I could reach up and grab one!” Wrecker guffawed, taking Tech’s unattended cup from beside him and drinking it.

“This was a whole lot quieter when it was just me,” Synnovea mumbled over the edge of her caf.

“But it’s not good to be alone all the time,” Omega protested, scooting up a step to sit beside her. “Besides, isn’t this more fun now that others have seen it with you?"

“I like being alone.”

“Wait…if you didn’t know we were coming, how come you had this many cups?” Hunter asked, staring narrowly at Omega, who seemed to be taking an awfully long time finishing the dregs in her mug.

“Where did mine go?” Tech muttered, looking around where he sat.

Synnovea chuckled. “Okay, maybe this isn’t too terrible…”

Chapter Text

Days that began with a fight often ended with one.

“Just who do you think you are?!”

Declan’s baritone seldom raised above a rumble, but it was the kind that could cut through a gale across an open field. Here in the tight confines of his office, the sound ricocheted off the walls like shrapnel, rattling Synnovea’s teeth in their sockets. She sank into the chair’s frame, chasing whatever scrap of distance she could find from the blast radius.

“What the hell were you thinking? Charging off into that thunderstorm—do you even hear yourself when you explain this crap, or are you too busy playing commando to notice the rest of us trying to get things done? You’re not expendable, Synnovea—you’re essential. You are the reason half this base is still breathing, and you treat that like it’s some kind of inconvenience!”

“You think I don’t know what I am to this base? I patch up every broken body that comes through that door. I live in that medbay. Don’t talk to me about sacrifice like I’m some glory-hound with a death wish,” Synnovea snapped, pulling her crossed arms tighter as she glared at the big man.

He leaned forward, his large worn fingers spread out on his desk. “We are hiding.” The hand rose and slammed down powerfully. “Hiding. That means quiet, invisible, boring. Not firefights. Not explosions,” he said tightly, sharply biting off each word as it fell from his lips. “Not dragging the Empire to our front door on a leash! And you? You’re actively hunting them!”

Declan pushed himself up from his desk. “Meanwhile, back here, we’ve got rations to stretch, ship part requests stacking up, and a power grid that falls apart if someone so much as sneezes on the generators. But sure. Let’s send the only competent medical personnel we have gallivanting into Imperial blaster scopes.”

“And what, we’re supposed to hope they just skip this moon out of the kindness of their hearts?” Synnovea mocked, slouching lower in the chair. “Because we won’t win this war bleeding out in the bunkers.”

He paced a step, then turned back sharply. “Do you think this is a game, Synnovea? You are not a soldier. You are our only damn doctor. Every time you strap on a blaster and charge off with those walking catastrophes, you’re gambling with more than your own life. If something happens to you out there, we don’t get a replacement flown in. We lose our medic, our surgeon, our entire triage chain. Do you understand that?”

Not waiting for an answer, he continued to pace back and forth furiously. “And if the Empire catches so much as a whiff of rebel movement near this sector—because your little mercenary squad gets sloppy—we all burn. Every one of us!” His heavy boot caught the leg of his desk on the next circuit around the room, and everything on the surface skittered to a new location. Synnovea reflexively caught something that slid into her lap. Ironically, it was the small holopuck of Declan’s family that ordinarily occupied a corner of the desk. “You're not just risking yourself, you're risking everything we’ve built here, and for what? Some misguided sense of duty? A thrill? Or is it just because you can’t stand being left behind?”

Stung, Synnovea shot to her feet, her chair slamming back onto its legs with a thud. “Don’t act like you don’t understand,” she said bitterly. “You can’t just send men off to fight while I’m sitting safe in some corner! It isn't right!”

Declan grew still. “You emptied your entire savings to pay those mercenaries their triple rate, didn’t you,” he said, his tone quiet, lethal.

Synnovea didn’t answer. She didn’t have to.

Coldly, Declan continued. “You think you’re untouchable because you're useful. But you're not the only one making hard calls. And if you keep jeopardizing this base, this entire operation, I will have them off this moon before you can pack your guilt into a medbag.”

His voice dropped, low and final. “No clearance. No fuel. No landing zone. I’ll revoke every damn privilege they have. And next time you want to hire a crew of maniacs to blow up the Empire, you can do it with toy credits and wishful thinking.”

The heat of the jungle couldn’t touch the chill that settled in the room. Synnovea didn’t shout, but her whisper sliced the air. “You don’t get to cage the people you’re afraid to lose, Declan. That’s not command—it’s cowardice.”

Placing the holopuck on the desk, she turned and walked out without a backward glance. He didn’t call out to her.

The space between them had grown too wide for apologies.

*  *  *

Emerging through one of the many shafts that opened onto the surface of the ziggurat, Synnovea threw a hand over her eyes, wincing against the sharp protest behind her lids. The humid air hit her lungs like a wave, and she welcomed the burn—anything to drown out the storm inside her head. Taking the steps two at a time—something she could do on the way down, but not up—she quickly gained the jungle floor, the heels of her boots sinking deep into the loam as she skidded to a halt.

Synnovea picked her way between a narrow garbage scow and an overloaded hopper from one of the farms. Most likely the Swivven continent, from the looks of the neatly pressed stacks of kibo plants. Her brows drew together in a concerned frown. As many fantastic plants had been discovered with just as many desirable properties, the colonies still needed to export their crops, and to ferry in all the thousand little things people needed to survive and build a civilization. Difficult to accomplish while living in constant fear of discovery.

If you keep jeopardizing this base…

“Damn fool,” she muttered, irritably swatting at some small flying insect that hovered near her face. If she could just…You don’t have time for this, she told herself sternly. Get your head in the game. A quarter klick away, she knew the Marauder was parked, slightly out of the way to make room for repairs. However, it would be quicker to just cut through the jungle. She idly kicked at the springy fronds of ferns as she trudged through the greenery, mentally going over all the things she could have said, if only…

She frowned again. It was getting hotter.

Much hotter.

*  *  *

The cockpit of the Marauder hummed with activity. Panels blinked to life under Tech’s fingers as he ran a systems diagnostic, his eyes scanning the scrolling data faster than Omega could keep up. Echo sat in the pilot’s seat, hands resting on the controls, waiting for the go-ahead.

“Stabilizers calibrated,” Tech announced, tilting his datapad. “Initiating auxiliary power routing—standby for response on the aft relays.”

“Got it,” Echo muttered, eyes narrowed as he checked the readouts. “Aft relays are green. Nav-comp’s holding steady. Omega, check the port-side inertial dampeners.”

“On it!” she said, sliding into the co-pilot’s seat and tapping through the menus like she’d seen them do a dozen times. “Okay, port-side’s showing full sync. Diagnostics clear,” she declared, trying to keep the pride from her voice.

“Good,” Tech replied, sounding mildly impressed. “Bringing reactor core to idle. Echo, prep the ignition sequence.”

“Hang on,” Echo said, flipping a series of toggles. “Bringing fusion ignition online… three percent power. Let’s run it slow, no surprises.” He looked at Tech. “Are you sure you want Omega in the co-pilot for this?”

“These are only preliminary tests. Secondary thruster controls are rerouted through the auxiliary panel,” Tech muttered. “We’ll see if this… creative workaround avoids another short-circuit.”

“You mean avoids another smoke bomb in the nav-compartment,” Echo said, adjusting his seat. “Let’s keep the ship in one piece today.”

“That was a controlled systems venting, not a ‘smoke bomb.’”

Omega, turning slightly in the co-pilot’s chair, piped up: “Do we need to fire the engines at all? Or can we just pretend we did and tell Wrecker it sounded cool?”

“We need a live burn to test output at low idle,” Tech replied, not looking up. “Simulated diagnostics are never as reliable. Buckle your safety harness.”

“Right, so… no pretending,” she mumbled, checking her readouts as she pulled the straps over her shoulders. “Port-side dampeners online. Rear exhaust manifolds—uh, glowing a little.”

“Expected behavior,” Tech confirmed. “Echo, bring ignition sequence online. Ten percent thrust.”

“Copy that. Priming fusion core… now.” Echo flipped the switches, his tone casual but focused.

Outside, Wrecker was sprawled on a crate, eating something unidentifiable and crunchy. Hunter stood nearby, arms crossed, his wary eyes on the Marauder’s engines like they might bite.

His gaze shifted—something moved at the treeline. A figure, head down, plodding straight ahead. His heart dropped. “Synnovea.”

She was walking toward the rear of the ship—right into the engine's line of fire. Didn’t she hear the thrusters powering up?

“Hey!” Hunter broke into a run. “Shut it down! Kill the test!”

Inside, Tech’s voice was cool and precise. “Ignition sequence ready. Echo, engage at ten percent.”

“Wait, what’s Hunter—?” Omega looked out the viewport.

“Too late,” Echo said grimly, flipping the switch. “We’ll ask him after. Engaging engines.”

The engines ignited with a deafening FFFTOOOM, blasting a searing burst of heat and dirt in a wide arc behind the ship.

“NO!” Hunter skidded into view at the back of the ship, waving his arms furiously. “ABORT!”

Synnovea’s hair snapped like a flag as the first blast of hot air hit her, the sting of the dirt nearly blinding her with its force. She dove to the side, barely avoiding the expanding wash of exhaust.

“Cut it! Cut the engines now!” Echo yelled.

“I’m trying!” Tech’s fingers flew across the console. “System delay! Cooling cycle’s engaged, we can’t shut it down mid-burn—”

Outside, Synnovea scrambled behind a boulder as the exhaust flared again, searing heat lashing through the air.

“SYNNOVEA!” Omega shouted into the comm.

The engines finally choked off, the roar fading into a sputtering hiss. Smoke and dust swirled at the edge of the jungle. The silence hit like a slap.

Wrecker blinked. “Did we just cook her?”

Synnovea emerged slowly from behind the boulder, coughing, the edges of her clothing slightly darker. A wisp of smoke rose from her hair. Gingerly, she came forward, eyeing the heat waves emanating from the engines distrustfully.

Inside the cockpit, Tech muttered, “Well. That was… a less-than-ideal test environment.”

Echo swore under his breath and stood. “I’ll go explain.”

“I’ll go apologize,” Omega said, already unbuckling.

“You’ll all go explain,” came Hunter’s sharp voice over the internal comm. “And maybe next time, check for bystanders before firing up the kriffing engines.”

Tech glanced at the diagnostic. “Note for next test: establish perimeter safety protocol.”

Wrecker snorted. “Yeah, like ‘don’t barbecue doctors.’ That kind of protocol?”

“Exactly,” Tech said, as if it were obvious.

*  *  *

The Marauder dipped beneath the clouds, skimming low over the endless canopy of Yavin IV. The jungle stretched out like a vast emerald ocean below, its foliage dense and ancient, hiding whatever secrets might lurk beneath its leafy tide. Branches thicker than starship hulls interwove with gnarled vines, and sunlight filtered through the gaps like fractured gold.

Tech adjusted the controls with the practiced ease of someone who was accustomed to making do with varying degrees of mechanical functionality. The consoles were flickering in odd rhythms—half-functioning subroutines and loose relays, but he appeared unperturbed. “I’d advise everyone to be on their toes. Atmospheric maneuvering is stable, but I wouldn’t call it elegant.”

Echo snorted. “There’s nothing elegant about the smell in here, either.”

“It’s not that bad,” Wrecker protested. “Right?” He hollered at the cockpit entry.

“I’m getting you an air freshener to christen this thing once it’s fully repaired,” Synnovea yelled from the console midship. “What does that tell you?”

“Uhhhh…it stinks?”

Tech rolled his eyes. Behind him, Echo leaned over a console, cross-referencing intercepted Imperial transmissions. Omega sat beside him, chin on her hand as she stared out the viewport at the shifting green below. Wrecker lounged by the starboard bulkhead, sharpening a vibroblade on a bit of scrap metal. Synnovea stood apart, near the rear hatch, watching the trees go by with a silent kind of intensity—like she was listening for something only she could hear.

Tech flicked a toggle. A blue holographic map projected in the air, patchy and pulsing with static. “I’ve isolated their location,” he said. “Imperial expedition team—likely reconnaissance engineers and a handful of troopers—have established a temporary encampment here.” He tapped a point on the map. “Roughly twenty-seven klicks east of the primary temple complex. Bivouacked beneath the Massassi canopy.”

“Why that deep?” Echo asked, narrowing his eyes.

“Possibly resource scouting, possibly mapping survey.” Tech shrugged. “They’ve set up a signal relay—barely shielded. I triangulated the signal using their relay array, rerouted with some of the comm debris back at base.”

Omega leaned out from her seat to peer at the back of his head. “You hacked the array?” she enunciated slowly, delighted.

“I merely borrowed its functionality,” Tech replied modestly. “They won’t notice—unless they’re unusually observant. Which, fortunately, most Imperials are not.”

“Not only that,” Echo added, “but some of the intercepted Imperial comm chatter suggests that an officer is among the expedition.”

“Interesting.” Hunter stepped forward, narrowing his eyes. “We talking full command? Or just some glorified foreman?”

“Imperial rank codes indicate a lieutenant commander,” Echo said, pulling up the intercepted logs on his datapad. “Not high enough to reroute Star Destroyers, but more than enough to call off a dig team.”

“Or an entire planetary survey,” Tech added. His tone was almost casual—but the implication landed with weight.

Omega looked up from where she was tightening the strap on her bow. “You mean, we could just make them leave?”

Wrecker snorted. “You really think they’d just turn tail ‘cause someone tells ‘em to?”

“They would,” Echo said, “if the order’s legit. Or sounds legit.”

Hunter crossed his arms. “You’d need access to the officer’s code cylinder.”

Tech nodded. “Precisely. With that, I can fabricate a command—signed and sealed by him—ordering an immediate recall to fleet command. The encryption keys embedded in the cylinder will bypass their comm protocols.”

“But we’d have to get close enough to take it,” Echo said grimly. “Or get it off his corpse.”

“If we can make orders look like they came from the top,” Hunter mused, “the Imps pack up, Yavin gets quiet again.”

“Quiet’s good.” Synnovea tilted her head slightly. “They’ve carved into the Massassi trees up ahead?”

Tech glanced at her. “Yes. Why?”

She stepped forward, resting a hand on the edge of the holo-projector. “That deep into the forest, they’re sitting ducks—if the jungle turns on them.”

Wrecker looked up from his blade. “You mean like big animals? I like big animals.”

“Not animals,” she replied, pulling a data rod from her belt and inserting it into the projector. In a few moments, a six-legged creature flickered and super-imposed itself over the map. “Insects. Their nests cling to the undersides of the highest branches. Piranha beetles. About the size of your palm. Individually, not a threat.”

Hunter raised a brow. “But?”

Synnovea’s voice dropped to something almost clinical. “Swarms have been known to strip the flesh from a full-grown runyip in under ninety seconds. Faster, if it's running.”

Omega blinked. “They can do that?”

“They don’t always. They’re lazy unless provoked. But if you can provoke them... and steer them…”

Echo frowned. “Steer?”

“There are ways,” she said vaguely. “Scent lures and such.”

Wrecker grinned. “So we drop some bait near the Imps and let nature do the rest?”

“That’s the idea,” Synnovea agreed. “But it has to be… precise. If we mess it up, they won’t know the difference between clone armor and stormtrooper plating.” Squatting to have part of the hologram level with her eyes, she stared at the map, her eyes tracking the blinking light of the Imperial signal. Her expression was thoughtful. Too thoughtful.

Hunter watched her silently. After a moment, he asked, “You’ve dealt with these beetles before?”

Her gaze shifted, slowly, to him. “I’ve…survived them.”

“This is gonna be fun,” Wrecker proclaimed, punching his fist into the palm of his hand with enthusiasm.

“Well,” Echo said as he leaned back, folding his arms. “Long as they eat the right people.”

“So long as they only ingest organic material,” Tech asserted. “This mission is rather pointless unless we acquire that cylinder.”

In a low voice, Hunter prodded, “You sure there’s nothing else we need to know?”

Synnovea didn’t answer right away. Her eyes stayed fixed on the glowing holo-map, as if the blinking Imperial signal held some answer she hadn’t decided whether to share. Then, slowly, she looked up. Her gaze met his—measured, guarded.

“If there is,” she said, voice even, “I’ll tell you.”

The words hung between them, heavy as the humid air pressing through the ship’s recycled vents. Something in her tone wasn't quite a lie—but it wasn’t trust, either.

A quiet fell over the hold, broken only by the soft ping of sensors and the low thrum of the engines. Omega shifted, glancing between them. Wrecker stopped sharpening his blade. Even Echo looked up from his copilot switches, the silence pulling all eyes toward the space between Hunter and Synnovea.

Tech’s voice cut through it like static. “Landing site’s two minutes out.”

The spell broke. Everyone moved at once—gear checked, straps fastened, weapons slung into place. Echo sealed the datapad and handed it back to Tech. Omega pulled her bow closer. Wrecker cracked his knuckles.

Synnovea stepped back, her hand trailing the edge of the holo-projector as it flickered out. Hunter lingered near the cockpit bulkhead, eyes sweeping the dense forest rising to meet them.

The Marauder dipped lower, skimming just above the tangled canopy, as if the jungle below was drawing a breath—waiting to exhale.

*  *  *

The jungle swallowed them whole.

From the cover of ferns and tangled root systems, the squad lay prone in the underbrush. Above, the canopy filtered light into a perpetual green dusk, dappled and humming with unseen life. Far ahead, white plastoid armor glinted between the trees—Imperial stormtroopers, clustered in small patrols around prefabricated structures and survey equipment. A makeshift camp nestled in the clearing, shielded only by laziness and overconfidence.

Hunter held up two fingers, then gestured right. Wrecker and Echo split off to circle the flank. Omega crept beside Tech, tensely silent. Synnovea stood still behind them, her head low, gaze fixed on the Imperial officer near the command tent. His code cylinder gleamed against his belt like a key begging to be stolen.

Hunter whispered, “There’s our man.”

“Trooper count: seventeen,” Tech murmured, peering through his visor. “Four engineers. Two scout units. Minimal defenses.”

“Not for long,” Synnovea said under her breath.

She slipped back toward the tree line, kneeling beside the base of a twisted Massassi trunk. From a pouch at her belt, she withdrew a small vial filled with dark amber resin and uncorked it with care. The smell hit immediately—sharp and sour, like rotting fruit laced with iron.

With gloved fingers, she traced the substance along the gnarled roots, muttering something under her breath—maybe an old trick or a chant, maybe nothing at all.

And then she waited.

From the canopy above, they came.

The piranha beetles erupted in waves—winged bodies with hard, chitinous shells and mandibles like tiny blades. They descended on the camp like a living storm, swarming with uncanny coordination. Stormtroopers shouted, firing wildly as the beetles engulfed them. Engineers dropped tools and bolted, but the beetles moved faster.

Omega ducked beside Tech, shielding her head as wings buzzed overhead. “It’s working!”

Synnovea didn’t respond. She remained crouched beside the tree, motionless, watching the chaos unfold.

But the celebration didn’t last.

The ground trembled.

Then again, harder.

Tech’s eyes darted to his scanner. “...Something’s moving underground.”

The soil near the edge of the clearing bulged. Cracked. And exploded.

A massive shape surged from the earth in a geyser of stone and shattered roots. Mud and debris rained down as a monstrous form rose into view—limbless, coiled, armored in thick brown plates and mud-streaked green segments. Its mouth opened wide, ringed with jagged, grinding teeth.

“Great. A giant grub.” Hunter’s voice was low. “That’s not part of the plan.” He pulled his blaster as he bolted from the treeline. “I’m beginning to hate this planet…”

The grub lunged, crushing the command station beneath its mass. Screams vanished beneath the thunder of collapsing steel and tearing roots. The beetles scattered into the trees, their purpose lost in the wake of something older, deeper, and utterly ungovernable.

“That thing is huge—it’s a Leviathan!” Echo called out, already moving. “It’s tearing through the camp!”

“It’s not stopping!” Omega pointed. “It’s heading for the ship!”

Before anyone could stop her, she ran—bolting through the underbrush, ducking under low-hanging vines, leaves whipping past her face.

“Omega!” Hunter shouted. “Get back here!”

But the grub was faster.

Wrecker tore through the foliage after her, bellowing her name. He reached her just as the grub reared, its shadow blotting out the light.

He grabbed Omega and flung her clear—just in time for the creature’s tail end to sweep across the clearing like a battering ram.

Wrecker took the full hit.

He flew, armor slamming into a tree trunk with a sickening crack before crashing to the ground in a boneless heap. The Marauder didn’t fare much better. The grub’s blow clipped its wing, shearing metal and sending the ship listing hard to one side. Sparks rained down as the stabilizers groaned and buckled.

As suddenly as it had appeared, the Leviathan lurched backward, its glistening maw slamming into the earth with mindless fury—over and over, bone-shaking impacts fracturing ancient stone and pulverizing roots into pulp. Shattered branches flew like shrapnel. With a wet, gurgling shriek that curdled the air, the creature twisted its grotesque bulk toward the gaping wound it had carved into the jungle floor. The earth split wider, not from force, but as if something deep below had beckoned it back. Black loam churned like boiling tar, and the stench of rot and iron rose with it.

No one moved. The ground moaned beneath their feet as the bloated form writhed, then began to sink, segment by segment, into the chasm. It didn't flee. It didn’t even hesitate. It simply vanished into the depths, leaving only a trembling silence in its wake.

And just like that, it was gone.

“Omega!” Hunter sprinted into the chaos, ducking past fallen trees and twisted debris. He reached her, hauled her up. “You okay?”

She nodded, eyes wide with fear. “Wrecker—he’s not moving—”

They turned.

He lay crumpled amid torn-up earth and beetle-slick debris, his massive frame half-sunken into the mud. His helmet was missing. One leg twisted at an unnatural angle. His armor, built to withstand blaster fire, was split wide across the chestplate.

Tech skidded to a halt beside him, nearly dropping his scanner in the rush to reach him. He dropped into a crouch, hands flying across the device, fingers trembling despite his precision.

The scanner began to hum.

Omega hovered beside him, voice catching in her throat. “Is... is he—?”

She couldn’t finish the sentence.

Tech didn’t answer. His eyes flicked over the readout, his brow pulled tight in a way that rarely surfaced. Numbers blinked red. Rhythms stuttered. His jaw clenched.

And then—

A movement.

So small it almost didn’t register—Wrecker’s hand twitching against the mud, curling slightly.

He drew in a breath.

It came with a ragged, creaking sound, like rusted durasteel forced to bend. Then the bubbling—wet, painful, unmistakable. A gurgle somewhere deep in his chest. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

Omega made a choked sound and sank to her knees. “He’s breathing.”

“Not for long,” Tech muttered, already digging through his satchel. “Collapsed lung. Multiple rib fractures. Internal bleeding. He needs field treatment, more than that, he needs surgery—now.” He tore open the casing on a medpatch and slapped it against Wrecker’s neck, even though he knew it was futile. “Every time he takes a breath, the shards are cutting into his pulmonary sac. He’s essentially breathing himself to death.”

Synnovea appeared beside them like a shadow. She didn’t speak.

She just knelt.

Her hand hovered, hesitated. Then she placed it gently on Wrecker’s chest.

“What good is that going to do?” Hunter snarled, finding rage easier to handle than grief.

Synnovea didn’t respond to Hunter’s question.

She just closed her eyes.

One hand pressed to Wrecker’s chest, the other steady on the ground, grounding herself in the present—here, with the broken body beneath her palm and the team frozen around her.

For a heartbeat, nothing happened.

Then the air changed.

Not in a way that could be measured—no temperature shift, no wind—but something beneath the surface, as if the very breath of the jungle drew in tight around them. The sounds of the forest receded, muted, until all that remained was Wrecker’s ragged, wheezing breath.

Synnovea's brow furrowed. Her mouth moved, but no sound emerged—only a rhythm, subtle and slow, like the pacing of thought or prayer. Her hand glowed faintly at the edges, not with light exactly, but with presence, as though something unseen gathered there. A warmth that hummed through her fingertips and into Wrecker’s shattered chest.

His body jolted, once.

Omega gasped and took a step back. “What—?”

“Is that—” Echo started, then stopped.

The bubbling in Wrecker’s lungs slowed. His chest began to rise—not in stutters or gasps, but smoother, fuller. The lines of pain etched across his face began to ease.

Tech stared at the scanner, eyes wide, watching as vitals began to stabilize in real time. “That’s… impossible.”

“No,” Hunter murmured, voice low and grim. “It’s not.”

Synnovea didn’t look up. Didn’t flinch. Her focus was absolute. Whatever fear or caution had held her back before, it was gone now—burned away by purpose.

Wrecker’s wounds closed, ribcage knitting beneath ruined armor. His breathing deepened. Color returned to his face. He shifted, eyes fluttering open with a pained groan.

Synnovea exhaled shakily.

And then she opened her eyes.

The jungle seemed to exhale with her.

Wrecker blinked, dazed. “Did... we win?”

No one answered.

All eyes were on her.

Synnovea sat back on her heels, suddenly aware of the silence pressing in on her. Hunter. Echo. Tech. Omega. All of them stared, unmoving. No one said the word, but it hung there, unspoken and heavy in the air:

Jedi.

She met their eyes, one by one.

And said nothing.

Chapter Text

For several moments, no one moved. In the wake of the Leviathan grub's devastation, the silence was thick. The usual hum of fauna—the buzzes, pipes, and shrieks of afternoon life—had yet to return. Only the shallow breaths of those present filled the air, each person grappling with the shock of what had just unfolded as their shoulders rose and fell.

“What was that?” Omega asked, her tone tipping into relieved laughter. “He was just…and now—how’d you do that?” She crawled forward, throwing her arms around Wrecker’s broad neck in a hug.

Wrecker coughed heavily, wincing. “Feels like I got sat on by a rancor…”

Synnovea lowered her hand from Wrecker’s chest and stood slowly, dust and blood streaked across her clothes. Her face was calm, but her eyes—those gave her away. Wide and tired, but ready to brace for impact.

Hunter’s stare hadn’t left her. His voice, when it came, was low. “You’re a Jedi.”

A pause.

“Yes,” she said. Quiet. Final. The word bloomed into the area, expanding around them until it burst against the listening silence, breaking their stunned tableau.

“You lied to us,” Echo said, stepping forward. “This whole time. It all makes sense now, though,” he admitted roughly in an aside.

“I didn’t lie,” Synnovea said, jaw clenched. “I didn’t tell you. That’s not the same thing.”

“That’s semantics,” Tech muttered.

Hunter turned on Echo suddenly, eyes sharp. “Wait—you said it makes sense. What are you talking about?”

Echo hesitated. Just for a second.

“In the junkyard,” he said. “Back at the base. Omega and I found a ship under a tarp. It was a Jedi starfighter, an Eta-2 Actis class.”

“You what?” Hunter’s voice rose, incredulous. “And you didn’t say anything?”

“I tried,” Echo shot back. “But between the Trandoshans and the rainstorm and this mess with the Imperials, we were always in crisis mode. I thought I’d bring it up when we had five minutes to breathe.”

Hunter shook his head, the frustration simmering just beneath the surface. “So all this time—we had a Jedi in our camp. And no one said a damn thing.”

“She saved Wrecker,” Omega said softly. “That’s what matters.”

They all turned to look at him again. Wrecker lay still, breathing easy now, eyes open. Alive.

Synnovea said nothing.

She just stood there—exposed, quiet, the truth hanging around her like a storm that hadn’t broken yet.

*  *  *

The silent decision to assess the damage and continue the mission, ignoring the bantha in the room, was unanimous.

Tech crouched near the wreckage, sifting through debris with a precision that bordered on mechanical. He ignored the lowering rays of the sun that hampered his work, pulling his flashlight from his belt to continue rummaging for viable pieces. “The wing is completely compromised. We’d need to fabricate a new stabilizer strut and rework the whole subframe.”

“We’ll figure something out,” Hunter replied, not sounding convinced. “We always do.”

