Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

I made it past the first hurdle in the first few minutes, willing my grimoire into my hands after a bit of trial and error. It was a strange sensation, like I was getting lighter, but not in a way that affected my actual weight. I opened the book, or as quickly as possible with my wrists connected with the binders, a word for the manacles that came to my mind fluidly but that I didn't actually remember knowing.

My own memory of Star Wars was spotty, at best, and a lot of the more minor details had long since faded. I had read plenty of the books while I was younger, from what was now called Legends, and I had seen all three trilogies, original, prequels, and sequels. But it had been ages since I read the books, and I didn't have nearly enough time or energy to see all the side movies, HBO series, and cartoons, even though I had heard some of them were really good. I'd seen some, but my memory of those was even more spotty than the rest. So while I did know some things, there were a lot of holes in that knowledge.

And that didn't even get into the fact that the entity had called this a "variant universe," a combination of the books and the newer stuff, which would have typically had a lot of overlap. I idly wondered which origin story one of my favorite characters, Wedge Antilles, would have in this universe. I was more familiar with the version from the legends, with dead parents as his catalyst to become one of the greatest starfighter pilots in the galaxy, but I couldn't actually wish that on someone.

I took a deep breath to focus myself and opened the book, revealing thick, sturdy paper that looked crude and rough, like it was handmade. Covering that thick paper was simple, straightforward, printed English words. I spent some time reading and skimming the book, making notes on interesting things to read in more detail later.

As far as I understood, this book was broken into six sections. First were the five magic schools available to the player in Skyrim: alteration, conjuration, destruction, illusion, and restoration. The final section was about enchanting, which was extremely interesting, but considering that the first page immediately mentioned that setting up an enchanting altar was "a precise art that required stable ground and proper materials," I skipped it for now.

I also noticed that conjuration was missing any mention of the necromancy spells I expected there to be, nor was there anything about Deadra summoning. Restoration was also different, missing anything to do with repelling the undead. I wanted to investigate further, but I had more important things to do.

I flipped back to the beginning of the grimoire, which started with a few pages about how to access your magic, something that needed to be done before you could even begin to practice magic.

I would like to say that during the several hours I spent reading, I had mastered all of the novice spells and was simply waiting for my opportunity to strike. Unfortunately, it seemed like this would not be that type of adventure. Learning magic was not the simple process of reading the book and suddenly knowing exactly how to perform the spell, like the gamified magic of the games often pretended.

Instead, learning to cast a spell, or rather, spells in general, required precise control over magicka, or as the rest of the fantasy genre called it, mana. According to the grimoire, this is why more people in Skyrim didn't know magic. It seems not everyone could manipulate their mana well enough to work through even novice spells, and the ability to do it beyond novice spells was actually relatively rare. Luckily the entity seemed to have blessed me with some skill. As the book described, the process of learning to manipulate and control your mana for the first time usually took an intense two or three days of long meditation sessions, all to get in touch with my inner magic. I was able to work through the process in five or six hours. It was still impressive, at least by real-world standards, but I could see I wouldn't become an Archmage overnight.

The description of how to access and manipulate my mana was frustratingly vague in most parts, leading me to fill in the gaps as best I could. According to the book, the process of drawing mana from your aetherial core was one that was unique to each individual, using visualization, focusing techniques, and even chants to draw the power from within. I tried visualizing it in several different ways, eventually settling on the image of my core being molten metal, which I pulled and drew in long, still-molten strands.

I spent so long visualizing it, my eyes closed and the grimoire in my lap, that at the end, I swore I could feel the heat in my arms, slowly being drawn, hammered, and pulled out to my palms. When I finally succeed, I open my eyes to find mana, a pure white cloud of energy that shimmered and put off a fair amount of light pouring from my palms. I stared at the glowing cloud for a few seconds before cutting it off when I realized I could feel my mana reserve slowly emptying. It was a hollow feeling, not painful but definitely not pleasant either.

As I released my mana, I could feel the pool slowly starting to refill. While I didn't exactly have a stopwatch on hand, I could immediately tell that running out of mana in a fight would mean that I was basically out until the fight was over. For prolonged battles, I could take cover for a breather and let my reserves refill, but for any dispute that was constant action, it took way too long to refill for me to wait.

I could only hope that would change, either over time or with the help of enchanted items. While I doubted I could get any of the infinite mana tricks working with this enchanting variation, even a few small increases to the amount and speed of magicka regen would be incredible.

Once I figured out how to pull out my mana, I moved on to actually learning my first spell. Like learning to pull my mana from my core, there was a certain level of personalization, mostly in how I controlled and manipulated my mana once it was in my palms. But unlike the entirely personal process of drawing out my mana, casting spells had specific actions that the mana must go through before and after leaving my palm. Rotations, twists, splits, mergings, geometric shapes, and a variety of different pathways all needed to happen before the magic was forced out of your body. Even how the energy left your body changed depending on what kind of spell you were casting, be it targeted, a spray, on yourself, fired from your hands, and several other spell casting types.

The problem was that all of that needed to be done, but how exactly it needed to be done was heavily influenced by your own metrics. Everything from your natural essence to the alignment of your soul influenced this process. This meant that while you knew the sparks spell started with a spiral matrix so that your final expulsion could travel through its eye, forcing the charged energy to rotate and follow a tighter pathway, how tight or loose your spiral needed to be was dependent on several personal factors.

The bottom line was that there were two stages to the learning process, starting with memorizing the spell matrix and ending with a long tuning process that included an incredible amount of practice and experimentation. The grimoire assured me at several points that the natural aspect of the magic and spell matrix would ingrain itself over many uses, meaning that eventually, after reaching a certain proficiency with the spell and naturalizing its use, the matrix would get easier and easier to create. This would result in me needing less mana to use it, as well as eventually making casting it as simple as willing the matrix into my palm.

Considering that after four hours of tuning, adjusting and experimenting with the matrix, I had only cast the sparks spell a handful of times, it would be a long time before I would get to that point. Twice I cast the spell by random accident while tweaking the distance between the pathways of the first spiral.

In the end, the constant working with my magic left me feeling tired, as if I had just spent the entire day at work rather than sitting down, doing absolutely nothing physical. I willed my grimoire away, practiced sparks a few more times, adding a few more scorch spots on the cell wall in the process before leaning my head back and closing my eyes.

I woke up to the sensation of someone kicking me in the ribs and shouting at me.

"Five more minutes," I said, yawning and ignoring them, leaning my head against the corner of the room

"Get up, human!" A voice shouted at me, prompting me to look up at them. "Get up!"

Standing in the doorway, one hand on a blaster and the other on some sort of metal cylinder with a red button, was a short, hairy, non-human creature. It had entirely black eyes and a large mouth with a sharp row of teeth behind thin lips. I didn't recognize the species, nor did my newly implanted memories, which was not surprising considering just how many species of creatures existed in Star Wars. When I didn't immediately jump up to obey him, he pointed the metal wand in his off hand at me and pressed the red button.

A zap of some sort of energy sent a spike of pain up my arms, causing me to curse and my arms to tense up. The pain, which was clearly coming from my binders, continued to stab into my arms until the alien stopped holding down the button.

"Alright! Jesus, alright!" I said, standing up by sliding my back up the wall. "No reason to get pissy."

The alien didn't say anything, it just stepped back out of the doorway and around the corner, disappearing from sight. I could see a hallway through the doorway, and another cell door that was already opened, a male Twi'lek with green skin stepping out. He was also in binders and was not looking happy about it. I stepped out into the hall, looking back and forth.

A dozen or so people were stepping out of cells, including various aliens and a few humans as well. I spotted a Wookie, two more Twi'leks, three humans, a Duros and two more species I didn't recognize. All of them were wearing binders. Their expressions ranged from angry and defiant to terrified.

"Oh fuck." I said before getting the blue Twi'lek's attention. "Hey, this is a slave ship, isn't it?"

He looked at me in confusion for a moment before nodding slowly.

"Fuck, I really did piss them off," I mumbled.

I kept looking around, this time ignoring my fellow captives and focusing on our captors. I could see four of them, two at each end of the hall. All of them were armed, blasters in hand and ready to use should we step out of line. Two were species I didn't recognize, but the other two were Weeqay. A fifth human, the only one with his weapon in its holster, stood at the far end of the hallway.

"Alright, the quicker you are off my ship, the quicker I can get paid," He said, taking a step forward and motioning toward us. "Get moving!"

Two of the guards started shoving the closest prisoners, forcing the group to move forward to avoid getting knocked down. We were led down an empty corridor and then down a ramp that led out of the ship.

As we exited the slave ship, I could see that it was sitting in the center of a decent-sized landing pad that was old but clearly functional. The air was a little on the warm and humid side and stank of pollution. I didn't have much time to pause and examine the scenery before the prisoner behind me pushed me forward.

The guards led us across the landing pad to a waiting speeder, a large transport model that looked heavily modified to transport unwilling cargo. There was a driver in the front end, as well as two more guards. All three of them looked bored, a tempting target, but I could feel how many people were watching me at once.

"Alright, you karking wastes of space, get in!" One of the guards, the one that had woken me up, shouted.

I smirked and climbed in, everyone else following behind. When all of us were piled into the relatively cramped space, the door was sealed behind us. The modifications to the transport were even more apparent inside, as the interior was reinforced with metal plates. I looked around at my fellow prisoners, a few of them looking at me strangely because of my smirk.

"So… does anyone know where we are?" I asked, everyone swaying slightly as the speeder began to move.

"Nar Shaddaa" One of the humans, the only other male, said after a long pause. "They said they were taking us to Nar Shaddaa."

"Gotcha, alright… So… Who wants to escape?"

I ignored the strange looks that the people who had heard were giving me as I focused on my binders. As I was practicing my magic and realized just how much time and effort would be needed to learn different spells, I spent a good while thinking through just which spell I wanted to learn first. Granted, at the time, I still overestimated how much I would get done, but I had purposely chosen spark because it was an offensive spell and it was a possible way to escape.

I focused on my magic for a moment, going through the motions of internally creating the spell matrix for sparks, this time in both hands at once. It destabilized once, but on the second try, I got it right. I curled my hands around at a painfully tight angle and unleashed the spell. Sparks of electricity fired across the short gap between my palms and the binder cuffs, sparking off and frying the internal electronics.

Of course, the electricity also sparked through the binders and into my arms, shocking and burning me. It wasn't as bad as getting the sparks spell fired directly into me, but I still let out a pained groan and clenched my jaw. After a full two seconds of firing the spell, I stopped and tested the now smoking binder, yanking my arms apart. On the second pull, the binders popped open and fell off my arms, falling to the ground.

I looked up, rubbing my slightly burned wrists, to find everyone was staring at me.

"So… Who's next?"

Chapter Text

Considering I had just shot lightning from my hands, I wasn't entirely surprised when not everyone jumped to get their binders removed. In the end, I ended up freeing the Wookie, whose binders were actually larger and more heavy-duty than my own, as well as the male and one of the female humans, the Duros and one of the female Twi'lek.

"What's next?" The Duros asked, looking around the interior. "We jump out when they open the hatch?"

"No, cannot wait. Sale place be strong." The Twi'lek said in broken Basic. "Need out now."

The Wookie nodded and huffed in agreement before letting out a low growl and whine, pointing to my hands.

"Not really the time to explain my talents, big guy." I pointed out, stepping towards the door. "Do you-"

The Wookie grabbed my hand and started pulling me to the back of the ship, easily overpowering me with his massive strength. He pressed my hand against the back of the ship's interior, releasing me and letting out another long growl, chuffing at the end.

"What, you want me to shock here?" I asked, looking at him like he was crazy. "Wouldn't we fall out of the sky?"

"No, no, he is right. An older, retrofitted transport like this isn't going to have the right insulation between us and the thrusters," The human female responded, having stepped closer when the Wookie pulled me to the back.

"That's great, but I'm worried about falling out of the sky. How high are we right now?"

"The forward thrust and the repulsorlifts are separate systems for a transport this large," The human female explained. "If you knock them out, they will be forced to land, not plummet from the sky."

I looked at the Wookie, who nodded in confirmation.

"Alright, sure," I said, shrugging before putting up both of my hands, holding them a few inches away from the wall. "Maybe hold on to something anyway?"

By now, my Magicka was already mostly full, so after I pulled and shaped my magic, pushing it out into a double casting of sparks, I held it, streaming electricity into the metal wall. The lights along the back all sparked and popped before the rest of them flickered once. I stopped, about half of my magicka pool empty.

When the sound of the arcing and sparking electricity stopped, the sound of the speeder's power systems struggling and a high-pitched whining filled the room. A few seconds passed, and the speeder began to noticeably descend. A mumble of excitement passed through everyone in the back, and I shared a look and a nod with the Wookie.

"Good call," I said, looking over at the woman as well. "Glad you spoke up."

We all moved around a bit into more natural positions, kicking the ruined binders to the far side of the compartment. I moved next to the door, just barely within arms reach. Those of us with freed hands hid them behind ourselves as the speeder rocked slightly from a less than perfect landing. We waited for a long moment, silently watching the only entrance into the holding area.

Just when I was about to give up on waiting, the door slid open, revealing one of the guards, of a species I didn't recognize. He was holding his blaster pistol out, ready to open fire if he needed to. He stepped up into the holding area but stayed in the door. He was silent as he scanned the room, his blaster up and his other hand on the rod they used to control the binders. He was about to turn out and leave when he spotted the two singed and slightly cratered impact points of my spark spells. His eyes bulged, and he quickly tapped the restraint wand, causing everyone still wearing a cuff to shout, curse, and scream.

Unfortunately for him, this didn't help at all.

I blasted the back of his head with electricity, locking the humanoid alien up completely, only a long groan escaping from his mouth. The Twi'lek reached out and yanked the control rod from his hand, immediately using it to unlock everyone's binders in a quick wave. The Duros reached out and grabbed the slaver's blaster, tearing that from his grip as well. He quickly pressed it up against his side, into his armpit, and fired twice. The whine of the blaster was muffled by the now-dead guard's arm, with barely any light escaping either. The slaver fell to the ground as I released my spell, first to his knees before slumping to the ground. Smoke rose steadily from the corpse.

With our first hurdle down, I was already moving, stepping around the corpse and through the doorway. Magic danced and sparked around my hands as I started prepping the spell again, stepping out of the speeder.

We were in the middle of a massive city, with huge buildings all around us, which was unsurprising considering what planet we were on. Several bystanders were looking at us, but no one was moving to do anything. I turned to see another of the guards, inspecting the speeder less than twenty feet away. He caught me out of the corner of his eye, doing an actual double take. His eyes widened, his alien jaw and large ears moving erratically as he began pulling out his blaster. I raised both hands and blasted him with electricity, sparks dancing up and around his body as one stream struck his torso and the other seared his face.

The slaver guard twitched and stumbled, the lower stream of electricity doing very little through his armored outfit, but the stream to his unprotected face clearly caused more damage. I held the beam as I walked closer, only cutting it off when I was in range to lift my booted foot up, kicking him in the face as hard as I could. I followed it up with a second and third boot to the face after he had fallen down back to the ground.

I turned around just in time to see the Wookie tear the driver from the vehicle cockpit and slam him into the side of the speeder. The driver was still moving after the first and second blows but went still after that. When the Wookie finally dropped him, there was a noticeable bloody dent in the side of the vehicle.

More of my fellow liberated prisoners poured out of the transport speeder, looking around, a lot of them stuck with lost looks on their faces. I shook my head and started going through the pockets of the guard I had taken down.

I took everything that was useful, including a few credit chips, a comms unit, a vibroknife and sheath, as well as a few spare power packs for the blaster. I pulled off the armor he was wearing on his chest, quickly pulled his blaster holster off, and stood up straight.

The female human who had spoken up before was already done stripping the guard the Wookie had splattered while the Duros looked around, holding the blaster at the ready.

"So… we should go, right?" I asked, nodding towards a nearby alleyway.

"Yes, whoever runs this operation will investigate," The Duros responded. "We should not be here when they do."

"Right. Well, I'm heading this way," I said, grabbing the crappy chest plate the guard had been wearing. "You're welcome to join in, strength in numbers and all that."

With that, I turn and walk away from the wrecked speeder, stepping into an alleyway and disappearing into the shadows of Nar Shaddaa.

I had two people following me by the time I took the first left turn in the alleyway. I breathed a large sigh of relief when I saw that the Wookie stayed behind. It would have been nice to have an infallible ally that I could completely trust, but the idea of having someone that was dedicated to me, putting my life before theirs… sacrificing for me like Chewbacca did for Han… honestly sounded exhausting.

I stopped around the corner, letting them catch up while I put on the very basic armor IO had just looted. Even though its previous owner had been an alien, it still covered my vital areas. Once that was on, I started clipping on the pistol holster.

I would need to work out how to use this specific pistol at some point because my extra knowledge basically stopped at "point and pull the trigger." The Duros and the human woman turned the corner and spotted me as I was finishing the holster, the former giving me a nod. I pushed off the wall and nodded to them. I continued to walk down the alley, both of them walking beside me.

"What were they planning?" I asked, referring to the people we left behind. "Please tell me they had something."

"They were going to make their way to a starport. Hopefully they will find a ship to take them off-world." The Duros answered. "We are fortunate. If they had chipped us before, we would already be dead."

"Explosive slave chip?" I asked the blue alien nodding. "Jesus, that's fucked. Need to come up with a way to beat that…."

We kept on walking for a while, doing our best to put as much distance between us and the wrecked speeder, without looking like we were running from anything.

"Do either of you have any idea how much trouble we are going to have to avoid for what just went down?" I asked as we passed a few carts selling food. "I'm not familiar with the area or the trade. I'm from a peaceful planet, nowhere near here."

Apparently, we had stumbled into an unofficial marketplace of some kind, with various carts and tents set up along a wider-than-usual alleyway. The Duros actually pulled out a credit chip he must have gotten as loot and bought something from on of the vendors as we passed.

"Depends on who was running the operation and how important the guys we just killed are," The woman answered with a shrug. "Considering how shit their equipment was, we should be fine."

I nodded and reached out my hand, which the woman looked at for a moment, before looking up at me suspiciously. When she didn't shake it I scoffed.

"The whole lighting thing is ranged out to like fifty feet. If I wanted to zap you, I don't need to shake your hand."

She paused for a moment before reaching out and shaking my hand. Her grip was firm and her hands were callused.

"It's nice to meet you, circumstances not-withstanding," I said, squeezing her hand before offering the same to the Duros. "Names Deacon Roy. So why did you two follow me?"

"I could get myself home eventually. Not much waiting for me there." The Duros responded, shaking my hand with his large, knotted fingers. "Besides, I saw you shoot lightning from your hand. Sounds like the beginning of an adventure. And Nal Tog. That's my name."

"Adventure, huh? I can promise a whole heck of a lot of excitement if you stick around me, at least," I admitted. "I don't know about adventure, but I don't plan on doing boring very much."

Nal nodded, and I turned to look at the human woman, who shrugged, trying to figure out just how much to reveal.

"Let's just say I'm pretty much already back to where I was before," She said, gesturing to the pistol on one hip and the small bag on the other. "Besides, it just felt right. And I'm Tatnia."

"Well... Let's see if we can't do any better than the bare-bones basics." I said with a smile when she didn't give her last name.

We kept walking, the streets starting to get dark as the sky changed. As it did, the quality of people walking on the streets began to drop at an alarming rate.

At some point, we stopped to ask for directions to someplace cheap to sleep and were directed to a run-down hotel. It was a large building, old and worn, with graffiti covering the exterior walls. It wasn't exactly the Ritz, but at this point, it was more about getting off the street than finding someplace nice.

We stepped into the lobby and waved down a clerk, who was behind some sort of blaster-proof transparent glass. I had intended to only stay for the night, banking on finding somewhere better the following day, but even that would have drained what little money we had recovered during our escape. In the end, I traded my blaster pistol to the clerk behind the counter for three days in a room with two beds.

"Was that really the smartest thing to do?" Tatnia asked as we stepped into the turbolift, riding it up four floors. "I know you've got… other options, but it kind of stands out."

"I know, but not standing out was never really an option for me," I explained with a shrug. "It's going to get a lot weirder."

"How were you doing that?" Nal asked as we stepped into the small room. "Did you have implants? I didn't see any, so perhaps it's biological?"

"Really? You expect me to spill all my secrets right off the bat?" I said, sitting down in the only chair the room had. "Stick around a while first."

"I very much plan on it. I am very curious where your journey leads," He assured me, sitting down at the edge of the bed.

"Right. Well, I should warn you, I don't plan on taking it easy."

"That sounds like you have some sort of plan," Tatnia said, crossing her arms and leaning against the wall next to the door.

I made a so-so gesture with my hand.

"Kinda? More of a vague outline than anything. See, it was slavers who brought us here, so I figure that it should be slavers who fund us getting out," I explained with a smirk. "I mean, they are the perfect target. I don't know about you, but I will sleep easy, well-fed, and happy knowing I made money by killing slavers. And this planet is full of them. Right?"

"Your idea is to steal from slavers?" She asked, an eyebrow raised. "Just like that?"

"Well, we would have to start small," I admitted. "The lighting thing? Yeah, I can do much more than that. I just need some more time to work on it. So we start small and see how we work together. I also need more experience. I'll be the first to admit I don't have much in the killing department."

"You can do more than just the electricity thing?" Nal asked, leaning forward. "What else? Why does it require time?"

"My friend, I can do so much more," I assured him. "There is a reason I didn't have a problem handing over the pistol. So, are you two in?"

"What makes you think you think we are any better off than you?" Tatnia asked, eyeing me skeptically.

"Well, Nal knew his way around that blaster pistol way too well to be a novice," I pointed out, looking over at the red-eyed alien. "You knew just how to kill him and keep it quiet."

"This isn't my first rancor ride," Nal admitted with a shrug.

"And you have the whole "grown up street urchin" vibe going on," I said, looking back at Tatnia. "Which, if I'm willing to dive into a bit of a stereotype, makes you a jack of all trades regarding the shady streets."

She glared at me for a few seconds before shaking her head and looking away. Her lack of denial told me the answer, though, and I couldn't help but chuckle.

"Well, both of you think it over," I said before either of them could respond. "Sleep on it even. We have plenty of opportunities to talk tomorrow."

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Clairvoyance was a spell I had, at first, assumed was purely a video game construct, a way to introduce GPS into a video game that was easy to get lost in. It turns out I was half correct. Clairvoyance was, in fact, one of the novice spells I could learn from my grimoire. What it wasn't, however, was an omniscient direction system that could tell me exactly where whatever I wanted was.