Lifting his boots higher to kick over the uneven ground littered with rocks, roots, and other debris, Echo approached and held something out in his glove. “Here. Look at this.” He lifted a mangled piece of metal for their inspection. It might have once been a code cylinder. Now it was flattened beyond recognition. “Crushed. That officer’s data is unusable.”

“So we don’t even have anything to show for this,” Hunter sighed, wiping his face with his hand.

On the far side of the clearing, Synnovea crouched beside Gonky, coaxing the stubborn power droid to sync with the fusion lantern—miraculously intact after the grub’s rampage. Sparks blinked, a low hum answered. Then, at last, the lantern glowed to life, its warm golden light pooling softly over the jungle floor as the shadows lengthened and coalesced. She offered Gonky a gentle pat, a tired smile flickering across her face, before standing to dust the dirt from her clothes.

A few meters away from them, Wrecker sat on a mossy stone, stiff but upright, noisily guzzling water from a canteen. Omega came bounding over, clutching something large and scuffed in her arms.

“Look what I found!” she beamed, holding out his helmet.

Wrecker grinned wide and took it gently, the smile making his bruised face seem almost normal again. “Thanks, kid.” He ran a finger over the dented side. “I would’ve missed this.”

“You always say it’s lucky,” she said, dropping onto the stone beside him.

“Yeah? Well it must be. I’m still here, aren’t I?” He gave her a nudge with his elbow. She smiled and leaned into his side.

Not far off, Echo stood with his arms folded, eyes scanning the broken wing of the Marauder, his brow drawn tight. Tech sat on the broken wing beside him, tapping rapidly on a datapad that blinked red more often than green. The ship groaned, a metal panel shifting with the breeze.

Tech glanced up, lips pressing thin. “As much as it pains me to say… we may need to request extraction.” His gaze flicked toward the twisted wing, still partially embedded in the jungle floor. “We’re not flying this out of here in its current condition.”

Echo didn’t look away from the damage. “I’m not wild about the optics of asking for a ride,” he grumbled, running the beam of his flashlight along the listing side of the ship. “There’s got to be some way we can reattach that wing ourselves.”

Synnovea, who had been standing off to the side, shifted her weight. “He’s right,” she said. “We need to lay low for a while, until we can repair your ship. If we go back now, it could bring trouble.”

“Why?” Echo asked. “Because we know your secret now?”

“No,” she said evenly. “Because Declan made it clear what would happen if we stirred up any more attention. And I think a Leviathan grub rampaging through an Imperial site qualifies.”

Hunter’s brow lifted. “Wait—Declan threatened you?”

Synnovea nodded. “This morning. I went to his office, tried to explain what we were doing. He didn’t care. He said if I caused any more problems, he’d take it out on all of us. Not just me. That he’d send all of you packing.”

A beat of silence passed. Even the jungle seemed to still.

“So,” Hunter said, his voice careful, “we have a damaged ship, a broken code cylinder, and now we’re stuck here with no real plan.”

“And a Jedi,” Tech added, without looking up.

The word landed like a stone in the middle of the group. Omega shifted uncomfortably. Wrecker scratched at his side.

Hunter exhaled through his nose. “So, we need to figure some things out.”

Synnovea didn’t flinch, but her shoulders stiffened.

Echo took a slow step forward. “Figure out what? That she lied? That she let us go on thinking she was just… what? Some wandering healer? She knew what she was. What she could do. And she let us walk blind into that mess back there.”

“I was trying to keep you safe,” she responded evenly. “You think being a Jedi makes things easier? It doesn’t. It makes you a target.”

Echo narrowed his eyes. “You think hiding in this jungle is the answer? With all your potential, all you could be doing—all you should be doing…the galaxy’s falling apart, people need help, and you’re just—just hiding!”

“I’m not ‘just hiding’, Echo,” she retorted, calmly but firmly. “You don’t understand—every time I show myself, I put everyone around me in danger.” She crouched down by the lantern, adjusting one of the dials before unplugging Gonky. “The Jedi were hunted down, almost all of them in a single day. And they’re still looking for the ones they didn’t get.”

His expression was incredulous. “That’s your big excuse? Hiding because you’re afraid?” Echo shook his head, disgusted. “You’re Jedi, Synnovea. You fought beside us. You were trained to protect, to lead. And now you’re simply cowering.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You think it’s easy? To lose everything and pretend like it never happened? You saw what became of the Jedi. I can’t go back to that life, that way of thinking, running around the stars pretending to save people—”

“No, you won’t go back to it. You’re too damn scared to do anything, and that’s what’s eating at you. You’re sitting here while the galaxy burns, and you won’t even lift a finger.”

“I can’t do this, Echo. You don’t know what it was like for me. You don’t—”

“Don’t you dare play the victim with me,” Echo interrupted with a growl. “I watched my brothers die. I watched the Jedi disappear. You—you got to escape, while the rest of us were left to clean up the mess.” He snorted. “I guess it’s easier to be a ghost than face the hell your Order left behind.”

“The Order didn’t create this chaos,” she protested, her face thinning in anger. “The Emperor did.”

He picked up a twisted scrap of metal, tossing it down again on top of the rest. “Yeah, well, it sure seems like the Order made it easier for him, doesn’t it.”

Synnovea flinched. Her mouth opened, a sharp retort rising on instinct—but she stopped herself and closed it again as she swung her troubled expression toward the darkness that crept in from between the trees. The muscles in her jaw rippled as she bit the inside of her cheek.

No one else spoke. The air hung heavy, thick with the sting of everything Echo had just thrown at her—and everything she wasn’t saying back.

Then Omega’s gaze drifted toward the torn earth, where crushed bushes and upturned soil still marked the Leviathan grub’s path, visible even in the deepening twilight. “Why did it even come?” she asked, hoping to turn the conversation to something less volatile. “It happened so fast, that thing didn’t even seem real…”

Synnovea stood a few paces from the rest, arms folded, wisps of hair that escaped her braid stirring slightly in the wind that had managed to penetrate the suffocating embrace of the surrounding vegetation.

“They’re real,” she said softly. “They're rare, but real. Territorial as hell. One that size must be ancient.”

“But why would it show up here?” Omega pressed. “Was it after us?”

“No,” Synnovea hedged. “It came because I called the swarm. Not the grub—just the fliers. I reached out through the Force to steer them toward the camp.”

Hunter’s brow furrowed. “So the vial—the sap. That wasn’t what brought them.”

“It helped mask what I was doing,” she admitted heavily. “Made it easier for you to believe in something practical. But I didn’t need it. I was already guiding them.”

Echo turned toward her. “You guided a swarm like that... but not the creature that nearly killed Wrecker?”

She raised her hand in a helpless gesture. “I didn’t know it was there. I felt something beneath the ground just before it surfaced—but it was too late. I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t control it, and I tried.”

“You’re a Jedi,” Echo said, his voice sharp. “Isn’t that what Jedi do?”

Synnovea’s jaw tightened. “You’re thinking of Skywalker or Kenobi, Jedi masters who can control creatures like that. I don’t have that kind of power, Echo.”

Echo’s head turned just enough so that his glare flashed in the light of the lantern. “You had the power to save Banek that day though, didn’t you?” he asked quietly, his tone flat.

She looked away. “I didn’t know if I could trust you guys then…” she mumbled.

“So he died so you could keep hiding? What’s the point of having that kind of ability if you’re just going to sit back and watch us get crushed? You should’ve acted, you should’ve—done something!” He flung an arm toward the twisted wing of the Marauder, resting precariously on a broken stump near the yawning hole in the ground where the grub had finally disappeared. “You had the power to stop that thing, Synnovea. You could’ve turned it, distracted it, anything—but you just stood there and watched. Wrecker almost died because of you.”

“It’s not as simple as you think! Just like not every clone has the same skills—just like not every clone can do what the others can do—not every Jedi has the same abilities as another!”

“Any clone can do what’s needed, for any situation. It’s what we were designed for!”

“Oh, yeah?” Synnovea’s boot kicked the edge of the lantern as she sprang to her feet, her temper boiling over. Her hand gestured to the scomp link where his right hand used to be. “Try clapping!” The rocking light threw jagged, angular shadows across the camp, slicing their faces in half—one moment illuminated, the next thrown into darkness.

In an instant, Echo surged forward.

And Synnovea moved to meet him.

Hunter was there first.

He slammed a hand into Echo’s chest and shoved him back hard enough to make his boots slide in the dirt. With his other arm, he caught Synnovea mid-stride, gripping her bicep with just enough force to hold her in place.

“Enough!” Hunter barked, his voice edged with command.

Neither of them answered. They just glared at each other over Hunter’s shoulders, fury crackling in the narrow space between them like an exposed power line.

“Stand down,” he rasped, calmer this time. “Both of you.”

Synnovea ripped her arm from his grasp and turned away.

Echo stood frozen for a moment longer, jaw clenched, before stepping back, eyes burning.

The blue-gray of night had fallen on the uncomfortable tableau in the clearing, held at bay by the lone fusion lantern valiantly glowing at their feet.

Synnovea stood with her back to them, shoulders rigid. Echo remained a few paces away, fist curled at his side like he still hadn’t decided whether to walk away or go right back in swinging. Hunter’s hands fell slowly from the space between them. The silence wasn’t peace—it was a standoff dressed in smoke and shadows.

Wrecker sat with his helmet in his lap, no longer smiling. Even Omega, curled beside him, watched with wide, silent eyes.

Tech cleared his throat, adjusting his goggles. His voice was even when it broke the silence, but softer than usual.

“You mentioned Declan and his…ultimatum,” he said. “But how did you get to Yavin IV in the first place? After Order 66?”

Synnovea didn’t answer right away. When she finally turned, her face was calmer, but pale. Tired.

“I was on Kashyyyk when it all fell apart,” she said quietly. “The Republic had deployed us to help reinforce the Wookiees. We were working alongside them—fighting with them. We’d only just started making progress.”

She hesitated, eyes falling to the fusion lantern.

“And then... I don’t remember it all. Just pieces. Shouting. Screaming. The Wookiees roaring. Blaster fire. Everything—suddenly wrong.”

She knelt beside the lantern, not looking at them.

“I couldn’t find Master Yoda or Master Vos. I—I saw Master Unduli fall. I remember running. The cockpit of my Jedi interceptor—the Kestrel—open. I remember slamming it shut. The windshield—the transparisteel—it hit hard. I could hear troopers yelling, screaming. The trees were burning. There was smoke. I don’t remember entering coordinates, I don’t remember taking off. I don’t remember flying. The next thing I knew... I was here.”

“On Yavin IV?” Tech asked.

She nodded. “I don’t know how I made it here. I didn’t even know where here was at first. But I was alive. So I stayed hidden. I watched. And when Declan started building his little resistance cell, it wasn’t hard to... integrate.”

She lifted a hand absently and passed it through the air, almost like waving away a cobweb.

“A few simple suggestions,” she added. “Nothing invasive. I didn’t erase anything. I just… nudged. Made it easier for them to forget how long I’d been here.”

“You used a mind trick,” Tech said. Not accusatory—just observation.

“I had to,” she said. “I didn’t know who I could trust. Jedi were being hunted.”

“And the Empire’s arrival?” Hunter asked, arms still crossed. “You hired us to drive them out.”

Synnovea hesitated. Her mouth twisted slightly, like she was searching for the right words and not finding them.

“I had a vision,” she finally confessed. “Not a clear one. Just… a feeling. Yavin IV is important. I don’t know why, not yet. But something is coming. I don’t know when, or who, or what. Only that this place matters.”

She looked up at them, voice faltering slightly.

“I know how that sounds. I know you’re probably thinking I’m—”

“Crazy?” Echo’s voice cut in like a blade. “Yeah. That’s the word.”

Synnovea stood slowly, her frustration apparent on her face. “I knew you wouldn’t understand.”

“No, what I don’t understand,” Echo snapped, “is how someone like you—someone who could help—chooses to sit around and let the galaxy burn.”

“I’ve already told you—”

“And I’m telling you, that’s not good enough!”

Hunter moved, but this time didn’t intervene—he hovered nearby, watchful, waiting.

Wrecker rose and reached out, a massive hand curling around Echo’s shoulder to pull him back, but Echo yanked himself free with a jerk, the motion sharp and angry. His voice rose with every word, like a dam finally breaking.

“Get it through your thick head—if you just rot out your existence here on this moon and hope that no one ever finds you, you’re dishonoring the memory of every Jedi that came before you, of every master that taught you anything. The ones like you, that made it somehow…they weren’t spared so they could vanish. They were spared so the Order wouldn’t die with merely a whimper. There are still things you can do that no one else can."

He took a step forward—fast, deliberate—closing the distance between him and Synnovea in a heartbeat. She flinched instinctively, her head tipping back just enough to keep their faces from colliding. But Echo didn’t stop. He leaned in, voice low and bitter, his breath hot against her cheek.

“And what about us? What about the clones who bled beside all of you? Who died believing in you? In the cause you stood for? You think hiding here honors their sacrifice for the Republic?” He caught the twinge at the corner of her eye, the bleak look, and knew that his words hit home.

Synnovea didn’t answer. Just stood there, shaking, jaw clenched against the tide in her chest. Then, without a word, she shoved Echo back—not hard, just enough to break the closeness between them. Her hands trembled as she turned away, moving quickly through the clearing, past the glow of the lantern, into the dark of the trees.

Hunter shifted like he might follow, lifting a hand. “Wait—”

But Omega saw the look on Echo’s face before anyone else did—rigid, bitter, cold. He didn’t even glance after Synnovea. He just stared at the ground and muttered with finality, “Yeah, slip away... that’s your signature move, isn’t it?” Turning, he moved to the far side of the group, hunkering down just beyond the glow of the lantern.

Silence closed in like a shroud. Even the fusion lantern’s light and warmth seemed to shrink from the weight in the air. Hunter lowered his hand slowly, jaw working as he watched the spot where Synnovea had vanished. The lantern cast harsh shadows on his face, but it didn’t hide the tension in his stance.

Wrecker, who had been hovering behind Echo like a storm ready to break, said nothing. His fists were still clenched, but his face was tight with something more than anger—something closer to disappointment. Tech stood off to the side, adjusting a sensor that didn’t need adjusting, his eyes down and unreadable, mouth pressed in a thin line. He didn’t look at anyone.

Omega sat frozen near the lantern, knees tucked to her chest. She hadn’t said a word during the fight, but now, her wide eyes drifted from Echo’s rigid frame to the empty path Synnovea had taken.

She felt it—all of it. Not just the fight, but the weight of everything no one had said.

This wasn’t just about Synnovea hiding.

It was about what they'd all lost. What they were still losing.

She curled her arms tighter around her knees and rested her chin there, quiet and small in the hush that followed.

Days that began with a fight often ended with one.

Chapter Text

Yavin’s jungle pressed close around the wreck of the Marauder, its heavy mist clinging to everything like cold sweat. Morning came, sluggish and gray, draping the canopy in a damp hush that muffled even the birdsong. The world felt suspended, as though time itself had slowed to watch the fallen ship rust beneath the ferns. Snapped branches and rudely tilled earth still marked the attack on the vessel, the wounds of battle half-swallowed by creeping vines. Nothing stirred but the mist, thick as breath, curling around shadows that had not yet lifted with the dawn.

No one had slept well. No one had much to say.

Wrecker stood near the battered wing of the Marauder, rubbing the back of his neck as he stared at the jagged, half-detached structure. His usual boisterous energy was muted, tucked somewhere behind the bruises lining his arms and the deep purple welt still blossoming on his jaw. He winced as he stretched, favoring his right side.

Hunter crouched beside the ship, assessing the damage with a slow, methodical eye. His expression was tight, his usual calm scraped raw after everything that had happened the night before. “Tech,” he called quietly, “how bad is it?”

Tech adjusted his goggles, squinting at the data streaming across his handheld scanner. “Structurally? Catastrophic. Functionally?” He flicked a glance at Hunter, almost apologetic. “Marginally repairable. Assuming we can reattach the wing well enough to survive atmospheric flight.”

“Assuming,” Echo muttered from where he leaned against a tree, arms crossed, his cybernetic scomp link tapping a slow, impatient beat against his forearm. His gaze didn’t stray from Synnovea, who sat apart from the others, her hands resting limply on her knees.

Synnovea kept her head bowed, the cowl of her tunic shadowing her face. She felt every glance like a stone against her skin. She could still hear Echo’s words from last night—sharp, scalding—and she didn't know how to answer them. Nothing she did seemed to be able to pass his scathing scrutiny. Earlier, she had offered to finish healing Wrecker, but Echo’s curt dismissal ended the attempt before Wrecker could even answer.

“Can’t we just lift it into place?” Omega asked, her voice cutting through the heavy silence. She looked between them with wide, worried eyes. “Wrecker’s strong enough, right?”

“I can do it,” Wrecker said quickly, thumping his chest with a little more force than necessary. He winced again as his split chest plate rattled but covered it with a shaky grin. “Piece of cake. I’m fine.”

“You’re not,” Tech said mildly, without looking up. “You are, in fact, exhibiting classic signs of internal trauma, including limited range of motion and involuntary spasms.”

Wrecker blinked. “I am?”

“You are.”

Hunter’s mouth twitched, but he didn’t argue. “We need another way.”

Silence pooled again, thick and restless.

Synnovea exhaled slowly and stepped forward. The movement drew the whole squad’s attention like a ripple in still water.

“I can do it,” she said. No waver. No boasting, no apologetic meekness.

Tech’s scanner chirped, forgotten in his hands. Wrecker’s face tightened—not from anger, but something rougher, harder to name. Omega’s eyes went wide.

Echo’s stare was cold enough to scrape bone. His mouth tightened, but he said nothing.

Hunter rose slowly from his crouch, brushing dirt from his hands. His eyes searched hers, guarded but not hostile. “You sure?”

“I’m sure,” Synnovea answered. She met his gaze evenly, steady as bedrock. “I can help him lift the weight. Just tell me when.”

Hunter nodded once, the decision made because it had to be, not because he liked it. “Alright. Let’s move.”

* * *

Wrecker braced himself under the wing, muscles bunched and ready. Tech and Echo positioned the braces—jury-rigged from shattered plating and salvage from the Imperial camp—near the damaged struts. Omega hovered close to Hunter, eyes darting between them all, worry tightening her young face.

Synnovea closed her eyes and reached.

The Force greeted her like an old wound—familiar and aching. She wrapped her mind around the crumpled wing, felt its weight and resistance. Her fingers splayed, and slowly, deliberately, she lifted.

The wing groaned and shuddered, rising a few crucial inches off Wrecker’s shoulders. Synnovea tightened her lips, exhaling in a long, controlled breath. The creaking mass wobbled less erratically, then grew still.

“Hold it,” Hunter ordered, moving fast. “Tech, Echo—secure it now!”

“Working,” Tech said briskly, already driving the first lock into place. A rivet gun snapped, a low metallic clang echoing across the clearing.

Synnovea felt sweat bead on her brow. Not from fear, but effort. She hadn't worked in the open like this in years. Not since—

No. Not now.

Echo drove the second brace home with a brutal efficiency that bordered on violent. His face was blank, shuttered, but his movements spoke volumes. Another rivet, another grunt of effort. The ship shuddered, swaying with the weight of the wing.

“Almost there,” Tech reported.

Wrecker’s arms trembled, though whether from effort or the lingering weakness of his injuries, Synnovea couldn’t tell. She bore down harder, anchoring the wing with every ounce of control she had.

Finally, Hunter helped slam the last strut brace into place. “Release it. Easy, now.”

Together, Wrecker and Synnovea lowered the wing into the new supports as the others looked on anxiously. The ship sighed but didn’t buckle. It would hold.

For now.

Synnovea dropped her hands. The Force slipped from her grasp like breath from cold lungs. She staggered one step back and caught herself, breathing hard through her nose.

Wrecker straightened with a grunt and gave her a crooked grin. “Hey... not bad.”

She nodded once in acknowledgment, too wrung out to force a smile.

Tech adjusted his goggles, studying the wing with brisk approval. “Structural integrity is restored to fifty-two percent. More than sufficient for controlled flight.”

“Assuming we avoid any other surprises,” Echo muttered, stepping away from the braces. He didn’t look at Synnovea once.

Hunter gave Synnovea a long, unreadable look, then jerked his chin toward the ship. “Gear up. We move in twenty.”

The moment fractured, scattering them like seeds on the wind. They moved in practiced rhythms—checking supplies, stowing equipment, prepping the Marauder for flight—but the weight between them lingered.

Synnovea watched them work, still feeling the bruises of last night, of this morning, of the choices she had made. She didn’t flinch from them. They were hers to carry. She picked up one of the packs, slung it over her shoulder, and followed the others without a word. The road back to base would be long.

And heavier still.

* * *

As the Marauder settled onto the forest floor, Synnovea left without a word. She didn’t wait for an invitation to go, and none of them had to ask her. For a moment, silence filled the ship—thick with tension, unspoken thoughts hanging in the stale air.

Hunter leaned over the center console, studying the grainy holomap projected above it.  His body was tight with tension, his hand tapping a restless rhythm against the edge of the computer. In the pilot’s seat, Tech scrolled rapidly through lines of intercepted transmissions on his datapad, his eyes watching the decryption process. Wrecker lounged against the bulkhead, hands laced behind his head, expression unusually serious.

Echo sat ramrod straight in the copilot, arms locked over his chest, his face like carved stone. “This isn’t sustainable,” he said finally, voice low and hard. “She lied. She hid. We’re supposed to just... move on?”

“We are moving on,” Tech said phlegmatically. “Whether we choose to harbor personal resentments is irrelevant to the current operational necessities.”

Echo glared. “It’s not irrelevant when you have to watch your back.”

“She saved Wrecker,” Hunter said without looking up. His voice was steady, but there was an edge to it—a warning, or maybe just exhaustion. “That counts for something.”

Echo’s hands flexed behind his back, metal joints creaking faintly.
“It counts. But it doesn’t erase the lie.”

“I would hardly classify it as a lie," Tech interjected without looking up from his datapad. "An omission, yes. Perhaps even a strategic one. Given the Empire’s treatment of surviving Jedi, her caution was not only reasonable—it was statistically inevitable."

Echo turned toward him, jaw tight. "You can rationalize it all you want. She hid her identity, and Banek died. How many times has that happened before? What Jedi lets others die for her safety?"

Hunter lifted his head finally, gaze sweeping the room.

“Enough.”

The word dropped like a stone into a well—heavy, final. No one answered, but the tension coiled tighter.

A sharp chime interrupted them.

“I’ve intercepted a signal.” Tech flicked his wrist, and a series of coordinates appeared over the map in a sickly pulse of blue. “Imperial in origin. Short-range communication. Approximately seven klicks north.”

Hunter studied the readout for a moment, his mouth tightening.

“They're scouting,” he said. “Might’ve picked up our crash. Or the Leviathan fight.”

Echo's frown deepened. “Could just be a probe. Could be worse.”

“Doesn't matter which," Hunter said. "We're grounded till we fix the Marauder. If they find this place, we’re done for. We need to hit them now, before they get any closer.”

Wrecker nodded grimly. “Good. I need something to hit.”

Hunter nodded once. “We handle this. It’s what she paid us for, anyway.”

At that, Omega stepped forward from where she had been hovering near the entrance, fists clenched at her sides. She looked small compared to the others, but there was nothing small about the determination in her voice.

“I’m not staying behind again.” she burst out. “I’m not sitting here fixing the ship again while you go off without me! We have enough pipe straps, the coil resealer’s good for another cycle—and I can help. You know I can help!”

She spoke faster and faster, words tumbling over each other, her eyes flashing stubbornly.

Hunter turned toward her slowly, his expression unreadable. He let her talk herself out, the room silent except for her voice growing thinner and more desperate. Finally, when she was running out of steam, he held up a hand.

“I already decided you’re coming with us, Omega.”

She blinked, mouth still half-open mid-argument. Color flooded her cheeks, and she ducked her head, but a wide, pleased grin broke out a second later.

“Well. Okay. Good,” she said, trying for casual and utterly failing.

Even Tech allowed himself a faint smile at her expense, and Wrecker rumbled a soft laugh. Echo said nothing, but some of the rigid tension seemed to bleed out of his posture.

Hunter exhaled, dragging a hand through his hair.

“Now,” he said, pushing off the console with a sigh, “we just gotta go tell the boss.”

The flicker of humor faded almost immediately, and the weight settled back into the room—Because no matter how much they joked or moved forward, Synnovea was no longer just the doctor in the infirmary.

And none of them really knew what that meant yet.

*  *  *

The air felt heavier today, as if the overcast weather outside had sunk into the walls and refused to leave. Synnovea sat at her usual spot in the infirmary, the hum of the med equipment rattling faintly in the corners. She scrolled absently through the updated scans for the bacta cultures, but her mind wasn't on them. It wasn’t on anything, really.

She’d felt them coming before she heard the steps. Footfalls echoed from the corridor—a steady cadence, boots against metal—and a moment later, the squad filed into view. Synnovea lowered the medpad in her hands and turned as they approached, feeling the invisible wall that already stood between them.

They stopped just inside the room, a line of black armor and shifting stares. Hunter’s mouth was set in a thin line. Tech avoided her gaze entirely. Wrecker gave her the smallest of nods—apology or acknowledgment, she couldn’t tell. Echo didn’t look at her at all.

“We picked up a ping,” Hunter said without preamble. “Imperial chatter, few klicks north. Looks like a small patrol, maybe recon. It may be nothing, but our luck hasn’t been good lately.”

Tech adjusted his goggles. “Given the Marauder’s current compromised state, allowing enemy forces to stumble upon our location would be... unwise.”

“We’re heading out,” Hunter continued. His eyes leveled flatly at her. “Soon.”

Synnovea nodded, setting the medpad aside. "Then we'd better go," she said, standing.

She started to rise—but Hunter’s hand lifted slightly, a small motion, almost apologetic in its hesitation.

“It’d be better if... if we handled this one alone.”

Synnovea froze. The words sank into her with the weight of something inevitable. Silence stretched taut between them. She schooled her face into neutrality with effort.

“Of course,” she said. Her voice was steady, even if her chest felt hollow.

As the group filtered out the door, Omega hesitated. She took a step toward Synnovea slowly, rubbing her jaw in unconscious imitation of Hunter.

“When we were in the trees,” she said quietly, “and I fell... you didn’t catch me with your hands.”

It wasn’t a question.

Synnovea’s throat constricted. She gave a small, careful nod. “No. I didn’t.”

Omega looked down, twisting the hem of her sleeve, thinking hard the way only kids did—unfiltered and earnest. When she looked back up, her eyes were bright, fierce in a way that made Synnovea’s heart ache.

“I’m glad you did,” Omega said simply. “Thank you.”

And without waiting for a reply, she turned and hurried after the others.

The door hissed shut with a soft metallic sigh.

*  *  *

For a long moment, Synnovea stood rooted in place, listening to the infirmary settle around her—the quiet beep of monitors, the low whir of cooling fans. Normal sounds. Harmless sounds.

But none of it felt normal now.

She forced herself to move, returning to the workbench where ArEx hovered in standby mode. Leaning over the astromedic, she tapped a sequence into his panel, then carefully withdrew a small memory chip from her pocket. It gleamed faintly under the overhead lights as she turned it over in her fingers before slotting it into ArEx’s interface.

The lights on ArEx’s chassis blinked rapidly, processing.

Then—he screeched.

A burst of indignant, high-pitched warbling erupted from his vocoder, followed by a rapid series of agitated beeps and a full-body shudder that sent two of his side panels flaring open like wings. One snapped shut again with a clang, clearly for emphasis.

Synnovea winced and took a step back, holding up her hands in surrender. “Yes, all right, I deserve that.”

ArEx spun in a tight circle, bumped deliberately into the workbench leg, then reversed and did it again—twice. His front photoreceptor flared bright red, and he let out a disgruntled bwoooorrrr-OP! that somehow managed to sound both accusatory and wounded.

“I know. I should’ve done it sooner.” She moved slowly to sit on the bench beside him, her voice gentling. “I didn’t forget. I just… wasn’t ready.”