The description was rather vague, but the directional spell tapped into the aetheric connection between all things and used your knowledge of what you were looking for to tell you exactly where it was. A master of the spell could hear a detailed description of an object, cast the spell, and mark its probable location on a map for you. Unfortunately, it would be years of use before I could reach that level, so I needed a more direct connection to what I was looking for. Namely, I would need to have been there or have held the object in my hand. I would also have to travel the path the spell made for me, not just mark it on the map for others to explore.

Eventually, I would be able to use other people's direct connections to an object or location, but for now, I was more limited. However, it wasn't all bad because this variation of Elder Scrolls magic had two forms of the spell. One was the standard path-following spell that was very similar to the version in the game. This form used the aetheric connections to follow paths taken by other people, but it wouldn't work if the most common path was on a horse or a boat, which translated to a speeder or any other transport for my situation.

The other form was a simple arrow that would float in the air above the caster's palm. It pointed directly to the target, ignoring bodies of water or large landmasses. It was primarily used by sailors to navigate since there were no connections or pathing to follow in large bodies of water. Even better, it was an illusion that I cast on myself, meaning that no one else would be able to see it.

Tatnia and Nal both left the small room to start putting feelers out. All three of us were woefully ignorant when it came to politics and current events around Nar Shaddaa, as neither of my compatriots came from Hutt Space, and I was from a different universe. Hell, I didn't even know when on the timeline I was, and I definitely wasn’t putting off finding out. While I was learning my new spell, both of them would be getting up to speed.

I sat down in the room's single chair and worked through the spell, a familiar pattern now. I started by recreating the matrix as the book described before slowly starting to adapt it to my own harmonics and frequencies, which is where I ran into a bit of trouble. Where the healing spell had sort of just… meshed, my matrix starting off partially usable, this spell seemed to fight me at every turn. It wasn't a monumental struggle, but I couldn't help but feel like it just wasn't gelling with me.

It ended up taking me four hours to finally get the spell to work in both forms, about an hour longer than I had thought. By then, it was about noon, so I set out to find my new friends. I locked up the room and made my way down to the hotel's first floor. This building was surprisingly clean, especially considering I had bought a four-day stay with a used blaster pistol. Then again, with cheap labor in the form of unfortunate masses and droids, there really wasn't any reason not to keep your building clean.

I stopped once I was standing in front of the hotel's main entrance, pushing my hand in my pocket and casting clairvoyance, focusing on Tatnia. A glowing, pale blue billowy path appeared in front of me, leading away from the door and through a crowd of people. I smirked when no one saw the magic, with plenty of people walking through the strange pathway without even hesitating.

I followed the trail for about half an hour, through streets and a few back alleys before finally arriving at a hole-in-the-wall bar. I walked in, ignoring the several looks that were definitely not people sizing me up as a mark as I did, and eventually spotted Tatnia sitting along the back around the corner of the bar, nursing a drink.

She spotted me as I made my way to her, her eyes going wide. I gestured if I could join her, and she winced but nodded, waving down the bartender as I did.

"How in the hells did you find me?" She asked, motioning the bartender to get me one of what she was drinking.

"Finished that thing I was working on. I could find you or Nal anywhere on the planet," I explained, quickly continuing when I realized how that sounded. "Well, I would know your directions. Nothing I can do if you are somewhere I can't get to. Nal not with you?"

"We split up pretty early. He went to a different bar," She explained. "One less friendly to humans."

I nodded and took a sip of the drink Tatnia had bought me. It was alright, a little bitter on the aftertaste for my liking, but it led with a fruity flavor I couldn't identify, which didn't surprise me.

"How are we paying for this?" I asked, turning to look around at the bar, spotting at least two people, a male Twi'lek and a human, still looking at us.

I resisted the urge to flip them off. Instead I turned back to Tatnia, taking another sip of my drink and focusing on her. She was clearly on edge.

"Sabbac," She explained simply, pausing for a moment before continuing. "I've always been good at it."

"I'm sure you're smarter than that, but you didn't go overboard, did you?" I asked, turning back to her, raising my hand in defense when I saw the look she was giving me. "Not doubting you, but I'm sure you've seen what kind of trouble that can get you. Besides, you've got a couple of admirers."

"...I didn't go overboard, just a couple hundred credits from a handful of people. I…I had a reputation as someone to not be messed from... well, from before I got dragged here. I forgot I don't have that anymore." She admitted, with a lot less vigor than she was originally intending. "They are probably going to try and mug us when we leave. I… I was hoping to find someone to help take them down when I leave."

"I'm glad I came along then," I said with a small smile. "It's fine, though. We could use some more stuff."

"What?" She asked, looking at me in confusion.

"What? Do you think they are going to expect me, the unarmed man, to be a threat?" I asked, making sure to turn slightly and show that my hip was bare. "We will catch them off guard. Are you ready to go?"

She looked at me for a moment before shaking her head and downing her drink. I did the same, standing with her. She swiped a credit chip on a scanner on the counter before heading out, with me right behind her. We slowly made our way to a dark alley, both of us ignoring the approaching footsteps. One of them grabbed me, and my ingenious plan was suddenly ruined when instead of holding me hostage, they slid a long vibroknife between my ribs.

The pain was intense, but I still had the presence of mind to cast Sparks, reaching behind me and blasting the one who stabbed me with both hands. I could feel him jerk and switch against my back, the vibroknife cutting me erratically. When he fell to his knees, tearing the knife from my side, I stopped the spell for a moment. I turned to find the Twi'lek holding a blaster with wide eyes, the weapon vaguely pointed at me. Before he could do anything, a red blast of energy whipped by and took him in the chest, a second and third taking him down completely.

I finished off the guy who stabbed me with two blasts of electricity to the face, holding it for a few seconds to cook his brain. When I was sure he was dead, I half sat, half collapsed onto a box along the side of the alleyway. Tatnia stepped closer to me, but I waved her away.

"Loot them first. Take anything worth keeping or selling," I said, already starting up a healing spell in both hands. "I'll be fine."

The healing energies coursed through me, rushing to the stab wound. I could feel it starting to heal me, the process slow but steady. I was lucky that the armor I was wearing, old and worn as it was, had forced him to stab somewhere not immediately dangerous. By the time Tatnia was done and I was out of mana, I was strong enough to stand.

"C'mon, let's put some distance between this and us," I said, wincing and limping as we walked down the alley.

Tatnia quickly helped me by taking my arm around my shoulder and giving me a bit of support. We walked until my mana was refilled, stopping in another alleyway for me to heal again. We repeated this three times until I felt good enough to finish the walk home in one shot, using clairvoyance to get us there. We got more than a few looks as we walked through the hotel, mainly at the blood stain on my shirt, but no one willing to say something came forward. When we entered our room, Nal was waiting for us.

"Oh good, you have returned," He said before spotting the blood on my clothes. "Have you been injured?"

"Got jumped by a few idiots," I said with a shrug. "But on the plus side, I have a blaster again."

"I messed up," Tatnia added. "I'm used to relying on my reputation. Should have realized that I'd get jumped if I started winning."

"How bad is the wound?" Nal asked as I stepped into the refresher, activating the sonic shower.

"Just a shallow stab. I've been healing it on and off," I explained. "I wouldn't be dead even if I couldn't fix myself."

I slowly turned, letting the sonic waves wash away the blood from my skin and my clothes. While I was waiting, I cycled my double healing spell, allowing the healing energies to sink into my wound. It still wasn't fully healed, but it felt like it was a few weeks old. When all of the blood had been cleaned off of me, I turned off the shower and stepped out, playing with the small stab hole that was in my shirt and working very hard not to think about how close I had just come to death… again.

"We wouldn't be able to afford getting you treated," Tatnia pointed out. "You-"

"Tatnia," I said, cutting her off, trying my best to sound understanding. "We both messed up. Learn from it, and move on. I don't blame you, none of us are on our A-game right now."

She looked at me for a long moment and nodded. She looked down at her hands and noticed she was still carrying the small bag of stuff she had pulled off the muggers. She quickly laid it on the bed and started going through it, handing me the blaster pistol and its holster.

It was a beefy bastard with a grip that reminded me of my father's 1911, while the barrel assembly looked like it was meant to be pumped like a shotgun. Its power pack loaded from the side, but it was different from any of the other packs we had. Luckily Tatnia handed me a few spares. The entire weapon had a robust feel to it, like it could survive a lot and keep on firing.

"That is a Bryar. A K-16, I believe," Nal said, holding his hand to me.

I passed him the pistol, and he examined it, pulling out the power pack and looking into its innards. I watched as Tatnia tucked the vibroknife she had looted from one of the muggers into its sheath before attaching it around her leg, hiding it under her pants.

I attached the holster to my right hip, making sure it was secure, before Nal handed me the pistol back.

"It is in decent shape, but its secondary fire is nonfunctional," He explained. "Usually, it can charge a shot to deliver more power. Said function is from a secondary unit inside the pistol. Currently missing."

"But normal shooting works?" I asked, looking down at the pistol.

"Yes. Shouldn't be difficult to fix, either. Common parts. I wonder if mugger knew what he had," He responded. "Bryars are expensive in good condition."

"Well, then maybe we should sell it?" I suggested.

"No, keep it," Nal said, shaking his head. "You need a weapon, just in case."

Nal accepted a backup hold-out blaster, the last weapon Tatnia head pulled off the pair of would-be muggers. As he strapped it to the inside of his jacket, she attempted to split the small collection of credit chips between us, but I waved her off.

"Don't worry about it. You are in charge of food for the next couple of days," I said, getting a nod in return. "Now, do we have enough time to go check around the berthing dock?"

"We do, as long as we pay for a speeder," Nal said, "It would likely take several hours to walk."

It took very little time for us to hire a ride, all three of us climbing into a run-down but functional speeder taxi. The droid driving the speeder was happy to follow my strange directions as I tried to use the compass version of clairvoyance to locate the berthing dock where we had landed the day before. After about ten minutes of flying around, we found it and informed the taxi to drop us off a few blocks away. We didn't make a beeline for the dock immediately, instead walking around for a while, taking in the area.

There were multiple docks connected together in a large U, and all but the one we had landed at were full. Most of them were light and medium freighters, offloading enough cargo that it was basically impossible for them to also be carrying slaves.

After walking around and familiarizing ourselves with the area for a while, we all split up and started subtly trying to find out everything we could. I didn't do much beyond asking a few street vendors how busy the area was under the guess of looking to rent out one berth for my ship. Most of them just shrugged and mainly stayed quiet. It wasn't until later in the afternoon that a Vurk, selling pre-packaged snacks from a cart, gave me a bit more information.

"You're better off going somewhere else," He said, shaking his head. "The owner rents to slavers. It's not illegal, but it's just asking for trouble. He takes bribes to keep them off the records as well, so they don't have to pay taxes to the Hutt clans. Not worth the trouble, my friend."

"How do you know that?" I asked, not having to fake my surprise.

"You'd be surprised what idiots will say in front of a vendor," He said. "I wish you luck in finding a berth for your ship!"

I nodded and bought some snacks before making my way to a predetermined spot to meet with the others.

Chapter Text

I was alone, leaning against a randomly chosen corner, for only a few minutes before Nal joined me, with Tatnia right behind him just a minute later. The sun was just starting to go down, meaning we had about two hours before it started getting unhealthy to be out in the streets. Part of me was tempted to troll the area for more muggers when it got darker out, but the phantom pain of being stabbed in the side shut that idea down.

Waiting for the criminals to come to us was probably a bad idea.

Once we were together, we started sharing what we had learned in hushed voices. Both of their asking around confirmed that the docking berth was frequented by slavers, dropping off somewhere between a dozen to two dozen slaves at a time. They also learned that five different ships would stop by to unload "cargo," all at separate times, seemingly at random, with days in between.

I revealed that the dock's owner was on the take and that that berth was specifically for slave drop-offs. When I added that he also kept them off the records, Nal looked shocked.

"That is ridiculous. Slave trade is legal on Nar Shaddaa," He said, shaking his head. "Avoiding tax is the only explanation, which is stupid enough on a planet where the government won't torture you for stealing from them. Excellent news for us."


"Why?" I asked. "I mean, I understand it's dumb to try and cheat the Hutts when the slavers aren't breaking local laws. But why is it good for us?"

"Because the ships won't exist in the system," The blue-skinned alien explained. "No records of them means that the authorities won't investigate. Ships that aren't supposed to be here can't be reported missing without Hutts catching on."

"So... they've left themselves open?" Tatnia asked. "We can just walk in and steal the ship?"

"Yes. Nothing would stop us from doing so in the first place, but now we need not fear the Enforcers looking for us."

The Enforcers were essentially the closest thing that Nar Shaddaa had to police, something none of us knew about before Nal and Tatnia went information gathering earlier. You could call them if someone screwed you over, stole from you, or tried to kill you. They kept everything working smoothly, so crazy people didn't disrupt business. Basically, they were why everyone agreed to pay taxes in the first place.

They were corrupt, brutal, rarely investigated anything that wasn't immediately obvious, and were one hundred percent on the Hutt's payroll, but they kept the entire moon from crumbling into anarchy. If a ship wasn't paying taxes, they wouldn't raise a finger to do anything about it, especially anyone who would have complained was dead.

"That's good. It means we can basically take everything. We will need a place to sell it, though," I pointed out as I scratched my beard. "Any ideas?"

"Find a junkyard somewhere on the planet that won't ask questions," Tatnia suggested with a shrug. "Selling it to someone would take too long, and the fact that it's probably going to be modified to carry slaves just means we would be selling it to a slaver, most likely."

"We would be selling at a steep loss," Nal pointed out. "Trading a functional ship for scrap."

"No, I think she is right. Better to get it out of our hands as quickly as possible. We may be losing money, but we wouldn't make any money at all if something goes wrong before we can pass it off."

We talked a while longer about how we would prepare and what we would do. Unfortunately, it looked like we were basically going to have to wait around for a ship to land because we had no way of predicting when they would show up. Despite that, we needed a plan. There would be a lot of waiting, but with a solid plan, we could essentially relax until our targets arrived.

The hangars themselves were large circular buildings with a circular space inside for the ships to land. They were all connected in a U shape, which was where the speeder we had been taken away on had pulled up to. Each of the hangers had personal doors, as well as a set of rather large sliding doors. We witnessed cargo being hauled in and out of those large doors from near constantly.

"If we entered after the transport speeder, we would be hidden from prying eyes." Nal pointed out. "Ship engine might even cover the sound of blaster fire."

"The doors are going to be coded," Tatnia countered. "We would have to enter with someone else. Unless you have something to get around that?"

Her last question was directed to me, and I shook my head, frowning slightly.

"Not really, unless you think shocking it will let it open freely," I admitted. "I don't have much in terms of subtlety yet, either."

"Well, crossing in while the cargo gate is open is probably our best bet," Tatnia responded.

"No chance at stealth," Nal pointed out, Tatnia shrugging in response. "I have no issue with that, simply stating."

"What about the slaves?" I asked. "I don't want them in the crossfire."

"Then we don't wait until the transport is going in. We wait until it comes out," Tatnia suggested, chewing her lip. "We wait outside for the gate to open, then two of us go in, attack the slavers and take it down before they can escape. The third person would be in charge of stopping the speeder. If the one we were in was any sign, a few laser blasts through the window would be enough."

"Everyone will be able to hear that," I pointed out, quickly shaking my head. "But then, with any luck, that won't matter. This is a blitz. We go in, take them down and fly away. Sell the ship and move on."

"I get the concept. Speed is the goal," Nal said, and I nodded. "I will take care of the transport. Wait for it to come out, kill the slavers, then commandeer the speeder. Let the slaves out somewhere safe."

"That sounds like a solid plan. Could we sell the transport as well?"

"Probably, a stolen speeder isn't hard to pawn off, especially not to someone who already accepted a stolen ship," Tatnia answered, waving me off as I opened my mouth. "The scrap yard will know. They won't say anything, but they will know."

We talked a bit more, but the plan was pretty much decided at that point. We flagged down another speeder and were back at the hotel within the hour.

-----------

We spent most of the next two days staking out the hangar, waiting for more slavers to land. Tatnia lined up a junkyard, one that was a considerable distance away, that had enough room, and was interested in a cheap ship that they could sell for parts. I attempted to learn as much magic as possible during our downtime since I couldn't practice while we were out and about, waiting for our targets. Unfortunately, considering what we were about to do, I couldn't stay up super late because I needed to be at a hundred percent, not tired and groggy.

That isn't to say I didn't learn anything. Five hours spread between two nights was enough for me to learn my first two spells from the conjuration branch of magic, summon sword and summon familiar.

Conjuration magic was a fascinating subject and varied greatly from what I was expecting. My first read-through, back when I woke up, had been correct. There was no necromancy or daedra summoning in this variant of conjuration. Whether that was because the entities intentionally cut it out or necromancy and daedra didn't exist in the world this variant of magic came from, I didn't know.

What I did know was that this version of conjuration, beyond those two restrictions, was also a much more flexible school of magic than was advertised in the game. It was much more about using magic to bring something into being, rather than tearing holes in reality to summon things from Oblivion or whatever daedric realm you were targeting. This meant a few things, the most obvious of which was that there was no time limit to your summons.

When you summoned something, you fed it some of your power to cast the spell. This was enough to bring whatever you summoned into being for a few seconds. On top of that, you could feed it more energy, anywhere from essentially none to all of your remaining mana. This would affect how long your construct stuck around without any additional input. Once it started running out, you could feed it more, but only if you made physical contact. Not much of a big deal for weapons, but for a more ambulatory summon, it became much harder to maintain in a fight.

This meant that I could summon a sword, feed it all my mana, then use that sword while my mana recharged. Eventually, I would need to provide it more magicka, but by then, I would have recharged completely, meaning the sword could stick around for quite a while.

On top of all that, when I completed the spell and summoned a sword, I was conjuring a construct into being, meaning I wasn't stuck with the frankly ridiculous-looking daedric weapons from the game. I had always been a fan of more straightforward, sturdy aesthetics regarding older weapons and armor, and my conjured sword reflected that. It was a simple longsword with a fuller that ran along two-thirds of the blade, a standard crossguard that curved up slightly, and a hilt and pommel that looked completely ordinary. No saw teeth or awkward curves, double blades, or fancy satanic filigree. Just a simple-looking weapon for killing stuff.

An aesthetic that was completely pointless because it was also translucent, a pale purple, and left a subtle purple glowing streak in the air when I swung it around.

I was also pretty good with it, practicing a handful of cuts and stabs while the other two were out of the room. The weapon knowledge that the entities had given me was rather impressive. It wasn't just how to swing a sword and not cut your leg off, but instead a full download of a dozen or so sword fighting styles, as well as pseudo experience with actual sword combat. I was beginning to understand why they had considered all the information a mercenary might know as "tipping the scales" too much if this was what I was getting for "how to use a sword."

Summoning a familiar had been an exciting experience as well. Like the sword, I wasn't stuck with Skyrim's strange mutton chop wolves. Instead, I summoned an honest to god tiger. It was partially see-through, a pale blue with slightly darker stripes, and had the same nebulous energy wafting off it as the normal Skyrim summon would have. It was hard to tell from memory, but I think my tiger was slightly bigger than the wolf as well. Even more impressive, though, was that it definitely wasn't the half-brain-dead AI you got in the game, either. He seemed to react like an actual intelligent being, following my commands smoothly.

Originally, I only planned to work on my sword summoning, but when I realized that almost half of the basic spell matrix worked immediately, with no tuning, I had to test another conjuration spell. It worked the same way, with a large chunk of the spell matrix just instantly slotting into place. I was now almost sure that this meant I had some sort of talent for conjuration, along with a minor skill or natural predisposition to healing magic, as it had also been a bit easier. Unfortunately, that meant I would likely have a very hard time with illusion magic, as learning clairvoyance had been a pain in the ass.

I crossed my fingers that alteration wasn't worse.

The first day we were staking out the hangar, nothing really happened. We watched throughout the day, but there was no activity. The other hangars were bustling, with shipments going out and coming in constantly. The freighters that landed there were hardly there for more than a few hours, unloading their goods and immediately loading new ones on before leaving up into space. People would also get on or off the freighters, but that only happened a few times. We also observed a small guards unit that patrolled the interior and area around the entrance. They never went near the still-empty hangar but frequently walked around and into the other hangars.

I spent most of the time practicing my healing spell, casting and recasting it repeatedly with my hand under a heavy jacket. It was interesting, despite the fact that the spell usually swirled and glowed around my hand, not just from my palm, covering it completely hid all of that, like covering a holoprojector lens.

Late on the second day, only a few hours after noon, we noticed the first clue that something was up. The other hangars, which previously hadn't been empty for more than thirty minutes at any point we had observed, were completely cleared out. The last freighter left, and no new ones came to replace them. We next noticed that the armed guards had also left, walking away from the building in pairs of two, disappearing into the crowd.

About twenty-five minutes after the last freighter left, a familiar transport speeder slowly pulled up to the usually empty hangar. An armed Gran stepped out of the passenger side, walked to the hangar gate, and opened it, waving the speeder through before stepping in and closing the gate behind it. I turned to Nal and Tatnia, the former looking confident, hand resting casually on his still-holstered pistol, while the latter looked ready but a little more anxious.

"You guys ready?" I asked, both of them nodded in confirmation. "Alright, let's do this."

I stepped away from our hiding spot and crossed the alley, heading towards the Hangar entrance, trying to look as calm and collected as possible. The transport speeder was already inside the docking berth, the large sliding gate closed behind it. As we got closer to the hangar, Nal stopped about halfway into the u-shaped inner area, leaning inside one of the door frames, ready to pop out and ambush the speeder as it came out.

While he was getting into position, Tatnia and I kept walking, not stopping until we were much closer to our target hangar. I hid behind some sort of repulsorlift hauler, and Tatnia leaned back into another door well. Both of us wouldn't be visible until the front end of the speeder passed us, at which point it wouldn't matter.

Five minutes passed, then ten, before a ship, a different one than we had arrived on, flew over the hangar and landed inside. It was one of the earlier YT - series light freighters, the series that the Millennium Falcon was a part of, though I couldn't quite remember all of them. It might have been a YT-1000, but my extra memory wasn't helping.

I waited a few more minutes before starting to cast my conjure familiar, dumping half of my mana into it on top of the start-up. With that much mana, it would last for a good two minutes. With a sizzle of magick, I cast the spell, which activated behind the same hauler I was. A roiling spinning ball of magic expanded on the spot, revealing my familiar. The dangerous feline immediately crouched low, silently baring its massive teeth.