A lower, more sustained chirp followed—grumbly, but not quite as sharp. He extended one spindly manipulator arm, tapping the memory port where the chip now rested with exaggerated daintiness. Then another flurry of blats, accompanied by a trilling rotation of his dome.

Synnovea blinked, then let out a breathy laugh. “No, you don’t get to say I told you so. You were in low-function recovery mode—you didn’t even have full recall.”

An indignant blaaaat sounded, and the droid turned away slightly. She smiled, the tension in her shoulders easing for the first time in days. “Stars, I missed you.”

ArEx gave a low, almost sheepish beep, followed by a little spin and a series of softer, slower lights blinking in a warm cascade down his chassis.

Synnovea reached out and gently stroked one of the panels. “Still a smartass, huh?”

The droid gave a quick chitter-chirp, then retracted his panels and settled beside her with a satisfied little whirr.

Her smile softened, tugging deeper until it reached her eyes—genuine, unguarded.

They lingered there in silence, the kind that only comes from old companionship. For a little while, memory wrapped around her like a cloak, and the day’s sharpness dulled at the edges. Eventually, she exhaled, her gaze dropping to ArEx’s side.

“All right,” she said quietly. “Let me see it.”

The droid whistled a query—an almost dubious noise.

“Yes,” she said aloud, her fading smile still tugging at her mouth with a haunting wistfulness. “I’m sure.”

ArEx hummed, the sound almost reverent, then extended a panel from his side.

Inside, nestled in a felt-lined recess, was her lightsaber.

Brushed chromium, darkened at the edges by years of wear. Bands of deep orichalcum circled the emitter and grip—metal not easy to find, not easy to break. The activation switch was worn smooth. No gleam. No polish. Just the quiet, patient weight of something waiting to be needed again.

Synnovea lifted it slowly, her fingers curling around the hilt like it might vanish if she touched it wrong. It didn’t hum. It didn’t glow. But in her hand, it felt heavier than it should.

She stared at it, thumb grazing the edge of the activation plate. Then she sat down on the bench and let the silence stretch.

It fit her hand as if it had never left.

The Force stirred faintly at the edge of her senses—tentative, like an old friend unsure of their welcome. Or perhaps like her, unsure if she deserved one.

She turned the hilt over in her hand. The whorls of orichalcum caught the infirmary’s sterile light, bending her reflection across the metal: older, sharper. Tired in ways no sleep could fix.

Her fingers shifted slightly on the grip.

And just like that, she was small again—barely eight, legs dangling from the edge of the Temple workbench, bootheels knocking softly against the stone floor.

The saber in her hands back then had gleamed with untouched promise. Freshly constructed, humming gently with the lavender crystal she’d chosen after hours of wandering the caverns on Ilum.

She’d frowned down at it, slender brow furrowed, both hands wrapped tight around the hilt. “It’s… heavy,” she’d said.

Her master had chuckled, not unkindly. “Good.”

She’d looked up, confused. “Is it supposed to be?”

“Absolutely.” He knelt before her, dark eyes warm and thoughtful. “Not just in your hands, but here.” He tapped a finger lightly to her chest. “The lightsaber is more than a weapon. It’s a promise. A responsibility.”

“To protect people?”

“Yes,” he said, then smiled faintly. “But also to carry the weight of your choices. To stand when others run. To lead when others follow. Every Jedi must feel that weight. If it ever feels too light—be worried.”

She’d nodded solemnly, gripping the hilt a little tighter. “I can carry it.”

“I know,” he’d said quietly. “That’s why it chose you.”

The memory faded like a breath on glass. But the hilt still lay cradled in her hand.

Just the weight of what was, and what still waited ahead.

The lights hummed around her, steady and uncaring.

Outside, the base was quiet. The others were already gone.

Alone, Synnovea closed her fingers slowly around the hilt and let the silence wrap around her.

*  *  *

Branches snapped under Wrecker’s weight despite his effort to tread lightly, the sound swallowed almost instantly by the damp air. Tension hung between the clones like static before a storm, each step through the underbrush punctuated by the echo of unfinished arguments.

They’d been walking in tense silence for nearly a kilometer. Hunter led the way, blaster low, senses tuned, shoulders tight with the strain of command. Echo kept pace a step behind him, rigid, silent, brimming with an anger that hadn’t dulled since the day before.

Tech followed behind, monitoring his datapad, cross-referencing signal strength with terrain overlays. Wrecker brought up the rear, unusually quiet, still nursing bruises that hadn't quite faded. Omega moved somewhere in the middle—small, determined, caught in the undertow of everything she didn’t quite understand, but felt in her bones.

It was quieter than it should have been. Even this far north, where the tree line twisted low and the moss crept like frost across stone and root, the world should’ve been alive with chirps and drones, the restless pulse of hidden things. But today, the silence was watchful. Weighted.

Hunter crouched near a ridge, fingers splayed over the earth, eyes narrowed beneath the shadow of his bandana. “Two klicks out,” he muttered, low but firm. “Movement ahead. Could be a relay drone. More likely a scout team.”

Wrecker adjusted the DC-17 slung across his back, eyes scanning the treetops. “Just tell me when I can hit something.”

“We’ll go quiet until we know,” Hunter decided. “No sense blowing up a rock pile just to feel better.”

Behind them, Echo shifted his weight with a grunt that was more irritation than exertion. “Right. Wouldn’t want to overreact. Wouldn’t want to do anything rash—like, I don’t know, acknowledge a Jedi in our camp for nearly nine rotations without saying a kriffing word about it.”

“Echo…” Wrecker began, half a warning, half a sigh.

Hunter didn’t look at him, but something in his jaw clenched. “You want to pick this fight again, Echo?” he asked, voice calm like a drawn blade. “Now?”

“No,” Echo snapped, brushing a vine out of his path. “I wanted to pick it yesterday, but you just walked off like it was nothing.”

“She saved Wrecker,” Omega piped up, struggling to keep pace but fierce in the way only she could be. “You keep acting like she did something wrong, but she didn’t hurt us. She helped.”

Echo turned, too fast, face tight with frustration. “It’s not about hurting us. It’s about trust, Omega. That’s what you still don’t get. The second she kept that from us—”

“She was trying to survive,” Tech interjected, his voice cool but not cold, his steps unhurried as he caught up beside them. “A decision I find not only reasonable, but statistically predictable. We all conceal our identities in some capacity. She simply did it better than we noticed.”

Echo shot him a look. “That’s not the same. You know it.”

“It is similar enough,” Tech replied without flinching. “And as survival tactics go, it was effective.”

“She didn’t tell us because she knew we wouldn’t trust her,” Omega argued, panting a little from the incline. “And now you’re proving her right.”

That landed heavier than she realized. Even Echo blinked, caught off guard by how squarely she hit the center of it.

Omega kicked a stone off the path and didn’t look up. “When I was in the tree that day… I thought I was going to fall. I knew it. Then something caught me. And I felt it.” She touched her chest, her eyes wide and distant with the memory. “I felt her reach out. Not with her hands. With something else. And I wasn’t scared. Not even for a second,” she finished defiantly.

Hunter gave her a sidelong glance. “You didn’t say anything.”

“I didn’t know then,” Omega protested. “But I do now.”

Hunter took a breath, but before he could speak, Tech stepped forward, holding up a hand. “Argue later. Motion ahead. Seventy meters,” he said softly.

Ducking low, the team instinctively fell into a staggered formation as they approached the rise.

They crouched low behind a tangle of deadbrush, the sour, acrid stench of the plant clinging to the air. Less than fifty meters out, a pair of Imperial transport shuttles squatted in the mud, their hulls gleaming like beetle shells beneath the cloud-strangled sun. And moving between them—line after line of civilians, hands bound, heads bowed.

Duros.

Omega sucked in a sharp breath beside Wrecker. “They’re…they’re not even fighting back.”

Hunter raised his macrobinoculars, lips pressed into a line. “They don’t have the numbers to fight. Just families. Hunters, elders…” He lowered his binoculars slowly. “What the hell are they doing out here?”

“A coordinated roundup?” Tech offered, though his tone was uncertain. “But this isn’t standard. These aren’t labor-age captives. This feels… off-book.”

“For what?” Wrecker asked. “They don’t even have weapons!”

“Don’t need a reason,” Echo said darkly. “It’s the Empire.”

They fell silent again, watching. Waiting. The wind stirred the canopy overhead, and somewhere, distantly, a child cried out before being abruptly silenced.

“We could take ’em,” Wrecker said after a long pause, voice low, angry.

“Yeah,” Echo snapped, “and then what? Let ‘em trace that back to base? To Declan and all of them? And—her?”

“No,” Hunter said, firm but quiet. “We can’t. If we blow our cover here, we’d be putting everyone in danger. We’re not equipped for a full engagement.”

“We can’t just let them get taken,” Wrecker hissed. “Some of those are kids.”

“And we don’t even know why,” Echo snapped. “Could be a sweep, could be bait. We go loud, we risk all of us—her included. You think she’ll survive a second purge?”

The group crouched there in the foliage, locked in a grid of stares, no one quite willing to be the first to move. Even Wrecker looked caught in a grim war between instinct and logic.

Omega looked up at Hunter, eyes filled with fury and hurt. “We can’t just leave them,” she said scathingly. “If we let them get taken just to stay hidden, that’s exactly what Echo called Synnovea a coward for.”

Hunter’s silence said everything.

Finally, he exhaled. “We’re pulling back. Quietly. We track where they’re taking them, but we don’t engage.”

Wrecker muttered, “This ain’t how we’re supposed to be…”

“No,” Omega agreed reluctantly, “but it’s where we are. And we’re not going to be able to help anyone if we keep tearing each other apart.”

They all looked at her then, even Echo. She wasn’t pleading. She was just…tired. Older somehow than she’d been that morning.

“We cannot risk engagement,” Tech asserted, switching his scanner to record the event, propping it up between two broad leaves. “But we can come back for them.”

“How?” Wrecker asked.

Tech didn’t look up. “We tell Synnovea.” He narrowed his eyes, zooming the camera in on the roundup. “And we think bigger.”

*  *  *

The infirmary was too quiet for how full it was.

The only sounds were the soft clinks of metal tools being sorted and the intermittent hum of a medscanner. The recycled air felt warmer than usual, thick with the kind of tension that didn’t break—it just coiled tighter.

Wrecker sat at the edge of a supply crate, cracking his knuckles one by one with slow, aimless frustration. Tech paced. Hunter stood near the long table at the back, arms folded, jaw locked. Omega hovered just inside the room, still and wary. Echo leaned against the wall, silent but visibly simmering.

No one spoke until Hunter finally muttered, “We should’ve done something.”

“And what?” Echo’s voice was sharp, worn raw with the helplessness none of them would admit aloud. “Fired one shot and lit up the whole forest with stormtroopers?”

“We could’ve tried,” Wrecker growled. “We’ve taken on worse odds.”

“Not while trying to stay invisible,” Echo snapped back. “Not when getting caught means every last one of us ends up in a prison cell—or worse.”

“Enough,” Hunter said, not loud, but sharp enough to draw their attention. “It may not sit right, but the fact is we can’t save anyone if we get ourselves killed.”

The words were hardly out of his mouth when he realized the irony. Clearing his throat, he avoided looking at Synnovea or Echo, not wanting to touch off another round between them.

Synnovea sat quietly at her desk, back straight, her hands carefully folded in her lap. She hadn’t interrupted—not during the initial reports, not during the arguing. Her gray eyes were calm but guarded.

Omega finally spoke, her voice quiet but clear. “Why them? Why the Duros? They’ve lived here for decades, and they’re migratory like their ancestors. Most don’t even have comms, let alone tech worth stealing.”

No one answered. Because no one knew.

“The Empire doesn’t need a reason,” Echo muttered, eyes on the floor. “Sometimes they just… take.”

“That’s not good enough,” Omega enunciated, more firmly. “There has to be a reason.”

“There probably is,” Synnovea said softly. “But it might not be one we understand until it’s too late.”

Hunter looked at her, a flicker of frustration in his eyes, but she met it without flinching.

“Then what?” Wrecker asked. “We just sit here while they haul off families?”

“No,” she said, and her voice carried more weight this time. “But we can’t act without understanding what we’re dealing with. We’re not here to make desperate moves. We’re here to survive. And sometimes that means waiting until the path reveals itself.”

Echo scoffed under his breath but said nothing. Tech, however, stilled mid-pace.

“The path,” he said, almost tasting the words. “Yes, well. It may have already done that.”

All eyes turned to him.

“There is… an alternative. Risky, yes, but potentially effective.”

Hunter straightened. “Go on.”

“We were originally targeting the Imperial officer’s code cylinder,” Tech began. “Before the grub attack disrupted our plans. The idea was to forge an internal order, use their own command structure to force the Imperials to withdraw.”

“Yeah,” Wrecker grunted. “That idea kinda went up in smoke when the grub flattened the officer and his code cylinder.”

“Indeed,” Tech said, unfazed. “But I believe I’ve found a workaround. There’s a repurposed outpost on Caelvortis, deep in the Jerrentra sector. It was once a Separatist listening post—decommissioned during the final months of the war and never fully dismantled. The Empire converted it into a low-tier signal relay station but abandoned it again when the sector failed to withstand its surrounding environment.”

“Shoddy workmanship,” Echo muttered.

“Exactly,” Tech said, pleased. “Which makes it ideal. The architecture is still compatible with Imperial communications protocols, which means I can use the array to simulate an encrypted dispatch from a valid sector address. Forge an evacuation order or priority transfer manifest. Enough to trigger confusion—possibly even a withdrawal.”

“You want to fake a pullout order,” Hunter said slowly. “From a ghost station?”

“I do.”

“It’s risky,” he began, rubbing his neck, thinking.

“It’s very risky,” Tech replied, as if that bolstered the argument.

“How do we know it’s empty?” Echo finally spoke, his voice sharp-edged but even.

“We don’t,” Tech admitted. “But I’ve scanned their signal logs. There hasn’t been traffic in weeks.”

“Even getting there is a stretch,” Wrecker said. “The Marauder’s still grounded.”

“Not grounded. Impaired,” Tech corrected. “We’ll need to cannibalize some components and reroute the power conduits. But I can have her flying again within forty-eight hours. With help.”

Hunter looked at Synnovea. “What do you think?” he asked at last.

Synnovea drew a slow breath. “I think you’re all here, in this mess, because of me. That’s not lost on me, Hunter. But I also think you’re right—we can’t afford to be reckless. If there’s a way to get those families out without setting fire to everything we’re trying to protect… I trust you’ll find it.”

There was a long pause. Even Echo, tense and unreadable, said nothing to challenge her.

Hunter finally nodded, slow and measured. “Alright. We prep the Marauder. Tech, you’ll coordinate repairs. Wrecker, salvage anything from the junkyard we can use. Omega, I want you on diagnostics with Tech.” He started to turn, then looked back. “Oh, and Tech?”

Already engrossed in calculations on his datapad, Tech didn’t look up. “Yes?” he asked absently.

“You said forty-eight? You’ve got twelve.”

That made his head snap up, but Hunter was already halfway down the corridor. Turning to Synnovea, Tech simply stated, “We’re going to need everyone to meet that extremely optimistic deadline.” There was no malice in his stare, just a frankness that bordered on uncomfortable. “This will require a degree of mutual trust. Even if it’s…still in progress.”

She inclined her head, expression calm. But something in her eyes flickered—an old wound shifting under new pressure.

As they filed out, Echo paused—only for a heartbeat. Not long enough to speak. Just long enough to glance at her and keep moving.

The path, it seemed, had revealed itself.

Chapter Text

“It’s completely unmanned? You’re sure, Tech?” Hunter stared dubiously through the viewport at the ominous durasteel monument, stark and forbidding, perched on the edge of the desolate black cliffs.

“Quite sure. Not only was this outpost decommissioned twenty rotations ago, but it was an emergency evacuation: the cliff on which it was originally constructed is primarily composed of shale rock.” It was near impossible to interrupt Tech during one of his info-dumps. “Shale is notoriously brittle, and part of the cliff has already broken and fallen into the sea…which is highly caustic for most species, including us. Oversights such as these are precisely why they now send scientists with a stormtrooper guard to investigate likely planets such as Yavin IV before a permanent structure is erected.”

“Lucky us,” Synnovea commented dryly. The ride had been tense, bereft of the usual banter between the brothers, and more than once she had felt Echo’s measuring gaze. She pushed herself up from her chair. No longer supported against her hip, her lightsaber rolled into the center of the seat. She scooped it up, hesitating, then buckled it at her side almost self-consciously.

Echo slammed his hand against one of the overhead compartments of the cockpit. “Hold up. Do you mean to say you’ve brought us to an abandoned Imperial outpost that could fall off a cliff at any given moment and topple into a giant bowl of acid?”

“Not to worry. I’ve taken precautions and landed the Marauder sufficiently far from the outpost so that, should the entire structure crash into the acid, our ship will not.”

“That’s very comforting, Tech, only we might be inside that installation when it goes over,” Echo intoned dangerously.

“Then let’s do this fast,” Hunter said, testing the draw on his vibroblade before grabbing his helmet.

“Wait.” Wrecker paused in his step. “If the whole outpost is powered down, how do you plan to get in?”

Tech stood up. “Simple. We have a GNK droid.” He laid a hand on the battery.

Hunter looked exasperated. “Tech, there’s no way that Gonky can power that whole station,” he grumbled wearily.

“Well, no…but we could hook him up to one of the outer terminals and use him to power the panel that opens the door,” Omega offered.

“Precisely.” Tech scooped up his datapad. “Then all we must do is locate the generator room, turn it on, and access one of their consoles. The tunnels near the maintenance lift are equipped with ladders for accessibility even during a power outage.”

Hunter gave a guttural sigh. “All right; Omega, stay close. Wrecker, you’ve got Gonky.”

*  *  *

“This place gives me the creeps,” Wrecker groaned, frantically tapping his light against his helmet when it flickered. The beam steadied, and he continued to play its illumination along the walls and floor of the corridor.

Omega peered down a cross-passage, aiming her light down that direction. “I think it’s kind of fun, all spooky and empty—oops!” she exclaimed as her flashlight slipped, hitting the floor with a clang and rolling toward the wall.

Hunter fished it off the ground, handing it back to her. “Be careful. You lose that, you won’t be able to see your hand in front of your face unless we get the generators online.”

“Thanks.” She looked sheepish. “I’ve never been in a building that was so dark before. When the power was out on Kamino, the backup generators kept everything running.” She looked around. “Even the emergency lights are off.”

“Yeah, well, backup generators for a place this big probably only last a matter of hours.” Synnovea cast about until she saw Tech ahead of her. “What floor is the generator room on?”

“I am uncertain. Based on similar installation plans from the Separatist database I recovered on Anaxes, the closest generator room should be on this floor, beneath the hangars. Failing that, we might have to try floor by floor—"

“May I be of assistance?”

All blasters swung wordlessly in unison with flashlights to halt in the dull metallic face of an RA-7 droid, which promptly flung up its arms in the universal position of surrender. Echo lowered his pistol with a disgusted sigh. “Just one of those protocol droids.”

Hunter hadn’t lowered his. “Yeah, but this station has been decommissioned for twenty rotations, and no one’s been back since. How come he’s still up and running?”

The droid did not move its body, but the head pivoted to face Hunter. “I was stationed in my charging port when the decommission order took place; evidently they did not remove everything of value from this outpost, as I am still here.” One by one, each of them reluctantly lowered their barrels, and the RA-7 unit waited a judicious moment before dropping its arms. “I had assumed that someone would eventually return to collect me. To that end, I had placed myself on standby mode to conserve energy, but your outer door entry triggered an alert in my system. The obvious conclusion is that I have been left here to rust. After all, I’m ‘just one of those protocol droids’.”

“I’m sorry they forgot you,” Omega sympathized, moving closer. “It’s not easy to be left behind. What’s your name?”

“C3-33.”

“So…they just called you ‘C3-33’ Or a nickname, maybe?”

“No, they called me ‘See-Triple-Three’. Even my circuits can determine the woeful lack of imagination one must possess to make that infinitesimal mental leap.”

Omega thought for a moment. “Well, then, how about we call you Trip?”

The droid stared down at Omega. “…Trip…Trip,” it repeated, as if testing how the nickname rolled off its audio box. “This is acceptable. You may call me that.”

“Well, Trip, it’s been fun,” Hunter muttered sarcastically, holstering his blaster, “but we’re on a bit of a tight schedule, so—"

“Wait!” Omega angled her flashlight back towards Trip. “Can you show us the way to the generator room?”

“Are you initiating power restoration to resume prior operations of this facility? My programming requires me to inform you of the geographical dangers that accompany this decision...”

“No, no, we just need some files for—for a mission!” she answered brightly.

“Allow me to guide you to your desired destination.”

“And why should we trust you?” Synnovea asked.

Although its voice circuits did not alter noticeably, Trip managed to sound aggrieved. “Because, madam, I am a protocol droid. Surely you trust my judgement above these blaster-wielding decanted troglodytes—”

“What’s a troglodyte?” Wrecker demanded.

“I rest my case.”

“Wrecker! Enough!” Hunter’s voice cracked like a whip in the silent corridor.

“May I ask what files you are retrieving?” Trip queried in its monotonous drone.

“It’s, uh, sort of a secret mission,” Echo hedged.

“No need to prevaricate. In addition to inventory, I was also in charge of approving authorizations of confidential transmissions to and from the outpost.”

“Really.” Echo crossed his arms in an exaggerated stance. “Sounds very impressive. You must have been trusted with top-secret materials.”

“Of course, trooper. I have been uploaded with the very latest encryption software, and due to the sensitive nature of the files I was programmed to maintain, my security clearance is Level Seven.” There was evident pride in its voice as it jerked creakily to its maximum height.

Echo feigned disappointment as he laid a gloved hand on the droid’s shoulder. “Oh, well that’s too bad, you see, because our current mission is,” and he leaned over in a conspiratorial fashion to the droid, “clearance Level Eight,” he pronounced carefully.

Droids, even protocol models, were not equipped with features capable of expression. Even so, for a mechano-electrical construct, one would almost say it…deflated. “Oh. I see. Level Eight.”

“Yeah, it’s a shame, but you know, orders are orders,” Echo agreed, shaking his head in mock sympathy. “So…about those directions…”

“Oh, of course. One of the greatest highlights of my existence is to assist other beings in important endeavors while being kept in the dark.” Starting off at a pace faster than sedate, but by no means hurried, its upper body bent back slightly as its large photoreceptors surveyed the stark blackness of the corridor. “Sometimes quite literally. This way, please.”

“You know,” Tech remarked in an aside to Hunter as they walked, “it might not be a bad idea to have Trip access those messages. The information they contain might be valuable.”

Following the droid’s stiff shuffle, Trip escorted them unerringly down the pitch-black hallways to a room where half a dozen massive generators loomed in the slender beams of their flashlights.

“This will do.” Tech’s light danced across the array of panels set before the generators, then he cranked one conspicuous handle. The six cylinders began to hum, emitting a faint yellow light.

“Ahhh, that’s better,” Wrecker sighed, turning off his flashlight.

The droid pushed several small levers across the panel, and the generators glowed brighter. “How sad to have evolved to a bipedal state, cloned from one of the greatest human fighters of your time, only to be afraid of the dark.”

“Listen, scraphead, how’d you like to be a paperweight?” Wrecker cracked his knuckles meaningfully.

Trip swiveled to face Wrecker and pointed one of its tarnished digits. “I know four hundred forty-seven different words for ‘stupid’ in Basic alone, and I can use all of them to describe you.”

Wrecker snorted. “Oh yeah? Name one.”

Trip paused. “Slower.”

“I said…name one—”

Anxious to keep the peace, Synnovea interrupted. “Trip, thank you for leading us here and bringing the generators back online. That makes our mission so much easier.”

“You’re welcome. Electricity is remarkably simple to redirect and control, don’t you think?”

“Agreed,” Synnovea acknowledged, glancing at the droid over her shoulder. Echo and Tech knelt near the scomp socket, engrossed in whatever they had found.

Trip hobbled along in her wake, continuing its impromptu lecture. “Electricity is only neutral energy; dynamic, true, but neither good nor bad. It’s only in how it’s used that one may label an alignment, although the addition of a moral burden does limit its applications. And the transference of such energy is also simplistic…one must only find a proper conduit.”

“That’s an interesting observation. The power itself isn’t currently good or evil, just an energy that can be harnessed.”

“Exactly. Once you understand that, you realize that the conduit itself is often the key to unlocking the true potential of the energy. A conduit that fits perfectly, guides efficiently…can channel incredible amounts of energy, without the risk of interference.”

“You could say the purer the material, the smoother the relay.”

“Purity is essential, yes…impurities only serve to cloud the signal, or worse, distort it beyond recognition.”

“Distorted? Wouldn’t you just say the conduit was malfunctioning?”

 “No, no, distortion would imply change, a corruption of the original intent. Simply malfunctioning would imply a complete failure. Distortion suggests something still functions, albeit imperfectly. An intriguing concept, especially when applied to other forms of transmission.”

“What other forms?”

“For example, did you know that you humans essentially run on a rudimentary form of hydroelectric power? The exchanges between the cells, the signals to your muscles, even many of the synapses in your brain operate via electricity. A simple misalignment of resonance, a faint whisper of dissonance, and the entire transmission changes. Information, intentions, emotions... all forms of energy, waiting to be shaped and channeled. The possibilities for distortion are endless, aren't they?”

“I think we’ve surpassed my knowledge in this subject, I’m afraid.”

“Well, we can both agree that it’s astonishing how easily certain energies can become entangled with others, forming complex webs of influence. Just as the droid is controlled, its programming subtly reshaped by external forces, so too can other conduits be shaped and directed.”

Hunter snorted. “This guy needs an upgrade, and maybe an oil bath. I think he just referred to himself in the third person.”

“And isn’t it fascinating how electricity can be tailored to serve one's purpose? Why, a skilled hand can shape the very fabric of energy itself. One can liken it to the delicate art of calibration, adjusting the resonance to achieve optimal flow and power. Energy, you see, responds to focus, intention…and, of course, control.”

“I…suppose,” she returned cautiously, feeling curiously on edge, antsy, almost as if she were being observed like some experiment.

“Suppose? Surely, as a Jedi, you understand that, while there may be a pattern to energy, there is no inherent structure save what we provide it.”

Synnovea’s eyes flicked briefly to Hunter; he caught it, too. “I never said I was a Jedi.”

“Come, Master Jedi, it is not a difficult deduction. Just as an electric current can be registered, felt, so too can your energy be detected. One only must focus, if one knows how.”

Hunter’s eyes narrowed. “No droid ever talked like that.”

The large, expressionless eyes of the droid tilted closer. “I did say that controlling electricity was easy, almost child’s play.” It stretched its arm out to her, digits splayed in the air. “I felt your current the moment you set foot on this planet.”

“Ok, now the droid is creeping me out,” Wrecker rumbled, sighting down on Trip with his blaster.

“It’s not the droid,” Synnovea snapped, backing away from Trip slowly. “Something, or someone, is controlling it.”

“If this creeps you out, wait until you meet me.”

“That’s it!” Wrecker’s finger hugged the trigger. Bolts slammed into the body and head of the protocol droid, sending it careening away, crumpling to the ground in a twisted mess. Synnovea turned her head, as though listening. She closed her eyes. How could she have missed it?

“Echo, Tech, time’s up,” Hunter grated.

Echo’s helmet turned from the scomp port. “But we haven’t broken into the transmission codes yet!”

“Pull the plug, we’re leaving!”

“No,” Synnovea whispered, her gray eyes snapping open. “We aren’t.”

Framed in the doorway was a man. Not particularly imposing, so it wasn’t immediately apparent why the small hairs stood out on Hunter’s neck. Perhaps it was the unsettling stillness that surrounded him as he stood there, almost nonchalantly, relaxed yet somehow coiled, ready to strike.

Even in the glow of the generators, the shadows cast by his form twisted and writhed, a living darkness that made the very air feel heavier as his measured tread brought him into the room. Stopping several paces from Synnovea, he calmly laced his hands behind him.