I motioned for it to be quiet, even though it wasn't really necessary. The tiger obeyed the instructions I fed it through my spell, which was coincidentally why you couldn't just conjure up a hundred creatures and let them fight for you. The spell latched onto you after you cast it, but it still took up a certain amount of aetheric space. Trying to summon a second familiar would cause the first spell would fail. Even worse, without that connection, the summon would run rampant until the magic you fed into them ran out. I directed the conjured tiger to walk around the side of the hauler, putting it out of view of the street and giving it an easy path to the gate. I gave one last look around, getting a nod from Tatnia, before focusing on the moment.

We were ready.

Chapter Text

We waited another minute, my mana filling entirely by the time the gate finally started to shift and rumble, slowly sliding open. On the other side was the speeder, which slowly pulled out of the hangar bay and into the open space. On the other side of the gate, I could see a few people walking around, with a single person, the Gran, by the gate, ready to close it after the speeder was through.

My tiger summon ran forward with a mental command through the connected spell, crossing the gap in a few seconds. It leaped into the air and took down the first goon, knocking him away from the gate control panel and wrapping its jaws around their neck. Purple blood sprayed out as it bit down, a strangled scream getting everyone's attention.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Nal step out of the doorway, blaster pistol already out, aiming at the front of the speeder, before turning to focus on my job. Shouting echoed from the hangar bay as the other slavers spotted their friend getting munched on and torn to pieces. They obviously were confused, as from their perspective, it looked like a hologram of a creature was killing their friend. When Nal opened fire on the speeder behind us, they suddenly understood something was happening.

With the gate controller dead, I sent the tiger in to attack the next closest slaver, the ethereal feline racing toward the Weequay. By now, blasters were out and trained on the summoned animal, and a half dozen blasts of red energy shot out to intercept the tiger, immediately followed up by a half dozen more. Their aim was terrible, but two shots hit the summon, and the spell collapsed into itself, disappearing in a gush of harmless energy.

Its purpose was served, however, because while everyone was focused on the tiger, no one noticed Tatnia and me stepping in, pulling our weapons out, and opening fire.

Tatnia's aim was near perfect, the blast of red energy slapping into her nearest target and dropping them, their neck burnt from the blaster bolt. Her next shot wasn't nearly as accurate but still impacted her target's chest, sending them to the ground and letting her finish them off with a second and third shot.

My own shooting wasn't nearly impressive, but it was still generally effective. My first two shots took down a nearby Rodian, one in the shoulder and one in the hip. I made a note to double-check he was dead before stepping further into the hangar, aiming and firing at my next target, a human who was already turning towards us.

By now, all focus was shifting, and they began returning fire in a rapid spray of scarlet energy. It crossed the hangar space from the three remaining slavers standing. One of them began backing up the access ramp into the ship, trying to get inside.

As laser fire came towards both of us, Tatnia and I dove for cover behind a pair of recharge stations and access terminals, both of them sparking under the impact of more laser fire. I quickly charged up another conjure familiar and aimed it as far away as I could, just about two-thirds of the way between me and the remaining goons. My tiger suddenly appeared and immediately ran forward, drawing attention and fire away from us. Both Tatnia and I leaned out from cover and fired around my conjured familiar, both of us managing to take down another target.

The laser fire stopped as my tiger pounced on the final goon, taking him down and finishing them off with a single vicious bite. A second later, it faded away, having already run out of magic. By then, Tatnia and I were already rushing under the ship, wanting to get on board as fast as possible in case anyone tried to take off. We climbed the gangway quickly, peeking over the edge before climbing inside.

We both tore through the ship, finding and taking down two more goons when we pushed into a break room. I also had a fully charged tiger following me around, jumping into each room we entered so we wouldn't get ambushed. When we eventually reached the cockpit, Tatnia sat down and immediately started flicking and pushing buttons, finally nodding and looking back around at me.

"Scanners say there isn't anyone else on board. Looks like we got them all," She said, looking back down at the control panels. "Take off will take about ten minutes. No way I'm taking off in this scrap pile without running a full preflight check."

"Are we going to be dealing with Enforcers?" I asked, looking out at the hangar through the cockpit window.

"Did you call them?" Tatnia asked. "Cause these guys sure as hell didn't. We will be fine. Just keep an eye out."

--------------------

Nal was already long gone when I exited the ship, following the plan to meet us at the junkyard after releasing the would-be slaves somewhere relatively safe. I quickly started going through each of the slaver corpses, grabbing credits, blasters, power packs, and anything else worthwhile, though I wasn't nearly as thorough as I had been before, as time was short and we needed to hurry.

As I worked, I had my tiger summon drag out the corpses of the slavers from inside before dumping our loot off in the same break room we had caught two of the crew inside the ship. I pocketed the credits, which were worth less than a thousand, before feeling the whole ship tremble slightly, the power shifting as we took off. I made my way back up to the cockpit, watching the view quickly change as we lifted from the hangar and into the sky.

"Everything going well?" I asked, looking around at the hundreds of buttons, nobs, switches, and levers that ultimately meant very little to me.

"This thing should have been sent to a junkyard ages ago," She responded with a scowl. "Half of the internal sensors are busted, and the other half are reading out warnings."

"Are we going to have issues?"

"No, I can get us there."

"Good. I'm going to start clearing out the cabins and the storage. I want to know about anything we can charge extra for."

Tatnia nodded, and after a few seconds, I patted the back of her chair and left, heading back. The plan was for us to head to space for a few hours, giving Nal enough time to fly the speeder to the junkyard and giving us time to comb through the ship.

I started by heading to the cargo bays, which took me a few minutes to find. The larger bay was clearly modified to transport slaves, with all access and control panels blocked off or removed and chain mounts attached to the wall. The other was filled with supplies and other stuff, including a worn and laser-scored speeder bike. It was also clearly modified with a decent-sized cargo module securely attached to the front. Still, it seemed to be in workable condition. It was also armed with two small laser cannons, spread out just wide enough to shoot around the storage module.

When Tantia was finished piloting the ship into a decent place to wait, she made her way back to the cargo bay, having walked through the slave room. She looked disgusted, shaking her head.

"Nal got in contact," She said while peeking under the lid of a container. "He took everyone to a cheap spaceport and is now on his way. He's about an hour and a half out from the junkyard… Says he has a tag-along. A mechanic with nothing to go back to."

I was nodding along, primarily focused on opening the cargo pod in front of me, until she mentioned the last bit. When she did, I turned to look at her in surprise.

"Really? Well, we will need that, but let's hope they are up for getting their hands dirty too. Did he say anything else?"

When she shook her head, we started going through the cargo together. She tested the speeder bike, which started up immediately, to my surprise. She estimated that it would probably be able to carry about double its standard capacity with the modifications. Since it had a decent amount of storage and was functional, we ended up storing everything we wanted to take off the ship inside it.

Once we were done going through the cargo bay, which had a decent amount of food and spare parts, we started going through the crew quarters. We found a few hidden credit stashes, totaling about four thousand credits, most of which came from the captain's quarters. We also found a few data pads worth taking, a couple of med packs of varying grades that we eagerly took, a bunch of energy packs, and a lot of junk that wasn't worth its weight. We put what was worth taking into the speeder, along with all of the blasters that I had looted. We each took two hundred credits for ourselves, including what I had taken from the corpses, and I held onto Nal's cut for now. I also grabbed ten binders from their storage, as well as the control rod linked to them. They could come in handy, and it was better to have and not need than need and not have.

We ended up filling all of the extra space left over in the speeder bike with two weeks' worth of sealed and stable food from the cargo bay. We were double-checking everything when Nal messaged us on our comms units, telling us that they were just arriving at the junkyard and were about to head into the main shop.

Tatnia and I both returned to the cockpit, and I watched her pilot the ship back down into the atmosphere. The ship rattled and shook several times, causing Tatnia to curse, but we eventually made it. She was in contact with some sort of government faction most of the way, which asked for her landing vector and location, which she happily answered. There were no questions about identification numbers or anything like that, which was unsurprising considering where we were.

We landed rather roughly in a cramped scrapyard, one that was several times larger than the entire hangar complex we had just come from. As we did, we could see Nal, a pink Twi'lek female, and an older human male waiting by what was probably the office for the scrapyard. Tatnia shut everything down and let out a long breath, calming herself before looking at me.

"I hate piloting," She said, with heavy emphasis. "Especially without a co-pilot. Don't make me do it more than I need to."

"Ah… Sorry. I never had the opportunity to learn," I explained, rubbing the back of my head. "Does Nal know how to fly?"

"He said he could. Any mechanic worth anything should be able to as well."

We headed off the ship, which was clicking and ticking as it cooled down from its short trip. Nal and the Twi'lek female were waiting for us at the bottom of the ramp.

"Good to see you. And unharmed as well. This is Miru. She wanted to stick around," Nal said, gesturing to the woman beside him.

I reached out my hand, which she took confidently. I could already tell she was on the younger side, maybe even younger than eighteen. I hated to involve someone so young in something like this, but I would at least hear her story first.

"Nice to meet you, Miru, my name's Deacon, this is Tatnia, and I'm sure Nal's introduced himself already," I said, shaking her hand once before letting go. "He mentioned you're a mechanic? We don't really have the resources to have someone on board who isn't an active participant just yet…."

"I can handle a blaster just fine," She said, just the barest hint of an accent coming through as she talked. "I am better at fixing things than breaking them, but I would never say no to killing slavers."

"And Nal explained that this isn't a charity group?" Tatnia asked, cutting me off from asking a similar question. "That this isn't about saving all the slaves?"

"He did, and I agree. I am all for helping out, but I'm not ready to fight the entirety of Hutt space."

We talked a bit more, Miru explaining that she was actually a second-generation slave. When she was younger, she had already been freed once, only to return to Ryloth with her parents to get snatched up again. Her parents did nothing to stop it, so she had no interest in returning to them. It was a horrible story to hear, but she handled it well. That or she was jaded as hell and would likely crack later.

"I would have been out in a few months," She assured us as we waited for the owner of the junkyard to examine the slaver ship. "I already know how to disable a slave chip, and as skilled as I am, I would have been put to work in a shop, not sent to shake my ass on a stage."

It took a bit for me to realize it, but she spoke with a faint French accent, which threw me for a loop. At first, I wondered if she was sent here by entities as well, but after several not-so-subtle references to Earth pop culture, I was pretty sure that wasn't the case. I asked Tatnia later, and apparently, that was the typical Twi'lek accent.

About an hour after we landed, the older human owner of the yard came out of the ship and offered us fifteen thousand credits for both the transport speeder and the ship, which made both Nal and Miru laugh while Tatnia just scowled.

"The material scrap alone is worth that much," Miru said, shaking her head. "Even if only half of the ship was working, it's worth twice that."

"Maybe, but we all know you're not going to get that much for it," He responded with a shrug. "But I suppose that is a little low. Twenty thousand."

We negotiated for a while, by which I mean Tatnia and Miru negotiated, and Nal and I watched. Eventually, Miru pulled me aside while Tatnia kept it up.

"Boss, we need transportation, right?" She asked, and I nodded in confirmation. "Maybe something big enough to live out of? Something we can travel around the planet with?"

"Yeah, that would be good, at least until we save enough to buy a halfway decent ship," I responded. "And boss? Really?"

"I was looking around earlier while we were waiting. He has an A-A5 speeder in the back, with some serious aftermarket modifications that I don't think he realizes are there," She explained, now talking softly and leading me away. "It's missing some parts, but it looked mostly intact. It could function as a mobile base…."

She led me around the junkyard to a large chunky speeder. It was painted gray with a blue highlight running down the side. The interior was spacious, and she assured me that the engines and repulsorlift were already beefed up to a full flight model, a costly modification. Its energy systems were also improved to handle the addition. She also pointed out that these speeder trucks were known for their reliability and power. Even better was that its laser turret emplacement was still in place, almost entirely untouched.

"Give me Six hours and three thousand credits, and I could turn this thing into a mobile base for us," She explained confidently. "With the improvements already done to its thrusters and energy system, plus the cannon on top… it's got some serious problem-solving ability."

I spent a few more minutes inspecting the vehicle with her and agreed that despite being dusty and clearly heavily used, the equipment and internals seemed to be in excellent shape. Miru explained that baseline, in the state that it was, the speeder was worth around five thousand credits. But with the aftermarket energy and thruster upgrades, it was worth seven or eight thousand. When she got it working and replaced a few parts, it would be worth even more.

"Alright. Consider this your audition," I said eventually, focusing on the younger Twi'lek. "You get this thing working, and you're part of the team."

"Alright, Boss, I'll start looking for some of the missing parts," She said with a serious nod before heading for a nearby vehicle.

I returned to the rest of the group, Tatnia managing to get the owner to twenty-six thousand credits. I put my hand on Tatnia's shoulder, and she stopped, looking at me with a raised eyebrow.

"What about twenty-one thousand credits, the A-A5 Speeder you have in back, and the few parts to get it running again?" I offered, getting a harsh look from Tatnia.

"That vehicle is likely worth five thousand credits," The owner pointed out.

"I know, which means it adds up pretty well to the offer you just made," I countered. "I think we both know this is a pretty fair offer."

He hemmed and hawed for a few minutes before finally agreeing, shaking my hand, and returning to his office to get us the money. Tatnia turned to face me, her hands on her hips. She clearly wasn't happy that I had butt into her negotiation.

"Miru said it's worth the money, and she says she can get it running quickly," I explained, trying to head off her frustration.

"And you just believe her?"

"It checks all the boxes for what we need and gives her a chance to prove herself," I explained with a shrug. "If she fucks it up, we give her the boot and take it to a repair shop. It's an armed speeder with enough room for all of us, something we desperately need. We are set for transport between it and the speeder bike, at least until we get a space-worthy ship."

After thinking for a moment, she nodded, accepting that we needed a transport like that, and if what Miru was saying was true, it had been a pretty good deal.

Chapter Text

About two hours into watching Miru work on the speeder, Tatnia was no longer complaining about her joining the team, beyond just not knowing her. It was abundantly clear that the young Twi'lek was an extremely skilled mechanic. She all but flew around the yard, pulling pieces out of other speeders, cleaning up parts, and modifying a few of them before installing them into the A-A5. She also pulled a few pieces out of the A-A5 and worked them over, even trading a few of them out.

Of course, we weren't sitting idle while she worked. Tatnia helped out where she could, as she knew some basic speeder maintenance, while I was stuck cleaning since I knew absolutely nothing. A quick check of the cockpit, and I knew I could pilot the speeder with minimal trial and error, but beyond being able to tell when something was clearly burnt out or cracked, I was useless for repair.

Scraping gunk from the repulsorlifts wasn't exactly glamorous, but someone had to do it. I also wasn't going to try convincing my new friends to let me sit on my ass and relax while they worked hard.

While we worked on getting the speeder truck up and running, Nal was off with the speeder bike doing some shopping. We had taken the stuff we planned on keeping out of the speeder bike storage module, including the food and a blaster pistol for Miru. The rest Nal would sell. I also handed him two thousand credits we got from selling the ship, the money we looted from the ship, and the slavers themselves, totaling about seven thousand credits.

"We need four blaster rifles, at least one capable of longer range, ammo packs for them, and some spares for our pistols. We also need two collapsible beds, a decent tool kit for Miru, some basic combat gear if you can find some, and anything you see that you think we need," I explained, the blue alien nodding in agreement. "Oh, two hundred of those credits are yours from the raid. Tatnia and I already took ours. You should probably check with the other two to see if they need anything."

He left shortly after that, a list saved on his newly claimed and wiped datapad.

The owner of the junkyard kept an eye on us as we continued to work on the speeder truck, speaking up more than once about what parts Miru was taking. Apparently, the ambitious young Twi'lek kept trying to use parts that were technically upgraded to what the A-A5 would actually have. I had her put most of them back, but a few she explained would be worth the extra money, so we paid half price for them.

Four hours after he left, Nal returned. By then, I had finished wiping down the interior of the speeder and had started using a sonic scrubber to wash the grime off of the exterior. We didn't want it looking new, as that's how you got things stolen, but some of the grime build-ups were actually bad for the heat sinks that kept the repulsorlifts cool.

The Duros pulled back into the junkyard with the speeder bike slightly overloaded, extra containers strapped to the custom storage module. He quickly hopped off the speeder and waved me over, and together we offloaded everything he had bought.

He bought three blaster rifles, which he assured me were basic models that would serve us well but weren't anything to comm home about. What he was excited about was the proton rifle he managed to find, a long-ranged, high-powered weapon that was usually worth around three thousand credits but that he got for just under two thousand.

He managed to get his hands on some decent armor, which was just a basic plate system we would wear over our regular clothes. It was just the torso armor, but that was a whole lot better than nothing. He also got helmets, which looked like a different model version of the helmet Leia and Luke wore during the Battle of Endor. Hopefully, they would keep anyone from being instakilled.

The rest of his shopping was basic, primarily supplies and the beds I requested. The A-A2 had two collapsable bunks that would deploy from the back benches, so with these two additional beds, we wouldn't need to spend money on hotel rooms. Which was good because it was one less way for us to be tracked as we went around the planet liberating slaver money.

Nal also bought a portable sonic shower, which I thanked him profusely for, as I hadn't even thought of that. He just chuckled and patted my shoulder. When we were done unloading the speeder bike, Nal started helping with the repairs, and I went back to cleaning.

After just over five hours, Miru slid down the slanted front end of the speeder truck, dropping down to the ground before dusting off her hands.

"That's all I can really do here, even with the extra tools you got me. Thanks for that, by the way," She said with a confident grin. "I fixed all the major issues, replaced all the parts that had been taken out, caught a few issues that would have popped up after a few weeks of running and managed to snag some upgrades. It isn't going to be able to take on a hover tank, but she's a fair fight with any civilian speeder you throw it against."

"Not bad, Miru. I think I speak for all of us when I say welcome to the team," I said, smiling and offering my hand, which she shook with a cocky grin. "It will be good to have someone on board who can maintain our stuff."

"Easy, I'll keep everything up and running," She assured me, shaking Nal's and Tatnia's hands next. "So… now that I'm part of the team… what's the end goal?"

"Well… for now the goal is to keep stealing from slavers until we have enough to buy a halfway decent ship," I explained, the pink-skinned Twi'lek's eyes widening at the mention of a ship. "Beyond that… well, I think making a mercenary company was on the table, but I'm down for generalized adventurers as well."

"Adventurers?" Tatnia asked. "What does that mean?"

"Sounds intriguing, but yes, what is it?" Nal asked as well.

"Adventurers are… huh, it's hard to explain without cultural touchstones from home," I admitted, thinking to myself before continuing. "Adventurers are professional trouble magnets. We travel the galaxy, looking for anything interesting. Following mysterious rumors, scavenging old battlegrounds and ruins, taking bounties, hunting dangerous animals to harvest and sell."

"That… sounds an awful lot like mercenaries," Miru pointed out.

"Yeah, probably," I responded with a shrug. "But it's more proactive. Instead of advertising and being hired, an adventurer would go out and find things to do."

We talked about it for a while, and I somehow managed to resist making a knee joke the entire time. Eventually, Nal cut us off, shaking his head.

"We have gotten distracted," He said before turning slightly to gesture to the A-A5 speeder truck. "Should we not focus?"

"Right! You need to start her up, Boss," Miru said, handing me the activation chip for the speeder. "See if I did a good job."

"Really? You realize I was here the whole time, right? While you were testing it over and over again?" I asked, still taking the chip. "And still with the boss thing?"

I tapped the closer side door with the chip key, the door clicking inwards slightly before sliding open with a strained whirring. I climbed inside to see everything Nal had bought set up inside, including the laser rifles stacked in a handy weapon rack along the back. Nal, Miru, and Tatnia followed me inside, with Miru following me into the cockpit and dropping into the co-pilot's seat. It took me a second to find the slot, but eventually, I slid the activation chip into the console. A low thrum reverberates through the vehicle, the lights and buttons coming on immediately. Seconds after them, the front panels lit up, each of them going through a boot-up sequence before displaying their information.

The repulsors lifted the truck off the ground, kicking in after the boot-up sequences finished. Everything was working well as far as I could tell, and after taking a look at Miru, I could see she agreed.

"Alright… let's pack everything up and get the hell out of here," I said with a smile. "The quicker we can put some distance between here and us, the better."

------------

It took us a few minutes to pack everything up and leave, with Tatnia driving the speeder bike and the rest of us inside the A-A5. We stayed on the ground for now since the speeder bike couldn't fly with us if we took to the sky. Nal and Miru were in the cockpit, the door opened so we could all talk. I was sitting on one of the speeder's benches, grimoire in my lap as I practiced the healing spell. I was primarily focused on the book, reading the introduction to the lesser ward spell, trying my best to ingrain the healing spell into my head so I could do it without thinking.

I was already noticing that the spell was coming to me easier than before, which was good. Healing was the spell I had been using the most, actively practicing it instead of only using it when I was fighting. I shook my head and refocused on the reading, restarting the sentence to make sure I didn't miss anything.

Eventually, I turned the page of the grimoire, cutting off the healing spell and then activating it again in the opposite hand. The next page contained two detailed diagrams of the same spell matrix from two different angles, with notes pointing to several points. I frowned, unconsciously tilting my head as I tried to make heads or tails of the matrix.

After a few minutes of studying the diagrams, I let the healing spell fade, feeling my mana slowly begin to recharge. I was steadily getting used to the feeling of being drained of energy, the hollow feeling getting more tolerable, especially after having drained it completely more times than I could count at this point. When my magicka had returned, I closed my eyes and focused on the matrix, using the same imagery I always used to pull, twist and draw the energy out, slowly forging it into shape.

After about fifteen minutes of working out the spell matrix and consulting the diagram a few dozen times, I was relatively sure I got it into the proper dimension and shape. The matrix was interesting, similar in some small ways to the healing spell, which I found bizarre, but it also had a vastly different execution.

With the matrix set up, I once again started the tuning process. The first chunk required minimal turning, my mana flowing through easily. After that, my progress slowed, meticulously adjusting the matrix as I made my way through the rest of the spell, spending a bit over two more hours tuning and aligning the rest of the spell matrix to myself. I finally got the spell to work, the surprise of feeling the magic finally push through and cast, shocking me enough to drop the spell before the ward could even fully form.

I reformed the adjusted spell quickly, this time standing to cast, my hand held out before pushing my mana through.

Mana spun through the matrix and shifted form, a wall of projected energy forming in front of me, radiating from a central core of energy that floated in front of my palm. There was a shimmering flash that slightly reduced visibility through the mostly see-through center of the spell, while the outer rim of the protective energy shield glowed with a very pale blue. I would have no idea how strong it was until I had a chance to test it, but the spell itself seemed to work. Now I-

"WHAT THE KRIFF!"

The young Twi'lek was standing in the cockpit doorway, her eyes wide and her jaw hanging open as she stared at me. Her sudden shout of surprise had scared me enough that the spell failed. The protective barrier fluttered and collapsed as the spell matrix dissolved.

"What is wrong?" Nal asked, still piloting the speeder.

"H-h-he was doing some sort of… I don't know, but he was doing something!" Miru responded, stepping back into the cockpit, still focused on me. "It was all bright and glowy!"

"Oh, yes. He does that," Nal said, shaking his head, looking over his shoulder at me. "Is that safe to do inside a moving vehicle?"

"This one is. It's a protective barrier I can hold out in front of me," I explained. "Nothing dangerous."

"Interesting. Will it hold up to a blaster?"

"I have no idea. I'm going to have to test it out," I answered. "I'm pretty sure I can cast it off to the side and let one of you shoot it. If not… Well, there was a reason I learned the healing spell first."

As we casually talked about my magic, Miru looked back and forth between us, her eyes still wide in disbelief. Eventually us more or less ignoring her got on her nerves enough that she recovered.

"Alright, will one of you please tell me what the hell is going on!" She said, looking at Nal last. "Is the Boss some sort of cyborg?"

"He claims that he is not," He answered, a smile still audible in his voice as he focused on piloting the speeder. "He claims he has some sort of energy inside him."

The probable teenager looked back at me, glowering as she walked back and sat on the bench across from me. She still looked a bit unnerved by what she saw, but her annoyance was clearly helping her ignore that.

"Alright, out with it," She said. "Nal clearly knows what's going on, so I should know too."

"I wasn't planning on hiding it from you, Miru. I honestly just forgot," I assured her, pulling the book away, feeling its familiar weight as it disappeared.

"Wha- Ho- What the hell, Deacon?" she said, staring at where my grimoire had just been. "Where did that just go?"

"Somewhere else," I responded simply, breezing past her question. "Do you want me to explain what's going on or not?"

She crossed her arms and gave me another look before nodding. I couldn't help but chuckle before slowly going explaining the basics of my ability. I demonstrated how I could summon a sword before using that sword to cut myself, healing the wound while Miru watched. She then proceeded to hide a bolt in several places around the cargo space, which I would find every time with the clairvoyance spell.

"That… I don't know what to make of that," She finally admitted. "I guess that explains why Nal said you were the boss."

"Wait, you're responsible for that?" I asked, looking through the doorway. "Really? Boss?"

"Worse things to go by," He pointed out. "Boss."

"...Dammit."

Muri giggled, our byplay setting her off. I smiled and chuckled with her, only to frown when I realized what was happening.

Her giggling slowly turned to laughter, starting off light but quickly spiraling until it was clearly uncontrollable and manic. It seemed like floodgates were open, the terror she had been exposed to over the last few days finally catching up with her. Soon she was sobbing, breathing hard, and I had to jump up to catch her as she started sliding off of the bench, losing control of herself.

I held the young woman as she cried and shook, sitting on the floor of the small cargo space. She all but threw herself against me, holding my shirt with a death grip, her knuckles turning white, even with her pink skin. I did my best to comfort her as she sobbed her heart out, releasing her emotion in a singular deluge.

Eventually, she fell asleep, having cried out any remaining energy.

Chapter Text

I woke up the following day sprawled out on one of the collapsible beds Nal had bought for us the day before. At some point, we had landed next to an abandoned, run-down building in one of the more deserted and empty parts of the city sector we had traveled to. Tatnia and Nal had set up the beds, including the two pull-down bunks that came installed in the A-A5 cargo space, and I had put Miru, still asleep, onto one of them. Not long after that, the rest of us also headed to sleep, tired from a long day of activity.

As quietly as possible, I sat up on the cot's edge, looking over everyone else as they still slept. The beds were surprisingly comfortable given how utilitarian in design they seemed to be, though I supposed I shouldn't be surprised. Nal and Tatnia had claimed the fold-out bunks and were still fast asleep while Miru was sleeping on the other collapsible bed.

I watched the sleeping Twi'lek for a long moment, her face showing none of the pain she had sobbed through the night before. Holding Miru as she cried had been a bit of a wake-up call for me, really hammering home that this was very real. This Star Wars universe was now my home, and I needed to stop treating it like it was a setting from some movies and books. I needed to take this seriously because while I wasn't here to shift the universe on its head, I had somehow become at least semi-responsible for the sleeping people in front of me. They clearly listened to what I said, and while I didn't think they would follow my orders without question, that still meant I needed to take this seriously.

And step one of that process was figuring out when the hell I was in the timeline.

Still trying to stay quiet, I stood up from the cot and walked to the cockpit, sealing the door behind me. The sun shining through the windshield told me that it was early morning, the skies already busy with air speeders and transports. I sat in the co-pilot's chair and pulled out one of the cleared datapads, tabbing through its holonet connection.

While I hadn't been actively avoiding finding out when precisely these entities had placed me, I had been putting off finding out for sure by sitting down and looking it up. There was a certain level of freedom that came from not being able to connect all of my meta-knowledge to anything that was currently happening in the galaxy. I flicked through the holonet, focused on figuring out when I was on the timeline I knew.

Immediately I hit a snag. The books had always sat on a timeline that used the Battle of Yavin as its zero date. Unfortunately, as far as I could remember, that was completely arbitrary and had nothing to do with the in-universe date. My entity-given knowledge knew it was currently 7977.435.4 CRC, but I had no idea where that would fall on the timeline I could remember. The CRC calendar was never mentioned anywhere in the stories, or at least anywhere I could recall. In fact, I couldn't remember dates or times ever being mentioned at all. I was stuck trying to connect the knowledge I knew about the universe with the knowledge I had from the universe.

That is until I stumbled on an Imperial-sponsored news site reporting that the destruction of Alderaan had been to prevent the propagation of biological weapons created by the planet's rebellious government.

I quickly dived deeper, looking up the destruction of the peaceful planet, feeling sick as I read through dozens of conspiracy theories surrounding it. There were a surprising amount of reports saying that the Empire was responsible and that Alderaan and its people had done nothing wrong, something I would have assumed the Empire would have suppressed.

Eventually, I found clips of the Death Star floating above the idyllic planet, the people panicking and recording it with their comms units, wondering what was happening. I also found footage of the same Death Star exploding, shot from space a far distance away. I didn't spend too long looking at it, just enough to confirm that it had happened a few months ago and that the rebellion was going strong.

I let out a long sigh, shaking my head and looking out of the windshield, watching the hundreds and hundreds of speeders flying through the air, people going about their day. All of them were real people, living their lives and doing their best to survive. I took another long breath and let it out.

I had no desire to dedicate my entire existence to the rebellion or throw my life away trying to solve this whole galaxy's problems. But if I had been dropped in before the destruction of Alderaan, with enough time to actually do something about it? What kind of person would I be if I put my own preference or safety ahead of the lives of an entire planet?

I felt guilty even acknowledging it, but with the planet's death in the past, I would be able to set my own schedule with a bit more flexibility. I would help where I could, maybe even donate some of my time if the opportunity provided itself, but I wasn't about to go out of my way to become Luke Skywalker's best buddy.

Someday I might step up, especially if we got involved with something I recognized, but for now, I needed to focus on myself and my own group.

I continued to ponder the future, my meta knowledge, and what exactly I planned on doing with it until my friends started to wake up. Nal was first, quickly followed by Miru and Tatnia. We shared a quick breakfast of shelf-stable, pre-packaged meals. They were self-heating with the addition of a bit of water, heating up to a decent-sized meal that actually tasted pretty good if you could get past the obvious artificial nature. Once everything was done, Nal set up the sonic shower, hooking it to the side of the speeder truck, and we each took our turn with it.

As I was getting clean, I realized that the sonic shower explained why people like Han Solo had such a signature look. If you were looking to save money, buying one outfit and wearing it constantly was perfectly viable. All you had to do was step into the sonic shower while wearing it, simultaneously cleaning yourself and your clothes nearly perfectly without reducing the clothes' lifespan like putting it on a washing machine and dryer would.

While Tatnia was getting clean, the rest of us set up a temporary shooting range inside the abandoned building we had spent the night next to. This area was run down, and we had parked in the back of a large abandoned building. With any luck, no one would call the Enforces on us for trying out our new guns and getting a little practice in.

The first thing I wanted to try was our new blaster rifles and the new proton rifle. As we pulled the weapons out and carried them inside, I couldn't help but marvel at how normal the weapons felt. In many ways, they were completely indistinguishable from regular guns from back home.

Once we were settled, we started shooting down the longest hallway we could find in the building, aiming at random trash that we had gathered inside the building. Luckily the abandoned structure was almost entirely permacrete, so there was only a minimal fire risk.

After shooting the rifle a few times, Nal started giving me a few pointers, which actually helped quite a bit. Miru teased me for not knowing some of the tricks for shooting a blaster rifle, but after I blasted a double-handed sparks spell down the hall, zapping a trash can until it was glowing red in a few spots, she stopped. She smacked my shoulder when I teased her for pouting.

Firing the proton rifle was fun too. The recoil and flash of light it created was intense, but the fact that it drilled straight through a permacrete wall only served to drive home how much of a powerful weapon it was. Unfortunately, ammo for it was expensive and relatively rare, so we could each only shoot it two or three times for practice before packing the gun away.

After getting in some practice with our blaster pistols as well, it was time to finally test the lesser ward. I walked down the hall we were shooting down before stepping into a doorway. I held my hand out and cast the spell, the glowing protective shield lighting up the dim hallway and room. After taking a long breath, I called out that I was ready.

The first shot was a stun blast, which the ward blocked easily. However, I still felt the impact soaking into the shield, leaving my hand slightly tingly. After that, they tried a blaster pistol, starting slow and increasing the frequency over time. The ward held through the slowest test, a single shot every five seconds, but failed once they had increased to a single shot every three seconds. When they fired a blaster rifle at it, the shield died after absorbing a single shot.

This was extremely promising and made me very interested in unlocking some of the later ward versions. That said, the shield failing stung like a bastard, like I had just caught a fastball with my bare hands. I was not looking forward to how the more powerful wards felt when they failed. I was slightly worried it would be harsh enough to distract me from any other spells I was casting, a dangerous thing when fighting.

The last thing we tested, after packing everything back up, was the weapon systems on the A-A5 and the speeder bike, which Miru had identified as a trade federation combat speeder called an MVR-3. We saved these for last because we were all pretty sure they would attract a lot of attention.

The speeder truck's weapon, which was normally controlled by the co-pilot, blasted massive chunks through a permacrete wall with bright red energy. It was loud, and while it wasn't the most powerful vehicle-mounted weapon, it would absolutely annihilate any civilian vehicle that a slaver might be using.

The blaster cannons mounted to the MVR-3 were slightly less powerful but still carved deep holes in the same permacrete wall. It would probably punch through civilian vehicles but would definitely eviscerate anyone not inside a building or armored vehicle.

With the weapons tested, we quickly hopped into the cargo space of the A-A5, while Nal climbed onto the speeder bike, leaving the abandoned building behind.


----------------

We were flying for about an hour when Tatnia, who was co-piloting for Miru, finally broke the relative silence that had filled the speeder comfortably.

"Alright, so what's next?" She asked, looking over her shoulder to the cargo space. "We made some money and killed some slavers. Now we have more equipment than I have ever had access to before and more money than I've seen in a long time. So what's next?"

I looked up from my grimoire, pulling it back into myself when I realized this wasn't just a quick conversation. At the mention of the money, I looked over at the bench opposite mine, which was actually a storage container. We had emptied it, cleaned it out, and now it was where we kept the 19000 credits we had made.

"I mean, we rinse and repeat, right?" Miru asked, leaning forward to tap a few buttons on her console. "That's why we are traveling across the planet, right? So we can go again?"

"It is, but I think what Tatnia is trying to get at is that we don't really have a target, right?" I asked, the older woman nodding. "Well… that is something we will have to figure out."

"Really, Boss? Isn't that supposed to be your job?" Miru asked with a smirk. "The boss comes up with all the plans, right?"

"Brat," I responded before leaning back on the surprisingly comfortable bench. "I guess the problem is that we don't really have anything to work from. For the last job, we had our own experience to pull from. But I doubt we will be able to open the phone book and look up slaver docking berths."

"One, what's a phone book, two… I see your point," Miru admitted.

We were quiet for a long pause as we tried to think of our options when Nals' slightly windswept voice suddenly filled the speeder.

"What about slave markets?"

All three of us shouted in shock at the unexpected inclusion of the Duros, who was currently flying the MVR-3 about thirty meters away. The speeder truck shook slightly as Miru jostled the controls, though she quickly corrected the mistake.

"Nal… What the fuck?" I asked, looking around the cargo space.

"I set up a two-way comm program through the A-A5's network and the speeder bikes pickup," He explained. "I did not want to left out of planning. Or whoever might be piloting the MVR-3."

"How did I not see that?" Miru asked rhetorically, leaning in closer to one of her console screens, tapping at it for a second before leaning back and shaking her head. "Not a bad setup. I'll refine it to something more permanent later.

"Can we get back on topic, please?" Tatnia asked. "Nal, we can't go after the markets. With how much money changes hands at one, there is no way they aren't heavily defended. It would be like assaulting a Hutt bank."

"Correct. But the markets are the hubs for the slave trade," He explained, pausing for a moment before continuing. "We can track speeders coming and going from the markets with some simple observation."

"Not bad, Nal. Glad you were listening in," I said, stroking my beard. "So, we hang out around a slave market, wait for a transport to leave, and follow it back wherever it's going. Then what? Stage a raid? We won't know what is happening around that area."

"Which means we run the risk of getting caught off guard," Tatnia added, and I nodded in agreement. "But if we hold back… well, there is no guarantee that any slaver ship we find will use the same berth repeatedly, and we would be letting a group of people become slaves. "

"Too many variables," Nal commented. "An immediate raid might be necessary."

"You might be right… but let's start small, a proof of concept for tracking out from a market. We watch a market, follow a slave transport out… and snatch it."

"Just steal the transport?" Miru asked. "That seems… small scale compared to what you guys just did."

"It would be. Depending on the quality of the speeder… we could earn a few thousand credits. Maybe," Tatnia answered. "But as a proof of concept, it would work. We would still be leaving the slaves to be taken away…."

"It may be cold-hearted Tatnia, but we cannot save everyone," Nal said, his voice solemn and serious. "We cannot even save most. Focus on the good we can do."

Tatnia let out a long breath, nodding after a long moment.

"So… Do we just look up nearby slave markets?" Miru asked. "Is that the kind of thing they put on the planetary holonet?"

Tatnia and I shared a look before I pulled out my datapad and started looking it up. Turns out, they did advertise the market on the holonet, in a way sickeningly similar to a used car lot, with snapshots and price listings. I scrolled through, looking for location information and other details, sharing them with Tatnia. She also looked ill, shaking her head as she read through a separate site.

After twenty minutes of research, we had our next target, a market an hour away from the area we were in. Tatnia found the site and pointed out the most important bit of information on the entire site.

"It says who owns it," she explained. "I don't recognize the name, but it's not a Hutt, which is all that really matters."

"Alright… well in that case, Miru, head to that location," I said, pushing my grimoire back into my hands. "We can find someplace to park, and decide how we want to keep an eye on the market."

Chapter Text

We arrived in the general area of the market and quickly decided it was too heavily populated for us to hang around unnoticed. Instead, we flew around a little longer and found a tucked-away alley next to a run-down building. It wasn't abandoned from what we could tell, but it may as well have been. The permacrete walls were covered with graffiti, and while we got quite a few looks, no one said anything. When Nal pulled the speeder bike into the alley next to us, he looked around and shrugged.

"Good as any I saw," He said, having been flying around in a different direction, looking for a similar place to set down in. "Should take turns on watch."

"Yeah… that's not a bad idea," I agreed, stepping back into the cargo space of the speeder truck.

We both sat down on opposite benches by the cockpit, taking a second to sit back and think. Tatnia and Miru joined us a moment later on the other two benches, each of us in a different corner.

"I think we should take another day," I said, leaning back in my seat. "The slower we take this, the slower the Enforcers catch on to what we are doing and start shooting down A-A5 whenever they see one."

"We could mix it up," Miru suggested, having dragged the tool chest Nal had bought for her to her bench, slowly going through the tools and inspecting them. "I know you guys picked slavers 'cause it's basically morally positive stealing, but there are plenty of messed up people on this planet to steal from."

"I wouldn't necessarily be against it, but it's much harder to guarantee we aren't killing some down-on-his-luck security guard who is just trying to provide for his family."
Nal stayed quiet, but Tatnia scoffed and shook her head while Miru giggled at my hypothetical scenario.

"I know, I know, it's a bit much. But you can't argue that someone standing guard for a spice runner is different from someone standing guard for a slave trader," I pointed out, getting two reluctant nods. "I would probably sleep fine after the former, but I know I'll sleep well after the latter. Find us a target we know is bad and won't come back to bite us in the ass, and we can talk."

We discussed our options for a while longer, eventually deciding that, yes, we would be waiting for the next day to start watching the market. However, we also agreed that we would also hit a transport if an opportunity presented itself.

With that decided, we basically split up. Nal and Tatnia left to scout out the surrounding area, mostly just making sure there wasn't anything dangerous nearby and visiting a market Nal had spotted from the speeder bike. When they mentioned the market, I handed Tatnia a chunk of my own credits, asking her to pick me up a nice jacket, something cool but not too ostentatious. She gave me a look for a moment before shrugging and pocketing the credits.

While they were gone, Miru and I carried her tools out next to the MVR-3 speeder, as Miru wanted to spend some time working on it. She was taking her role as the team mechanic seriously, and she wanted to get a sense of the bike's condition so that no problems popped up during anything important. Both she and the bike were hidden from view by anyone out of the alley, meaning she would hopefully be left alone. We kept the door into the truck open and the sensors on in case she wasn't. They would alert me if anyone was getting too close.

While she was looking at the speeder internals, I was sitting on one of the interior benches, grimoire in my lap, slowly going over my spells. I was multitasking again, snapping the lesser ward on and off, over and over again, trying to commit it to memory while simultaneously reading up on the next spell I wanted to learn, oak skin. While a large part of me was tempted to learn another destruction spell, I hadn't learned anything from the alteration branch, and I needed to know if I would struggle with it like I had with my first illusion spell. I also wanted to find out just how much more durable I would be with it cast on myself.

The process was familiar by now. I started by reading through and working out the spell matrix before adjusting and experimenting with its size, shape, angles, and rotational position to get it tuned to myself. Unfortunately, I quickly learned that alteration was definitely not my strong suit, the tuning process taking the longest any single spell had taken me so far. Every single aspect of the matrix had to be adjusted, tuned, and shifted a dozen or more times. There was no staring gimme, where a chunk of the original matrix just worked, and every adjustment needed to be precise and exact, with none of the haphazard adjustments seeming to work. It was much more challenging and finicky than learning clairvoyance had been, though it was hard to say just how much more difficult it was.

When I finally managed to oak flesh on myself, I let out a whoop of excitement before cursing to myself. I could feel the spell interacting poorly with the heavy-duty combat boots that Nal had bought me yesterday.

The magic seemed to be shifting between my skin and the boots, the protective footwear seemingly absorbing some of the spell's energy. I quickly pulled on my armored combat gear and cast the spell again, cursing louder as it interacted to an even greater degree, sapping and interfering with the spell's structure and effectiveness.

I knew that in the game, there was a perk that increased the potency of these protection spells, but only as long as you weren't wearing armor. Judging by how much wearing armor was messing with the casting of the spell, I could only assume that in a more realistic setting, that showed up as armor actually reducing the spell's effectiveness.

I cursed under my breath a third time, recasting the spell a few dozen times, working it into my brain enough that I could practice more later without struggling to work out the matrix again. This spell, and its more potent variations, would be useful to know, but I would not be running around in robes, relying on it completely to protect me. I might be a wizard, but give me good, solid armor any day.

Having answered several questions by learning my first alteration spell, I moved on to adding another combat spell to my repertoire. A large part of me was tempted to learn elemental flare, a spell the book described as an elemental explosion, but I couldn't risk it. Testing a spell that would explode was not a good idea in my current location, no matter how much I wanted to try it, especially because I didn't recognize it. Instead, I settled for learning frost, as casting it in the cargo space was probably safe as long as I didn't do anything stupid with it... Probably.

After spending so much time on the oak skin, it was very nice to spend some time learning a spell that came relatively easy to me, or at least wasn't extra challenging. The spell matrix took the usual fifteen or so minutes to work out, and the tuning process was worlds simpler than the alteration spell had been. So much so, in fact, that I finished it before Nal and Tatnia returned from their exploration. It was just starting to get dark when I held out my hand and cast a beam of freezing energy out of my palm, causing ice crystals to grow on the cargo space floor.
I stopped the spell immediately, looking around for a moment before casting it again, this time at the seat cushions across from me. I only held it momentarily when Tatnia climbed into the space with wide eyes.

"Should you be doing that here?" she asked, reaching out to touch the frozen spot on the cushions, jerking her hand away. "Sithspit, that is cold."

"Uh… it's fine if it's just freezing energy, right?" I asked, getting a really disappointed look from the woman. "Right… I'll find a better target."

She nodded before pulling something out from behind her back and throwing it at me. I managed to catch it, dropping my grimoire in the process. I pulled the grimoire away, feeling the familiar weight settle before opening the wrapped package now in my hands.

Inside was a sturdy and well-designed blue jacket. It was made of a material I didn't recognize, with patches of different materials around the sides and on the forearms. It had dark yellow bands over the shoulders, as well as several clips and bits, some as highlights and others as utility. It seemed to be at least lightly armored in certain places.

"Damn, Tatnia… this is fantastic," I said, quickly putting it on. "It even fits perfectly. Thank you."

"She spent some of her own money," Nal said as he stepped up into the cargo space. "It is good quality."

Tatnia smacked Nal in the stomach, giving him a look that told me she hadn't intended on telling me that she had spent some of her own money.

"You didn't have to do that, but I can't argue that this isn't worth the extra money," I said with a smile. "How much do I owe you?"

"Don't worry about it," She assured me. "It wasn't that much extra."

"Well... thank you," I said, looking back down before testing my range of motion. "It's exactly what I needed."

"Why did you need one so badly?" Miru asks from outside the speeder truck. "You already have armor."