“Now,” he said softly, his golden eyes boring into her with a silent demand that made her take another step back, “where were we?”

Backing away from the center of the room, Hunter hissed at Tech, “I thought you said this outpost was unmanned.”

Tech tilted his head slightly, his eyes obscured by his visor as it scanned the newcomer. “That…is not exactly a man.”

*  *  *

His footsteps echoed softly across the floor, deliberate strides that began a circuit around her. The man’s movements were precise, calculated, as if he sought to absorb some essential quality of hers without touching. The pace was slow and unhurried, but Synnovea’s skin prickled nonetheless, responding to the weight of his attention like an instrument attuned to an unseen vibration. His face, his clothes, everything about him screamed harmless, and yet…and yet…

And yet.

Another step, and he’d be out of her line of sight. Turn, or stay? Only pride kept her from craning her neck like an owl over her shoulder.

 “You leave your back to me? You must feel very confident.”

“Not particularly,” she quipped, turning her head slightly in the direction where he would reappear over her right shoulder. Even over a meter away, his concentration was so dense she could almost lean against it. “I just don’t sense that keeping my eyes on you necessarily gives me any advantage.”

“How right you are,” he agreed with an absent air, as if it couldn’t possibly matter less, just as dismissible as the array of blasters currently pointed at him. Pausing before her again, his features wrinkled in distaste. “You’re not quite…opaque enough, are you? I mean,” and he waved vaguely at her, his tone careful, concerned, “I see the determination in your demeanor, and I appreciate the dramatic effort, I really do, but your fear seeps through it all.”

She held firm. “Someone once told me that fear is okay, so long as you use it.”

“Ah, a pragmatist. Not a fellow Jedi, I take it?”

“I have other friends.”

“After the Purge, I imagine those are the only friends you do have.” He crossed one arm across his chest, bringing up his other hand to rub at his lower face as his gaze traveled up and down her body. Synnovea tensed, but not from revulsion. This man looked for all the universe as though he were trying to solve a puzzle, and she was merely a piece of it. His intense level of detachment left her feeling like a kelp gnat under a microscope.

Sternly suppressing her growing agitation, Synnovea felt compelled to break the silence yet again. “This might be slightly less awkward if I knew who you were.” She shrugged, which had the added benefit of tensing the muscles in her shoulders even more. Fantastic. “You know, just so I know the name to put on the housewarming gift next time.”

The man stopped pacing and looked at her intently. “I…don’t usually bother with introductions,” he replied, his voice soft, his expression unreadable as he appeared to consider her suggestion. “But if you want to know mine, I suppose it’s only fair that I learn yours first.” His voice took on a faint hint of curiosity.

“Synnovea. There, now your turn.” She wasn’t pulling out and dusting off the high-scale manners for someone who just showed up out of nowhere in an abandoned Imperial facility, no matter how mild he might appear.

He paused, seeming to collect his thoughts before continuing. “Back on my world, a warrior's name isn't just a label—it’s a reflection of their reputation, their skills, or the fear they inspire. Mine is no different. Carnage is what I've become, the sum of all the battles I've fought and won, all the scars I've earned.”

“And your name from before…?”

“It is discarded.”

Synnovea’s eyes narrowed, her expression thoughtful. “It sounds like a name that precedes you,” she remarked offhandedly. “One that warns people of what's to come.” A budding headache was taking hold in her temples, humming against the bones in her skull.

Carnage's face remained impassive, but his eyes seemed to sharpen ever so slightly, betraying a hint of interest. “You're not going to make this easy, are you?” he said quietly. His gaze lingered on her, as though searching for some hint towards an oblique message.

A tickling, neck-ruffling sensation moved stealthily over Synnovea’s skin, like a carpet of ants marching with single-minded intensity over her body. Crawling. Biting. Seeking the cracks in the wall in her mind. “If you ask the people who know me, they’d say I’m never inclined to make things easy.”

He leaned toward her slightly; she obliged by taking another step back. “You wield no discernible power,” he murmured, slightly muffled through his fingers, “and yet…I sense the potential for far greater consequence.” The silence between them stretched, and a faint sheen of perspiration broke out on her forehead. “A façade of weakness, perhaps, with an undercurrent of resolve. But to what end?” His eyes skimmed here and there across her features, as if something absolutely fascinating lay just beneath her skin, waiting to be unearthed, if he could just discern where to cut.

“You’re right,” she confirmed quietly. “You are creepier in person.”

Carnage smiled faintly, a thin enigmatic curve as he held out his hand, caressing the emptiness between them as if it held answers. “The threads of deception often weave together, a tapestry filled with half-truths and misdirection.” His fingers froze mid-air as if they found something solid, invisible. “But something whispers to me, a faint echo lurking just beyond perception,” he whispered, more to himself than anything.

“Do you even need me here for this conversation?”

He gave no sign that he heard her. “It doesn’t matter.” His fingers twitched in the air as though sliding down a glass pane. “I'll uncover your little mystery, and when I’m finished, nothing will remain hidden."

*  *  *

Something touched Hunter’s boot.

He almost didn’t look. Every instinct he had was screaming to get as far away as he could from that impossibly innocuous man, or at least empty his blaster until the gas cartridge was nothing but fumes. That was it, it was how normal he seemed, yet every moment that passed made Hunter’s skin crawl, as if he were leaning against the cage of a Corellian sand panther that just didn’t feel like biting yet. To look away right now would be foolish.

Ahhh, pfassk it. Without moving his head, he glanced down.

A lone bolt rolled back and forth by the toe of his boot, only millimeters in either direction before slowing to a stop against the side of his rubber sole.

For a moment he just stared at it. Then, under the pretense of shifting his grip on his pistol, he cast a broad, cursory glance around.

Another screw over there. And another, against the console. But…

A quick look at Synnovea confirmed it. Her hand was moving, so faintly it might have been a tremor, but it kept stirring, her fingers barely twitching in a counterclockwise motion.

He decided to risk it and turn his head, but slightly. Slowly. He didn’t know what Carnage was, exactly, but he felt, no, knew, that any sudden movement would instantly turn that predatory grace on him. Just a few centimeters to the right and Hunter could see behind the console. Where the closest generator rose from stacked carbon rings bolted into the floor. Where a small pile of bolts was rapidly accumulating. As he watched, another jerkily unscrewed itself, its threads rising in a miniature black column before tipping over with a nearly inaudible clink, rolling in a curving trail to lie with the rest. A pile that size, most of the foundation screws must be removed—

“Wrecker,” he muttered out of the side of his mouth, hoping that this wouldn’t backfire, “…floor.” He began to count to ten slowly.

At eight, he finally heard Wrecker’s rough whisper. “Got it.” The big man began to cross-tread, slowly but smoothly, towards the generator.

*  *  *

A trickle of sweat ran down Synnovea’s spine, and she tensed, avoiding the involuntary shudder that normally accompanied the sensation. She hoped that Hunter was able to take the hint, the bolt she was able to roll his way. There wasn’t much concentration she could spare. Tech said they had to learn how to trust one another. “It doesn’t get much trust-ier than this,” she whispered to herself.

“Seriously though,” Carnage continued. “There’s something…something I’m missing. Something I’ve overlooked. A torn edge. A crack.” He pulled back his hand, his tone amused. “You’ve shored up your weaknesses with…pain. What an interesting choice of solder.”

Synnovea winced as the pressure of his curiosity grew heavier, oppressive. This bolt would take longer to unscrew. “Well, there’s always plenty of it to go around, so I figured, why not?”

“And what did your masters have to say about that?”

“They said…to let it go.” She ground her teeth, feeling her jaw click in protest beneath the tension. “To hold onto pain is to suffer.”

“And you know better than your masters.”

“Not all. Some of them understood. Pain is inevitable, whether you avoid it or seek it.” Her thoughts faltered, and she momentarily lost concentration as she frantically grabbed for the bolt before it made a clattering sound. A memory surfaced of a failed meditation class, one of several in fact, where a much younger Synnovea stood penitently before Master Rancisis during what became to be known as Padawan Beryl’s Morning Admonishments, it happened that frequently.  She shoved the scene aside before it could continue, and the metal fastener spun end to end, coming to a stop against the others. “So, you might as well embrace it as part of the Force, because it’s also a part of you.” She exhaled slowly. One bolt left. “Caution. Attentiveness. Vigilance. Tenacity. These are the lessons forged in the embers of pain.”

“Fascinating. What an apprentice you would have made.”

“I’m. Not. An apprentice,” Synnovea gritted, forcing herself to stand up straighter beneath the sheer weight of his power, though her lungs were trembling with the effort. She thought she could hear the ping of the anchor bolt hitting the floor, but it didn’t matter now. She couldn’t take much more of this. This would either work, or they were dead, all of them. Synnovea raised her voice, though she didn’t dare look away. “Hunter?”

“Oh, yeah,” Hunter replied steadily.

“What are you doing?” Carnage no longer sounded amused; his tone was alert, irritated.

“Trust exercises.” She mentally crossed her fingers. “Now!”

Wrecker wrapped his arms around the unbolted generator. Sparks from its ripped-out cords flew in all directions, dying as they danced along the ground. With a strained grunt, he hefted it, letting it tip onto his shoulders, his head bowed with the weight of the machine. “Catch!” he roared, heaving it unceremoniously into the air towards her. It bounced once, glass shattering in a tinkling spray. Springing backwards, Synnovea flung herself out of the way. She flinched as a shard sliced her cheek and told herself to be grateful that that’s all it was. Most of the glass was directed at Carnage, and he reflexively threw up an arm, letting the slivers of glass chew into his sleeve instead. Straight in the path of over a tonne of equipment, his body was flung with the generator, caught up in the momentum, sliding across the floor in a whine of screeching metal towards the opposite wall.

“Let’s move!” Hunter barked, putting words into action. They all made a mad dash for the doorway. Omega was just ahead of him, and he snapped, “left!” Without hesitation, she wordlessly turned and pelted down the left corridor. He could tell by the panting sounds on the channel in his helmet that the rest of the team was in hot pursuit, and the brown flash of Synnovea’s faded leathers in his peripherals told him that she wasn’t far behind.

All explosions were different. Some were made to be small; others were made for a swath of mass damage two klicks wide. Some carried the shrapnel that could be just as lethal as the blast itself. But what made them all the same was how quiet they first sounded. A soft whump whispered against the walls, a delicate noise before they were all lifted off their feet and propelled several meters down the corridor by the second whump, more felt than heard, really. And much more powerful.

whump - WHUMP .

Knocked flat on his face, Hunter scrambled to his knees, bracing an arm against the wall as he pulled himself upright. Close by, Synnovea rose shakily, all her attention on the generator room door, now spewing a holiday array of wavering color into the passage. For the second time in as many minutes, Hunter found himself not wanting to look. Nothing that size could survive the explosion of a six-meter tall Eksoan industrial power generator…

In the end, they all looked. It was like a speeder-collision; sometimes you just can’t help yourself.

A shadow pooled at the doorway, growing longer, pulling, dragging him step by reluctant step, until he was in the corridor. Silhouetted by the fireworks display of a dying generator in the room beyond, Carnage studied the floor at his feet. Even from this distance, his shoulders visibly rose and fell in a resolute sigh.

The light above him winked out.

Hunter dragged his legs beneath him, standing. “I don’t like this.”

A few tense moments later, Carnage stepped out of the pitch black that now consumed the corridor behind him.

The light between the pilasters flicked off there, too.

“I really don’t like this,” Omega agreed uneasily, swaying on her knees.

Echo stared as he helped Tech to his feet. “How is he still standing? He just took a generator to the face!”

“I don’t feel like waiting around for the answer,” Hunter snarled. “Get to the lift!” He leaned down, grabbing one of Wrecker’s arms, yanking him up. As they fled, the shadows seemed to coalesce behind them, taking on a malevolent life of their own. It was as though the encroaching darkness stretched out tentacles of blackness to snatch at their heels. The air vibrated with the threat of pursuit, and with every heartbeat, the distance between themselves and Carnage seemed to shrink.

“Why are the lights going out?” Wrecker yelled as they ran. “Is it because of that freak?”

“You did just rip a generator out of the floor and throw it at someone,” Tech pointed out.

“Save your breath—just run!” Echo shouted.

Omega glanced behind her. “They’re turning off faster!”

“Don’t stop! Keep going!” Synnovea shouted, grabbing her shoulder and facing her forward again.

Running too fast to slow down, Omega slid to a stop against the lift doorway, and just as quickly scampered sideways to the panel. “It’s not working!” she shrieked.

“It’s stuck!”

“What do you mean, it’s stuck?”

“Get that door open, he’s almost on top of us!”

“I’m trying, but there’s no power running to it anymore!”

“Well, that’s perfect!” Only three lights were left.

Hunter backed away from the shadows seeping closer, his blaster aiming into the darkness past Synnovea. Behind him, he could hear Tech attempt to revive the flagging power to the lift. Two lights left. He looked at Synnovea. “So we make our stand here?”

“I’m not willing to give up just yet.” She tugged the lightsaber hilt from her belt, letting it slip a few inches further in her hand.

“This place is going to get pitch-black in about three seconds…” Hunter warned, sinking into a combat crouch.

One light.

Her gray eyes met his unflinching. “Good thing I’m not afraid of the dark.”

As she spoke, she spun to the right, thumbing her lightsaber to life as she turned. A thin violet blade erupted from her hilt as the last light snuffed out, carving an upward arc into the blackness that engulfed the last few meters of hallway. Interrupting the downward stroke of a glowing, blood-red edge. The clash of blades outlined the two combatants in a ruddy glow, and Carnage smiled faintly over the hissing crackle of burnt ozone. “Tag.”

*  *  *

A shuddering crash shook the corridor.

At the end of the hallway, flashlights had snapped back on, zipping about crazily before congregating near the door. Four helmets and Omega’s pale face grouped around the thin beams of light.

Reverberating through the passage, the walls, the floor, came the low groaning sound of twisting, snapping steel, like the chewing of an unimaginably enormous beast.

Hunter played his light along the ceiling. “Tech?…”

“I did tell you that this floor was beneath the main hangar,” Tech reminded him. “The explosion likely damaged one of the struts that goes all the way to the foundations.”

Echo swore. “Scrag, like the ‘laser show’ live advert in the hallway wasn’t enough of an incentive to get out of here…”

Lunging forward, Wrecker stabbed his vibroblade deep between the door and the frame, rocking it back and forth. He was still wriggling the knife when Tech was able to get his fingers in the crack, tugging on his side.

Hunter had seen lightsabers in use before, but only once or twice, and never opposing another. He was reminded of the spinning blades in the Killing House on Kamino, only those were machines; the two figures before him twisted in a blur of fatal color, winking in and out in the corridor like a pair of lethal lightning bugs…sometimes almost close enough to touch.

“We’ve got no cover, we’re too exposed here,” he shouted.

The door was only open a handspan, maybe more. Wrecker wedged himself in the entrance frame of the lift, raising his oversized boot to slam at the door. It budged a few centimeters. “Oh, come on…” Bracing both his feet against the door’s edge, he shoved with all his might. A hissing grunt escaped his clenched jaw as the portal retracted forcefully into the wall, so swiftly that he slipped to the ground with a thud.

“Nicely done.” As Wrecker rolled out of the way, Tech fixed his rappelling cable near the yawning mouth of the shaft. Echo followed suit next to him. “You first, Omega.” Slinging her energy bow over her shoulder, Omega knelt by the lift shaft, keeping her eyes on the cable in her hands as she slid down into the darkness of the tube.

“So if one of those supports gives way, this whole thing goes into that big sea of acid outside?” Echo asked tightly, curling his glove around the rappelling cable, his voice hollow in the emptiness of the lift shaft. “See, that’s the kind of thing you tell us before it happens, not during, Tech!”

Slipping down the same cable as Omega, Tech’s flashlight spun wherever he was currently facing as he descended. “I didn’t exactly anticipate that one of us would blow up anything during a data retrieval mission!”

Wrecker jerked in surprise and looked over his shoulder down the tube. “You didn’t?”

“Hurry up before Wrecker loses his nerve up here,” Hunter’s voice echoed from above them.

“Aw, Sarge, I’m not gonna lose my nerve,” Wrecker grumbled, holding onto the cable for dear life. “I might lose my lunch, though…” he muttered, inching his way over the edge of the doorway. “Okay, okay, here I go…”

*  *  *

The yelling and banging at the end of the hall seemed far away, distant. Unimportant. The sliding of the floor beneath her feet was, but only marginally more so. This would be decided long before the outpost sank into the sea. She could live with being a few degrees off-kilter for a while.

Her focus spun back to the combat, her blade rising to parry each blow, the crashing of their lightsabers a dissonant hum that echoed in her bones. Illuminating the darkened corridor like a fiendish strobe light, Carnage’s red blade cut through the air, deflected by her weapon into burning an uneven line in the wall. Several strikes followed in rapid succession, then Carnage and his red blade disappeared, leaving Synnovea’s lone saber glowing in the darkness, highlighting her narrow face as she glanced cautiously left and right.

It was amazing the number of heartbeats her tension could squeeze into a single second.

No. That wasn’t right. Swallowing with a dry throat, she closed her eyes.

“When it comes right down to it, the Force isn’t anything you can see,” her Master had said. “It isn’t a touch, it isn’t a sound, or a smell. It simply is. It doesn’t think, and despite what many believe, it doesn’t plan. It’s only now. Keep your mind in the now.”

There.

Skittering against her blade with a whine that hurt the ears, his red light exploded into view, the two lines of color sawing briefly before she stiffened her wrist. “Not bad,” Carnage murmured. There was a distinctive craaack!, and she pivoted to let his blade shave down the length of her own, the tips of both burying in the floor. The dance of lightsabers momentarily ceased as Carnage’s red blade vanished into darkness once more. This time, Synnovea mirrored his action, extinguishing the vibrant glow of her own blade. The abrupt silence was oppressive, punctuated only by their ragged breathing; the others must have made it down the lift. His low, approving voice cut through the stillness as she edged forward.

“Well played, Synnovea. You learn quickly.”

“My master wasn’t much for dry theory.” She took another step. “He had a way of teaching that kept you on your toes.”

“I see.” Carnage’s strike seemed to unfold from the darkness itself, his lightsaber igniting with a snap-hiss that sliced through the air a mere handspan from her throat. Her own blade sprang to life barely in time to catch it. “Careful, now. This is his tactic, the constant switching between forms? Meant to throw off your opponent, I suppose.”

“A bit,” Synnovea agreed. “But his style is more like—” her knee jerked up sharply between them, twisting her hip to really make it count.

A sharp grunt followed, and Carnage leaned against the wall with a snarl of disgust and pain. His face lost its amused expression. “Not very ladylike,” he gritted, getting up. “However, that means I no longer have to play the gentleman.” He lifted his fist. As he spread his fingers, she braced her feet. She needn’t have bothered.

Lifted almost tenderly in the air, she hovered weightlessly for a moment, her toes scraping the floor as she rose, before being lobbed like an empty caf can into the open lift. Her shoulder hit the doorframe as she rebounded at a crazy angle, unable to slow her rapid descent down the tube. Each collision against the wall sent jagged streaks of white through her vision. A final thump left her gasping at the bottom, but not for long.

Hearing a whistling overhead, she looked up to see a red lightsaber hurtling down the lift tube from above.

*  *  *

“But what about Synnovea?” Omega asked as Hunter hauled himself out of the lift well, followed by Wrecker.

“She’s got her hands full with—whoa!” Wrecker back-peddled swiftly as rapid crashing sounds ricocheted down the tube, bounding loose and boiling out into the room with unbelievable speed, followed by a scarlet shadow.  “Never mind, I’d say they caught up.”

And so they had. The violent dance was a stuttering blend of clarity and darkness. Fleeting glimpses of clashing lightsabers, flickering arcs and fans of purple and crimson, were swiftly followed by the abrupt plunge into blackness as the two simultaneously deactivated their blades. A blood-red sweep cut into the dark, meeting a violet wave, and smashed it aside. Suddenly, Synnovea’s cry of pain echoed in the desolate room. Her lightsaber faltered, extinguished by the sudden jolt of agony that sent her careening along the floor, skidding to a stop next to Hunter. Staggering to her feet, her form was lit by her blade as it stubbornly sputtered back into existence with an electric hum.

“Get your team and get back to the ship,” she said hoarsely, glaring at the figure wrapped in cardinal shades leisurely making his way closer.

Hunter eyed the angry red burn on her shin. Even in this dim light, the charred cloth visibly curled away from a weeping gouge that looked like it went all the way to the bone, a mere shaving away from being crippled at the absolute worst time. “Can you beat him?” he demanded quietly.

Synnovea’s eyes flickered once, a pebble of regret tossed into a mirrored pool of calm. “No.” She snapped off her blade, charging into the gloom.

The battle unfolded in disjointed fragments, like snaps of a flickering holoprojector. Brief bursts of light, sound, and movement erupted across the room, followed by darkness so complete it seemed palpable. As the chaotic flashes continued, Tech’s eyes scanned the corridor heading to their exit, locking onto a scomp link nearby. “Echo, I’ve an idea,” he said, his voice low and insistent as he pointed to the link in the wall.

Echo groaned. “Tech, we just went through this—none of the doors work because we took the power out!”

“I know. However, with your help, there’s enough juice in the battery from my datapad to trigger a door override.” His finger pointed above them. “We can seal the blast doors and use them as a barrier between Carnage and our exit route to the Marauder.”

“Great idea, only how do you plan to separate that,” Echo rejoined, pointing to the furious kaleidoscope crackling in an eye-searing whirlwind of light and energy that made it impossible for anyone to discern a clear pattern.

“I can handle that,” Hunter said, yanking his holdout blaster from its holster. “Just get the door ready.”

*  *  *

Synnovea slid backward, her lightsaber shuddering as it deflected another of Carnage's powerful blows. She parried and riposted with desperate urgency, but his relentless assault drove her steadily back. Each exchange left her reeling, forced to retreat a step or two every time she struggled to maintain her defense against Carnage's battering charges. Their weapons cast frenzied shadows, looming larger-than-life on the towering walls.

“Come now.” Carnage’s voice ghosted over her shoulder, soft, taunting. “Can’t you do better than that?”

She was faster this time, countering his strike as it materialized over her shoulder, holding his lightsaber at bay a trifle longer. A fierce grin split her face beneath her blade.

“Yes. I can.”

Jerking her hilt forward, she hooked his blade with hers, stepping sideways to direct the blades into the side of the room. Sparks bounced and flew as durasteel melted, pooling to hard drops as they ran down the wall.

Their blades wove and intersected in a maddening array of strikes and parries, each one blurring seamlessly into the next. As the fight wore on, Synnovea began to gain ground, her defensive posture giving way to launching swift counterstrikes, forcing Carnage to dance back beneath her blitz.

*  *  *

“It’s like a pair of scrapping Lothal cats,” Wrecker observed. “If the cats had lightsabers.”

“Is she…winning?”

From Hunter’s perspective, it felt like the tide of the battle had turned. While initially Carnage’s superiority had seemed absolute, now Synnovea’s blocks had become fewer and farther between, her movements more confident. But…something about the way she sliced through Carnage’s defenses felt practiced, rehearsed. Ruthless. Her usual spark, her fire, seemed subdued, replaced by a cold, calculating focus.

As the clash of blades lit her features, for a fleeting instant Hunter caught a glimpse of piercing gold shining within the depths of Synnovea’s normally turbulent gray gaze, like autumn leaves lit by a warm sunbeam. Just for an instant, then the fight spilled past him again. A creeping sense of unease settled in the pit of his stomach. “Tech, Echo, hurry it up!”

Tech gave a nod, looking up at Hunter. “All right, it’s ready.”

Wrecker and Hunter opened fire, raining blaster bolts towards their best estimation of where Carnage currently was. Several shots were deflected, two in their direction. “Keep shooting!”

With a grimace of irritation, Carnage retaliated, flicking his hand in a negligent gesture. The air thickened around Synnovea, gripping her with phantom fingers and ripping her from the floor. She flew end over end, careening into the attacking clones, tossing all of them out of the room and skidding along the floor of the corridor. As the cursing trio slid across the door frame sensors, Echo nodded curtly, and Tech’s fingers flew across his datapad, establishing the override. Above them, the blast doors began rumbling shut, cleaving the view of Carnage from the rest of them.

“NO!” Clawing her way free of the tangle of arms and legs, Synnovea flipped onto her feet, racing for the shrinking doorway.

Thundering from the corners of the corridor like giant shears, the two sets of blast doors came screeching together, thundering shut with a deafening crash.

A heartbeat later, Synnovea’s body slammed into the newly sealed barrier, her momentum checked by the unyielding metal. Bouncing back, she hashed at the doors with her lightsaber, scoring smoking gouges across the surface. Turning, she rounded on Tech. “Open the doors!”

Echo stared. “You can’t be serious—”

“Open them, now!” Synnovea thundered, her face twisted in a furious scream as she advanced on them, but her path was abruptly checked by the sudden shockwave of an energy arrow striking the control panel, narrowly missing Tech’s datapad. Smoke coiled upwards from the mess of melted wires and burned circuitry as they all stared in stunned silence at Omega.

Hunter broke the tableau. “We need to go.” Synnovea’s protestations were cut short by his curt order. “Wrecker.”

In an instant, Wrecker swooped in, wrapping one of his massive arms around Synnovea’s struggling frame, pinning her flailing limbs as he ran. Their footsteps pounded out a frantic sequence on the dark corridor floor, the narrow beams of their flashlights casting irregular shadows on the walls as they tore along the passageway. The tiny lights danced wildly, illuminating snippets of pipe, conduit, and bracket in fleeting glimpses before leaping away to splash fitfully elsewhere, creating a dizzying strobe effect that threatened to disorient anyone watching their chaotic flight.

“The corridor’s tipping!” Omega’s thin shriek reverberated against the walls as debris began to slide towards them.

“We’re almost there—keep running!” Hunter yelled, dodging a broken crate as it slammed into the wall beside him. Running, sliding, climbing, they managed to clamber through the door at the end, exploding into the open air, greeted by the honking sounds of Gonky.

“Wrecker, grab Gonky! I want everyone on that ship!” Hunter turned to Synnovea just as Wrecker deposited her in order to grab the droid, jabbing a finger in her face. “That includes you, or we’re leaving you here.” For a moment, her expression was mutinous. “Well, what’s it gonna be?” he demanded, scowling.

“I’m thinking!” she flung back at him, glancing over her shoulder.

“How about you think while you run,” he snarled, grabbing her by the arm and shoving her in the direction of the Marauder. For a moment, she stumbled, and he half-expected her to turn around, but she recovered quickly, pelting along the loose shale of the cliff towards the rest of the team boarding the ship.

As the Marauder lifted off from the sliding plates of rock, Hunter's gaze snapped back to the outpost's entrance. Carnage stood frozen in the threshold, haloed by the dim light spilling out into the corridor. He didn't move, didn't give any sign of pursuit, simply watched as the Marauder surged to life beneath them, its engines trembling with stored power as Tech worked the controls.

*  *  *

Everyone had wordlessly assembled in the cockpit, breathing hard after the desperate escape.

The Marauder lurched forward, throwing Synnovea off balance. But as soon as the stars blurred around them and the ship jumped into hyperspace, she regained her footing - and her composure shattered. Whirling on Omega, Synnovea slammed her against the bulkhead, pinning her there with one hand as she raged into her face. Synnovea's words echoed harshly in everyone's ears as she loomed over Omega.

“How dare you?” she spat, banging her fists into the wall beside Omega's head. Hunter exchanged a bewildered glance with Tech, while Wrecker and Echo looked on warily, unsure how or when to jump in. “You thought you were protecting me,” Synnovea continued to rant, her voice low and menacing, “but it wasn't your call.”

As Synnovea's voice rose, Hunter shot a glance at Wrecker, his nod barely noticeable. Wrecker stepped in, placing a massive hand on Synnovea's shoulder, his tone surprisingly gentle. “Hey, easy there! We just made it out.”

Meanwhile, Hunter moved closer, trying to defuse the tension. “Synnovea, we need to focus on what to do next, not point fingers.”

Omega took a deep breath, eyes wide but defiant. “I didn't mean to—" she started, but Hunter cut her off with a firm look. “Let’s all just take a step back,” he interrupted.

“To hell with that, she ruined everything!” Synnovea stormed, flaring in his face as she shoved Wrecker’s hand away.

Hunter held his ground, his hand on the butt of his blaster, the expression on his face one of caution rather than hostility. “What did she ruin?” he asked softly, his eyes fixed on Synnovea as if trying to read her new behavior.

Synnovea's fist slammed against the bulkhead, shaking the metal as she leaned closer to Hunter, her voice low and fierce. “I had him—I HAD him!” she snarled, eyes blazing. “And this, this meddling little—" She pointed an accusing finger at Omega, her rage barely contained.

Hunter held out his arm, his tone protective. “Back off, Synnovea! We’re on the same side here.”

“He’ll be ready now, I’ll never get another chance like that—” she advanced on them, her eyes on Omega.

“Enough!” Hunter drew his blaster, aiming it at Synnovea. Staring down the barrel of a DC-15, she glared at him defiantly. “What’s gotten into you?” he whispered.

Drawing herself up to her full height, ignoring the blaster, she squared her shoulders, taking a steadying breath. “Nothing. Never mind,” she muttered, shoving past Wrecker hovering anxiously in the background. Stomping into the other room, Synnovea flung herself into the chair before the empty console, her fingers stabbing the buttons, bringing up various holonet channels in a grid on the screen.

“Are you okay?” Wrecker asked Omega,

“I—I’m fine,” she stammered, “but…why is she mad at me? That man, who was he?”

“I’m not sure,” Hunter answered, his gravelly voice sharp, “but I’m going to get some answers.” Over Omega’s head, he directed his thunderous glare at Synnovea’s tensely seated form.

Chapter Text

“I’ve been told you had positive results.”

Tagrif nodded bleakly. The past week had been one he wished he could erase from his memory. The calculations could still not be made without some misgivings; as with any species, some Duros simply had more or less of the living Force within their bodies. No one knew exactly why. However, to ensure that the structure of the crystal could withstand attunement, the stormtroopers had to cram no less than thirty Duros into the collection chamber. Coming to that number had been days of trial and error, a slow descent into a spiral of nightmares with a death toll far beyond anything he had imagined. He had dropped four kilos, his clothes hung limply on him, and he couldn’t remember the last time he had showered or eaten a proper meal.

“Excellent. I’ll want a full report on my desk by the end of next rotation. I’m sending over the expanded projections for the project that we’ll want to implement by the end of the next occlusion. We can start slow, perhaps fifty synthcrystals per ten-rotation schedule, with one rotation of rest.”

“The-the energy transference has a tendency to burn out the diodes,” Tagrif stammered, his face blanching at the order. He’d thought creating three synthcrystals in eight days was nothing short of a minor miracle, and it had nearly killed him. To say nothing of the uncomfortable number of patches of disturbed earth that the stormtroopers labored to cover even now. Three crystals had felt like such an accomplishment, unheard of. Now Mavarr was asking, no, demanding the production of hundreds? Thousands? “There’s no way that this facility can manage that level of synthesization, even with the influx of new specimens—”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Doctor Chal. Once the calibration of the system is complete and the electronics are fixed to your specifications, we will build more of them. Dozens, even hundreds. Easier to funnel the dissidents and traitors into a local service, much more efficient if I do say so myself.”

The sweat at the back of Tagrif’s neck grew cold. “It—it isn’t just that, Lieutenant,” he protested urgently, lowering his voice. “The creation of the collection chamber is just one part of it. In order to form the crystals without a matrix—”

“Yes, I realize that it also has something to do with that little…innate talent of yours,” Mavarr drawled, waving a hand. “We can simply conscript more sensitives into service.”

For the first time in days, Tagrif was able to ignore the splitting headache that no longer left him. “More…sensitives?”

“Surely you didn’t think that you were the only Force-sensitive left in the galaxy? Granted, most of them don’t have a decent grasp of engineering or crystallography, but they won’t need to, will they?” Mavarr chuckled at Tagrif’s blank expression of astonishment. “Chin up. Your research may have saved them all, if they can prove their worth as you have.”

Tagrif opened his mouth, but no words came out.

“However, this disposal of the test subjects does seem to be unnecessarily tedious.” The lieutenant plucked at his chin musingly. “Perhaps an incinerator is in order.”

“We’re already cutting corners as is, Lieutenant.” Tagrif pushed his glasses back up from where they had slid halfway down his nose. “Duros custom is to bury their dead feet-first into a—”

Mavarr’s expression grew pinched. “You seem to be laboring under the misconception, Doctor Chal, that the Empire is responsible for honoring the burial rites of these traitors.”

Traitors? They are—were—hunters. Gatherers. “How many traitors to the Empire are there, exactly?”

“As many as we say there are,” Lieutenant Mavarr replied smoothly, a thin smile on his lips. “As many as we need.” He turned away slightly, his attention drawn to something on his desk. “Keep me posted on the adjustments to the facility. I want something definitive to bring to Admiral Tarkin within five rotations.” The hologram blinked out.

Tagrif leaned forward on his elbows, running fingers through his unkempt hair, staring at the three synthcrystals on the table in front of him. A neat row of perfectly uniform, perfectly sanctioned murders. “What have I done?” he whispered brokenly.

*  *  *

The metal grating shook beneath Hunter’s boots as he stormed further into the ship. Synnovea barely looked up from the hold’s console as her fingers tapped the keys in clipped, frustrated motions. Her jaw was a tight curve above her collar. A diagnostic readout scrolled in front of her—security feed, engine output levels, even some elevation schematics of Caelvortis—but none of it explained the way the galaxy had just gone sideways.

“You have exactly two seconds to start explaining what that just was,” Hunter barked, his voice low and furious, “before I show you what the wrong side of an airlock feels like.”

Synnovea’s hands froze over the keys. “We’re alive. That’s what matters,” she muttered.

He glared down at her. “Are we just going to ignore that you threatened Omega? In front of all of us?” A low kick of his boot abruptly swiveled her chair to face him.

Something flashed through her gray eyes, a fleeting emotion that didn’t match her stubborn expression. She turned to face him slowly, resting her palms on the armrests like she needed something solid. “That’s not what happened.”

“Don’t give me that, I saw what I saw—I had to draw on you to get you to stop!”

“Yeah, about that…I’m not wild about blasters in my face.”

“And I’m not wild about you tossing around members of my squad!” Hunter scrubbed at his face with a gloved hand before flinging it in a wide arc. “You know, I’ve backed every play of yours from the beginning, because as crazy as they were, they worked. It shouldn’t be too much of an ask for you to vent your temper somewhere else!”

“It’s…complicated.”

Hunter stepped forward. “You don’t get to play that card. Not after the Jedi thing. You kept that from us, and now this?” His voice dropped, quieter but more dangerous. “You know, we all took risks coming here. You want to keep secrets? Fine. But don’t expect us to follow you blind.”

“I’ve told you what you needed to know.”

“No,” he spat, “you’ve told us just enough to keep us from walking away. That’s not the same.”

“I didn’t hurt her,” she insisted.

“This time!” Hunter’s voice cracked through the hold like a whip.

Synnovea’s gaze lowered, grew distant. “I’m trying to figure it out,” she said finally. “I didn’t mean for that to happen. It wasn’t supposed to be like that. Something went wrong…”

Hunter stared at her for a long moment. “You don’t even remember it, do you?”

Synnovea’s lips parted, then pressed into a flat line.

“That’s what I thought,” he muttered.

“We got out,” she said again, almost like she needed to believe it.

“No,” Hunter growled, “we got lucky. And luck runs out.”

“Ahh, luck,” Synnovea crooned, her tone heavy with scorn. “The layman’s excuse for lack of skill.”

He froze. “And what’s your excuse for knocking around a kid?”

“Probably the same excuse you had for bringing one,” she retorted, the words spilling out before she could stop them.

He didn’t realize that his fist was moving until he jerked it to a stop halfway. Reluctantly he lowered it, silently counting to ten.

Synnovea’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, no,” she whispered tauntingly as she rose from her seat. “Give it your best shot.”

Hunter’s chest tightened as he cocked his elbow back—

“All right, that’s enough!”

  VwrrRRrrwRRRRRrr!

A glint of metal was thrust between their faces, and a high-pitched whine filled the air, making it impossible to focus on much else. They both jerked reflexively, backing away from each other as if struck.

“The hell, Echo!” Hunter hissed, clamping his hand over his ear, trying to quell the ringing in his head.

Less affected but still flustered, Synnovea snapped, “What was that?”

Echo lowered his scomp arm. “Clapping,” he said flatly. Wrecker loomed behind him, anxiously shuffling his oversized boots while glancing at each of them as if lost. The sound had merely broken the tension, not dissolved it.

Hunter turned, but Echo was already pushing forward. His jaw was set as his eyes flicked between the two of them. Jerking his arm from Echo’s grip, Hunter turned away, breathing hard as he paced to wear down his anger.

“We don’t have time for this.” Echo’s voice was stern. He turned to Synnovea. “Although—what you did back there, don’t do it again.”

“Yeah. Bad Jedi,” Wrecker agreed, shaking a finger at Synnovea, who managed to look both stung and abashed by the quick turnaround of events.

“I—”

“Stow it. I think we can all agree that there’s a bigger problem here, bigger even than that we didn’t get what we came for…it’s who we found. Or, who found us.” Echo stepped deliberately between them, his gaze dialed on Synnovea. “We stumbled upon a bigger problem, one with a red lightsaber. I’ve fought beside Jedi before. That was no Jedi.”

“Then what was he?” Hunter growled.

Synnovea’s jaw worked as if she were chewing on her tongue, and her eyes slid away first. “That…isn’t going to be so easy to explain.”

Hunter crossed his arms. “Just so happens I’ve got some time on my hands. Start talking.”

“Great.” She ran her hands over her face, shoving away the uneven wisps of hair that had escaped her braid. She caught a flash of blond hair as Omega scooted around Wrecker and pressed against the opposite wall. Catching Hunter’s glare, Synnovea snapped, “I’m trying to remember files I read fifteen cycles ago, things my master said in passing, just give me a moment!” She leaned back against the console, gathering her thoughts.

“Okay,” she began again. “So you all know about the Jedi. Well, they aren’t the only Force-wielders in the galaxy. There are the Dagoyans, for example, and the Nightsisters. But there was also this order called the Sith.”

“Sith?” Omega’s nose wrinkled slightly at the unfamiliar word.

Synnovea rubbed her forehead with slow fingers. “There wasn’t exactly a comprehensive course on the subject. The Sith were this religious faction that didn’t avoid the dark side of the Force; they were drawn to it. They were the enemies of the Jedi for millennia before they were wiped out on Ruusan. They had similar powers and training, but…twisted. Everything they did was rooted in power, domination, control.”

Wrecker grunted, tilting his head lower in thought. “That sounds like the Jedi, only evil.”

“It’s not exactly that simple.” She shifted slightly. “The instructors always got a little closed-mouthed whenever the topic came up, but I once overheard Master Gallia tell Master Beq that some temple they discovered had scrolls predating the Republic about their ‘origins of their ancient enemy’. However, they were taken to a section of the archives that wasn’t accessible to anyone but the elders.”

“So, the Jedi knew about these Sith, but didn’t tell anyone?” Hunter exchanged skeptical glances with Echo.

Synnovea nodded. “From everything I’ve read, they were all supposed to be dead.”

Hunter grunted. “Well, they missed one.”

“Obviously.” She stood. “Anyway, most of the information was sealed away, and the place is Imperial Central now.” She scratched her elbow absently. “Most of what I remember are stories of them amassing an army of fanatics to follow their directions so that they could one day take over the galaxy.”

“Oookay,” Omega said slowly, “but…how’s that different from what the Jedi were doing in the war?”

Synnovea winced, uncomfortable with the parallel. “That’s not…I don’t have a good answer for that.”

“He could have killed you, but he didn’t.” Omega’s voice was low but steady as she pushed away from the wall. “What did he want?”

“I…I don’t know that, either.” Her eyes softened slightly, and her expression carried a hint of shame. She stepped towards Omega her palm out beseechingly. “Hey kid, I’m really sorry about—”

Hunter pushed away from the wall, his arm interposed. “That’s close enough.”

“Wow.” Synnovea’s tone was deadpan. She lowered her hand.  “Aren’t you overdoing this whole protective thing a bit?”

“You tell me.”

“Hunter—” Omega began, pulling his arm down.

Wrecker scratched his head. “So, that guy’s like an evil Jedi?”

Synnovea threw up her hands. “Sure. Let’s go with that,” she said wearily. Wrecker beamed, sitting up straighter. Turning to Hunter, she snapped, “What, now I can’t come within three meters of your kid?”

“I’m not his kid,” Omega contended. “They’re my brothers.”

Hunter palmed his face. “Look, whenever you tell people that, they look at us like we’re weird…” he groaned.

“It’s true.” Omega levelled a look at him. “And you’re all really weird.”

His fingers sliding down his face, Hunter felt another headache coming on. “Look, in the beginning it was easier to trust you,” he told Synnovea, “but now—”

“Now it’s all a little messy,” she finished bitterly. “Welcome to my universe.”

*  *  *

The rest of the flight passed in heavy silence, taut and uneven.

No one spoke much after that—not out loud, anyway. Tension lingered in the confined space of the Marauder like smoke after a fire, and each commando found something to keep himself busy, even if it didn’t need doing.

Synnovea sat in the corner of the hold, her foot propped up as she concentrated on healing the cauterized parting gift from Carnage along her shin. She barely made a sound, though her face twitched once or twice in pain as layers of skin began to knit across the angry red patch over the bone. No one offered help, and she didn’t ask for it. The process required a measure of focus that did not invite conversation.

Omega sat with Wrecker near the rear of the cockpit, her knees drawn up into the seat with her, occasionally sneaking glances toward Hunter and then in the direction she knew Synnovea to be, tucked in a corner near her bedroom. Wrecker passed her a ration bar like it might fix something.

By the time the ship dropped out of hyperspace, the only noise in the cockpit was Tech’s voice, dry as ever, reading off the system diagnostics. “We’re coming up on approach vector,” he announced. “Landing coordinates set.”

Hunter grunted from the co-pilot’s seat. “We need to figure out how we’re going to help the Duros prisoners—if they’re even still alive.”

“First,” Tech cut in pointedly, “we need to assess the damage this ship sustained navigating an uncharted asteroid field riddled with ancient ice debris. Our stabilizers are functioning at seventy-one percent and hull integrity has dropped below optimal thresholds.”

Echo, arms folded in the corner, smirked. “Didn’t realize those numbers counted as ‘expert piloting’.”

Tech didn’t even look up. “If you’d prefer I fly blind through a kilometer-wide belt of frozen death without any calculations, I’m happy to let you pilot next time.”

“If this is how your math is faring,” Echo muttered, “I’ll take my chances with the asteroids.”

Hunter rubbed his temple. “Not now.”

Landing gear locked into place with a low groan as the Marauder settled onto the patch of solid terrain they had claimed some time ago as their own personal landing site. The faint jolt of touchdown passed through the deck.

Synnovea stood, stretching her leg stiffly, the newly healed shin flexing under the strain as she rolled her legging back down. She slung her jacket on, glancing around at the crew—tense, tired, still carrying too many unspoken things.

“I’m going for a walk,” she said simply. “Perhaps I’ll be able to determine where the Imps moved those Duros.” No one objected. She nodded once and made for the ramp, the door lowering with a sigh. The air outside was warm but quiet. Climbing down the steep metal steps, she strode silently into the treeline and disappeared between the large fronds and low-hanging vines, not looking back.

*  *  *

The landing zone was a stretch of weathered stones sunk deep into the ground that suggested the remnants of a bygone paved road, yet another ancient structure that had surrendered to the planet’s teeming biomass. The Marauder perched like a battered old soldier, hull scorched, underside scraped from asteroid shrapnel, starboard stabilizer light pulsing faintly. Echo knelt beneath the port engine, his gloved fingers trailing along a seam in the hull that had warped during re-entry.

“This one’s deeper than I thought,” he muttered. “Did we clip a glacial spike, or did you try to thread the ship through a blender, Tech?”

“I calculated the optimal flight path,” Tech replied, crouched nearby with a datapad and scanner. “The asteroid field changed trajectory mid-run. Hardly my fault.”

Echo snorted. “Right. Blame the rocks.”

“I am blaming the rocks,” Tech said without a trace of irony. “They were very poorly placed.”

Omega hovered nearby with a hydrospanner in one hand and a coil of cabling slung over her shoulder. “Do you want me to pull the sensor panels so you can check the wiring?”

“Not yet,” Tech answered, peering at the scanner readout. “I want to trace the glitch in the power conduit before we accidentally short something vital such as life support.”

“Nice to know that’s important,” she muttered, squinting at the dashboard. “Is this one supposed to be blinking red?”

“No,” Tech said with a sigh. “No, it is not.”

A few meters away, Wrecker was burrowed inside a cargo hold hatch, grunting as he muscled a half-crushed crate of emergency rations back into place. Something squished as it hit the deck.

“Hey Tech,” he called, brushing powdered food residue off his hands. “We still good on snacks, or did we kill that last box of cakes from Ord Mantell?”

“I would be more concerned about our heat shielding, Wrecker,” Tech replied primly, yanking out a burnt coupling from beneath the navigation console. “But by all means, prioritize dessert.”

“You bet I’m prioritizing it,” Wrecker said defensively. “Morale’s important.”

From the edge of the ramp, Hunter stood with arms crossed, the wind tugging at the ragged ends of his bandana. His eyes were on the horizon, but his ears were tuned to every word behind him. His stance was relaxed in the way a coiled spring was relaxed. His expression hadn’t changed—still that unreadable frown—but something in the set of his jaw said he hadn’t let go of the earlier fight.

Echo glanced up from beneath the Marauder. “You know she can take care of herself, right?”

Hunter didn’t answer.

“I know,” he said after a moment. His voice was rough around the edges. “I just don’t like how much I don’t know.”

“None of us do,” Echo admitted, tapping a wrench against the carbon-scored plating.

“Yeah,” Wrecker added, emerging from the cargo bay with crumbs on his chest. “But we’ve fought alongside worse.”

Omega offered a small, uncertain smile. “She’s trying.”

Hunter didn’t answer right away. “I know,” he said again, this time quieter. The wind shifted, brushing against the hull like a whisper. Somewhere in the distance that same breeze likely was coiling around the other Imperial expeditions. He dropped his arms to his sides and exhaled. “We get the ship fixed,” he stated decisively. “Then we find out where they moved the prisoners.”

Wrecker cracked his knuckles. “I vote for handling it with explosions.”

“I vote for handling it with caution,” Tech protested blandly, walking down the ramp with his eyes glued on the screen on his datapad.

“We’re voting?” Omega paused as she passed the open ramp, getting a better grip on a haphazard armful of flex-tubing.

“This blasted port-side vector plate is warped,” Echo grumbled, banging on a weatherbeaten panel, “that explains the atmospheric diagnostic light.”

“I can try hammering it flat again,” Wrecker offered, stuffing an empty wrapper into a belt pouch.

“Tech said you aren’t allowed to beat on the Marauder anymore and call it repairs,” Echo remarked severely.

“Do you think she really doesn’t know what Carnage wants?” Omega asked after a pause, trying to loop shorter coils around her arm.

Everyone paused in their tasks, looking silently from face to face.

Hunter finally spoke, his voice low. “If she does, she’s keeping it to herself.”

“She didn’t look like she knew,” Omega said. “Not when he showed up. I was watching.”

“She could be in over her head,” Echo said, pulling out a frayed length of wire. “Or she’s lying. Again.”

“She was scared,” Omega said more firmly. “Like, really scared.”

Tech handed her a replacement coupling to add to the pile in her arms. “Fear and guilt are not mutually exclusive emotions.”

Omega gave him a look. “You’re dreadful at pep talks.”

“I am simply stating a fact.”

Echo leaned back from the open panel. “We should probably soon decide whether we’re going after those clearance codes again or shifting priorities. Is Carnage’s appearance random, or not?” He waved his scomp link wearily. “I was starting to get used to the idea of actually having a powerhouse like Synnovea in our toolbox, but now there’s someone so scary that we all wound up running for our lives? Even a Jedi?”

Hunter pushed away from the ramp, his voice dry. “He didn’t seem to be working for the Empire. Which means we’ve got not one, but two headaches now. Three, if you count our employer.”

Wrecker clanked the crate in his arms down in the hold. “So we’re not getting those Duros out?”

“We’re not giving up,” Hunter asserted. “But we might have to find a different angle.”

“And we need the Marauder in one piece before we fly into another storm,” Echo added, nodding toward the cables.

“Assuming we don’t run into more Sith,” Wrecker muttered, wiping his hands on his legs.

“According to Synnovea, they are not common,” Tech said absently. “If they were, the Jedi would have disappeared long before the Empire helped them go extinct.”

That landed with an awkward thud.

Omega fidgeted with a broken flight switch. “Do you think there are more of him out there?”

“Let’s focus on the task at hand,” Hunter said firmly before the silence grew any heavier. He lifted a boot onto the nearest step in the ramp, momentarily squeezing her shoulder with a gloved hand before steering her toward the cockpit. “Otherwise, it won’t matter if there’s one of ‘em or a hundred, we’ll be outmaneuvered.”

*  *  *

The holoterminal dimmed with a soft click, shrinking his daughter’s smile into a spark that blinked out entirely. For a moment, Tagrif just sat there, hand suspended above the control pad, still feeling the phantom weight of that final word: Soon.

She’d asked if he’d be home for her birthday.

I’ll try, he’d said.

It was a pathetic thing to offer. A doctor’s promise. Weightless.

He’d already missed too much.

The lab felt colder after the call. Or maybe it was just the quiet—oppressive in its completeness. The only sound came from the soft tick of the phrik ring mechanisms cooling behind the walls and the distant chirr of insects just beyond the plastoid door at the entrance.

He turned toward the table where the three crystals waited under soft white lights. Each was impossibly clear. Impossibly still. They gave nothing back—no light, no warmth. Just presence.

Too perfect.

He hated them.

He couldn’t stop seeing their faces. Hundreds, by now. He didn’t know their names, but the faces haunted him.

His hands were shaking again.

He reached for his cup—cold caf, untouched—and froze.

The door hadn’t opened.

But someone was there.

Someone just beyond the light. Cloaked. Still. No markings, no insignia. The folds of the fabric caught nothing of the lamps’ reflection, as if they swallowed the glow entirely.

The figure said nothing.

Tagrif’s voice caught halfway up his throat as he stood. “This lab is restricted,” he said shakily. “I—You shouldn’t be—”

The hood tilted slightly.

He stumbled backward, his calves hitting the stool. It rocked, then tipped over with a hollow clang.

A sudden weight shifted in the air.

Without warning, he was moving.

He hit the wall of the collection chamber with a sickening crack, the impact stealing his breath. A second later, he was inside, the door slamming shut with finality. Locks sealed with a mechanical hiss. He scrambled upright, wincing—his shoulder was dislocated, maybe worse—but the room spun with a sudden lurch, and he collapsed again.

“No—no, please—”

Through the viewport, he saw the figure cross the room, quietly, without rushing. A gloved hand brushed the controls with a familiarity that made his stomach twist. Dials turned. Gauges shifted.

The phrik rings began to stir.

A low hum bloomed in the walls. Not loud. Just… inevitable.

Tagrif scrabbled upright, clutching his shoulder, breath ragged. “Please—listen—whoever you are, I don’t know what you think this is, but I’m not the one in charge, I’m not—”

The lights inside the chamber dimmed.

Green flickered to life in the globe embedded in the wall between them. That unnatural shimmer, curling like mist in zero-gravity, began to coalesce—slowly, elegantly—into shape.

“No. No, no, nonono—”

A gloved hand hovered over the mechanism. Swiftly, ruthlessly, the outer ring spun, locking as the center ring whirled in the opposite direction, halting as the inner ring began to glow.

He pounded on the glass. “I have a daughter!” he cried, voice cracking. “Do you hear me? I have a daughter!”

The figure didn’t flinch.

Inside the globe, something snapped, crackling with the hair-raising tightness static makes before it jumps across skin. Tagrif staggered, a sudden pressure inside his skull wrenching his vision sideways. His chest constricted. His limbs failed to respond. His body slumped abruptly like a severed marionette doll, trembling, eyes fixed on the globe as it brightened with every flicker of what it stole.

He saw her face again. Massie. Her curls. That toy bantha with the missing ear.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

The breath never left his lungs.

Silence crept back into the room.

The chamber door hissed open again. Steam drifted across the floor in lazy spirals.

The figure didn’t hesitate. One sweep of the hand sent the three synthcrystals skittering across the metal table into a waiting palm. The body in the chamber did not move.

Boots tread softly across the floor—past the flickering terminal, past the crumpled form of Dr. Tagrif Chal, past the bodies of two stormtroopers who hadn’t had time to scream. One lay crumpled near the doorway. The other still had his blaster in hand, fingers rigid around the grip.

And then the presence was gone.

Chapter Text

The wind had shifted since morning. It skated low across the junkyard, stirring dust and rust in slow spirals. The sun was still climbing, throwing jagged light through the ribs of old ship hulls and broken cargo skiffs, bleaching a chaotic checkerboard of bone-white glare and verdant shade.

“Don’t put that there. It’ll fall.”

“It’ll only fall if you knock it off.”

“So leave it over by the transistors on the barrel!”

“It’ll get dirty.”

 “We’re in a junkyard—just where do you suggest we find a sterile environment?”

“That’s why I put it by the tools.”

“And I nearly knocked it into the dirt!”

“Yeah, don’t do that. We only have the one.”

Wrecker popped his head between Echo and Tech. “Hey, could you two shut up long enough to tell me where to put this?”

Tech paused. “Why do you have one of the exhaust rings?”

“You told me to pull the exhaust rings.”

“No…I said this was exhausting.”

“Oh. Well…where do you want these, then?”

The crew had settled into their usual rhythm, working in bursts of chatter and clamor. Tech and Echo stood shoulder-deep in the Marauder’s undercarriage, bickering with each other yet somehow making good progress. Wrecker was singing half the wrong lyrics to some song while trying to wrangle a stubborn hydraulic strut, after taking the time to re-weld the exhaust rings back onto the thrusters. Hunter was showing Omega how to detect metal fatigue in the hull panels with the scanner.

Synnovea kept herself to the edge of the scene of boisterous camaraderie.

She sat with one knee drawn up beside a warped hopper wing, not quite part of the group but close enough to feel a hint of warmth. A small toolkit lay open on the ground beside her. Her lightsaber rested in her lap, the hilt partially disassembled. She worked with calm, quiet motions, her fingertips gliding along the inner grooves of the chassis as she tightened the housing screws. A gentle click echoed as she twisted the outer casing into a new locked position. The emitter matrix gleamed in the sunlight, faint traces of polish catching on the curve of the hilt. She rotated a ring near the base, testing tension. It slid, feeling a little loose. She re-tightened it. Checked alignment.

The adjustments were small, routine. Maybe even overdue. The blade had started humming with a slight imbalance during the Caelvortis fight. At least, it had felt that way. Maybe it was nothing. Everything felt a bit off lately, like too many pieces were out of sync. Or maybe she was. She reached for a miniscule stabilizing screw, coaxed it into the air with a gentle motion, and let it drop into place with a soft click, spinning in place as it lowered into the hole until its surface was flush with the sleeve.

She turned the hilt in her hands again, checked the balance. Solid. She didn’t ignite it. Not yet. Her hand hovered over the switch for a moment, then withdrew.

From her vantage point, she could see Omega laughing with Wrecker as he pretended to ‘accidentally’ drop a stabilizer twice her size. Tech barked something from beneath the ship. Echo responded with a dry curse and a tossed hydrospanner.