"C'mon Miru, everyone knows that an identifiable look is what separates a badass from the dispensable goons," I said before looking at everyone else. "Speaking of which, we should also look into getting you guys some new looks. Something to set you apart."

Tatnia rolled her eyes and walked to the cockpit, sitting down in the copilot's chair. Nal shrugged and started going through one of our storage containers to the side of the cargo space. After a few minutes, he pulled out a prepackaged meal, which he offered to me.

Soon we were eating dinner, chatting about the plans for the next day. Eventually, when we had all finished, Nal agreed to stay up for watch first, and the rest of us prepared our beds. I fell asleep quickly, the fatigue from all of the magicka usage catching up with me. Eventually, Miru woke me up for my shift on watch. I switched between learning the spell structure for the flame spell and researching this variation of the Star Wars universe on my data pad.

-----------

We started our surveillance the next morning. Nal was set up near the market, sitting in an outdoor bar, with the speeder bike parked nearby. The rest of us were in the A-A5, surveying the location from up high, parked in a pay-by-the-hour parking structure for air speeders. It was attached to a truly massive apartment structure, so no one asked questions or even looked at us weirdly when we pulled into an empty spot. Once we were set up, Tatnia and I sat down in the pilot and copilots seats, taking turns with newly purchased electrobinoculars, watching the entire market simultaneously.

It was incredibly hard to watch. Both Tatnia and I were tense with disgust and rising frustration as we watched living, breathing sentient beings sold like pets, like equipment. It was nauseating, and more than once, we had to stop and look away, putting the Electrobinoculars to the side as anger bubbled inside us.

Someday I would put a stop to this, I swore to myself. Eventually, when I was stronger and more powerful, with more resources than a beat-up flying van and a couple of friends, I would tear apart this institution, with my own two hands if necessary. Until then, all I could do was focus on getting to that point and do as much good as I could afford to in the meantime, as small and insignificant as it might be.

"Two land speeder transports are pulling up to the gate to leave," Nal said through the coms. "Good quality. The second seems to be following the first. Both are marked with the market's logo."

Tatnia, who was currently holding the electrobinoculars, leaned forward and scanned the front road, nodding when she spotted them.

"They don't look armed… Miru, come take a look," The human woman said, holding out the bulky but effective equipment.

Miru, who had been waiting in the back, stepped through the cockpit door and peered through the electrobinoculars. She scanned around before nodding as well, a smile appearing on her face.

"I recognize those models. Standard, neither of them should be armed," She said before handing off the sci-fi binoculars. "And I don't see any modification that would make me think that's changed."

"Nal, follow them. We'll be right behind you," I said confidently.

I looked down and tapped a few buttons, the speeder truck coming to life, vibrating steadily. I raised my hand and cast clairvoyance, an arrow appearing in my hand that was pointing right where Nal was supposed to be. After a few seconds, it shivered slightly before slowly moving, showing our friend was following the speeders.

I raised the speeder up from its spot and quickly guided it free of the parking, heading down and around the large apartment building. Following Nal as best I could while also casting the spell, we finally caught up with him after a few minutes, landing on the actual road and switching repulsorlift systems. Now that we could see Nal, I cut the clairvoyance spell and took better control of the speeder, following them from a safe distance away.

"Nal, we are in position, ready when you are," I called out, knowing his comm unit would pick it up.

The Duros said nothing, and for a moment, I wondered if he had heard the message. Before I could say anything, though, he suddenly sped up, closing the distance between it and the slave transport speeders. He overtook them quickly, whipping the bike around and firing the speeder bike's dual-blaster cannons, red energy spraying the ground in front of the speeders.

Both of them swerved, spinning to the side slightly while still moving forward a few dozen feet before finally coming to a stop. As they did, I pulled the speeder truck up, flying over several other speeders before landing right behind the now-stopped transports.

The second we stopped Miru, and Tatnia rushed to the cargo space, jumping out the side door and running to the transports, but not before Tatnia grabbed a blaster rifle. Mercilessly Tatnia fired a few dozen blasts of red energy into the cockpits of the transports, making sure to shoot at a proper angle to keep from damaging anything important. By the time she was done clearing the first transport, the pilots of the second were just starting to climb out when she killed them both as well.

Considering what we had watched for the last few hours, it was hard to blame her for the brutality.

Miru and Tatnia quickly pulled the corpses out of the transports, letting them fall to the street before climbing into the pilots' seats. A few seconds later, they both reoriented themselves and engaged max repulsorlift height to rise above everything in the street. We all quickly flew down the road, away from the ambush site, leaving behind four still-smoking slaver corpses on the road.

Chapter Text

As planned, we flew for about fifteen minutes before Miru and Tatnia landed in an empty alleyway deep in one of the city sectors. The moment we landed beside them, Miru all but ran into the cargo space of the A-A5 and grabbed her tools before descending on the speeders. She inspected every corner and spot she could think of, looking for trackers or any other issues, spending a half hour before she was finally satisfied.

The rest of us nervously kept watch while she worked, waiting for the enforcers or whoever to come screaming down at us.

When she declared them clean, we immediately headed off again, this time flying in a different direction than before, heading to the people Tatnia had found to sell the speeders to. This time, it was a much faster process, a quick exchange of four thousand credits, and the speeders were dragged into a garage, a small crew of people tearing into them immediately, pulling off valuable parts. Seems like Tatnia had found a chop shop.

With three thousand dollars added to the new ship fund, and 250 credits added to each of our pockets, we climbed back into our speeders and flew away, eager to put as much distance as possible between us and this entire area. All of us were slowly coming down off our adrenaline high, to varying levels of disbelief that we had done it again and managed to pull it off perfectly.

“We need to be careful,” Tatnia said. “This was luck. That went way too well, and it makes me karking nervous!”

She was pacing in the back of the cargo space, while Miru seemed to be digesting the situation by sitting in the copilot's seat on autopilot, most of her thoughts clearly focused inward. I reached over and gave her shoulder a squeeze, causing her to look over at me. I gave her a supportive smile, and after a moment, she smiled back, leaning back in her seat. She let out a long breath, the tension that had been running through her slowly fading.

“Thanks,” She said quietly. “That was… more than I expected.”

“I can imagine,” I said, ignoring Tatnia as she muttered and talked to herself in the cargo space. “I won’t belittle you by saying you’re too young for this kind of stuff, because, at some point, you kinda stop being young going through the kind of stuff you have. But I will say if you ever feel like something is too much, that you-”

“I can-!” She started to say, clearly upset at the accusation that she couldn't handle herself.

“I have no doubt in my mind that you can handle anything this galaxy could throw at you,” I said seriously and honestly. “But that doesn't mean you should. Don’t be afraid of speaking up because no one would think lesser of you.”

For a moment, she looked like she was going to try and refute what I said. After a long pause, she huffed and blew out another aggressive breath. At that moment, she reminded me of one of my younger cousins, eager to prove she could do anything. It made me want to wrap her in bubble wrap and lock her in the cargo space for her own good.

“Thanks,” she said, even quieter than before.

I simply nodded, focusing on piloting for a while.

Eventually, after a few hours in the air, Nal spoke through the comms, once again scaring the crap out of everyone.

“I found a spot to land in. An abandoned landing pad, too small for a ship,” He said. “I've already landed.”

“Alright, I’ll find you,” I said before using clairvoyance to home in on his location.

Before long, I landed the truck speeder on the same landing pad as his. It was a bit rough of a landing, but Miru only gave me a single, quick look of annoyance, so I considered it a win. We stepped out of the speeder and examined our surroundings from the ground. The landing pad looked like someone's private space, but it was clearly in disrepair and was cut off on all four sides, with no way in or out. The walls were also pretty high up, hiding us from casual, street-level eyes.

"What is this?" I asked as I looked around.

"Sign of poor city planning," Nal pointed out, Tatnia nodding in agreement.

"It was probably a private speeder pad, but the building it connected to was demolished," Tatnia guessed with a shrug. "It happens when you build a city like this, layer after layer, shoving in as much as you can."

“Huh… this might be a good spot to hunker down in for a few days,” I suggested, still looking around. “We could cover the speeders with tarps to make them even less obvious, let the heat die down for a while. We have plenty of food. All we would need is water….”

“I was going to suggest something similar,” Nal said, standing from where he was leaning on the speeder bike.

Over the next twenty minutes, we covered the two speeders in tarps, weighing them down and ensuring that the two vehicles' blocky angles were as obscured as possible. When we were done, we all climbed into the cargo space of the A-A5 to have dinner.

The night passed without issue, as did the next three days, though we all reacted differently to the sudden free time. I was alright for the first two, using the time to learn all the remaining novice spells, practicing them almost constantly once I understood them. I only became agitated when learning and memorizing all of the spells did not unlock anything new in the grimoire.

When just learning them didn't do anything, I spent a lot of time committing the spells to memory and getting used to casting them, only for the grimoire to remain unchanged. The only spell I couldn't really fully cast was elemental flare. I cast it once after learning it, the spell exploding against one of the landing pad's walls, and immediately got yelled at by Tatnia for trying to give away our hiding spot.

Miru handled the free time fine, spending the first two days painting the A-A5 and MVR-3 using equipment that Nal went out to buy. She painted the MVR-4 a deep maroon, with bands of white running down the edges, and the A-A5 white, with gray-blue highlights, including a large strip running down each side. She then spent the last day scuffing and dirtying the new paint, making it seem weathered and old enough that no one would try and steal them. She was bored but kept herself busy enough.

Tatnia handled the downtime the worst, almost immediately getting antsy and agitated. She mostly spent the time cleaning and tuning our blaster pistols and rifles.

Nal was the only one who had no problems at all being cooped up in the closed-off landing pad, seeming content to read from his datapad and sleep in.

Still, on the fourth morning, we decided that enough was enough, and it was time to get down to business.

“I’m as worried as everyone about stirring up too much trouble,” Tatnia said, taking a sip from a container of water, a breakfast bag in her lap. “But I think this is enough of just sitting around. If we don't do something, I’m going to go insane.”

“Alright, I guess we have been here long enough," I admitted. "I’m starting to feel it as well.”

“I suggest we find a target somewhere else, so we may return here,” Nal said, looking around the secluded spot. “This location is well suited to staying hidden. For a few excursions at least.”

“It could be worse,” Miru commented. “That last alley we stayed in smelled… bad.”

“This whole planet smells bad,” I said, shaking my head. “But that's not a bad idea. Coming back here a few times is fine, but eventually, it's best to move on to somewhere else.”

Everyone nodded in agreement before we began discussing our next target, starting with what we would aim for.

“I’m not sure the transport raid was really worth it,” Tatnia said with a wince. “It got a lot of attention since we did it in broad daylight, but we hardly made any money.”

The planetary news, which was 90% funded by the Hutts that controlled the entire system, had run the story for a few days, emphasizing that the men killed were innocent hard working people, never mentioning that they were transporting slaves. Still, by the second day the news had died down, and we weren't even mentioned on the third.

“And you think the solution is to go bigger?” I asked, looking skeptical.

“By going bigger, we need fewer jobs,” Nal explained, Tatnia pointing at the red-eyed Duros and nodding in agreement. “Though they draw more ire, it will mean we can leave sooner before the full wrath crushes us.”

“Big targets mean big stakes,” I pointed out, leaning back on the cargo space bench. “But I’m ready to go after something bigger as long as we can set up a solid plan. Does anyone have any ideas?”

“Money transfer.” Tatnia immediately volunteered. “They have to take physical credits to a bank somehow at some point. All businesses do.”

The way credits worked was one of the reasons I was very happy to have negotiated for my extra knowledge before the entities dropped me here. The stories and movies had always just called them credits, only differentiating them in terms of who made them, meaning Old Republic, Imperial, or New Republic. They made some appearances in the movies and TV shows, but there was never much detail about the system in place, at least as far as I knew.

In reality, this one at least, there were three forms of credits. The first was digital, which was essentially what you had in your bank, whether it was local or Imperial backed. It was all through the holonet, though, ones and zeroes that never really existed but could still be spent and transferred around.

The second was credit ingots, which came in the form of literal ingots or coins. There was a surprising amount of variety for credit ingots, with dozens and dozens of shapes, styles, and denominations. The final form was the credit chip. These held internal values ranging from hundreds to thousands, even tens and hundreds of thousands. However, it was considered foolish to put that many credits into something that could be easily stolen. You could swipe a credit chip for small charges, similar to a gift card, or hand it in for its total value. Once they reached zero, they would automatically junk themselves, but Imperial-backed banks often offered incentives for handing in your zeroed chips.

It could get confusing transferring around chips and ingots, but most people never had to worry about that because they usually only had small amounts of physical credits, their larger amounts being transferred around through digital means. Only criminals or people who didn't trust the system accumulated large quantities of high-value chips or ingots.

All of this was backed by the Galactic Empire, so no one was dumb enough to mess with it. Rumors existed of cities being flattened by orbital bombardment because they were leaking counterfeit ingots or hacked credit chips. Not even the Hutts were dumb or greedy enough to test that rumor, not when the Empire seemed content to ignore them for now.

We discussed the idea of hitting a credit transfer and eventually settled on observing another market far from our current location. Chances are they would be doing the transfer themselves, which meant the transport would be easy to identify because it would be heavily guarded.

“How heavily guarded are we talking about?” I asked, leaning forward. “The element of surprise will be on our side, but that can only do so much.”

“It will likely be in an armored speeder, probably a modified somehow,” Tatnia explained with a shrug. “And probably at least one escort. Something tough enough to fight off attacks.”

We discussed it some more and devised a simple but relatively well-thought-out plan. We would find a market that was a decent distance from the nearest bank, then observe it, similar to how we started our last raid. When we thought we spotted the credit transfer convoy, because it would almost definitely be a convoy of at least two speeders, we would notify the rest of the group and follow. If it looked too tough we would pull back and move on to another location. If we decided we could handle it, I would study the speeders from our observation point and then use clairvoyance to follow them. When they reached a location that we thought would work, Nal, piloting the MVR-3, would zip ahead and attack them from the front while we would attack them from behind, hopefully taking out the convoys.

After disabling the armored vehicle we would land, Miru would break into the armored transport and we would take everything we could gather before booking it. We would take a long, roundabout route back to this spot, where we would lay low for another few days.

We talked about the plan for a while, spinning alternate ideas and emergency additions, where we would go if we were compromised, and what we would do if we were separated. Eventually, it was time to stop talking and start doing, so we packed everything up and headed out, traveling for four hours to find a slave market that was as far away as possible.

It didn't take long after we started watching this new market to realize that we clearly had no idea what we were really doing. The plan after the observation was more or less solid, as long as we didn’t bite off more than we could chew. What wouldn't work was our idea to just wait for a credit transfer, with no idea where it would come from and what it would look like beyond armored and probably armed and protected by an escort.

After spending four hours watching the market, I called it off, and we flew back to the closed-off landing pad. After we landed, Nal climbed into the storage space of the A-A5 so we could all talk.

“That was embarrassing,” Tatnia said, shaking her head. “Why did we think it would be that easy? They might be scum for selling slaves, but they aren't stupid.”

“I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head. “I guess everything else had just been going our way, so we assumed it would continue that way? Either way… we are going to need another idea. We could go back to stealing their ships?”

“I think I have an idea,” Miru said, chewing her lip. “But I don't know if you guys are going to like it or not.”

“All we can say is no,” Nal pointed out, while I nodded encouragingly. “I do not think any of us would mock you. Especially not after what just happened.”

“Well… the issue is finding the money transfer, right? Tracking it down and figuring out which one it is, right?” She asked, waiting for everyone to nod in confirmation. “Well…Boss, you have a way to track stuff, right?”

“Yeah, but at my skill level, I need to know the object or have been to the location before,” I explained. Eventually, that will be a bit more flexible, but not any time soon.”

“Well, what if we took some credit ingots and modified them somehow?” She asked. “A dent here, a marking there, maybe an identifiable scratch or something. Would that be enough for you to find them specifically?”

I thought to myself for a moment, considering what she asked. After a moment, I nodded.

“I think so, especially if I have an image of the ingots saved on a datapad or something to help me remember what they looked like. But how does that help us?"

"Well, if the ingots look mostly normal, and they ended up being spent somewhere," She explained with an apprehensive wince. "They would most likely get stored with other ingots, which would eventually get transported out...."

"You're suggesting that we spend money at a slave market? Are you suggesting-”

“Mhmm! We need to buy a slave.”

Chapter Text

Tatnia nearly jumped out of her seat at Miru’s statement, her face red with anger. Before she could say anything stupid and potentially hurt her relationship with Miru, I snapped a crackle of electricity at her. It was only a split-second long cast of the sparks spell, which I only cast at a fifth of its usual strength. It was an interesting trick I was only just starting to learn with some of the spells that took a continuous drain of magic.

The zap hit her in the leg, causing it to spasm slightly and keep her in her chair. From experience, I knew it hurt, but no more than a weak stun gun, or one of those tennis racket bug zappers cranked to the max. Her anger was immediately redirected at me, but I knew I could take it.

“We would free them immediately, maybe even give them a few hundred credits to get them off the planet,” I said, giving Tatnia a look before looking back at Miru. “You can disable slave implants, right?”

“Yeah, I can,” Miru confirmed with a nod and a smile. “That wouldn’t take long, though I would need a few tools. But the point would be to get the credit ingots into whatever stash the market would have.”

“Which Deacon would be able to track,” Nal finished, nodding in agreement. “That is a sound plan.”

Tatnia, who was now looking a little embarrassed for being so upset, nodded in agreement. She was still rubbing her leg, though, and giving me an annoyed look.

“One question… how much does a slave cost?” I asked, getting awkward looks from everyone else.

“I am happy to say I have no idea,” Nal answered. “But that information can be found on the holonet.”

We spent the rest of the day planning the purchase, and subsequent freeing, of a slave. We started by selecting a more high-end slave market, as we wanted to ensure that the credits we were spending, around three thousand for a single slave, would be recouped when we robbed the credit transfer speeder. As grim as it was, we wouldn't get anywhere if we spent more money than we made.

Miru made a list of tools for Nal, who flew off the speeder bike to purchase everything she needed to disable a slave chip. The list basically boiled down to more tools used for fine-tuning electronic work. With our target selected and everyone prepared, we went to sleep with a nervous energy that ended up keeping everyone up a bit later than we would have liked.

The following day, I was dropped off at a street corner with a big bag of credit ingots, several hours away from our temporary base. A taxi was already on its way while the rest of the crew moved into position around the slave market, finding alleyways and rooftops to idle on, waiting to hear if I needed an emergency pick-up.

The taxi arrived, picked me up, and dropped me off at the front entrance of the slave market. It was a large compound with a singular central building and several smaller buildings around it. In all honesty, the building complex looked nice, with smooth, clean lines and the occasional shrubbery or flower garden to break up the permacrete monopoly. Everything was clean and well maintained, with none of the grime that seemed to accumulate in every corner of this planet. It was disquieting, like walking into a serial killer's home and finding out they had the same taste in decor as you.

As I stepped into the compound, I could almost feel the darkness, the despair that permeated the air. It wasn't until I was well inside the complex that I realized that between where I was and the ever-present force... I might actually be feeling the despair of the victims of this disgusting place. I paused for a moment, under the disguise of looking at a plant, really just fighting the urge to burn the place to the ground.

As I walked deeper, I spotted plenty of patrolling guards armed to the teeth. These weren't glorified street thugs. They walked with purpose and discipline that spoke of some serious training and wore some impressive-looking armor. There were even several weapons platforms stationed around the perimeter, each one topped with a blaster cannon with a similar size to the one on the A-A5. The guards kept an eye out and in, seemingly charged with keeping dangerous stuff out, as well as the slaves from escaping.

I headed into the main building, doing my best to focus on the mission. After a quick conversation with someone behind the front counter of the main building, I was led into a series of rooms, each with a handful of slaves. The entire experience was disgusting, a horrendous combination of being sold a car and a pet. It took everything that I had not to do anything, not start through electricity and fire around like a madman. I couldn’t start down that path, not yet, at least. But someday, that would change. Eventually, I would fix this, even if I had to kill every slaver myself.

In the end, I settled on a Zabrak male, purchasing him for two thousand seven hundred credits, nearly emptying the satchel of credit ingots I had brought with me. He was tall, with a smooth, horned head and tattoed face that his species was known for. His skin was a bit greyer than was normal for a human, but the salesperson assured me that was normal. He responded to my orders with an utterly blank face, following behind me as the salesperson described how his implant worked.

“There are three safety triggers, the first being a simple shock. Use it as a deterrent or a punishment. The second will render the slave unconscious, which they won’t wake from for eight hours. Be sure it will not hurt itself by falling. The third will kill the slave. You will have to repeat that command three times before activating. There are no refunds for accidental termination.”

They went through the process of locking his implant to my voice and even threw in a new, clean outfit for the poor bastard. Throughout the entire time, the man was silent, the movement in his pale blue eyes the only sign that there was any sort of intelligence at all.

I left the slave market an hour after I entered. I was tired and disgusted with myself and the monsters I had just shaken hands with. After a five-minute wait, a speeder taxi landed near the entrance, and he followed me in, sitting in one corner of the parallel seats as far away from me as he could get.

The droid-piloted speeder lifted off the ground with the familiar hum of repulsorlifts, taking us away from the shiny, polished pit of despair. We were in the air for a few minutes when the Zabrackian finally said something.

“You were robbed,” He said, looking directly at me. “I will never follow your orders, not properly, at least. I will dedicate everything to sabotaging your life as best as I can. I suggest not eating anything I make and not trusting anything I do because I will not stop trying to kill you. The ones who sold me like a piece of nerf meat knew this. They knew you were buying a death sentence. ”

I looked at him, his face finally showing emotion. Just one. Complete and utter defiance. Unbroken and strong, this was a man who would never surrender to being a slave.

“Why hasn’t anyone killed you yet?” I asked, watching him closely.

“Can’t get your money back if my head is a pulped mess,” He explained with a shrug. “They just knock me out, rough me up, and send me back.”

“How many times has that happened?” I asked before adding another question. “How long have you been a slave?”

“Seven months and twice before. The second time I almost killed my owner,” he said, all but spitting out the last word. “Who knows, maybe the third time really is the charm.”

I could only shrug at his suggestion, doing my best to relax just a few feet away from a man who would probably gladly kill me with his bare hands, even if he died in the process. I had planned on releasing his binders at some point, but for my own safety, until everything could be explained, it was probably best to keep them.

Eventually, the taxi landed on a seemingly random street corner. The Zabrak stepped out of the speeder first. I was a bit worried that he would try and run before I realized he wouldn’t, not before he had a chance to kill me. Silently we stood at the street corner until Tatnia landed the A-A5 next to us, the door popping open.