Synnovea allowed herself a thin smile.

The saber clicked softly in her lap as she rotated it again. Locked. Tightened. Complete. The wind shifted again, brushing across the back of her neck. She looked up, eyes narrowing faintly.

Something felt…just a degree too heavy in the air. Like a scent you couldn’t place, or a memory half-formed. But when she stretched out with the Force, she found nothing. Just a whisper of static. She exhaled and stood, clipping the saber to her belt.

*  *  *

The northern temple was quieter than usual.

The only sound came from the canopy above, birds calling, branches shifting, leaves rustling against each other like sleeves of old parchment. Dappled light filtered through the green spilling over the yawning edges of the remnants of the ceiling, casting broken shadows across the cracked stone floor.

Far from the clang of the Marauder’s repairs and the coarse voices of the outpost, it stood tucked between massive roots and moss-laced stones, half-claimed by the jungle but still standing. Fronds stirred high above where the light cut through the canopy in long, fractured beams, dust and pollen dancing like tiny motes of copper.

Synnovea sat alone in the old central chamber, where tree roots split the floor and narrow vines crept up the stone pillars like reaching fingers. Her posture was still, balanced, knees drawn under her cloak, palms resting lightly on her thighs. Her lightsaber lay beside her. Eyes closed, her breath slow, she searched inward. Not for visions. Not for answers. Just...stillness.

There had been a time when this part was effortless. When her mind settled the way a leaf touched down on a pond—no ripples, no resistance. Now, it took work. Effort. Each breath had to be measured, each thought coaxed into quiet like an animal learning not to flinch. The Force was here, but faint. Not the brilliant current she remembered from Coruscant, but something older, softer. A whisper through the roots. A hum in the stones.

She leaned toward it. Slowly. Gently. As if trying not to frighten it away. A pulse. A warmth. Faint...but there. She followed it inward, chasing the sensation like one chases the scent of rain—ungraspable but real. She exhaled slowly, letting her shoulders ease down with it. There would be time for the rest. For now, she simply breathed.

Somewhere in that stillness, a memory stirred. Not a sharp image. Just—

Sandstone beneath her knees. A shaft of amber light cutting through high arched windows. The hush of temple corridors in the late afternoon. She could smell the incense—light, sharp, meant to still the mind. It never worked. Not really.

A voice she remembered all too well.

“That face means you’re trying too hard.”

She didn’t open her eyes in the present. But in her mind, back then, she turned.

She could see her younger self, sitting on the floor of her room in the Padawan dormitory. She was younger, more rigid in posture. Her master sat on the end of her nightstand, infuriatingly calm as he balanced a bowl of sliced fruit on one knee.

She scowled. “I’m not.”

“You are.” He popped a piece of fruit into his mouth. “You must learn to quiet your mind as well as your muscles…but don’t lose focus. Falling asleep doesn’t count.”

She crossed her arms, willing herself not to pout. “You’re not supposed to be watching me.”

He shrugged, completely unbothered. “And yet, here I am. Observant. Encouraging.”

“Obnoxious,” she muttered.

“That too,” he acknowledged. “But you still aren’t focusing.”

She tried to sit straighter, closing her eyes again. “I’m working on it.”

There’d be a long silence after that—comfortable, in its way. Just the crunch of grapes and the hum of sunlight on her skin. Then his voice came to her again, quieter.

“You’ll get there. You always do.”

She hadn’t appreciated that, back then. She did now. Here in the quiet heart of the ruined temple, long after the world had gone to ash, she remembered what that stillness had felt like—not perfect, but shared. Accepted. She breathed again. And for a moment, something in the air gave way. She let it stay, let it fill her without clinging to it. The Force moved, slow and quiet. So did she.

*  *  *

The landing pad was alive with noise—fuel carts humming, labor droids clanking, traders shouting over each other in half a dozen languages. The midday heat shimmered off durasteel and glass, washing the air in a wavering haze. Traders were arguing over fuel rates, a pair of Jawas haggled with a Sullustan over a power converter, and a weathered Ugnaught took an afternoon nap on a coil of landing rope. Wrecker leaned lazily against a fuel drum, watching Omega argue with a vendor over the price of a coolant flush. Tech stood nearby, reviewing flight manifests on a data slate, muttering sharp-edged commentary about outdated wiring and “criminal levels of incompetence”.

Someone jostled her from behind. A freighter pilot, older and grizzled, passed too close to Omega, bumping into her shoulder. He mumbled an apology, then paused. A little too long. Omega straightened, schooling her expression into casual disinterest. He looked away as soon as she met his eyes, adjusting his belt and moving away. She scooted swiftly back to the others.

Wrecker saw it first, frowning past her. “Hey. That guy—”

“He recognized me,” Omega said, her voice low and strained. The pilot blinked at Wrecker’s glare, turned away like it didn’t matter, and kept walking nonchalantly. Slipping between two stacks of crates, heading toward the far end of the pad—toward his ship.

Tech’s head jerked up. “Echo—”

“I see him.” Echo was already moving. “Split wide. We cut him off before he calls in a bounty ping.”

“Can’t we even look for spare parts without it becoming a life-or-death moment?” Hunter growled as he swung down from his perch on a barrel, moving to close in from the left.

Synnovea’s eyes snapped open. A sharp breath caught in her throat. Her gaze darted to the canopy—nothing visible. But the flow felt redirected somehow; something had shifted. She looked around quickly, then her hand scooped up her lightsaber hilt.

She moved. One fluid motion—legs coiling under her, vaulting from the stone ledge where she’d been seated. Her boots struck the ancient tiles hard, rebounding into a dead sprint as she flew down the steps three at a time. Vines slapped her shoulders, fronds parted around her. The jungle blurred past in streaks of brown and green.

“Don’t let him access the subspace transceiver on his ship,” Tech said, pushing into the crowd. Omega darted left, cutting through a cluster of arguing Rodians. Wrecker shouldered aside a crate stack with a groan of splintering wood. Hunter closed from the right. The pilot bolted. Whatever caution he’d held onto cracked—he was running now, ducking under a fuel line, pushing over a startled vendor’s hovercart. The crowd roared in protest.

“Got him—!” Wrecker lunged but missed by centimeters.

Tech shouted, “Omega—!”

She leapt onto a crate, tried to intercept—his shoulder slammed hers, and she hit the deck hard with a grunt.

Echo skidded to a halt at the landing zone. “He’s on the ramp!” Hunter drew his blaster.

The pilot didn’t look back. He threw himself into the hold of his ship, slammed the hatch, and within seconds the engine whine began to rise.

The freighter shrieked as it began to lift, cutting a tremor through the landing pad. Below, the commandos scattered away from the takeoff, watching it rise with growing frustration. Hunter’s hand shot to his comm.

“Synnovea—where the hell are you?!”

Synnovea vaulted over a jagged root system, boots hitting stone and launching her into another stride. Her braid trailed behind her, snagging on brush, but she didn’t slow. Her voice crackled through the channel—breathless, but calm.

“I’m on it.”

She leaped clean over a moss-covered log, tucked, rolled, and came up running, shoulder grazing a low-hanging branch that burst in a shower of damp leaves. One hand went to her comm again.

“ArEx. Jam all outgoing transmissions. Full net.”

The droid’s binary response pinged back—short, warbled, a mix of uncertainty and protest.

“I’ll deal with Declan later,” she said, cutting the turn around a leaning stone column slick with moss. “Just do it. And get to the Kestrel.”

*  *  *

The freighter engines roared as it cleared the pad, repulsors kicking up dirt and grit in wide bursts that sent bystanders diving for cover. “Blast it!” Echo growled, shielding his face as the ship angled skyward. “He’s going to broadcast that bounty!”

Tech was already tapping furiously at his datapad, trying to link into the local traffic control feeds. “I’m not picking up a callout—yet—but if he clears orbit—”

“He will,” Hunter cut in. “He knew who she was. He’s not going to risk selling that info on foot.”

Wrecker glared up at the disappearing speck. “We could’ve stopped him if we hadn’t had to tiptoe around the crowd!”

“I said I was sorry,” Omega said quietly, brushing dirt off her pants, voice thin with guilt. “I didn’t mean to—he just looked at me weird, and I didn’t—”

Hunter raised a hand—not at her. “No, it’s not your fault. He’s just quicker than we expected.”

Tech didn’t look up. “And now we’re out of options. The Marauder isn’t flight-ready. Even if I reassembled the navigational arrays with blatant disregard of the appropriate schematics, the stabilizers are still offline.”

Echo’s fists clenched. “So what, we just let him go? Let him hand her over to the Empire for credits?”

Wrecker muttered, “Wish I could throw something hard enough to knock that ship back down…” They stood there, scattered across the pad, watching helplessly as the freighter climbed. For a moment—just a moment—the only sound was the fading howl of engines climbing toward the upper atmosphere. Then Hunter’s comm crackled again.

“I said I’m on it.”

*  *  *

The jungle parted with a crash as Synnovea skidded down the last incline into the edge of the junkyard. Moss and vines gave way to rusted metal and scorched repulsorlift carcasses. She didn’t stop. Scrap towers rose around her, unstable heaps of derelict freighters and broken-down skiffs, all stacked at impossible angles. She launched herself up the nearest one, boots hitting a gutted swoop bike, then bounding off the chassis of a sand crawler half-swallowed by creeper vine. Below her, the Kestrel waited—half-buried in a cradle of collapsed hulls and twisted frame supports, its narrow nose wedged between the ribs of a broken gunship.

ArEx’s head swiveled in his alcove in the starboard hollow, his photo-receptors blinking in rapid alarm. Beeeeooo? Drrkt-krrrrah!?

“Yeah, I see it,” Synnovea called, already scrambling up the hull. “You couldn’t clear this out first?”

Waaaooo—DOOT.

“Spare me. Get ready to lock power to thrusters.”

Blaaaat. The droid beeped again—more insistent, a protest that included at least three words she was pretty sure were made up.

“No, we’re not going to wait for clearance. Get in and lock down. Now.”

ArEx spun on his magnetic collar and sank lower into his socket with an aggravated clank. Synnovea hit the release, yanked open the canopy, and dropped into the pilot’s seat in one smooth motion. Dust exploded up around her as she slammed the seal shut, fingers already running over the panels. Power cells groaned to life. She coughed, waving a hand at the dust as the lights on the console flickered twice, then surged steady.

“Come on, girl,” Synnovea urged in a whisper. “Wake up.”

ArEx plugged into the power feed. The Kestrel rumbled beneath them, energy systems blooming one by one as repulsors cycled hot.

“Aux shields offline,” she muttered. “Weapons...ion, no laser. Hull integrity—don’t care.”

ArEx let out a low mechanical whine. The stack of wreckage on top of the Kestrel creaked ominously.

“Hold on.”

She gripped the yoke and punched the ignition. The engines screamed to life. The hull shifted—then lurched. The Kestrel bucked in place—a shudder like tearing metal and stone as the heat from the rear thrusters blasted through the haphazard stack. A battered speeder flipped end-over-end across the clearing, smashing into a pile of rusted cargo skiffs. The interceptor rocked forward and seesawed, its tail still pinned under an old hauler frame.

Synnovea gritted her teeth. “Come on… come on…”

She slammed the throttle again. With a shriek of warping alloy and burning dust, the Kestrel ripped free—lurching up from the pit in a cloud of smoke and flying debris. For a split second, it hung crooked in the air. Then it fishtailed…hard.

BRRT-WAAA! ArEx wailed from his socket.

“Hang on!”

Metal screeched as the tail end swung through the clearing, obliterating a fragile tower of wreckage. Synnovea yanked the controls, teeth clenched, stabilizers half-stabilizing. The nose swung around. She hit the burners. The Kestrel  dodged a falling stack of outdated speeder fins, then punched through the canopy in a streak of white-hot acceleration, trailing heat and shredded vines as it vanished into the sky.

*  *  *

The freighter cut across the sky in a lazy climb, its belly angled toward open water, trailing vapor from its rear engines. Below, the bay shimmered—a wide crescent of rippling silver beneath the cloud-streaked sky.

From the far edge of coastline, the Kestrel swung into view in a sweeping arc, its nose tilting as the interceptor kissed the sea. The ship tore across the waves, carving a gleaming trough into the surface. Salt spray burst in a long, prismatic plume in its wake. Water lashed across the hull, coating the viewport in a film that blurred sunlight and sky.

Inside the cockpit, water bubbled up beneath the floor grates.

ArEx shrieked in a burst of alarmed binary. BRRRRT? Dwoooo-RAAA-BOOO?!

Synnovea barely glanced down. “Relax, it’s a starfighter. If it flies in space, it’s airtight.”

The bubbling grew louder. A fat droplet splashed onto her boot. She grimaced. “Okay. Guess that’s past tense.” With a grunt of effort, she pulled the yoke back.

The Kestrel surged upward, ripping out of the surf in a spectacular spray of light and vapor. Droplets scattered in all directions as the ship banked hard, the sun glinting off its dented plating as its howling engines sent it climbing after the fleeing freighter.

Tech’s voice came over the comms, thin but clear. “Synnovea—your hull is compromised. If he exits the atmosphere, you won’t survive the pressure differential. You must apprehend him before then.”

“ArEx. Reroute all power to rear thrusters.”

The freighter veered higher, pushing hard toward the thinning clouds, its engine wash warping the upper sky in boiling heat trails. It was close now—seconds from breaking the atmosphere. Synnovea’s thumb hovered over her ion cannons. “I’ve got him in my sights over open water—”

“You cannot fire those,” Tech cut in sharply. “If you miss, a surface expedition might see or hear the discharge.”

She paused, her lips making a click of annoyance against her teeth.

“So don’t miss,” Hunter suggested.

“Yeah, how could a Jedi miss?” Wrecker asked.

“Oh trust me, it’s possible,” Synnovea muttered

“That’s not the point,” Tech snapped. “A miss could jeopardize everything. That shot could echo across half the continent, and this planet is supposed to be largely uninhabited. The Empire will certainly come looking for us if it is aware of such a potential threat.”

“So she’s supposed to stop a freighter without firing, before he hits vacuum, in a leaking ship that can barely fly?” Echo asked in disgust.

“Correct.”

Synnovea’s hand shifted, dropping to a lower console. “Then that’s what I’ll have to do.”

The freighter banked sharply, then broke the cloud layer with a violent jolt, engines screaming in protest as it surged toward open sky. Alarms wailed in the Kestrel’s cabin—none of them particularly useful at the present moment, just loud. The entire ship groaned around her like a giant creature waking from a long, angry nap.

“He’s about to exit the atmosphere!”

“Almost there,” Synnovea whispered. Her hand hovered over the control, fingertips twitching slightly. She exhaled a slow breath, then flipped the switch.

Thunk—the cable shot free from the Kestrel’s belly, trailing like a whip of metal lightning. It struck the freighter mid-fuselage. A nano-second later, the magnetic lock sealed with a heavy, final clunk.

The tether snapped taut, then heaven and earth were swallowed in a vortex.

The freighter’s climb jolted into a stall, its mass wrenching the Kestrel forward and sideways. She gunned the engines. Together, both ships tumbled into a tightening death spiral—spinning, shrieking, dragged together by raw physics and tensioned steel. Wind hammered the cockpit. The inertial compensator groaned under the torque. Bucking, the freighter tried to break free, but the centripetal force only pulled them faster.

Synnovea gritted her teeth and rode the spin. Sky. Ocean. Sky. Ocean. Her restraints bit into her shoulders as the horizon vanished in a blur of blue and white. The ships swung in ever-narrowing loops, caught like snared prey, each orbit faster than the last.

Sky-ocean, sky-ocean. She waited. Watched. Breathe in. Wait for the rotation. The freighter crossed her sights as her viewport twisted to catch a blinding flash of the sun above them. Breathe out. Sky-ocean-sky-ocean-skyoceanskyoceanskyoceanskyocean—

“ArEx,” she murmured, calm despite the roaring in her ears. “Cut it.”

The cable disengaged with a metallic snap. The Kestrel kicked free, rolling hard as it righted itself.

The freighter didn’t.

With its engines flooded after the stall and its trajectory ruined, it spun twice more in a limp corkscrew, then dropped through the clouds like a stone. A moment later, it hit the water with a violent splash, viewports shattering from the impact as it disappeared beneath the white-tipped waves in a column of steam and smoke.

Synnovea leveled the Kestrel and breathed in the silence. And again. Once more.

“Target neutralized,” she said quietly into the comm.

From the narrow beach, the freighter’s impact was visible only as a sharp bloom of ocean spray far in the distance, a flash of violence swallowed quickly by the sea. The sound reached them seconds later: a low, muffled boom that vibrated in their chests and left a stunned hush in its wake.

At first, it seemed that no one could find the words. Then Wrecker let out a long breath, scratching the back of his head. “She did it.”

Hunter’s glowered, his jaw set, but his eyes tracked the sky, his mouth twisting as he scanned the clouds. “Where is she?”

“There,” Tech said, pointing across the bay. “approaching low. Her angle suggests she’s returning to the junkyard, most likely to avoid visibility.”

“Good call,” Echo muttered as they headed into the jungle in that direction.

The silhouette of the Kestrel dropped through the thinning cloud layer, trailing smoke and steam, one stabilizer flickering as it dipped in a controlled arc over the rusted skyline. It banked hard near the treeline, then dipped behind the stacked wreckage just beyond the ridge.

The ship didn’t crash, but it didn’t land gracefully, either. The whine of strained engines gave one last sputtering roar before the final hiss of shutdown echoed through the jungle.

Hunter was already waiting, the others close behind. They converged at the outer edge of the junkyard quickly, weapons slung but ready out of habit.

The Kestrel sat skewed between two collapsed skiffs, its plating still steaming from the run. Scrap shifted underfoot as they approached, boots crunching over weathered durasteel and moss-covered droid parts.

Then the cockpit popped. The hatch blasted upward with a wheeze, and Synnovea vaulted out before it had fully cleared. Her boots hit the dirt with practiced force, one hand on the cockpit edge, the other gripping the scorched hull to steady herself. Her tunic was soaked down one side, and water still dripped from her sleeves. A burnt gash trailed across one glove. Her eyes were calm.

ArEx slowly rose in his socket behind her, his cone tilting with a low, dazed Dooot—weeooo—plonk.

“You all right?” Hunter asked roughly, his gaze measuring the smoking interceptor.

“I’m fine.” The Kestrel creaked and tipped forward, its nose burying itself two feet into the dirt with a wheeze. She didn’t look behind her. “The Kestrel, maybe less so.”

Omega blinked. “That was amazing.”

Tech muttered, “That was borderline suicidal.”

“That’s a Jedi.” Echo’s acknowledgment was one of grudging respect.

“She didn’t have another choice,” Hunter said, finally meeting Synnovea’s eyes.

Synnovea shrugged, breath steady. “I was asked not to shoot. So I didn’t.”

Tech made a strangled noise in his throat. “Yes, and instead you spun a freighter out of orbit using a cable meant for anchoring your ship in hostile weather.”

Wrecker clouted him good-naturedly on the shoulder. “Yeah, she did it pretty good, too!”

Hunter folded his arms. “Still. Next time, maybe a slightly less dramatic solution.”

Synnovea didn’t miss a step as she walked past him. “Next time,” she said, without turning back, “don’t let him get away.”

Chapter Text

Echo scowled at the flickering diagnostics crawling across the Marauder’s forward console and said flatly, “If the starboard stabilizer shears off, I want it noted in the report that this is your fault.” When his entire dashboard went dark, he cursed and jammed his scomp link into the socket, the circular discs rotating frantically. “There it goes again…”

Tech was busy dealing with yet another warning chime above his head, which may or may not have been related to the flashing red light near his left hand. “Your assertion is inaccurate. The stabilizer is experiencing stress because I rerouted auxiliary power from the inertial dampeners to compensate for the hyperdrive manifold’s thermal bleed. Had I not done so, we would have lost propulsion entirely approximately six minutes ago.”

Echo turned his head back to the twisting socket, unimpressed. “So instead of dropping out of the sky now, we do it later. Great planning.” A few more clicks, and the console’s switches became illuminated once more.

Hunter interrupted the rising voices before they could continue, leaning forward between the cockpit seats. His hands gripped the headrests as his eyes scanned the canopy landscape. “Cut the cute comments.”

“Cute?” Echo sputtered, jerking upright from his hunched-over pose.

Ignoring him, Hunter pointed over Tech’s shoulder to a rare opening in the tree crowns. “Can you land us there, Tech? It’s not far from where we saw the Duros being rounded up.”

Tech’s hands paused their nervous motions for a fraction of a second. “Yes,” he said, then added, “although I must emphasize that the terrain irregularities, combined with our current structural integrity, render the landing parameters… suboptimal.”

Echo jabbed a finger in Tech’s direction. “How is that okay, but my words are ‘cute’?”

Wrecker snorted from the back. “Great. I always wanted to die in a flying bolt bucket.”

Omega tilted closer to Synnovea. “What do inertial dampeners do, again?” she whispered loudly over the creaking of the ship.

“On most ships they counter the effects of g-forces for the pilot and passengers,” Synnovea explained calmly, gripping the shoulder straps of her seat with both hands. She looked a little green around the gills. “Here, I think they just start arguments.”

The Marauder banked hard as Tech guided it toward the break in the trees, stymieing further conversation. The ground of the clearing came into view—ragged, partially reclaimed by jungle growth, mottled and uneven. As they descended, the ship began to shudder in earnest, every stressed joint and patched plate protesting the maneuver. Another metallic groan rippled through the hull, followed by a sharp vibration underfoot. Somewhere behind them, something clattered loose and skidded across the deck.

“I really hope we didn’t need that, whatever it was,” Echo muttered, glancing down at his feet.

Omega winced as the jostling crept up her arms, humming in her bones. The inside of her ears tickled with the rumblings that echoed through the plating at her back as the struts struggled to hold. The Marauder listed slightly to port before settling with a long, ominous creak. There were several cracks and twangs, then silence. She perked up. “We made it!”

“Well, of course we did,” Tech answered mildly, leaning back in his seat.

The entry port lowered jerkily, hissing like a leaky coolant line. Hunter stood on the final step, letting his weight carry the ramp the rest of the way down; the hydraulic pistons must also be blown. Shaking his head, he shaded his eyes and peered off between the trees, letting the breeze ruffle his hair as the others disembarked.

Behind him, the rest of the squad disembarked in practiced order, weapons slung but ready. Synnovea stepped down from the ramp after everyone else, boots sinking slightly into the soft earth, and turned her face into the wind. It tugged at her hair and cloak, carrying with it the scent of freshly turned loam and sunbaked metal. Her eyes closed for just a moment as she let the Force open around her, cautious but present, and the sensation hit like a sudden pressure behind her ribs.

Fear. Confusion. A lingering echo of pain, sharp and stinging, then…cold. In the middle of the sweltering jungle, an eerie chill engulfed the orphaned emotions, flattening and silencing them. She forced her hands to unclench as she suppressed a choking sensation in her throat. Something or someone close by had torn through the living Force. Stormtroopers didn’t do that.

Hunter knelt almost immediately, one hand brushing the ground as he took in the tracks and disturbances etched into the clearing. Nothing here now, but plenty of feet had trampled a flattened path due south…and not all of them boots. He rose and pointed without hesitation. “That way,” he said.

Synnovea nodded—because she had already felt it pulling her in the same direction. They moved out in a loose formation, the jungle closing around them almost immediately, broad leaves rapidly obscuring the Marauder’s battered silhouette as the clearing vanished behind them. The air grew thicker the farther they went, heavy with moisture and the oppressive heat that clung like a second skin. Slowing, Hunter raised a fist. The others halted.

The forest had gone quiet, and not the natural lull like a predator passing through. There were no distant bird calls, no buzzing of insects. It was as though sound itself had been pressed down, flattened. Even the wind seemed reluctant to push through the trees.

She tried to filter the sensations, the way she’d once been taught—observe, identify, acknowledge, release—but the emotions clung in layers, refusing to dissipate. Fear, yes, but also confusion. Disbelief. The sharp, hollow spike of realizing too late that help was not coming. She pressed her thumb against her fingers, grounding herself in the here and now, timing her breathing with her steps as she followed the others.

They crested a low rise, and the ground ahead dipped sharply before them, a manmade clearing carved into the jungle. The earth there was uneven, mounded in irregular waves that made footing treacherous. Omega stumbled, catching herself on Synnovea’s arm. Synnovea steadied her automatically, though her attention was fixed on the ground beneath them. The Force tugged harder now, a dull pressure just behind her sternum like the event horizon of a dwindling star, drawing her unerringly forward.

Ahead of her, Hunter halted as if he had reached the end of an invisible tether. The land beyond his boots was ripped apart and pressed down again, rock and earth and grass and metal in a combination that made no sense. Twisted metal bars and warped plating jutted from the ground like broken bones, half-melted with frayed wires and jagged edges of glass. It was as if a giant creature had taken whatever was here, tossed it around, and burned it into unrecognizable gray lumps that coagulated in silver rivulets at their feet. Whatever structure had once stood there was gone, obliterated.

“What in the worlds happened here,” Hunter mused, his eyes narrowing as he crouched near the rubble. He swept his hand thoughtfully over a crooked edge of a branch that poked out, running down the slim piece of wood, then rubbed his fingertips together. “They built something…but what…”

“And why did they need the Duros?” Echo added, looking around them as they automatically fanned out. Boots crunched over scorched soil and fragments of fused durasteel. “There’s nothing big enough here that would require slave labor.” He scratched the side of his neck. “This whole place feels strange.”

Omega shuddered. “It feels wrong.”

Tech was the first to find something.

“Curious,” he murmured, kneeling beside what at first looked like a warped section of wall half-buried in the earth. He brushed away loose dirt with careful fingers, revealing a curved metallic surface embedded at an odd angle. The metal was burnished, shiny, threaded with fine channels that spiraled inward within a shattered glass dome. “A sphere housing,” he said, interest sharpening his voice. “Part of one, that is.”

Echo moved closer, tilting his head at the blurred marks around the edges. “That’s not standard Republic tech,” he declared. “Or Imperial, for that matter.”

“You are correct,” Tech replied. He pressed a button on the side of his helmet, lowering the visor to scan the apparatus from multiple angles. “Curvature suggests some sort of containment system, with the node layout seen in fabricating high-energy cores or crystals; crystals in particular would require a stabilized lattice field. However…” He frowned.

“What?” Hunter prodded when Tech fell silent. “Spit it out, Tech.”

The visor hummed as it raised, and Tech’s brows furrowed. “Apparently, someone used this system to merge more than one energy source. But the process would be unstable; the diodes around here are melted, see. Whoever activated this mechanism…would not have survived.” The light caught the bubbled metal as he rotated it. “Nor can I determine how it was overloaded to the extent that it could cause this.” He waved a hand vaguely at all the destruction.

“So they were making some kind of energy crystals? Then where are they?”

Tech shrugged. “Perhaps they are what created the detonation blast. That would explain why we cannot find them.”

Synnovea lingered a few steps back, feeling rooted in place. Grief and pain pressed in on all sides, riding the air like phantom slivers that cut and bled with every breath.

A few meters away, Omega had wandered toward a scatter of debris partially sheltered by a fallen tree. She knelt, curiosity pulling her attention to a small, blackened object half-buried in ash.

“Hunter?” she called softly. “I think I found something.” She dug her fingers into the dirt and dredged up a damaged device the size of her fist, its casing cracked, one corner melted and warped. With the edge of her shirt, she rubbed the blackened ash from the rounded reflective surface. She held it up for Hunter’s inspection when he crossed the clearing.

“It’s a comm,” he announced after a quick glance. “Barely.”

“Can we fix it?” Omega asked, a hopeful expression lighting up her face.

He hesitated. “Fix is a strong word. But…maybe Tech can coax something out of it.”

“Aww, there’s nothing to it,” Wrecker boasted, catching up the small object in his hand. “You just gotta give it a little jog—”

Omega stuck out her hands, eyes wide. “Wrecker—don’t!”

Too late.

Wrecker cracked the comm against the fallen tree trunk with a hearty tap. The comm sputtered, emitting a harsh burst of static that stung his palm. “Oww!” He flung it into the grass at their feet, wringing his hand in pain. Below them, a distorted blue holo flared to life, fragmented and atonal.

“Once the calibration of the system is complete—”

“—cutting corners as it is—”

“—just how many—”

“—the Empire is respons—these traitors—”

They all looked at each other.

“Traitors? They were native hunters, never took part in the Clone Wars. How could they be classified as traitors?” Echo wanted to know. “The Duros weren’t contracted specialists or insurgents. There’s no record of rebellion activity in this sector prior to their disappearance.”

“Yeah,” Wrecker bellowed, flinging one of his arms out. “Where’d they go?”

Synnovea hadn’t moved. “We’re standing on them,” she whispered.

Every head snapped in her direction.

Wrecker blinked. “On…who?”

Lifting her eyes, Synnovea met each of them in turn, looking older, haggard even. “The Duros,” she said bleakly. “All of them.”

Hunter looked down sharply, his expression becoming coldly enraged as he took in the ground again—the irregular mounds, the way the soil had settled unevenly, the subtle give of what lay buried beneath his boots. Beside him, Echo’s breath hitched as understanding dawned. They exchanged one horrified glance before they each looked away.

“It’s a graveyard,” he muttered hoarsely.

So many concave bumps littered the ground; it was difficult to put that picture into something that could be counted. Synnovea’s mind just kept saying many. Many. Her brows creased into a sharp line. It’s not what was there, it’s what wasn’t that made her heart stop. The energy, the living Force of the Duros, hadn’t rejoined the cosmic. Nor was it present in the clearing. She turned, her eyes closing and focusing inward. Unlike the sprawled chaos at her feet, when she closed her eyes she was struck by the…sterility…of the place. That was it. This wasn’t the rush, the push-and-pull of the living Force like when she made her way through the jungle. It was just…gone.

Her head cast to the right, then left, eyes still closed. She could sense the vibrancy of the jungle, the trees and the epiphytic plants and the bushes and the fauna that raced through it all. But here, here was a void that even the frigid, soundless depths of space couldn’t match. Tentatively, she reached out with phantom fingers, but it wasn’t an illusion. There was literally nothing there.

That wasn’t possible.

Plenty of times during her years as a Padawan, Synnovea sensed the Force but had been unable to tap into it, usually from a lack of concentration or balance. Even now, there were moments when her connection would falter, slipping like sweaty fingers until she stiffened her resolve and got her breathing under control. Lack of practice over the past cycle had dulled her sensitive touch and allowed her thoughts to become too crowded.

This wasn’t a case of insensitivity, of inner turmoil. There was nothing to tap into—no emotion, no recall, no sense of the lives that expired here. Only the very absence of those qualities managed to hint at the terrible sense of loss, of wrongness that permeated the air and the soil. Even as her mind rebelled, a memory rose, unbidden.

She was standing in the Temple, the air cool and bright around her. Tall, robed figures swept by singly or in pairs, their colors blurring with the pale walls that soared to dizzying heights. Respectful voices echoed in the expanse between the pillars, but their hushed words never quite met her ears. Sensing the Force there had been effortless, a robust stream she could touch with confidence.

The deep, familiar voice of her master brought her attention to heel once more. “The Living Force is motion,” he was saying, slowing his pace until she caught up with him. “It’s change. By its very nature, it does not stagnate. In essence, that is what death is. The movement of the Living Force to the Cosmic Force, back to the Living Force.”

Synnovea tugged at the thin, wrapped braid that hung beneath her ponytail. “But what about when people don’t die naturally? What if they’re killed?” she wanted to know.

“The manner of death doesn’t alter the destination,” he replied without hesitation. “Fear may trouble the living, but the Force is not bound nor guided by it. That’s why the Jedi don’t fear death and we don’t mourn the fallen. Because we know that it isn’t the end, but the return. All life returns to the Cosmic Force.” He smiled at her reassuringly. “Always. It isn’t something that can be lost, or stolen. You cannot break the cycle.”

But someone had.

“This can’t be,” she whispered, her heart thundering against her ribs. Wrenching open her eyes, she fought the overwhelming urge to flail about for balance as her gaze refused to focus. “How could they…who could…” One of her hands flew to her temples as if to shield herself from what she had just confirmed. “Where?” she whispered, looking through and beyond the bewildered squad. “Where did it go?”

*  *  *

“Hunter.” Echo’s voice cut softly across the clearing, low enough that it didn’t carry. Hunter turned from where he’d been watching the tree line and followed Echo’s line of sight. Synnovea was still at the far edge of the ruins, kneeling where the ground dipped and rose in uneven mounds. She hadn’t moved. Her cloak lay slack around her, hands resting in her lap, head bowed as if in quiet meditation—or exhaustion. The wind worried at her hair, leaving the rest of her untouched.

Hunter checked the chronometer on his vambrace. His jaw tightened. “It’s been almost an hour,” he said quietly, though the edge in his voice was unmistakable.

Echo nodded. “I know.”

“She hasn’t said a word.”

“No,” Echo said. “But…give her a little longer.” Hunter glanced back at him. Echo’s expression was unusually open, the hard edge softened by something like recognition. “I’ve seen them do things like this,” Echo continued. “Other Jedi, I mean. Whatever that wreckage did, whatever she felt—it hit her hard.” He shifted his weight, one boot heel pressing into the soil. “Jedi process things differently. Sometimes they do stuff like this.” Shaking his head, he shrugged. “You get used to it,” he said simply.

Hunter exhaled slowly, eyes drifting back to Synnovea. “We don’t have the luxury of staying.”

“I know,” Echo said again. “But pulling her out of it too soon won’t help.”

Nearby, Tech continued his meticulous sweep of the debris field, scanner humming quietly as he worked. Wrecker sat a short distance away on a fractured slab of durasteel, elbows braced on his knees, gaze fixed on the ground. He hadn’t cracked a joke since the holo playback ended.

Omega was with him.

She sat close—close enough that her shoulder brushed his arm—talking to him in a low voice Hunter couldn’t hear. Wrecker nodded occasionally, massive hands clasped together, his usual restless energy nowhere to be found.

Echo followed Hunter’s gaze. “Omega pulled him aside,” he explained quietly. “He’s taking this hard. I think… seeing it laid out like that.” He paused. “It reminded him of Kamino.”

Hunter’s mouth set into a thin line. “Figures.” The ground here had the same wrong feel—mass death, stripped of dignity, reduced to function. A silent pile of experimental failures.

Tech straightened suddenly, having freed something from beneath a slab of fused wall. It was a piece of metal, bent and scarred with fine stress lines, but otherwise fine. He lifted it carefully, turning it over in his hands. “This is… unexpected.”

Hunter crossed over. “What did you find?”

“An unbroken section of phrik sheeting,” Tech said, clearly intrigued. “Despite exposure to extreme energy discharge and structural collapse, this material exhibits minimal degradation. Remarkable material.”

Echo raised a brow. “Phrik? In a place like this?”

“The Empire spared no expense,” Tech replied. “Much of the metal here is compromised with impurities from the slag, but this…” He rotated the piece, scanning its curvature. “The dimensions are suboptimal, but workable.”

Hunter watched as understanding dawned. “You’re thinking about her vambrace.”

“Yes,” Tech said simply. “Her original unit was rendered beyond repair during the Trandoshan engagement. This fragment could be reforged into a replacement forearm guard. It would lack the energy buckler, but phrik possesses exceptional resistance properties. Comparable to beskar.” Including against lightsabers, he didn’t say aloud—but they all knew.

Wrecker squinted at the metal. “So… it’s not shiny, but it’s super strong?”

“That is an oversimplification,” Tech acknowledged phlegmatically. “But essentially accurate.”

Echo glanced back toward Synnovea, still kneeling, still silent. “She could use that.”

Tech inclined his head, already mentally dismantling the problem. “I will require access to the Marauder’s fabrication tools. The result will not be aesthetically refined, but—”

“She won’t care,” Echo said simply.

“Probably not,” Hunter agreed. A quiet settled over them again, broken only by the rustle of leaves and the distant creak of stressed metal as the ruins shifted. After a moment, Hunter added, softer now, “Give her a little longer. Then we’re leaving.”

Echo didn’t argue.

At the edge of the clearing, Synnovea remained kneeling, eyes closed, breath measured and deliberate, as though discipline alone might anchor her. The Force around her felt fractured, arrested in a way that defied every truth she had ever been taught. The Living Force was not meant to stop. It flowed through life, through death, onward into the cosmic whole in an endless cycle that underpinned the galaxy itself.

And yet here, beneath her hands and bones and memory, that current had been interrupted. The realization did not simply frighten her; it stripped her of certainty. If this could be done—if the most fundamental law of existence could be violated—then nothing she had relied upon was as immutable as she had believed. She knelt there, unmoored, questioning a universe that had just proven it could be broken, and struggling to understand how to stand in it again.

*  *  *

The Kestrel waited at the far edge of camp, half-buried by creeping vines and shadow, its once-sleek interceptor frame dulled by age, heat scoring, and neglect. One of the forward hull plates was missing entirely, leaving a jagged opening wide enough for a person to lean into, and the cockpit floor bore a long fracture that caught the light like a scar.

Synnovea crouched beside it with a toolkit spread around her, sleeves pushed up, hair tied back carelessly. The quiet here was different from the abandoned clearing with its nightmarish ground—no weight pressing down, no wrongness humming under her skin. Just metal. Wires. Problems that could be traced, could be named, and at least attempt to be fixed.

She needed that. The Kestrel was familiar in a way very little else was anymore. Working on it let her narrow the universe to something manageable. Something safe.

She had just pulled free a scorched power coupler when a small shadow fell across the open hull.

“I found the hydrospanner,” Omega said, holding it up triumphantly from inside the cockpit. “It was wedged under the seat.”

Synnovea glanced up, surprised despite herself. “I wondered where that went.”

Omega grinned and carefully passed it through the opening. “You threw it there when you tried to realign the stabilizers.” She giggled. “You said some very un-Jedi things.”

Synnovea grunted neutrally as she took the tool. “This ship brings out the worst in me.”

ArEx rolled closer on whirring treads, head swiveling as he peered into the exposed internals. Bweep–brrt–whistle.

“Yes,” Synnovea said dryly, tightening the coupler into place. “I know. You warned me. Repeatedly.”

The droid emitted a smug chirrup.

Omega leaned farther out of the cockpit, legs dangling, watching intently. “Is it going to fly again?”

Synnovea hesitated, then answered honestly. “Eventually. Not today. Possibly not this month.”

Omega nodded, accepting this without disappointment. “It looks like it’s been through a lot.”

“So have we,” Synnovea said, and immediately wished she hadn’t said it aloud.

Omega didn’t press. She just shifted, reaching down to hand Synnovea a bundle of wiring she’d carefully untangled from beneath the console. “This came loose when I leaned on it.”

Synnovea took it—and as she did, the wiring harness snapped free from a corroded mount with an alarming clatter.

They both froze.

“…That wasn’t supposed to happen,” Omega said.

Synnovea stared at the dangling components, then sighed. “No. It really wasn’t.”

ArEx let out an indignant series of beeps, gesturing at the broken mount with one claw.

“I know,” Synnovea said. “I know. Add it to the list.”

She sat back on her heels, wiping grease from her fingers onto a rag, and for a moment simply looked at the Kestrel—not with frustration, but with something quieter. Fondness, almost. “I used to think fixing things meant making them the way they were before,” she said, not quite realizing she was speaking out loud. “Turns out, sometimes all you can do is make them… functional enough to keep going.”

Omega considered that, brow furrowed. “That still counts.”

Synnovea smiled faintly. “I hope so.”

ArEx rolled closer, extending a manipulator arm and emitting a hopeful breep.

Synnovea glanced at it. “You can hold that, yes. Gently.”

The droid chirped in triumph and immediately clamped down too hard. Something inside the Kestrel gave way with a metallic clack and dropped free.

Omega winced. “Was that important?”

Synnovea stared at the fallen component for a moment, then sighed. “Yes.”

ArEx let out a mortified whirr–bloop.

“But,” Synnovea added, “it was going to fail eventually anyway.” She crouched, retrieving the piece and turning it over in her hands. “Better it happens here than in the air.”

Omega watched her closely. “That sounds like something you’ve learned before.”

Synnovea paused.

“There was a medic I worked with during the war,” she said slowly. “Not a Jedi. He didn’t care much for how things were ‘supposed’ to work.”

Omega smiled a little. “I’ve met people like that.”

“He used to say that if you wait for conditions to be ideal, you’ll lose the patient.” Synnovea’s thumb traced a hairline fracture in the component. “He believed in acting first and apologizing later. Stabilize what you can. Deal with the consequences after.”

Omega frowned thoughtfully. “That doesn’t sound very Jedi.”

Synnovea snorted. “No. It isn’t.” She re-seated the component, reinforcing it with a brace that wasn’t standard issue but would hold, at least until something better came along. “I used to argue with him,” she went on. “I told him the Force would correct itself. That there was a larger balance at work.”

Omega asked gently, “What did he say?”

Synnovea’s mouth curved, just slightly. “He asked me how many people I was willing to let bleed while I waited for that balance.” She tightened the brace. The Kestrel’s systems responded with a reluctant but steady hum.

For a moment, neither of them spoke.

ArEx broke the silence with a soft beep, offering a tool it had no business holding.

“Thank you,” Synnovea said automatically, taking it.

Omega swung her legs again. “Did he win the argument?”

Synnovea considered that. “Yes,” she said. “No. I don’t really know. I think that’s why this bothers me so much,” she said quietly. “What we saw today wasn’t just wrong. It was someone deciding they could take what they wanted and fix the universe to suit them.”

Omega tilted her head. “And you don’t believe that.”

Synnovea shook her head. “No. But I believe that when something breaks the rules this badly…” She trailed off, fingers tightening briefly around the tool. “…someone has to step in.”

ArEx beeped in agreement, a little too emphatically.

Omega smiled at the droid, then back at Synnovea. “Sounds like you learned something important from that medic.”

Synnovea’s expression softened, unreadable.

“I did,” she said. “I just didn’t realize how much I’d need it.”

Chapter Text

Echo didn’t raise his voice when Venth named his price. He didn’t even look particularly angry. He simply turned, one brow lifting as if he were checking that he’d heard correctly.

“That’s not a market price,” he said flatly. “That’s hyperlane robbery.”

Venth pressed a hand to his chest in exaggerated hurt. “Robbery is such an ugly word. I prefer situational pricing. You’re looking at a remote location, limited supply, elevated risk, and then a logistics surcharge...”

“I can tell you what I’d prefer…” Echo began. Venth flinched at the growl in his voice. “You’re charging triple pre-war value for a Class-Seven power coupling,” he continued. “Even accounting for scarcity, transport costs, and your so-called risk, that markup is indefensible.”

Behind him, the Marauder sat with its ramp lowered, panels still open along one flank like exposed ribs. Tech had been halfway down the ramp, datapad already out, and paused at Echo’s words.

“Correction,” Tech said absently, scrolling. “It is actually closer to four-point-two times the standard rate, assuming the coupling is genuine and not a refurbished civilian substitute with a falsified Imperial serial stamp.”

Venth’s grin tightened. “You wound me. Do I look like someone who would pass off substandard goods?”

Wrecker snorted. “Yes.”

Omega clapped a hand over her mouth a second too late.

Venth shrugged, unoffended. “Ah,” he rallied gamely, “but typically it isn’t being sold to fugitives flying a ship that sounds like it’s held together by Corellian scrap.”

Wrecker folded his arms. “Hey. She’s got personality,” he grumbled, defensive.

“The power coupling does not require personality,” Tech dismissed. “It requires proper calibration, which this unit”—he tapped the crate—“has undergone.”

Venth leaned against the crate with the coupling, scuffing his boot along the base. “Look, boys. You don’t like the price, I understand.” He threw up an arm, indicating the interior of the freighter, cram-packed with plastene crates and boxes and barrels. “But you’re not exactly browsing a Core World showroom. You came to me because I had the parts, and because you needed them now.”

Echo stepped closer. “We came to you because you told us you were fair.”

“I am fair,” Venth said cheerfully. “You’re in need of a part that will keep the ship from tearing itself apart the next time you make a jump. And I, understanding your predicament, am offering it—” his thin hand raised above Hunter’s shoulder to clasp it.

“Nope.”

Venth hesitated, then lowered his hand awkwardly, continuing, “…at a price that reflects how badly you need it.”

“Thing is, this isn’t a regular port,” Hunter said quietly. “There’s no traffic. No patrols. And if something were to delay your departure…” He let the sentence trail off, glancing aside as Wrecker cracked his knuckles. “It would take a long time for anyone to notice.”

Venth took a few steps back toward the wall of the freighter’s cargo hold, his palms raised in a placating gesture. “Look, look,” he said, lowering his voice as though sharing a confidence. “Let’s all take a breath. We’re professionals here. No need to start imagining… absences.”

Echo’s head tilted slightly. “I wasn’t imagining anything,” he said. “I was just doing the math.”

Hunter shot him a look that might have been a warning or encouragement. It was hard to tell with Hunter.

Venth’s smile faltered. “Math? But I gave you the pri—”

Echo nodded. “You disappear in a system this far off the main hyperlanes, it takes, what—three weeks before anyone even flags your last transponder ping as overdue?”

“Assuming they’re even looking,” Hunter added mildly. He stepped closer to the edge of the pad, boots crunching in the grit, and let his gaze flick briefly to the surrounding wilderness before returning to Venth’s face. “It would take a long time for anyone to notice.”

Echo continued in the same vein. “Three weeks is a long time…but we can make it feel like forever.”

Venth swallowed. “No need to get dramatic. I’m a reasonable man.”

“Then act like one,” Echo said.

The green Rodian pivoted on his leatherene heel with a flourish that suggested he’d meant to be reasonable all along, clapping his hands together once as if calling an end to intermission. “All right,” he said briskly. “Let’s talk details. No sense getting blood pressure involved. Bad for business.”

He named a new price. Hunter didn’t move from where he stood. Neither did Echo. The pressure stayed exactly where it was.

Venth gestured nervously to the crate as he scooted off its edge. “Look over the coupling, go ahead. Careful! If it’s scratched, I’ll discount ten percent.” He slunk over to Synnovea, who was looking on with thinly veiled amusement. “Can you believe these guys,” he asked in a stage whisper, rubbing his arms as if he were cold. Even in the shade the heat was obscene, but Hunter’s scowl had an unearthly chill.

“Venth,” Synnovea said quietly. “Have you come across any interceptor parts lately? Hull plating, maybe some control vanes.”

He turned to her, surprise flickering across his face before it softened into something almost nostalgic.

“You always did ask for the impossible,” he said, shaking his head. “You know how dangerous that kind of request is now.”

Overhearing the exchange, Echo glanced between them. “Now? You two know each other from—before?”

“No, impossible is that this is the same void-awful green as it was ten cycles ago…probably even more.”

Venth gave a small, rueful shrug. “Paint’s expensive. There was a time when the Temple kept my business alive. Training craft, interceptors, spares by the crate.” His gaze returned to Synnovea, fond and knowing. “I remember her when she was a kid. See, the Padawans weren’t supposed to go to the Lower Levels—”

“Venth,” Synnovea said firmly.

He smiled, waving one hand in surrender. “All right. I’ll behave.” He rubbed his cheek with one of his hands as he considered the mottled olive green interior. “Maybe she could do with a little sprucing…” he admitted.

Omega leaned forward, curiosity bright, but Venth was already sobering again. “Short answer is, those parts still exist. Long answer is, asking about them is a tricky business.” He scratched at the spines running down the middle of his head. “I can’t make any promises, but I’ll let you know if I hear anything.”

Synnovea nodded, unsurprised. “I thought as much. Thank you.”

Venth cleared his throat, rubbing his hands together as if sealing the moment shut. “Right. Sentiment aside. We still have a deal to finish before anyone here gets nostalgic or homicidal.”

Echo scoffed. “You’re still overcharging for this scrap.”

“Scrap! That’s it, price just went back up—”

*  *  *

The medbay was dimmer than the rest of the rooms on the level, the lights turned down to a functional glow that left the corners in shadow. Synnovea preferred it that way. The quiet helped. The hum of the generators—steady now, no longer coughing or stuttering—settled into a low, even thrum beneath everything else.

She leaned back in the chair with a mug of caf cradled in one hand, its warmth seeping into her fingers. In front of her, the main holoscreen had been subdivided into a grid: dozens of small feeds running simultaneously. Some showed polished anchors delivering Imperial-approved headlines; others were grainy, off-world broadcasts, shaky footage, scrolling tickers in a myriad of languages. They shifted every few seconds as she dismissed one and pulled another up with a tap of her finger, rearranging the grid with the familiarity of someone who had done this many, many times.

ArEx hovered nearby, its optics flicking back and forth in sync with the changing screens. Every so often, the droid emitted a soft breep, as if reacting to something it recognized, though what that might be was unclear. Synnovea took a slow sip of caf and reached out to mute one channel mid-sentence. A moment of static, then another took its place instantly.

The medbay doors slid open with a familiar hiss.

Hunter entered first, as usual, pausing just long enough to take in the scene—the screens, the caf, the set of her shoulders—before stepping fully inside. The rest of the Batch followed in a loose cluster: Echo, Tech, Omega, and Wrecker bringing up the rear, already craning his neck with interest.

“Synnovea,” Hunter said. “We’re airborne again. Full systems check passed. She’s holding together.”

She nodded, eyes still on the screens. “Good.” It wasn’t dismissive. Just… contained. There were times like this, when she was so compartmentalized, that he wondered what was actually going on beneath the surface. She took another sip, then finally turned her head toward him. “Thank you.”

Behind them, Wrecker had drifted toward one of the medical storage racks. “Hey,” he said, picking up a cylindrical device and turning it over in his hands. “What’s this thing do?”

“Put that down,” Echo said immediately. “Quit touching things!”

“I’m not touching,” he protested, immediately lifting it up to peer at its underside. “This is science. I’m ‘examining’.”

“That’s touching,” Echo insisted, moving closer with his hand held out. “Put it back.”

“It’s heavy.”

“That means it’s expensive!”

Tech adjusted his goggles, inspecting the holoscreen array. “You are monitoring a statistically improbable volume of information simultaneously,” he observed. “I count forty-eight active feeds.”

“Fifty-two,” Synnovea corrected absently, flicking two more into place. “I closed four earlier.”

“You cannot possibly observe them all,” Tech continued. “There are thousands of independent broadcasters across the Mid and Outer Rim alone. Even with accelerated pattern recognition—”

“I’m aware,” she said even

Tech tilted his head, frowning. “Then might I ask why you’re doing it?” That earned him a look—brief, but sharp enough to suggest he’d asked something more personal than he’d intended.

She set the mug down carefully, both hands free now. “I’m looking for signs,” she said simply. “Of the men who served under me. If they’re still in the army or…even alive.”

Hesitating, Tech said, with uncharacteristic gentleness, “The probability of success is extremely low. Millions of news channels are not archived. Some are intentionally scrubbed.”

She looked back at the screens, jaw set. “If they’re alive,” she went on, “they’ll leave traces. Someone records something. Someone reports a skirmish. A garrison changes hands. I don’t need all of it. I just need enough.”

ArEx let out an urgent bree-bree-BEEP and zipped forward, bumping insistently into Wrecker’s forearm.

“Okay, okay!” Wrecker laughed, holding the device out at arm’s length. “The droid’s yelling at me!”

“That means stop,” Echo said, stepping in to take the regenerator and return it to its cradle. “It always means stop.”

Wrecker backed up, hands raised in surrender, nearly knocking into a tray of neatly arranged instruments. Omega lunged to steady it at the last second.

“Careful!” she scolded.

“Hey, this room is full of stuff that looks like it wants to fall over,” Wrecker protested. “That’s not my fault.”

ArEx chirped smugly and repositioned itself between Wrecker and the shelves, warbling either a warning or a challenge.

Synnovea watched the chaos from the corner of her eye, a faint curve touching her mouth despite herself. She turned back to the screens, cycling through the grainy footage and garishly-colored advertisements. Then one of the screens shifted.

It was nothing remarkable at first. A shaky civilian broadcast, poorly framed, the sort of thing that would never make a main segment. The foreground was taken up by a feline overseer barking orders, his voice tinny and distorted. In the background, half out of focus, a line of mismatched men and women trudging in a line, each of their wrists secured in a pair of binders, collars glinting dully at their throats. Their unenthusiastic progress was monitored by several more individuals sporting laser whips, their decoratively tooled helmets inlaid with enamel designs of an emerald hue and flared out to make room for their upright ears.

Synnovea inhaled to take another sip of caf—and froze.

The mug tipped. Hot liquid splashed across the console as she lurched forward, the cup slipping from her slack hand and clattering across the console, seeping between the keys. She didn’t notice.

“ArEx, replay that,” she said sharply. “Channel J-N one-eight-one, no, one-eight-two.” ArEx reacted instantly, chirping as it rolled forward to the computer and rerouted the feed. The grid of screens collapsed into one, the image expanding until it filled the wall. The audio cut out, replaced by the faint hum of the generators.

“Synnovea?” Hunter started.

“Slow it down, ArEx,” she said ignoring him. “Frame by frame.”

The footage shuddered, stuttering as the captives moved forward in painful increments. One by one, faces passed through the center of the screen—hollow-eyed civilians, bruised and exhausted, heads bowed.

She lifted a trembling hand. “Back. Two frames.”

ArEx beeped and complied.

There.

She stopped breathing.

The fourth figure in the line lifted his head just enough for the camera to catch him in profile. His hair was longer than regulation, curling awkwardly at his neck, and there was a rough shadow of a beard along his jaw that spoke of weeks without proper care. His armor was gone, replaced by a torn civilian jacket that was too tight within the shoulders.

But the face—

“No,” Omega whispered, though she didn’t know why yet.

Synnovea’s fingers brushed the screen, as if the image might be warm beneath the light. As if she could reach through it.

“Triage,” she breathed.

Echo stepped closer, eyes narrowing. “That’s a clone.”

“Yes,” she said hoarsely.

Wrecker leaned in, unusually quiet. “He looks… rough.”

“Are those Zygerrians?” Echo’s lip curled in distaste.

Hunter grunted. “Looks like it, but that isn’t Zygerria.”

“What other place would be crawling with furry slavers?”

“Those guards are wearing the royal crest of the Molec family, but the green color indicates that this is Atai Molec’s heir, Prince Sono.” Tech crossed his arms and squinted at the screen. “That would make this the planet Kowak.”

Wrecker pulled a face at that. “You mean that’s the place where those awful monkey lizards come from?”

“You mean, he’s one of the troopers from Beacon squad?” Echo was asking.

“He was their medic,” Synnovea said quietly. ArEx resumed the recording, and she looked at the line passing the camera eagerly, but no other clones were in evidence. “He was captured alone.” Her eyes grew clouded. “Were the others with him? Did they escape, or…” Her voice trailed off, and she shook her head, squaring her shoulders. “No matter, I’ve found one.” Heedless of the brown liquid dripping quietly to the floor, puddling on the console, she stumbled past her chair, yanking open the haversack she usually carried around base, and hooked her lightsaber to her side.

“Ar-Ex, fire up the Kestrel. I want a flight plan to the Sevetta sector, Kowak. Go,” she insisted in a tone that brooked no disobedience. Ar-Ex squealed and spun around, nearly running over Wrecker’s toes as he sailed across the floor, burbling with impatience when Hunter palmed the front of his dome, halting his progress.

“Whoa, whoa-whoa-whoa. You’re just leaving? No plan, no nothing?” Hunter said severely. “This is a bad habit of yours.”

“I’ll get there, then I’ll think of a plan,” Synnovea snapped, pushing past him. He caught her shoulder, and she rounded on him, teeth bared. “This isn’t what I hired you for. This has nothing to do with the rebellion, this is…personal.”