“After you,” I said, gesturing to the doorway into the cargo space.

When he didn’t move, I shook my head, wondering how I would do this. I could knock him out with a command and would if he fought too much, but I would rather not stoop to that level. Just having the ability to torture this person with a simple word made me feel gross. Eventually, I settled on the lesser of two evils. I hid my hand in my jacket sleeve, charged up a calm spell, and shot it at him, hitting him in the chest. He looked surprised for a moment before his whole body relaxed.

“What is your name?" I asked, the much calmer alien looking at me with a blank face.

"Nevue Loc," He said. "What is yours?"

"Deacon Roy," I answered with a smile. "Could you do me a favor and get in the back of this speeder? I promise we aren't going to hurt you. In fact, I think you will be happy with how this all ends.”

“Alright, I guess I'll trust you for now,” He said in a soft, tired voice, climbing into the cargo space. “Should I sit down?”

“That's a great idea, go ahead and sit down,” I said, watching as the Zabrak did so, before looking through the cockpit door at Tatnia and Miru. “You guys seal that door, just in case. I have him calmed for now, but my illusion work is-”

“What… what was that?” Nevue asked, shaking his head and looking around before settling on me. “Did you hit me with some sort of stun blast? Did you drug me?”

“-Spotty at best.”

The cockpit door sealed shut, and I finished closing the entrance to the cargo space, the A-A5 lifting off into the air soon after, heading to our temporary home.

“Yes, it was a kind of pacifying ray, just keeps people from freaking out,” I lied, dropping into one of the benches.

“What is going on?” he asked, looking around. “What's with the speeder shuffle?”

“We didn’t want anyone near the market getting a look at this speeder,” I explained. “It's probably futile at this point but still. They might not have let me in if they saw it.”

By now, Nevue was starting to get visibly worried about his current predicament, frantically looking around, trying to spot an out or a solution to his problem. His eyes settle on the blaster rifles stacked on the walls, his eyes going wide.

“Ah fuck, should have seen that coming,” I curse. “Now, Nevue, please don't-”

The still handcuffed man jumped up from his seat, going straight for the blaster rifles. Before he could even get halfway, I shouted the knockout passphrase, “Slumber.” He collapsed, landing on the angled part of the back wall, just under the blaster rifles. I winced as he hit the floor roughly, thankful that he didn’t crack his head open. I let out a sigh and made my way over, laying him down on the floor in a more comfortable position before sitting back down.

We landed a few hours later, quietly settling down in the secluded landing pad. We quickly covered the speeder with a tarp, set up a bed for Nevue, and let Miru do her work. She scanned his body and located the implant immediately.

“On his brain stem? Miru, are you sure that's safe to pull out?” I asked. “I don’t know Twi’lek, or Zabrak biology very well, but that’s kind of an important and sensitive part of a human's anatomy. You can't just go hacking at it with your tools.”

“Who said anything about hacking at anything with tools?” She asked, looking at me like I was crazy. “The main component of the implant is removable. All the fiddly bits connected to his nerves will stay behind. You can get it removed, but it's not necessary. I still have mine. Think of it as a mount for the dangerous computer bit. You leave the mount alone and pull out the part that will explode on command. Trust me, it's simple.”

True to her word, it did seem shockingly simple. Using a vibroknife I sterilized with flames, Miru sliced into Nevue’s neck, exposing an implant the size of a nickel. She did some computer stuff, with Tatnia occasionally flushing the incision with water. Eventually, she was satisfied and put down her tools, picked up a pair of pliers, and pulled out the implant with a twist.

As she put it on her toolbox, I could see that there was still some stuff inside his neck, but the majority of it was now removed. Tatnia gave it one last rinse before using some things from a first aid kit to seal up the incision, finishing up by putting some sort of bacta patch on it.

In all, the process took ten minutes. When she was done, Miru let out a long breath.

“Woooh, that was intense,” She said, sweating slightly. “This was a newer model. It almost went off twice!”

“Jesus Miru… how close did we get to his head exploding in our faces?” I asked, giving the young techie a look.

“No comment!”

I glared at the young Twi'lek before shaking my head with a long sigh. With Nevue set for now, and the credit ingots sitting somewhere in the slave market, everyone sat down and relaxed a bit. I described how revolting the market was.

At some point, Nal pointed out it might be worth checking out the location of the credit ingots, even if they hadn't been away long if nothing else than to test if it worked. We spent about ten minutes scanning for the twenty credit ingots that we had personalized and that I had recorded on a data pad. Nineteen of the ingots seemed to be in the same spot, the arrow pointing in the direction of the market, while one was pointed off in a totally different direction. We quickly realized that they must have used that ingot for something, and it was now out in the wild somewhere.

I continued to scan the ingots every fifteen minutes or so, making sure that we didn’t lose any more of them out into the public. About five hours after we arrived, Nevue started to stir, shifting in the bed before eventually bolting upright, looking around wildly. When he spotted us all sitting nearby, eating our dinners, he rolled out of bed and stood up quickly. After a moment, he noticed that he wasn’t wearing binders anymore, and he looked down at his wrists in confusion.

“What… what is going on?” he asked, raising his hand to rub his neck, finding the bandage there. “What…”

“I took out your implant,” Miru explained with a smile. “It's actually over there with my tools.”

The maybe twenty-five-year-old alien looked around to where she was pointing, spotting the small coin-sized implant on top of her toolbox. His eyes widened, seemingly having recognized it on site.

“How? Why? What the frink is going on?” He asked, looking between all of us wildly. “Did… did you really remove it?”

“We did. We have no interest in owning a slave,” Nal explained before holding out a prepackaged dinner. “Come, you must be hungry. Eat, and we will explain.”

He stood there, staring at us for a long moment. He looked back to the implant, still feeling his bandaged neck. Eventually, having made up his mind, he walked forward and took the food from the Duros, sitting down next to him.

“Right! Well, I guess we start at the beginning, then?” I suggested, Miru and Tatnia both nodding in agreement. “Nal, Tatnia, and I arrived here just about a week ago, locked up in the cells of a slave ship….”

Chapter Text

Explaining everything to Nevue took about an hour, during which he ate two full meals. He listened with rapt and analytical attention, absorbing everything we said. Thankfully everyone seemed to pick up on my first hint, leaving my special abilities out when describing everything. When we were eventually done, he looked at each of us before settling on me.

“So, you're targeting slavers to make enough money to buy your own ship and leave Nar Shaddaa?” He asked, continuing when I nodded. “Why not just steal a ship and be done with it? Just pick one and grab it. You're clearly willing to get your hands dirty….”

“Because we don't want to be common criminals,” I explained with a shrug. “Slavers are acceptable targets as far as I’m concerned, but we would rather not make off with some random hauler's lively hood. An unlikely scenario, I know, but still one we want to avoid.”

“It wouldn’t be too difficult to find someone who deserves it,” He countered. “A little research, and you’ll find most of the people on this planet are rotten in some way. You don’t last very long here if you aren’t.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” I responded. “This is how we are doing it, and it's worked so far. I’m not here to start a criminal enterprise or get rich quick. Once we have enough resources to get the fuck off this planet, we will, but I'm not willing to compromise my own beliefs to do that. Slavers are as good a target as any, and we get the added benefit of occasionally freeing some people.”

The Zabrak man was silent for a while, occasionally lifting his hand to touch the bandage on his neck, rubbing the spot with a wince. Eventually, we started talking around him, chatting and passing the time. After a while, he spoke up again when there was a gap in the conversation.

“So what happens to me?” He asked, looking at each of us before settling on me.

“You're free to go,” I explained, ignoring the fact that I had pointed this out a few times during our earlier talk. “We needed an excuse to get our credits mixed with theirs, but now… Well, we can give you some money, maybe enough to get off-world, but that's it, really.”

“And what if I don’t want to go?” He asked. “If I want to stick around, steal from the slavers, get off world on your ship. Would that be possible?”

“I…” I started to talk, only to trail off and reconsider what I was going to say. “You don’t have anything to go back to?”

“I might, but I’ve been missing for half a year at this point. A few more weeks won’t mean much to them. Besides… you guys did free me from slavery,” He pointed out with a slight smile on his face. “I figure I owe you some help.”

We explained the general outline of the plan for the next free days as we waited for the credits to move from the market. Tatnia, of course, wanted to know if he would be of any use to us.

“I have some training with blaster rifles, and I know some hand-to-hand,” He explained vaguely. “Standard Zabrak education includes some combat training… To help those with a natural talent for violence find their calling early. After that… Well, I ran with a group that got into some fights. I’ll be able to hold my own just fine.”

“How did you end up here?” Miru asked bluntly, Nal wincing next to her.

“My group was attacked by a rival faction,” He explained after hesitating for a moment. “I was injured and had to run. Unfortunately, on the way to our regroup location, I passed out in the wrong neighborhood. I woke up with binders on my wrists, locked in a cramped cargo bay.”

We talked a bit more, Nevue describing what he was capable of in a very obviously circumspect way. Assuming he was telling the truth, he would be useful, but I could already tell Tatnia would be keeping a close eye on him. When we eventually headed to bed, I stayed up for the first watch, sitting in the cockpit of the speeder truck, watching the sensors and the skies, the nocturnal travelers of the city sector fly through the air.

------------------

Slowly Nevue fit into the group dynamic. He seemed to be something of a jack of all trades, helping Miru work on the speeders and Tatnia maintain the gear we had accumulated. He seemed to know his way around the rifles we bought and claimed to have some experience with a proton rifle as well. Considering he disassembled and reassembled it quickly for cleaning, I was inclined to believe. Everyone seemed to accept him, with even Tatnia agreeing that he seemed to know his stuff, even if we were both pretty sure the group he mentioned he belonged to was a gang of some sort.

On the third day of him staying with us, I finally explained my magic to him, though I left out the actual M word. He tensed up when I first used it, watching me spray fire and summon a sword.

“Is that the Force?” He asked, shocking the hell out of me in the process.

Out of everyone I had shown my magic to, he was the only one who had mentioned the Force. I wasn’t surprised that someone had made the connection, but I was more than a bit surprised that some random Zabrak from who knows where did.

“No, it's not the Force. The Force is rarely used in such an… elemental and multifaceted way,” I explained, letting my conjured sword fade away. “That isn’t to say that it couldn’t be used in that way. There were a lot of lesser-known Force abilities that did some interesting things....”

As I talked, he looked at me strangely, and I realized I was talking about things that very few people knew these days, all with the tone of an expert. I trailed off and coughed awkwardly.

“That's what I’ve learned anyway,” I explained. “I’m sure you can imagine I did a fair bit of research about anything similar to what I can do….”

We spent most of our time waiting around the slave market, keeping our eyes peeled as I rotated the clairvoyance spell through the remaining nineteen credit ingots. I would put my hand on the dash of the A-A5, cast the spell nineteen times, and make a note of exactly where the arrows were pointing so that I could tell if they moved.

We killed time however we could, reading and chatting about our lives before being taken. I talked about my family, still under the partial lie that I was from a secluded planet with minimal contact with the rest of the world. Miru talked about where she learned her considerable mechanical and programming talents. Apparently, having a knack for something got you extra rations as a slave, especially when fostering that knack led to even greater skill. I also learned that she was seventeen, and I mentally made a note to keep her as far away from the violence as I could.

Tatnia opened up a bit about her life, finally confirming that my guess about her being a grown-up street rat was correct. She grew up on the streets of a planet she didn't care enough about to name, eventually becoming a sort of problem solver for hire. When she was twenty, she worked as hired muscle for a merchant, traveling between a handful of planets, buying low and selling high. She had been celebrating a delivery bonus, getting a bit too deep in her cups, only to wake up in binders. When I asked her why she didn't try and get her job back, she chuckled and assured me there was no way she hadn’t already been replaced. Apparently, being low-level merchant guards didn’t have very good job security.

Surprisingly, Nal seemed the least interested in discussing his life before being abducted. I did find out that he was just over sixty years old, which was considered middle age for a Duros. He explained that the call to adventure was an important part of a Duros life and culture and that discussing his life previous to this journey would only taint what this could become. Apparently, it was better to form a new story than simply add to the previous one. Still, he was more than happy to chat to pass the time and share the occasional anecdote and joke.

Nevue, on the other hand, wasn't really interested in socializing at all. He confirmed that he wasn't looking to stay a part of the group once we got off the planet and that he did expect some sort of cut at the end. This annoyed Tatnia, but I honestly couldn’t blame him. Finding four people who meshed so well and were eager to work together for one purpose had been a fluke that I was still shocked about. Knowing that the fifth person wasn’t interested past a ride and a paycheck was honestly reassuring.

During the downtime, I was also practicing my magic nearly continuously. I had pretty much internalized all of the novice spells at this point, able to cast them with very little thought and at a moment's notice. Unfortunately, my grimoire still refused to show me any apprentice-level magic, something that frustrated me to no end. I was almost positive that the first spell to heal other people was an apprentice spell, and the sooner I got that, the sooner I could stop stressing out so much about my new friends getting hurt.

It wasn’t all bad, however, because while I hadn’t unlocked a new level of spells, I did learn that there was another whole aspect to the grimoire that I hadn’t known existed. I opened my grimoire a few days into our vigil, checking again to see if I had any new spells to learn, only to find a passage about dual casting.

I read through the several new pages, studying the diagrams and instructions eagerly. Dual casting essentially allowed me to channel my magic through both of my hands, but instead of casting two separate spells, I would cast a singular overpowered one. This would have several effects depending on what spell I was casting. In broad strokes, however, dual casting increased the potency of the spell in several ways, making a conjured sword more lethal, a summoned creature stronger, and throwing lighting that hit harder.

This, of course, came at the cost of using just under double the magicka. Even so, it was a potent ability, especially considering that this wasn't a video game, so the increase in effect wouldn't be lost in gamified numbers. In reality, a dual cast sparks spell would penetrate armor that the typically cast sparks spell would just dance over, while in the video game, it would only do a bit more damage for a ridiculous increase cost. Ultimately, dual casting would give me a significant advantage when my magic needed a bit more kick.

I just had to learn how to do it.

Luckily I had plenty of time, and I had been practicing these spells for a while by this point. In the game, Dual casting had been a perk that had to be purchased for every school of magic, but for me, it was a technique that could be applied to any spell that was cast with a single hand.

Essentially you would draw out your magic, and instead of forming the spell matrix in your palm, you formed it in the air between your two hands. This was where the extra cost in mana came from, as forming the matrix outside your body led to mana unavoidably bleeding off. Even with the loss, drawing out both matrices over top of each other massively increased the potency of your spell.

It wasn’t until I had mastered dual casting several spells that I realized this represented something significant, even more than a potency boost. The dual casting ability had been a specific perk from the video game, and here it was offered as a technique that I could learn. It stood to reason that other perks would also be available further down the road. While I obviously couldn’t remember every perk in the game, I did remember a few of them that could be helpful down the line.

Over a week passed, and four more ingots were moved out of the market, two of them leaving the planet, with the other two bouncing around the planet as they were used normally. The remaining fifteen ingots stayed in the same location, the general center of the market place or, more specifically, under the general center of the facility.

It wasn't until late one afternoon that we finally got some activity, more than two-thirds of the ingots moving through the facility. By flying around in a wide circle around the facility, we were able to locate where it was being moved to, settling on a smaller building to the left of the main building. We knew from the days spent having observed this location that this was where the transport speeders were kept.

“It's being moved to the garage,” I said through the comms, sitting on the MVR-3. “I’m going to swing around back to you guys. Get ready to move.”

I got confirmation back as I gunned the speeder, zipping down from where I had been parked to quickly make my way back to where the A-A5 was being kept. When I pulled into the alleyway, everyone was already on board the speeder truck save for Nal, who was waiting for me.

“Good luck,” I said as we traded places, the blue-skinned alien taking the speeder bike as he was a much better pilot than me. “I’ll call out their movements. Stay in contact.”

The Duros nodded and pulled down his goggles, double-checking his helmet before lifting off and away. The MVR-3 had an impressive repulsorlift ceiling, which we had been using to our advantage to travel over buildings. It was probably more than a bit rude, but I wasn’t exactly going to lose sleep over it.

I climbed into the cargo space of the A-A5 and started cycling the clairvoyance spell, waiting for any shifts in location. For twenty minutes, nothing happened until finally, they started moving again. I started tracking one specifically instead of rotating through the group, feeding Miru the direction. She quickly lifted off, speeding out directly in that direction, Nal following behind us.

Five minutes after lifting off, we had the convoy on our site. A singular, unarmed but armored transport, with two other speeders moving in tandem. The two other speeders were armed and lightly armored, with a closed-off interior and a single turret on the back that swiveled and scanned the area.

“You see them, Nal?” I asked through the comms.

“I do. I am ready when you are.”

We waited silently, following the convoy for a few minutes before the perfect opportunity struck. The convoy pulled off of the main road and into a smaller back road, one that would make it much more difficult for them to maneuver in.

“Miru put us down at the entrance into that road!” I ordered, the ship tilting as Miru nodded. “Nal, herd them back towards us with a strafing run! Nevue, get the proton rifle. Once Nal starts laying into them, try and take out their turrets. Tatnia, same to you. We need those armed speeders down before they can hit back. I’m not looking to test the A-A5’s armor. Stay focused, everyone. We can do this.”

Chapter Text

Nal immediately sped ahead of us, turning down to follow the convoy down the smaller back road. I could feel Miru speed up, the speeder truck tilting slightly as she pushed the repulsorlifts to their limits. It didn’t take long for us to catch up, Miru gently landing us at the road entrance, just in time to see Nal spin around much further down the road, now facing us.

The convoy had already stopped, the turrets of the two armed speeders spinning to target Nal. He started peppering all three of the vehicles with blasts of scarlet energy, even as he was turning. As the two armed speeders opened fire on Nal, who swooped low to avoid the return fire, the armored transport tried to retreat but was blocked off by the third vehicle in the convoy.

I chewed my lip as I watched from the cockpit door, leaning further into the cockpit to look out the windscreen. I could hear Nevue opening the side door of the cargo space, as well as the turret swiveling on top of the vehicle to lock onto its target. I glanced at Tatnia, who was focused on the screen in front of her, directing the turret.

Energy blasts of red, comparable to the blasts the convoys turrets were putting out, lanced out from the roof of the A-A5, stitching against the back of the closest target, centering in on the turret. It focused in closer before punching through, the turret detonating with enough force to rock the speeder to the side. Tatnia let out a cheer before starting to adjust her aim on the second vehicle.

Nal, who was now on his second strafing run, rained down fire on the hood of the armored transport, landing a quartet of impressive shots on the windscreen. The first pair of blasts from his dual cannons darkened the armored screen, the second blast following behind a moment later, causing it to sag under the intense energy. The third and fourth pairs turned it red hot before punching through and slamming into the vehicle, the cockpit in flames. The vehicle accelerated in its death throes, slamming into the wall of the nearby building and grinding against it for a moment before finally coming to a stop.

I could hear the whining charge up of the proton rifle before the pale, glowing yellow streak of energy fired out from the side of the A-A5, slamming into the convoy's remaining turret. Unfortunately, the turret was already spinning back to aim at us, and the powerful proton energy blast glanced off, scoring the armor deeply, but failing to penetrate.

“Sithspit!” Nevue cursed as the turret aimed directly at us.

I could hear our own turret shifting again as the enemy weapon opened up, a triple blast of red energy slamming into the truck. It shook the vehicle, causing me to lean against the doorway. Tatnia shouted and responded with her own shots, slamming into the turret and the speeder it was attached to. At the same time, Nevue fired the proton rifle again, the same beam of yellow energy firing out from our cargo space. It was hard to tell which of them actually destroyed the turret, but the result was an explosion that crumpled the top of the speeder.

Before we could celebrate taking out the heavy weapons, people started climbing out of all three vehicles. A singular, clearly wounded, red-skinned Devaronian all but fell out of the transport vehicle while several others poured out of the other two.

I turned and stepped back to the cargo area, looking down at Nevue, who was lying on his stomach as he aimed down the street with the proton rifle. I stood over him and quickly dual cast the ward spell, conjuring a vaguely ovoidal shield just outside the door. I managed to leave him a small space to shoot out of while still covering the doorway, and most of him, with the shield.

Even as Nal ran another strafing run, taking down three of the armed guards, the rest opened fire, spraying blaster bolts at us and at the speeder bike. Two blasts hit the shield, which held just long enough for Tatnia and Nevue to open fire, their heavy weapons quickly decimating the relatively unprotected guards.

When they had taken out the last one, the street was silent for a long moment, save the crackling fire of the transport speeders cockpit. I dropped the dual cast ward, stepping out of the cargo space and onto the ground. Hyperaware of how much of an open target I was, I quickly readied the lesser ward spell again, this time only in my left hand, holding out the protective shield while also pulling out my blaster pistol. I could see Nal landing on the half-crumpled wreck of the first armed speeder, jumping down with his own weapon out.

The two of us quickly checked the vehicles to ensure there wasn't anyone waiting for us to drop our guard before gesturing to Miru, who was still in the pilot seat.

“All clear!”

The speeder truck lifted slightly off the ground and pulled into the road. It was a little cramped with three wrecks and buildings on either side, but she managed to lower the vehicle enough that one could climb in and out without too much of a struggle. I could see the young mechanic tapping at the controls through the windscreen before rushing out of the speeder. She tossed some tools down to Nal and I before jumping down to the ground. Tatnia and Nevue were still in the cargo space, leaning out of the doorway slightly.

“Okay, this shouldn't be too hard….” Miru muttered to herself, pulling out a scanner and running it along the back end of the transport speeder. “This back hatch is reinforced, maybe four inches thick, as is the rest of the back, but….”

She trailed off, still scanning, chewing her lip as she focused. After fifteen or twenty seconds, she let out a triumphant shout.

“Yes! Okay, hand me the tight-beam emitter.” She said, holding out a hand as she studied her scanner.

I looked down at her tools, then up at Nal, who smiled and pointed to a device resembling a cross between a taser and a laser temperature gauge from home. I quickly picked it up and handed it to her, the focused Twi’lek utterly oblivious to the delay. Another thirty seconds passed as she pointed the device at certain places on the hatch. When she was done, she pulled something from her pocket and stuck it to the door, a low clunk echoing from inside the door. With a wide grin, she put her tools away and pulled the hatch open, revealing the contents.

The back of the transport speeder was filled with containers, all bearing the same mark that covered the slave market and was stamped on the transport. There were at least a dozen of them, maybe even more, stacked inside the back. A few of them had fallen over, probably from the crash, and one was even cracked open, its contents spread around the open space of the transport,

“Okay guys, enough lollygagging, we need to get this onto the truck,” I said, already reaching in to grab one of the containers, dragging it out to the back edge.

Keenly aware of our limited time, we quickly figured out the best way to move the money containers. Nal or I would drag it to the edge of the transport, Miru would scan it quickly for any weird signals, then we would throw them up to Tatnia and Nevue, who would slide them into the back of the cargo space. Even with the routine running smoothly, it still took two minutes to get everything into the A-A5. We only left one box behind, the only one that Miru’s scans for anomalous signals had gone off on.

With every box we got out of the speeder, I could feel a rising disquieting feeling in the pit of my stomach. By the time Nal was running to get back onto his speeder bike, and I was helping Miru back into the speeder truck, I could tell that Nevue, Tatnia, and Nal had figured it out as well. When Nevue grabbed my hand and helped me up into the cargo space, Miru immediately blasted away from the scene, following behind Nal.

“This is too much,” He said as I plopped down onto one of the cargo space’s benches. “You see that, right?”

“Yeah, I see that,” I responded. “Fuck. Nal, Miru, crank it up. We need to get the fuck out of here.”

We had just taken twenty boxes of credits, and if the one that had cracked open was anything to go off of, we had anywhere between forty-five to fifty thousand credits stacked up right next to us. We had clearly underestimated just how much money that slaver market was making, never mind how much they would be transporting in physical credits. I was going over the math in my head when Tatnia leaned over their seat and looked back at me. She must have missed what Nevue said because she just repeated his general opinion.

“You know we are in some deep shit right now, right?” She asked.

“I know, just push this thing as hard as it can go,” I said, rubbing my face. “We need to-”

Before I could finish my thought, the speeder truck dropped, Miru cursing loudly as she put us into a dive that was steep enough to shift the crates of storage and credit containers. I cursed and held on to a nearby panic handle as we immediately rose back up, then swerved to the side.

“Someone is shooting at us!” The mechanically inclined Twi’lek shouted back, the sound of muffled laser blasts making it to us. “Hold on!”

“It's Enforcers!” Tatnia explained, already returning fire, the turret on our roof firing as fast as possible. “There’s two of them!”

“Fuck!” I cursed, loudly. “I was hoping to avoid this! Tatnia… shoot them down!”

Tatnia nodded and focused on the instruments and controls around her, leaving what this meant unspoken. The fact that they had identified us meant they definitely knew what kind of vehicle we were driving now. We needed to get away long enough to hide. We needed somewhere to park the A-A5 where it wouldn't be seen because every moment we spent flying around was another chance to get spotted. I rushed to the cockpit door to look over Tatnia’s shoulder. It was hard to stay steady as Miru kept us dodging constantly, but I managed long enough to see we were being chased by two different air speeders.

As I watched, bracing myself in the door frame, I could see Nal, swooping around and using his maneuverability to his advantage, distracting the larger air speeders. As Tatnia peppered the front of both speeders, Nal attacked them from behind. I was white knuckle gripping the door frame as together they managed to take them both down, one after the other. Both crashed into the streets and buildings below, making my stomach roil. We had definitely crossed out of the morally positive slaver robbing now.

“Nice job Nal!” I called out anyway, as we evened out, and no other enforcers showed up. “Pull out ahead and start looking for someplace for us to land. We need to talk.”

“Sure thing boss,” He responded.

We looked for about five minutes, passing by alleyways and a few abandoned buildings that looked good but seemed a bit too exposed. We were just starting to slow down and land in an abandoned building, half collapsed and with just enough room for both speeders, when suddenly another group of speeders, this time just three speeder bikes, started to pepper us.

Over the next thirty minutes, we played a brutal and high-stakes combination of hide-and-seek and tag with the Enforcers, shooting down or escaping from several patrols. We traded laser fire with dozens of speeders, shooting down most of them and taking some light damage in return. Tatnia was in the zone, sweating but focused as she and Nal kept us out of danger as Miru tried to fly us to safety.

Eventually, out of desperation, Nevue and I started cracking open the credit containers and going through them, worried that we were still being tracked somehow. After cracking open the seventh container, I found a fist-sized piece of electronics with a blinking green light, buried under a layer of ingots.

“Fuck!” I shouted, taking the device, opening one of the side doors and throwing it out into the whipping wind.

We quickly went through the rest of the credits, doing our best to ignore just how much money we had taken. We found four more of the devices, which we quickly jettisoned from the vehicle. After the last one was gone, Miru slowed down, dipping into the cover of the massive city buildings that dotted almost the entire planet. Soon we were in the shadow of the taller buildings, following behind Nal at a much slower but still urgent pace. Eventually, he peeled off, having spotted an abandoned construction project. We followed behind him, landing behind a thick, opaque fence. Once we were hidden, Miru expertly drove us inside the unfinished structure.

We quickly jumped out of the vehicle and got to work, keeping one eye on the sky for any more Enforcers but also doing our best to obscure the A-A5. We draped and weighed down two of our massive tarps over the workhorse, covering it enough that, hopefully, no one would identify it. About ten minutes after we landed, the entire team climbed into the back of the A-A5, still tense, but our adrenaline faded.

“I’m sorry!” Miru said the second the door was closed. “I-I don’t know what happened! I scanned the boxes, and they didn’t give off anything weird, I swear.”

“They must have had them on a trigger,” Nal said, sitting down on the pile of credit boxes. “I was looking at your scanner Miru, and there was nothing.”

“They could have been triggered when we moved them, maybe some sort of proximity trigger?” Nevue suggested. “Something so that if they leave the back of the transport, they start broadcasting.”

“Either way, we have a problem,” Tatnia said, sitting down on one of the benches. “This was way too much at once. I know the goal was to aim a bit higher than the last job, but… this is going to put a lot of attention on us. They clearly know what our rides look like, and they will probably have our faces not long after that.”

“It's probably around forty-five, maybe fifty thousand credits,” I said. “They are all pretty much as full as the cracked-open one. It's a lot of money, way more than we anticipated getting at once.”

“Our supplies are sufficient to lay low,” Nal said, sitting across from me. “We have another week or so of food, maybe two if we stretch it. Water is a problem. Only enough for two days, maybe three.”

“Laying low will only get us so far,” I pointed out, shaking my head. “Before, we could reliably slink around, and no one would be looking for us particularly hard. That's not true anymore. We are going to have to watch our backs constantly.”

“Chances are, if they have this many credit ingots, they are going to have even more resources to throw around,” Tatnia said, her arms crossed. “We are going to start seeing people specifically looking for us, especially if they put out a bounty.”

“For fifty thousand credits? Yeah, there’s going to be a bounty,” I said, shaking my head. “If for no other reason than to teach us a lesson for robbing them.”

“Then what do we do?” Miru asked, now sitting beside me.

I was silent for a while, racking my brain for a solution. One came to me quickly, but I was hesitant to go with it. Unfortunately, no reasonable alternatives presented themselves.

“Honestly… It might be time to cut our losses,” I said with a wince. “We should lay low for a day, then head out tomorrow night. We can't handle this level of wanted, so we have a day to figure out what kind of ship we want to steal, and who we want to take it from.”

Chapter Text

“Wait, that?” Miru asked, turning to look at me with a surprised look. “Leaving? Already? We… we’ve barely done anything! What about freeing more slaves, robbing the bastards who… who did this to us?”

“Miru, kiddo… We can’t do anything to help if we are dead,” I said, letting out a deep breath. “This is going to bring way too much heat. Even if they hadn’t gotten a good look at the A5 and MRV, we would be going to ground hard. I’m talking about months of waiting before we even started planning the next move. But now? This much money changed this from attacks of opportunity to criminals targeting a legal business that the Hutts and their peers make a lot of money from. There are going to be bounties, wanted signs, and news reports. If the Enforcers are even mildly capable, they will be on the lookout for people using the credit chips in some of the boxes. You knew we wouldn't be able to do this forever, and you agreed that becoming martyrs wasn’t an option.”

I reached out and put my arm around the young Twi’lek. She flinched for a moment, but before I could pull back, she leaned against my shoulder.

“I know, I know… I just figured we would be able to do a little more,” She admitted with a disappointed look, once again reminding me of my younger cousins. “It’s alright. I’m just being stupid.”

“No, you're not,” I said, shaking my head. “I desperately wish I could do more too. But… We don’t have the resources to do much more than we’ve already done. I would have liked to spend a few more weeks, maybe even a month or so, liberating slaves and helping where we could. But this… We just put a very large target on our back. People are going to notice a pattern.”

“We were lucky our first job, where we freed you,” Nal explained, Miru looking up at the blue-skinned man. “We were able to take the ship with us and sell it without consequences. There will be consequences for this.”

“So, we are leaving,” Tatnia said, eager as ever to move the conversation along. “Who are we stealing a ship from?”

“Just pick one,” Nevue said with a scoff. “We could literally pick a direction and fly for five minutes, and we would go over five of them.

“I’m… We should put it to a vote,” I said after a false start. “I’m willing to do that if we agree as a group, even if I would rather not.”

“Why not?” Nevue asked, looking annoyed. “You are so eager to steal from slavers, but there are other criminals here. This whole moon is rotted to the core. Even if you pick randomly, you're still likely to pick someone who deserves it.”

“We have an alternative,” Nal pointed out. “Our first heist, they would have restarted business.”

“Is that a good idea?” I asked. “Returning to the scene of a crime strikes me as a bad idea.”

“But according to the Enforcers, there was no crime there,” Tatnia pointed out. “They would have kept that under wraps as much as possible, to cover up their tax evasion. No way that they reported it.”

“They would have increased security,” I countered. “I’m not against the idea, just wanted to point it out.”

“Unless they set up heavy turret emplacements, our vehicles can likely counter any upgrades.” Miru pointed out. “I’m more worried about the quality of the ship. The last one was a pile of junk that shouldn’t have left the ground, never mind traveled through space.”

“So… We return to that area, find someplace to hide out, and watch the location, waiting for someone to land. Once someone does, we assess their ship and decide if we want it… If we don't get one after a day, we go with Nevue’s idea. Does that work for everyone?”

The group nodded, though Nevue still was clearly not happy about it. He didn’t say anything, though, and we all agreed.

“Good… Miru, how bad was the damage to the truck?”

“It could have been a lot worse. The extra armor held up pretty well, but there was some damage,” She responded. “I'll have to take a closer look, but considering the fact that it didn’t fall from the sky, nothing important was damaged.”

“Great. Also, I'm sorry, but I need you to paint the speeders again,” I explained. “We need to do everything we can to throw off the Enforcers and whoever else is undoubtedly looking for us, even if it means redoing good work.

“It's fine. I’ll just strip the accents and come up with something else,” She accepted readily. “Tatnia, Nal, wanna help?”

“Sure. Anything to keep busy.”

We spent the next few hours into the night staying under the cover of the half-constructed building. While Nal, Tatnia, and Miru repaired and repainted the A5, Nevue and myself kept watch, our eyes on the city, hidden in the shadows of the empty permacrete structure around us. The two of us switched out frequently to keep from getting complacent and sloppy, but it was still incredibly boring. I spent my time rotating through my spells, at least the ones that I could cast inconspicuously and silently.

We finished the tense action-filled, and nerve-wracking day with a simple prepackaged dinner, all of us sleeping in the A5. One of us was on watch, of course, which meant everyone had a bed, and the person on lookout duty would switch with whoever was next.

The following day was more of the same. Miru, Nal, and Tatnia had finished fixing what they could, with Miru eventually announcing she was satisfied that nothing major was damaged, though we would be without temperature control and air purging until we got to a real shop. Tatnia had also stripped the accent paint on the A5 by the time it was dark the night before, which meant she and Miru would spend the afternoon painting and then roughing up new accents. The rest of us kept watch, killing time while we gave everyone a chance to calm down.

“Our biggest issue will be around this area,” Nal pointed out during lunch. “We are still relatively close to the crime scene. They will be looking for us hardest around here.”

“Rushing out is the exact last thing we should do,” Tatnia pointed out, Nal nodding in agreement. “We need to go slow. We can leave when it gets dark and find a place to hide near our target. We can watch the landing pad from far away since we will be attacking with the speeders.”

“About them… We are going to have to leave the A5 behind,” Miru pointed out. “It's too big to fit on any freighter that might be landing here.”

“Yeah, I thought about that. I wish we had gotten a bit more use out of it, but it already paid for itself after we sold the two transport speeders to that chop shop,” I admitted. “If we weren't on the edge of everything spiraling out of control, we could find someone to buy it, even for scrap. It's a shame, we didn’t even really get to name it or break it in.”

“...Name it?” Tatnia asked, looking at me like I was slow. “You wanted to name it?”

“Not yet!” I responded defensively. “...But eventually, yeah. You gotta name stuff that you use for a while. It gives them more meaning, more metaphysical weight.”

“What does that even mean?”

“If you name something that has been with you for a while and has been reliable, it's got more metaphysical weight,” I explained. “The universe pays attention to stuff like that.”

“That… fucking hell, are you the kind of person to name your blaster?” She asked, shaking her head.

“Not if it's just a random gun I picked up,” I responded, mostly continuing because I could see that Miru was starting to smile out of the corner of my eye. “But if I have it for a while, and I’ve repaired it, upgraded it, cleaned it, and if I’ve done some stuff with it, then yeah. C’mon Miru, back me up.”

“...If you ever call out the name of your blaster during a fight, I’m leaving,” She said, trying to hide her smile “I don’t need you embarrassing me.”

“Traitor!”

The young mechanic giggled, and I winked at Tatnia, who smiled and nodded in return. The rest of the day was spent preparing and planning, the tight edge of tension that had gripped us overnight having lessened slightly.

When darkness finally reached us, we quickly packed everything together. The vehicles were now as nondescript as possible, both of them a dark gray color, worn and artificially dirtied. Miru was once again piloting while Tatnia sat on the copilot’s seat.

“Alright Nal, ready when you are,” I said when everyone was settled. “Lead us away.”

The Duros acknowledged and lifted off, flying ahead. He quickly lifted up over the temporary walls set up around the construction site, before continuing on over the buildings. Miru promptly followed in the A5, both of them keeping a reasonable speed. The only suspicious thing we were doing was flying a little low, but even that wasn’t too out of the ordinary.

The first ten minutes were tense, with Tatnia all but glued to the sensor screen, watching the movement of every other speeder in range. At one point, a pair of speeders got close, almost following beside us for a moment. We all breathed a sigh of relief when they kept going when Nal led us away, the two speeders heading off to their own business.

Two hours later and we were reaching the general area of our destination, though you could only tell because of the coordinates the city looked the same from our perspective. A quick check of clairvoyance was enough to settle any nervousness about traveling to the wrong location. When we finally landed in a tucked away parking space, paying the fee with a smile, it was late enough in the night that it was threatening to become a very early morning.

With nothing else to do, we decided to sleep, Nevue taking the first watch, followed by myself and then Tatnia. When I awoke the next morning, it was Tatnia shaking me awake.

“Get up lazy. We need to start watching the hangar.”

I quickly got ready, grabbing something to eat and strapping on my blaster pistol before following her. A quick walk and a longer climb up a set of external stairs led us to a shadow-covered rooftop, which overlooked an impressive expanse of the city district. Tatnia, who had found this spot earlier, handed me the electrobinoculars.

I peered through the advanced binoculars, the sophisticated software auto-adjusting for the perfect look. I could see the hangar perfectly, clear as day. Overall, very little had changed to the structure, dispelling my fears of large turrets suddenly appearing. I did notice that more guards were walking around, two of them stationed on either side of the gate that led into the “reserved” hanger. To the right of that hangar gate was a gun emplacement of some kind.

“Damn… I wonder if they have any more of those inside,” I wondered out loud. “You think that could punch through the A5’s armor?”

“If it hits somewhere unarmored? Maybe,” She responded. “I’m more worried about what they have inside.”

“Have you seen any sign of what's inside?”

“I've seen a few guards come in and out, carrying some impressive weapons,” She said. “My guess is that there are six inside and two outside, rotating occasionally. And don't forget any ship that lands will bring more….”

“Yeah, not forgetting that.”

We watched the hangar for a while longer, silently passing the electrobinocular back and forth. We mainly stayed quiet, only talking when we spotted something new. Eventually, after a few hours, the guards started to perk up and move around.

“How much do you want to bet all this activity means something is incoming?” I asked Tatnia, only getting a scoffing chuckle in return.

Sure enough, ten minutes later, two transports arrive at the hangar, waiting at the entrance of the berth.

“Nal, start getting everything warmed up,” I said into my comm unit. “Looks like this might happen sooner than we thought.”

We were prepared to spend a day or more waiting, but it seemed like the schedule of these slavers had different plans. About twenty minutes later, a large ship landed in the hangar, and Tatnia and I started running back to the others. It was a smaller sized ship, but it also seemed to be in decent condition, much better than the last ship we had stole. It was a more compact design, with a curved top that jutted out past its underside.

We arrived back at the speeders only a minute or so later, both of us hopping into the back of the A5. Tatnia quickly sat in the co-pilot's seat while I sat down on the back bench. Nevue was already holding the proton rifle while I reached over and grabbed one of the blaster rifles. Nevue saw that and smirked.

“Not going to use your fancy sparks and flames?” He asked, double checking the proton rifle was appropriately loaded.

“I can always drop the rifle,” I responded with a shrug. “My damage stuff isn’t quite so good for long range, at least not yet.”

He shrugged, and before he could comment, I could feel the speeder slowing down.

“Get ready!” Tatnia shouted, the sound of the turret spinning and stopping filling the cargo space.

“Miru, park it above the ship. Keep them from taking off!” I shouted, standing and making my way to the door.

I cracked it open slightly before throwing it open completely, the A5’s turret opening fire to cover me. Nevue kneeled next to me, and together we opened up on the guards that were already aiming up at us.

Red laser fire, both from my blaster and from the A5’s turret, lanced downward. Tatnia was focused on the two stationary blaster cannons set up inside the hangar, while I started trying to pick off the still-struggling guards. Between the element of surprise, the high ground advantage, and our superior firepower, which was only increased when Nal started to make swooping strafing runs, we quickly took down the guards spread out around the hangar.

With the heavy weapons down, the next step was taking over the ship before it could take off. I looked down at the top of the ship below us, judging the distance before nodding, turning to Nevue, and putting my blaster rifle down on a bench.

“Cover me!” I called out to the Zabrak, before casting oak flesh on myself and jumping from the speeder.

I landed and rolled on the top of the freight ship, quickly regaining my footing and running toward the front end of the ship. Finding a good place to slide off, just behind a rather large sensor dish, I lowered myself down and let myself go. I slide down about six feet, using my hand free hand to slow myself down with the gaps in the ship hull plating. I landed roughly but rolled, working off the limp as I ran around to the front of the ship. I spotted Nal landing the speed bike not too far away, giving me covering fire as the people in the transport speeders started climbing out and shooting at me.

I pulled out my blaster pistol and cast lesser ward, returning fire as well as I came around to the entrance into the cargo bay of the relatively small freighter. With a curse, I was forced to dive and roll as the thick-plated door to the ship's cargo bay started to close. The door shut behind me as I recast the lesser ward, climbing to my feet and holding it in front of me just in time to block a spray of blaster pistol fire. I returned fire, missing twice but catching the crew member in the shoulder on the second.

As I rushed across the small cargo bay, passing several large crates, the thought that this definitely wasn’t a slave delivery bounced around in the back of my skull. Still, I pushed forward, holstering my pistol and stopping by a ladder that led to what I assumed was the main deck of the ship. I had one foot and one hand on the rungs before I realized how dead I would be if I started climbing. Instead, I dual cast a fully charged familiar spell up through the hole to the main deck, the transparent form of my tiger familiar casting light purple light back through the bay.

The shouts, screams, and laser fire of at least two people echoed down through the hole as my tiger followed my orders to take down any hostiles. After a few seconds, the spell failed, having taken too much damage, but I only cast it again. I repeated this two more times before the spell timed out instead of failing due to damage. I dual cast oak flesh on myself and pulled out my pistol, slowly climbing the ladder, my familiar still active.

The main deck wasn't anything special, reminding me of the interior of a relatively large RV. My familiar was standing by the ladder, waiting for its next set of instructions, while three corpses slowly cooled on the floor, the last one in the doorway to the cockpit. I double-checked that the rest of the ship was empty before pulling out my comm and making my way back down to the cargo bay.

“How's it going out there?” I asked, my hand hovering over the controls for the cargo bay door. “Is it safe to come out?”

“We are clear,” Nal responded. “Hostiles cleared out. Miru just landed.”

I slapped the button to the cargo bay, the thick door slowly opening to reveal Nal, holding his blaster at the ready. I give him a nod before stepping out of the cargo bay and making my way across the landing pad. I could see Miru and Tatnia climbing out of the A5, Nevue already looking around, having replaced the proton rifle with one of the blaster rifles.

“Alright, let's get the money loaded up. The quicker-”

I spotted a tiny bit of movement from the corner of my eye, turning to spot a single guard standing on the lip of the ship berth, his blaster rifle held up in a tight grip as he aimed down at Tatnia and Miru.

“Look out!” I shouted, running past Nal, dual cast lesser ward already forming between my hands.

Tatnia whipped her head around, trying to spot the threat, while Miru just froze, focusing on me. The guard opened fire, missing the first two shots, the third just barely deflecting away from Miru as I stood between her and the guard. I held the ward out in front of me, deflecting a half dozen shots while Tatnia dragged Miru back inside the A5. Tatnia had just barely succeeded when my ward collapsed under the onslaught of red energy.

Fortunately, that was enough time for Nevue and Nal to target and kill the guard, the very dead man falling forward off the lip of the roof, falling head first to the ground. Unfortunately, he also managed to get two shots through. The first slammed into my stomach, the second hitting a little higher up.

I could smell burning as I stumbled backward from the impact. As I stumbled back, my feet caught the edge of something, causing me to trip and fall back completely. I could hear shouting, but all was silenced when I felt my head hit something on the way down, turning my brain off like a light switch.

Chapter Text

Head trauma has a funny way of messing with your sense of time. I've been knocked out twice before this, once during a little league game when I was young and again a few years ago while I was celebrating my twenty-seventh birthday. Just three beers was enough to help a simple slip turn into a tumble down the stairs.

Being unconscious is like a deep sleep, one that you sometimes snap out of immediately, coming to after a few seconds. Sometimes, though, it likes to hang around. Your consciousness starts getting slippery, and it becomes really hard to stay awake for very long. Usually, getting knocked out and staying out is a really bad sign.