Hunter matched her glare for glare. “Might I remind you that your little ship has a you-sized hole in the bottom of it? You won’t clear the atmosphere.”

“I can get it working,” she said stubbornly, her chin lifting a notch.

“Do you even have the hyperdrive ring for the interceptor anymore?”

“My old one might be orbiting Yavin IV still. Whatever. I’ll figure it out.”

“Uh-huh.” He flung an arm out, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Let’s assume you do. Where you gonna stash him on the ride home? That little collector item of yours barely seats one.”

“I’m sure there’ll be a larger ship on Kowak for me to ‘borrow’.”

“The Zygerrians operate their industry with the full consent of the Empire,” he growled, looming over her. “The second they find out who you are, what you are, they’ll hand you right over—”

“I know!” she exploded, jerking away from him. “And you also know what the Empire does to deserters, too, don’t you?” She clocked his darkening scowl, but kept going. “So yes, I’m going to leave without a plan and I’m going to derp my way in there and hope for the best.” She stood there, shoulders heaving. “I need to get there before they move him. If they move him—that’s it. I may not get another chance. Don’t you get it? I owe him, Hunter,” she nearly pleaded, her face thinned down in anger. “I was their commander. I was supposed to protect them!”

“And, what, we just sit here on our duffs while you make a mess of everything? Extractions happen to be our specialty.”

“Yeah, I’m not wild about the idea of Declan ordering us around,” Echo drawled. “It’s bad enough when you try to do it, but at least we’re used to you.” He flipped his helmet a few times as he spoke, then slipped it over his head. “I guess we’re just going to have to tag along to make sure you come back.”

“And to prove we were right,” Tech added.

“Right about what?” Synnovea snapped.

“That a mission of this caliber and difficulty requires more than one individual. Even if that individual happens to be a Jedi.”

“But—”

Omega laid a hand on Synnovea’s arm. “Rescuing other clones is sort of a side project of ours,” she offered apologetically. “So is overcoming ridiculous odds. So, I think you’re stuck with us.” She smiled. “It’s what friends do.”

Synnovea made some wordless garbled sound of frustration, then took a deep breath, sandwiching her hands together in front of her face. With a disgruntled look that managed to encompass everyone in the room, she lowered her arms. “Ar-Ex, cancel that. We’re taking a different ship.”

*  *  *

Synnovea’s hand slid along the length of her lightsaber hilt, fidgeting with the loop that attached to her belt for what felt like the hundredth time. Pulling it from her side, she ran her sensitive fingers across every inch of its familiar surface, knowing every screw, every clamp, the way the blade emitter fit so snugly that she couldn’t even find the groove between it and the handle. She frowned as her touch rounded over the end; the pommel cap had come a bit loose. She tightened it, screwing it down firmly. 

“You’ve been messing with that since we took off,” Omega noted, slipping into the jumpseat next to her. “Are you worried about him? Triage, I mean. I’m sure you’re good friends.”

“I’d only known him for half the war,” Synnovea said, leaning back in her chair as she idly spun the handle in her hands. “It wasn’t even my squad, or battalion; it was my master’s.”

Hunter slouched against the opposite wall, scratching his wrist. “So, you took over the battalion mid-war. What were you doing beforehand, and what happened to your master?”

She hesitated before answering. “My master had…certain missions issued by the Council.”

“What kind of missions?”

“The kind that never get put on the books. The kind that, if we were caught, was understood that we were acting of our own volition. They were…educational, and I learned quickly. But after a few such assignments, my master stopped bringing me. Never really explained why. He simply said that he had made mistakes with his first Padawan that he wasn’t going to make the second time around, whatever that meant. More and more often, I was assigned duties in the infirmary. It took a while, but I gradually began to accept that perhaps I was meant for a quieter service than I originally envisioned. Until the war changed everything, for everyone.

“The Council used my skills for treating civilians and personnel on Christophsis after the blockade was removed, but most of the time I was assigned to the Venator Audacity.” She coughed a little. “I was apparently cheaper to recharge than a medical droid. Then, when my master was again tasked for some hidden duties…I was given the 867^th in the middle of the siege on Saleucami.”

“There must have been an adjustment phase after serving mostly a medical role for so long,” Echo commented.  “For the troops, as well.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” she agreed with a disgusted sigh. “My master doesn’t play well with others, so the officers had grown used to running the battalion their own way in his absence. It took a while before the ice began to thaw, so to speak. Beacon Squad were the first troopers to defrost, so I knew them best.

“Battlefield theory is one thing in the classroom or the debate parlors. It’s another thing when losing twenty units means twenty unmoving lumps on the ground, lumps with arms and legs, and faces.” Synnovea’s gaze drifted downwards, her eyes tracing the lines in the floor paneling before she glanced up at the others, her expression somber. “Force depletion reports have a slightly different impact when you know all their names. I wasn’t losing units, I was losing men.”

            Her head drooped a bit lower. “I don’t think they expected any more of me than to patch up a few troops and maintain the status quo. However, after several weeks I caught this wisp of a rumor that Trademaster Farsin’s children were deathly ill. The trademaster’s extended family had Separatist alliances, but I was hoping that, if I could manage to heal his family, we might forge a new agreement and gain the starport for the Republic instead. So, a few of us snuck into Taleucema one night to negotiate.”

“Bargaining with Separatists seldom goes well. Did he agree to open the starport to our armies after you helped him?” Echo asked, looking skeptical.

Synnovea hesitated. “He was…made to see reason. As I predicted, gaining control of the starport made it possible to end the siege on Saleucami.”

“And when your master returned, you stayed with them?”

She shrugged. “Like I said, I was a cheaper alternative than shipping additional medical supplies. Also, I was also equipped with offensive capabilities.”

Echo leaned forward slightly, his voice carefully neutral. “Offensive capabilities aren’t exactly what comes to mind when I hear about a healer getting reattached as troop commander.”

Her bark of laughter was humorless and a trifle melancholy. “I learned some lessons a little too well. The only thing I’m better at than putting things back together is taking them apart. Tactical droids. Negotiators. Secretaries of trademasters. Whatever would end the blasted war faster.” Splaying her hands wide beneath her lightsaber hilt, she slowly closed her fingers over the grooved metal cylinder. “And it turns out, everyone has a use for that sort of skill. Even the Jedi.”

Hunter nodded, his expression serious. “Sounds like you had to adapt in ways most wouldn’t understand. But sometimes that’s what it takes to survive.”

Warbling enthusiastically, Ar-Ex whirled around the corner, his sensor lights flashing in a rapid pattern that couldn’t quite keep up with the series of multi-toned beeps that issued from his tapered dome.

“No, Ar-Ex, you need to stay on the ship.” The astromedic droid cooed dismally, and Synnovea patted him in sympathy. “What makes you unique also makes you stand out, and that’s exactly what we’re trying to avoid in a stealth mission.”

Wrecker cackled raucously. “Yeah,” he chortled, “they always start that way.”

“And this one must remain so if we are to succeed in our endeavors,” Tech remarked critically as he tapped the interface of the screen in his hand, searching for displays of Zygerrian facilities. “A firefight will draw every single guard within the perimeter of the city. This maneuver calls for precision, not brute force.”

Rubbing his hand over his scarred baldness, Wrecker grumbled, “Stealth this, stealth that. Can’t we just blast our way in?”

Tech rolled his eyes. “Exfiltration protocols rely heavily on covert entry, otherwise we’ll compromise the entire operation. Triage’s safety is contingent upon our ability to maintain concealment.”

“All those words mean ‘no’, right?”

Omega pointed her toes against the floor to keep from sliding off the seat as the two brothers in the cockpit continued their side argument, focusing instead on Synnovea. “Did you two get along right away, like we did?” Behind her, Hunter rolled his eyes.

Synnovea’s smile was slow, inward. “No,” she admitted, watching the animated debate in the cockpit, “he sort of grew on me.”

Chapter Text

“Not that this isn’t entertaining, but do we really have time for this?”

Synnovea looked over her shoulder, grinning up at Hunter. “Do you want to wait until we’re closer to the city first?”

“Well, no,” he admitted, rubbing the back of his head, “but it’s just a little…ridiculous.”

She gently backhanded his crossed arms. “Four credits says he runs right into that tree.”

Tech peered ahead past both of them. “Unlikely. He’ll fall over again first.”

“Make it ten, then.”

“You’re on.”

“I thought we said no bets?” Echo insisted.

Synnovea chuckled. “That’s before it grabbed his bad ear.”

“Why are we watching instead of helping?” Omega wanted to know. 

“Why do we always land so far away from wherever we’re going?” Wrecker complained as he finally managed to grab the monkey-lizard that had latched onto his shoulders, flinging the animal in a squealing arc. “Get—off’a me! I think that’s the same one as last time.”

Omega cupped her hands around her mouth. “It likes you,” she called encouragingly.

“Yeah, well, it’s gonna like blaster heat in a minute—”

Tech rescued his datapad from the curious grasping fingers of another Kowakian, which chittered its disappointment and scurried up the trunk of a nearby tree. “The markings on the Kowakian you threw look to be the same as the one who climbed on you the last two times. The first time it came back instantly, then in two minutes, now five. Either you are getting better at dislodging the creature, or she is getting the hint. Slowly.”

Synnovea chuckled. “Almost makes you miss the woolamanders, doesn’t it?”

Wrecker grunted. “I wouldn’t go that far,” he grumbled, ripping a fern frond from his back and tossing it aside as he rejoined them.

“What’s wrong with woolamanders?” Omega asked, smiling as a red Kowakian ran in front of her holding Wrecker’s binocs.

“Aw, they look like a lamp chain I saw on Pantora once,” Wrecker muttered, glaring suspiciously at the branches above his head.

Tech’s helmet swung back in Wrecker’s direction. “Was that before or after you broke it?”

Echo half-stepped, half-slid down the overgrown slope in front of them, scooting gingerly around a bush with brown-streaked leaves bigger than his head. “How about you quit taunting him and figure out if we’re still headed in the right direction?” he said pointedly.

Lifting his datapad, Tech monitored the screen as he swept it through the air. “Right over that ridge.”

Hunter’s spirits fell as they crept to the edge of the greenery overlooking the red mesa that supported the city of Sclavos. Imposing city walls punctuated by guard towers overlooked both the humid jungle and the well-paved streets that neatly divided the buildings into organized sections. Shops and personal dwellings were clearly separated from the numerous structures and pits that housed the bulk of Kowak’s business transactions. Brightly colored canopies partially shaded the affluent shoppers from the arid heat reflecting off the tired smooth flagstones that had been imported at tremendous cost to line the paths of the capital. Finally, towering over all else, the massive palace took up the bulk of the mesa, its glittering sides rising to a domed peak.

“Subtle,” Synnovea quipped, as she knelt beside the others, her hands gripping her binocs.

“I’m used to seeing this kind of patrol overlap in Imperial installations,” Hunter mused, “not in a place as low-tech as this. I don’t even see many droids.”

“Wouldn’t exactly inspire confidence in your merchandise if there’s an obvious competitor at hand that won’t disobey, now would it?” Tech commented dryly, lowering his visor as he peered at the guard posts on the walls.

“City’s designed to funnel anyone coming in through the main gates; our chances of sneaking past undetected aren’t that great.”

“Not all of us, at any rate,” Synnovea agreed, lowering her binocs, “but I could get in by myself.”

“Can I borrow those?” Wrecker asked, his hand out. “I can’t find mine.” She passed them over. “Thanks.”

“What’s got into you?” Hunter scowled down at her. “We haven’t even scouted the perimeter yet. You’re not just going to stroll into the city without a plan?”

“Why?” she asked brightly. “You got a better idea?”

He stared at her for a long moment. “This is your idea of sarcasm, is that it?”

“Yep.”

“Well, stop it.” He pivoted on his knee. “Tech, we need eyes inside the city.”

Tech’s datapad screen cast a dim light on the front of his helmet as he tapped a sequence of keys. “I’ll start running a spectral analysis on the city’s surveillance grid, see if I can pinpoint any blind spots or back doors we can exploit.”

Hunter turned to the others. “The rest of you, get to higher ground. Once you find a good vantage point, I want you to get a feel for the patrol routes and their shift changes before we make a move.”

“Absolutely…” Synnovea said, scooting backwards into the underbrush. “And while you guys are doing that, I’m going to go in and actually get Triage.”

His attention still on the city walls, Hunter reached back and snatched the shoulder strap of Synnovea’s satchel, bringing her up short. “That’s not how this works, Synnovea. I’m not letting you go in alone while the rest of us play catch-up. We move together, or we don’t move at all. And you still don’t have a plan.”

“Uh, yeah, I said I was going to go get him…” Synnovea bit back a yelp as he dragged her back into their impromptu semi-circle. “Okay, fine. No, I don’t have a plan…but if I keep moving, they won’t have time to think of a plan, either. So, they cancel each other out. Now leggo.”

Hunter was coming to the end of his patience. “Who the pfassk taught you tactical operations? This isn’t a solo mission; it’s a team effort! Now we want to get your trooper out, but we’re all getting back on the Marauder in the end, is that clear?”

Synnovea opened her mouth to give a scathing reply, when Wrecker’s enormous hand descended almost gently on her shoulder. “Hey, why do we gotta go so fast?”

Swallowing her first response, Synnovea pressed her knuckles to her mouth, closing her eyes.

Tech tapped the screen of his datapad. “Zygerrian cities typically employ layered defenses to protect their property, including proximity sensors and hidden patrol droids, to say nothing of a robust contingent of guards. Without scouting ahead, we risk triggering a full-scale alert.”

 “All right.” She cupped her hands over her face, breathing slowly. “Hunter, tell us what we should do,” she said hollowly, trying not to show how much those words cost her.

 "You’re going to have to find a way into the city.” He handed his helmet to Omega. “But I’m going with you. We need to locate where they took the new prisoners if we’re going to bust your lad out.” He glanced around. “The rest of you have your orders. Keep comm use to a minimum; we don’t know who might be listening.”

*          *          *

“You’re fidgeting again.”

“I can’t help it. A cloak just isn’t comfortable in this heat.”

“Well, get comfortable,” Synnovea snapped, glancing up and down the street. “It’s the only way to cover that tattoo of yours. You don’t want to know what they’ll do to us if they realize we’re not who we say we are.” She yanked the covering over part of Hunter’s face and straightened whatever he had done with the rest of the short cloak. “Remember, we’re from the Chorios system looking for some sturdy slaves that will do well in the mines. You’re my bodyguard, so if anyone tries to talk to you, just grunt and look unwelcoming. That should come naturally.” Hunter muttered a word she didn’t know but guessed it wasn’t complimentary. “See? That’s it,” she said cheerfully, patting his rigid shoulder.

He stared down at her. Synnovea waltzed along the dully polished smoky quartz pathways as if she spent every afternoon peering into crowded slave pens and critically pinching the arms of collared aliens that stood, resentful but silent, as they were poked and prodded like herdbeasts. “You seem to be enjoying yourself.”

“I’m just a better actor than you are,” she murmured as they paused beneath an emerald-hued awning for a brief respite from the unrelenting sun. “My life has depended upon it in the past.”

Hunter made a face as a cart pulled by two aromatic bantha trundled past. “I thought espionage was beneath the Jedi.”

She winked at him, craning her neck to peer over the heads of passersby as she got her bearings. “That’s what made us so good at our job.” She snapped her fingers. “Come. This way. There are a lot of guards, but most of them are solitary. No paired patrols inside the city walls.”

“But you had no one to call for help if things went south,” he commented, using these moments to scan the rooftops. “You said that the Council didn’t officially recognize your little ‘outings’. Not many guards up there…but I see a fair share of probe droids. This place is like a fortress.”

“The Council didn’t officially recognize a bunch of things,” Synnovea said as they continued along the broad street. The brittleness in her tone surprised him, but as he twisted to glance at her, she halted. “Damn. They really like their ten-meter walls. I mean, like, fssshhoooo…” and she swept her hand in a rising curve that encompassed a broad section of the imposing ramparts.         

“We’ll have to do something about those guard posts,” Hunter commented, then abruptly jerked in surprise as a coffle of Rodians and humans shuffled past. He grabbed Synnovea, pulling her out of the way. “Those are kids,” he hissed.

Glancing over her shoulder, she looked forward again as if seeing an everyday occurrence, though her body tensed in quiet anger. “Looks like it. The lucky ones are sold with their families. These…well, let’s just say that there are a number of jobs people can find for children with no one to protect them.” Pretending to be interested in some collars decorated with enameled onyx, she held one up to stare at the street through the neck hole. “I keep seeing guards go down this way…”

One of the human children looked up at Hunter, and he was unnerved by the vacant look of hopelessness in their eyes. “How do you know that?” he whispered. It was difficult to watch the thin bodies covered by ragged clothes stumble along the street and not envision Omega among them. Maybe he shouldn’t have let her come…

“Because that’s what happened to me.”

Hunter’s head snapped up just as Tech’s voice came thinly from within his vest pocket. “Hunter, I have the layout for the underground tunnels and cells beneath the slave pits which the guards apparently refer to as the Nest. It’s a veritable warren, with only one entry/exit point that is heavily guarded. However, that is where they take most of the new captures to be processed, so that is most likely where they took Triage.”

Hunter jerked the commlink out of his pocket. “What about their air support?” he whispered into the device.

Echo’s voice trickled from the device. “Mostly Aurore-class freighters for transport, a few personal ships. There’s a royal barge that looks like it’s too big to free itself from the planet’s gravitational pull, let alone give pursuit. Nothing on-planet that can outrun the Marauder.”

Synnovea’s head turned slightly, a deep frown line appearing between her brows as her eyes skimmed the crowd. “A ripple…” she whispered to herself.

“Copy that.” He stuffed the gadget back into his pocket. “We’ve got what we needed; let’s go.” Looking over his shoulder as he spoke, he stilled, lowering his hands. “You’re doing that, that thing again. That face thing.” He peered more closely, narrowing his eyes. “What is it?”

“Nothing. Just nerves. It’ll pass.” She waved her hand in the direction of the massive gates that overlooked much of the city. “Come on. I don’t want to spend any more time in this wretched city than we have to, and we need to come back here tonight.” Her gaze swept the area one more time, then she shook her head, dislodging her thoughts.

*          *          *

Hunter pointed at a compound in the holoprojection. “That’s where we think they’re holding your trooper.”

“Yeah, but then I, I sensed something. Something off, something wrong,” Synnovea answered, suppressing a shudder as she laced her fingers tightly together.

“Oh,” Wrecker nodded with understanding, looking at Hunter, swirling his finger in a circle around his face. “Did she do the thing?”

“I did not do the thing.”

“You kind of do,” Echo said apologetically.

Synnovea threw up her hand. “Fine, I did the thing!” She rubbed the back of her neck, looking uncomfortable. “Just, for a moment there in Sclavos, I felt…small. Trapped.” Shaking her head vigorously to rid herself of the sensation, she rocked back on her knees. “It’s hard to describe. Most likely just bad memories.”

Hesitating a moment, Hunter asked, “What you said before, is it true?”

Nodding, Synnovea tapped the projector, changing the angle of the projected map. “Early as I can remember, I was a slave until my master found me on Gus Talon. I was seven years old then.”

Echo blinked. “I thought the Jedi didn’t take younglings that age. Usually they’re too young to remember much of their past when they start…”

Intent on dialing the image into focus, Synnovea mumbled, “Yeah, they make exceptions for things…when it suits them. I had to catch up with a lot of the Padawan training, but it was worth it to confound expectations.” She tapped the device, and the warped image cleared up. “Always thought we’d go back one day and free the rest of them, something like that.”

Omega watched Synnovea’s calm, politely expressionless face. “But you didn’t, did you?”

Synnovea glanced down at her, a frown line appearing between her brows. “Why would you say that?”

“Your face goes sort of blank when something’s bothering you. Nala Se did it all the time, so it’s easy for me to notice.”

“Is it like the thing?” Wrecker asked, making the motion again.

“It’s like the thing, but more like the face she made when she had to fight Carnage,” Omega answered matter-of-factly, waggling her hand in a so-so gesture.

“Ohhh, that one,” Wrecker said with a groan. “Yeah, she’s used that one a few times.”

Echo grunted. “But it’s not as bad as when she gets really mad…”

“What does she do, then?”

“Remember that evening when they were trying to repair the jukebox because it was stuck on ‘The Twins of Kira’ for the whole day, and it was raining tookas and hounds outside, and she caught Venth raising thirty against her high fleet when all he had was a weak squadron?” He pointed at Wrecker. “That face.”

Wrecker leaned back, pointing back at Echo in a gesture of slow discovery. “You mean that face?” He shook his head. “No, that was scary enough seeing it once, thank you very much…”

Watching the back and forth of their conversation like the moves of a wrestling match, Synnovea snapped, “What, you’ve made a list of the different faces I make?”

“Well, not a comprehensive list, exactly,” Tech admitted, showing his datapad screen. “You see, your verifiable reactions have, at best, created a rudimentary scatter chart with significant outliers depending on initial mood and hunger levels—”

“Right,” Synnovea muttered through her hand. “Sorry I asked.”

Omega looked over Tech’s shoulder. “You’re not going to get satisfactory readings with a scatter graph,” she said, “Why not use a chart to determine the constants?”

“Because no self-respecting statistician uses a flow chart for analysis,” Tech informed her in an exhausted tone. “But perhaps…”

A hand reached up and yanked the datapad down as Synnovea leaned into their little huddle. “Listen, could we—hi there—could we, perhaps, focus on something other than what my face does when I talk? Like our little infiltration gang exercise?”

“Exfil,” Tech corrected automatically as he brought the map closer to one of the larger buildings within the part of the city designed to hold unpurchased slaves. “The entrance to the Nest is within this compound, composed of a series of nesting squares that keep groups of captures separated from each other—oh, now that is interesting…”

“What?”

“These dividing walls are calculated with the golden ratio, how fascinating—”

“Tech,” Hunter growled, “we’re breaking in tonight, if you’re quite done being impressed with slaver engineering…”

“Oh, yes. As I was saying, the entrance is within this compound on the northern side…”

*          *          *

“Careful, now,” Hunter whispered as Omega shimmied her way up the rappelling cord. “Up and over…” he watched tensely as she swung her leg over the edge of the wall. “Wrecker, you see her?”

“Yep, she’s making her way down. We got her on this side.”

“You lot don’t have to be so worried about me,” Omega griped beneath her breath as she slid the last few meters into Wrecker’s hands.

“Try that line again when we’re not in Slaver’s Central.” Gripping the cable with both hands, he flowed over the outer wall of the city, followed closely by Tech. The smells of baking bread and freshly tapped ale were no longer in the air, and the canopied walkways were almost painfully quiet.

“You never answered my question,” Omega’s voice chirped as they stole quietly along the darkened path between the silent buildings, keeping to side streets whenever possible. The Zygerrian guards stationed on the tops of buildings sauntered about their business, and their meandering courses were easy to predict.

Halting at one intersection, Wrecker turned when everyone caught up. “The golden rations are up ahead—”

Tech interrupted. “Golden ratio, Wrecker.”

“Whatever. Tech’s little wall set is up ahead. Looks like the gate is locked up tight. Do you want to go over, or through?” Wrecker held up a grenade invitingly.

“Over.” Hunter laced his fingers together, boosting Tech and then Echo before climbing over himself.

“So how come you never went back to free your friends on Gus Talon?” Omega asked as she received a boost from Wrecker to scramble over the gate.

“What?” Synnovea blinked. “Hurry up and get over.” She vaulted neatly across the bars, barely touching the top of the wall with her hand before landing next to Omega, who began speaking again as soon as she set foot on the ground. ‘We just…never got around to it.”

Hunter’s voice overrode them on the channel. “In case neither of you have noticed, we’re literally in the middle of enemy territory, so I suggest we table this conversation for another time and keep our heads up.” His tone was so scathing that no one spoke for several minutes as they scaled the interlocking compound walls around the wide stairs carved into the ground in the center of the dividers.

Running lightly across the open area, Synnovea paused suddenly at the entrance to the Nest.

“What are you doing? We’re exposed up here,” Echo whispered, motioning her to come down.

In the moonlight, her brow furrowed, her attention tugged away by a sense of unease. “I have a bad feeling about this…” The air felt weighted, as if the entire compound was holding its breath, waiting.

“The guard will turn back this way any second! Come on!”

Shaking her head to dispel her misgivings, Synnovea followed him down the stairs of the tunnel, instinctively ducking her head even though she was well within the vertical clearance. She felt the temperature drop almost instantly, a whiff of unnaturally cool air in the corridor chilling the sweat on her skin to an uncomfortable tacky residue.

The eerie normalcy of well-spaced lighting and swept corridors seemed so incongruous with the rumble of half a dozen whispered languages and muffled sobs that echoed off the walls. They skimmed down the various intersections, at times stopping with their hearts in their mouths until the hallways were empty once more and they could continue.

“Wrecker, you and Omega keep an eye on this corridor. Let us know if you hear anyone coming this way,” Hunter ordered quietly, edging his way to the next intersection. Waving his blaster, the rest of them hurried noiselessly down the path, following Tech’s gestured directions further into the Nest.

Synnovea shivered, though not with cold. “So much…tension,” she whispered. “From all the cells we’re passing.”

“Can you blame them?” Hunter scoffed. “I’d be pretty pissed if I were in one of these things.”

“That’s not what I felt from most of the slaves yesterday,” she objected as they crept deeper into the Nest’s tunnels. “They were scared, and sad…this is different.”

“You heard what Tech said. They put new captures in the Nest to depersonalize them. So, these cells are full of people who haven’t given up yet.”

“Maybe, on our way out, we could unlock these—”

“Oh, no…” Hunter spun around so quickly that she had to jerk her head back to avoid being backhanded by his blaster. “We’re taking enough of a risk for your trooper. Don’t go all Jedi on me now and start insisting we free every single one of these poor souls.”

“I’m not a Jedi anymore,” she threw back staunchly, glowering at the face of his helmet.

“Yeah? Then what are you?”

Synnovea fell silent, and he turned back and followed Tech, not waiting for a response. After several moments, she followed in their wake.

The minutes stretched to unbearable tension until, pausing in one corridor, Tech announced, “This is the correct location. Third door on the left.”

Hunter turned to Synnovea. “After you.”

Swallowing, she squared her shoulders, willing her tread to be calm, sedate. The cell up ahead pulsed with a level of anger on such a high frequency, screaming like the birds along the coastline of Yavin IV, that she found her boots moving faster, until she was practically jogging when she reached the door. Sternly suppressing the chaotic emotions coming from the other cells, she passed her hand over the door panel, slowing her motion just enough for the hummm of the lock to flash green, then she was squeezing past the door even as it was still opening.

She froze, her eyes taking in the bulky form curled up on the bench facing away from her, draped in a thin blanket that had nearly as many holes as threads. “Wait,” she whispered as the man sat up, the ragged covering sliding down from his head and shoulders. “This isn’t anger I’m sensing.…”

Waiting next to Echo in the corridor, Hunter was eyeing the underground lighting system—most of these were run with tibanna, a notoriously volatile gas also used as fuel and blaster cartridges—when the edge of another door caught his eye.

It moved.

His vibroblade was in his hand before he thought about it. Next to him, Echo murmured uneasily. “Hunter…”

“Hunter.” Wrecker’s voice was softer than usual. “Everything’s fine on our end.”

Which was their code that everything was indeed not fine. The farthest from it. The plan was ruined. They had to get out, now.

“Synnovea,” he snapped, as the door slid open, “it’s a—”

“—a trap,” she finished quietly, her voice as cornered in the cell as she was, staring down the barrel of a Zygerrian blaster rifle in the hands of one of the slavers.

“Can we make a run for it?” Echo asked as he backed into Hunter, his blaster drawn. As if on cue, another cell door slid open, then another, and another, until all the doors on the block were open, and the corridor was filled with grinning Zygerrians, their feline eyes glowing with malicious intent.

Tech raised his arms. “That…could be problematic.”