I slowly woke up with a slamming headache terrible enough that I could feel my stomach roiling from it. Thankfully I managed to hold on to my last meal because I wasn't nearly lucid enough to run to the nearest vomit-safe receptacle.

I slowly pieced together what was going on, struggling through what was probably a pretty severe concussion that I was probably fortunate to be waking up from. I remembered being shot, and the sensation of being lifted, carried around, and laid back down. I remember shouting, and the whine of blaster fire as well. I struggled to put everything together, but every thought was difficult to grasp, like trying to grab a melting ice cube with already numb fingers.

When my brain refused to cooperate, I decided to try and slowly sit up and open my eyes, gasping and collapsing backward when my chest and stomach muscles immediately failed, a deep, dull, aching pain radiating into my body. It was the deepest pain I had ever felt, grinding down on me. I could feel my brain trying to protect itself by swallowing me back into unconsciousness when something grabbed my hand, squeezing it.

"Deacon——self——need——yourself!"

The voice was washed out by the pain that wracked my body, but the grip on my hand gave me something to focus on. I gripped it back and tried to focus, my eyes seeing nothing but darkness, despite the fact that I could feel that they were open.

"Deacon! Heal——self!" The familiar voice said again. "YOU NEED——HEAL YOURSELF!"

Part of my brain reacted to the shouting without any extra input. Somehow, even with the pain and slippery thoughts, the familiar matrix of the novice-level healing spell formed in my palm. A cool, gentle sensation radiated downward from my hand, sinking into my body. I used all of my mana to hold the spell for as long as possible. The spell failed when I was out of magicka, but I could already feel it slowly refilling.

When it was full again, I raised my hands slightly, and whoever was gripping my right hand let it go. I struggled to dual cast the healing spell, failing twice before getting it right, creating a much more intense flow of healing energy. I did my best to focus it into my head, the slamming headache receding slightly, even as I used up my magicka much more quickly.

I repeated the process a few more times before finally opening my eyes to see the cargo bay roof of the ship we had just stolen. My head was feeling considerably better, though I could still feel the pain in my stomach as my muscles occasionally twitched, turning a dull, deep ache in a split second of shooting sharp pain.

I turned to see Miru, who was kneeling down next to me, with a watery smile on her face, tears dripping down her face.

"Hey, what I miss?" I asked, my voice scratchy and rough.

The pink-skinned Twi'lek almost jumped at me to give me a hug, but luckily Tatnia, who was standing just behind her, caught her in time.

"Woah there, kiddo, not quite fixed yet," I explained. "I was focusing on my head…"

I could see Tatnia wince when I mentioned my head injury while Miru kneeled back down. I realized that I was lying down on one of our cots, which they must have set up in the cargo hold. From both of their expressions, my injuries must have been pretty bad.

"You hit your head pretty hard," Tatnia explained, picking up on my own expression. "None of us are doctors, and we really couldn't stick around. There were some medical supplies and we did what we could but…"

"It's alright, I get it," I assured her, starting another dual healing spell, this time focused on my stomach. "How did my stomach look?"

"It could have been worse," She said. "You have some pretty bad burns around your stomach and a bit higher up, but we were pretty sure nothing important got cooked. The armor that Nal got us saved your life."

"Should have been wearing a helmet," I said, shaking my head. "I had him buy them for a reason."

"Thank you," Miru said suddenly, gripping my hand again. "You… I just froze and...."

"Hey, don't worry about it," I said with a supportive smile, giving her hand a squeeze. "I'm the boss, right? I gotta take care of our mechanic."

This time Tatnia didn't stop her in time, the younger girl wrapping me up in a tight hug. I did my best to grin and bear it for her sake.

It took about thirty minutes of on-and-off healing before I could finally sit up on the edge of the cot. I switched to a one-handed healing spell as I looked around the cargo bay. It was very cramped, the small storage area was filled with our own supplies, as well as the supplies that were already in the cargo bay when we took the ship. I could just make out the MRV-3 speeder, against the opposite wall, the one with the thick cargo bay door. Tatnia was sitting on a crate a few feet away while Miru went back to what she was doing, which looked like taking inventory.

"So, what did I miss?"

"Not much," She admitted with a shrug. "When you were out, we brought you inside, and Nal did some basic first aid. The rest of us took everything from the A5 and moved it in here. We just managed to leave before more guards showed up, but they didn't have anything that could punch through the shields."

"Where are we going?" I asked, feeling the strangely familiar hum of hyperspace through my feet.

"Well… We weren't sure if you would wake up on your own, and even if you did, we didn't know what state you would be in," She explained. "Nevue said that his people might be able to help, so we plotted a course to the last place he knew they were."

"His people?"

"He is with the Rebels," She explained, "They-"

"Fuuuuuuuuuuck," I groaned, hanging my head for a second before gesturing to Tatnia. "Sorry, continue."

"He says he isn't sure if anyone will be at his old meeting places. Apparently, they've been pretty busy the last few months," She explained, and I snorted at her understatement. "But he knows where he can get in contact with people, find out where they are, and if they are willing to help.."

I frowned, having a pretty good idea where some of his friends were, at least. After the battle of Yavin and the destruction of the first Death Star, the Empire blockaded the entire system, preventing large transports from leaving the solar system, never mind Yavin 4. Most of the rebel fleet was already around the galaxy, and there were several small rebel bases already set up, waiting for the rest of the alliance to escape Yavin 4. At least, that's what happened as far as I knew. This whole time period was a little murky even before the split between the Legend canon and the Disney canon.

"Well… since this is just a temporary ship, then there really isn't any harm being around the Rebels," I eventually said, slowly standing up. "So we can drop him off and negotiate a deal for this ship, then head out to buy our own."

"Don't like this one?" She asked with a smirk.

"It's a bit small. Have you guys been sleeping in shifts or…?"

"No, there are two beds, a cot, and the couch," She responded with a shrug. "It's not exactly the most comfortable place to sleep so we switch back and forth between that."

Once I was sure my legs weren't going to give out, I started making my way through the cargo bay, peeking into the crates and containers. My eyes went wide when I realized the second container I opened was all blaster pistols.

"Did we steal an arms dealer's ship?" I asked as I looked in another crate to find a heavy repeating blaster cannon like they had set up in the hangar. "Holy hell!"

"It seemed to be a delivery of weapons, but it's also got some general supplies," Tatnia responded. "Nevue already said that if we sell it at a discount to wherever Rebel group we find, he will consider that his payment."

"There's gotta be another twenty thousand credits here."

"More like twelve or thirteen. It's not all blasters and weapons," Tatnia said. "We should probably end up keeping some of the food that's in those crates over there."

I continued to explore the smaller cargo bay before arriving at the ladder. I had been healing myself pretty much non-stop since I woke up, so I confidently put a hand on the ladder before stopping and turning to Tatnia.

"How long was I out anyway?"

"Was wondering when you would ask that. Just over a day and a half," She answered. "We've already been to one empty base, Nevue was hoping that his team would be there, but it was cleaned out to the bedrock."

"Damn…" I trailed off, eventually shaking my thoughts clear. "Has anyone gone through our money? Just to count it and make sure there aren't any more hidden surprises?"

"We did, and there weren't," She explained, laughing when he gestured emphatically for her to spit it out. "We have just over sixty-one thousand credits. Not including the twenty thousand we got from selling the first ship."

"Holy… we need to be careful," I said, my heart thumping in my chest like a kick drum. "That's… a lot of money. Someone is going to come looking for that."

"We are in the wind for now," She responded with a shrug. "Eventually, we will be able to handle it anyway."

I nodded and started to climb the ladder to the main deck, climbing out into the lounge area. There were no pools of blood or anything, though there were a few suspiciously clean spots where there had been pools of blood. I made my way forward, stepping back down into the descended cockpit area. Nal turned to greet me, smiling and nodding.

"Good to see you awake," He said, gesturing to one of two empty seats, which I happily sat in. "How do you feel?"

"Better. I've been down there healing myself for a while."

"We heard. Miru was shouting pretty loudly when you started waking up," Nevue said, focused on the ship controls in front of him.

The cockpit was a wash of panels filled with buttons, switches, and levers. There were a pair of flight controls in front of Nal and Nevue, though both of them were tilted forward and out of the way, probably disengaged because we were in hyperspace. I mentally made a note to find an excuse to ask why some ships had sleek, futuristic controls and some had the Cold War-era look. Past the control panels and joysticks, through the viewport, were the brilliant streaking lights of hyperspace. It was a riveting view, almost hypnotic to watch, though part of my implanted knowledge said that staring at it was a bad idea. I wasn't sure if that was superstition or not, so I tore my eyes away and focused back on Nal and Nevue.

"Why are you guys stuck here?" I asked, leaning back in my chair and casting another heal on myself, trying to fix the last bit of soreness. "Isn't it kind of set it and forget it for hyperspace?"

"For an unfamiliar ship?" Nevue asked with a scoff. "There are easier ways to get yourself killed."

"Never know what quality ship might be," Nal said, explaining it a bit better. "Engine could fail suddenly, or a stabilizer might come loose. Fine if caught, lethal if it's not. Only trust a ship you know, maintained by crew you trust. Besides, you can enjoy entertainment."

He lifted up a datapad I had missed, wiggling it a bit before putting it down. We were quiet for a few minutes, the two pilots switching between looking at their datapads and the consoles around them. I could see that Nevue was playing Sabbac, while Nal was reading what looked like a technical manual.

"So… A Rebel huh?" I asked finally, when my magic was full. "Guess that explains your experience."

"Yeah, that's not going to be a problem, is it?" The Zabrak responded after a long moment, turning his chair to look at me.

"No. I mean, I rather you weren't, but not because I have a problem with the rebellion," I assured him. "Just makes things more complicated. I do appreciate you trying to get me to a doctor."

"I would still be rotting on that karking cesspit of a planet if you hadn't come along," He responded with a shrug. "I'm willing to extend a bit of trust. I should warn you, it's going to be a little tense when we eventually get somewhere with people."

"They won't just blow us out of the sky, will they?"

"No, definitely not. They don't have the resources to just blow ships out of the sky just cause it's suspicious," Nevue assured me. "I'm just going to have to prove I am who I am first. I can't imagine everything is going smoothly after what happened to Alderaan. Not to mention blowing up the Death Star."

"That actually happened?" Miru asked, stepping into the cockpit, catching me off guard for a second. "Weren't you… already caught by that point?"

"Yes, but I had access to the Holonet, and I know which news brokers can be trusted," He explained, staring out past the cockpit window. "I honestly wish it wasn't true, two billion people lived on Alderaan."

The cockpit was quiet for a lot longer this time. I looked over at Miru, who seemed unsure if the news of the Empire destroying a planet with a moon-sized space station, then that station getting blown up by a rag-tag group of freedom fighters, could really be true. Eventually, I couldn't take the silence.

"What do you do for the Alliance?"

"... my team and I were asset acquisition," He explained after a long moment. "We make deals for weapons, food, supplies. We also raid Imperial depots and supply deliveries. Nothing much bigger than this ship, and that was very rare. Usually, we just stuck to stealing food and supplies."

"Explains why you were so ready to rob the slavers," Miru said, the rebel nodding without looking away from his sabbac game.

"Let's just hope at least some of my team survived," He responded. "They should have records of who I am, but it will be a lot easier if they have someone on hand to back me up."

Chapter Text

Eventually, I got bored looking at the streaking lights out of the cockpit window and left to explore the rest of the ship in more detail. It was far from what I was hoping to buy for us once we were done dropping Nevue off and selling our extra goods, but it was clearly in better shape than the slaver ship we had sold. I was hoping to find a ship that would allow us to expand our team and pick up some more members and equipment. This one was way too small for that.

I figured the best way to explore was from one end to the other, so I made my way to the stern on the main deck. The furthest feature of the ship was a small crawl space, about half my height, that, as far as I could tell, led down into the engine area. I couldn't imagine having to repair anything in a space that size, never mind in an emergency. Next to the crawlspace entry was a small storage area. It was almost filled with supplies, some of them looking freshly delivered. I could tell someone had already been through it, with boxes and other things strewn around the counter. Judging by the empty snack food box sitting in the corner, they seemed to have found what they were looking for.

There were two identical bedrooms, cramped both from the lack of floor space and the fact that the roof slopped downward. Each room had a double-stacked bed to one side, with storage built into the frame. It was tight but manageable, especially since I knew there was a lounge to sit in. Next to the bedrooms was the refresher, which was basic but passable.

I kept exploring, eventually discovering that there was a meal prep system built into one end of the lounge. I grabbed a bag from the storage room and used the system to make myself a meal. It was similar to what we had been eating so far, but in a different style, some sort of noodle dish with a strongly flavored sauce that reminded me of beef stroganoff. I took one of the seats in the lounge, letting out a long breath before starting to eat. There was something therapeutic about eating a simple meal, and I could feel some of the tension I had felt, some of it stretching back to before I was injured, slowly released. When I was done, I climbed back down into the cargo bay,

I spent about twenty minutes or so going through the cargo, just exploring what we had made off with. Tatnia, who had left the cargo bay not long after I came down, hadn't been lying, there were a few shipments of weapons, but most of it was supplies and other goods. Our staff, or rather the stuff they had grabbed before we left, was set aside in the far corner of the cargo bay, near where I had been laid down.

Eventually, going through boxes got boring as well, so I made my way back to the cot and sat down on the edge of the bed. On a whim, I pushed out my grimoire, flipping through the pages to check if anything new had appeared. To my surprise, just after all of my novice spells were the new apprentice-level spells.

"YES!" I shouted out, jumping up off the bed and cheering. "Fucking finally!"

I did a little victory dance, which was, of course, the moment that Tatnia climbed back down the ladder, catching me with my hands in the air like I just didn't care.

"Well, that's a good sign," She asked. "What's going on? Find something interesting?"

I stopped dancing and suddenly realized that I had no way to explain how or why the book was expanding. They had all bought the "internal energy source" idea pretty well, but a book just randomly gaining solid pages? I couldn't just explain that away. Eventually, I just shrugged and told the truth.

"I unlocked the next level of things I can do," I explained. "Got a bunch of new things to learn. I'm pretty sure I'll be able to heal you guys once I figure it out."

"I… I'm not going to pretend to understand how you're doing these things," She said after a moment. "But I won't complain if it means you can fix me up when I get injured."

I nodded and looked around, eventually deciding that the small lounge in the living area would be a better place to read. I climbed back up, leaving Tatnia to herself, sitting myself down where I had just previously eaten, and started reading through my grimoire.

Despite the fact that I wasn't nearly as crunched for time as I was when this all started, I still wanted to have a general idea of my options before I dedicated myself to a singular spell. In order to do that, I needed to read through what spells the book was offering to teach me. The first section was alteration, which had a paltry two spells to offer, and both of them were upgrades to spells I already knew.

Destruction had an array of new spells, including some desperately needed spells that would let me hit something further than fifty feet away. I made a mental note that lightning bolt was on the short list of spells I wanted to learn as soon as possible. Illusion was in a similar spot as alteration, as there were only three spells. Fear and courage could be useful, and I had a small niggling feeling that in the games, calm and courage had been flipped in terms of level, but muffle, the third illusion spell, was definitely going on the list with lightning bolt. Stealth archers were overpowered for a reason.

Conjuration was a bit different from what I expected, barring the fact that there was still no necromancy. Not that I was upset by that, I was more than happy to not have to deal with raising the dead. The apprentice list of spells included the ones I had expected, like conjuring a bound battle ax, soul trap, and summoning a flame atronach, which joined the list of must-learn spells. Additionally, there was conjure elemental familiar, which, as far as I could tell, was a spell that lets you summon your familiar with an extra twist of either fire, cold, or lightning. If someone managed to forcibly dispell them, and it's what you wanted, they would detonate in the element you imbued them with. They also did a bit of extra damage with that element through any normal attacks as well.

I could only assume that the summon elemental familiar had replaced flaming familiar, which I remember having been at this level or at adept. What I was sure about was that a detonating summon could be very useful… or an extremely dangerous problem. I couldn't reset my choice for it to explode once I cast it, and I wasn't immune to its explosions, as far as I could tell. All that meant that a lucky shot could cause my familiar to blow up in my face.

What was extremely interesting was the inclusion of summon bound armor, which I knew for a fact was not a spell you could learn in Skyrim. It came in two varieties, upper and lower torso, and from the description, it would work the same way as a bound weapon. The description went out of the way to remind the reader that bound items were not indestructible, even beyond banishing.

Realizing that my list of spells to learn asap was growing, I skipped ahead and opened the restoration section, revealing the list to be what I expected, save one addition. I was excited to learn that healing hands, a spell that lets me heal others, was on the list, as well as fast healing, a potential game changer in dangerous scenarios. There was also the second iteration of ward, steadfast ward, something I was eager to learn after a lesser version failed to block sustained blaster rifle fire.

What was really intriguing was the respite spell, something I didn't recognize from Skyrim but did sound vaguely familiar. A quick check through its description revealed it to be a spell that wiped away fatigue and restored stamina. I was very interested to find out how that worked, and I could imagine that it would be extremely useful in a lot of bad situations, especially since it could be cast on yourself or onto someone else with very little change to the second matrix.

Despite desperately wanting to try and learn one of the spells I knew weren't from Skyrim, I knew that there was something much more important things that I really needed to focus on. I quickly flipped the pages back, re-opening the restoration section and finding the healing hands spell.

I started reading through the first page, which included a more in detail description, a brief overview of its limitations as well as several potentially missed uses. I made note that this spell did nothing for anything conjured with magic, nor any sort of automaton, which made sense. It wasn't unsurprising, but now that I knew it wouldn't work, I really wish it did.

As I flipped the page over to the matrix diagrams, it took me a long moment for me to realize what I was looking at.

"Huh… I guess that explains why they are broken up like that.…" I mumbled to myself, doing my best to make heads or tales out of the diagrams.

Novice spells had been relatively easy to learn. Each spell had a matrix, which I would recreate and then slowly tune to my own body, aetherial presence, and soul. When I was done, I would memorize it through repeat casting, which helped my magic acclimatize to the spell, making it easier to cast with less thinking. It appeared that apprentice spells had two separate matrices, both of them interacting with each other before recombining to be cast. How they interacted and the placement of the separate matrices depended greatly on the spell, but the examples they included were one after the other, woven together at the same time, or even created in separate hands and combined at the last minute.

On the one hand, this meant that learning new spells wasn't going to be some crazy process that required resources or anything. On the other hand, learning two matrices would most likely double how long it took for me to finish them, meaning somewhere between six and eight hours. Even worse, if the pattern continued, then learning adept spells would take between nine and sixteen hours, probably leaning toward the higher end.

I cursed and shook my head before doing my best to put that out of my mind, purposely not doing the math for the expert or master levels. Instead, I focused on forming the matrices for healing hands. This particular apprentice spell was simply two matrices in a row, the first one starting in my wrist and the second in my palm. It wasn't terribly complicated to put together, just a much longer process, as I worked out the second matrix immediately after the first. About forty-five minutes after I started, I finally had the matrix put together. I held it in place for a while before slowly but surely tuning it into something that would work for me.

I was about three hours in when I could feel the ship drop out of hyperspace. I groaned, realizing that I needed to plan ahead better now that learning a spell wasn't something I could crank out in a few hours. For a moment, I considered trying to rush it, but Tatnia came up from the cargo bay and nodded to the cockpit when she saw me. I nodded and closed my book, grumbling under my breath. I mentally debated for a moment before calling out to Tatnia.

"What's wrong?" She asked when she poked her head out from the cockpit.

"Take a vote amongst yourselves. I'm about five hours from learning how to heal you guys, so we can wait until I have it down, or-"

"We can wait!" Miru called out from behind the human woman.

Both Nal and Nevue also voiced their agreement quickly. Apparently, waiting wasn't nearly as big of an issue as I thought. Tatnia picked up on my surprise and snorted.

"Not exactly a difficult choice Deacon. Why would we rush when taking our time means we have a medic on the team?" She pointed out, shaking her head. "Do your thing, Boss. I'm going to take a nap."

"Ah… yeah, fair point," I admitted sheepishly, quickly focusing back on my work before I lost any progress.

Like the novice spell, the first fifth of the matrices worked smoothly the first time I tried, cutting a fifth off what the spell would have probably taken. I continued to work, trying my best to focus while everyone was moving around. After about another four hours and some change, I finally managed to cast the spell, the coil of healing energy stretching out away from my hand for a foot or so instead of sinking into my body like my normal healing spell did.

I let out a groan and leaned back into my seat, casting the spell a second and third time, holding it for the third until I ran out of magicka. I almost lost it on the second cast but managed to recall the final form of the matrices, aided by whatever was causing the spells to get easier as I recast them repeatedly. Nal, who was sitting in a chair not far from me, looked up from his datapad, showing his sharp teeth off with a smile.

"Were you successful?" He asked, putting the datapad on the center table.

"Yeah, I got it working," I responded, waiting for my mana to replenish before casting it again and again. "Got any injuries that need healing?"

The blue-skinned Duro's stood up from his seat and moved to sit directly next to me. He lifted one of his fingers to his mouth,
which as always, was filled with very sharp teeth, nicking his skin enough that some blood began welling on his finger pad. I rolled my eyes before recasting the spell, this time focusing it on his hand.

"Oh… that is a strange sensation. Not unpleasant," He commented before cleaning his thumb to reveal unbroken skin. "It appears that you have succeeded, Deacon. Congratulations."

I stood up and groaned, leaning backward a bit in my seat, my spine settling with a series of cracking sounds. I was sore, having spent around six hours bent over the grimoire. I cast a normal healing spell on myself, my soreness fading after a few seconds.

“Nal, you wanna get Tatnia?” I asked, the older man nodding in agreement. "I'll go down and get Miru."

Nal went back to knock on the bedroom door while I leaned down and shouted for Miru, the young Twi'lek shouting back, making their way to the ladder. After just a few minutes, we made our way into the cockpit, only to find Nevue had moved into a passenger sleep and was now taking a nap.

"Nevue?" I called out, noting that the Zabrak jolted awake a bit aggressively, his hand sliding down to his holster before he remembered where he was. He took a second to blink and crack his neck before looking at me. While he was blinking the sleep from his eyes, Nal sat down in the copilot's chair.

"You all set?" The horned man asked as he tapped his controls and read his readouts.

"Yeah, ready when you are."

"Good," He said, simply standing from his seat and retaking a seat in the pilot chair. "Time to say hello."

Chapter Text

It turns out that when Nevue said we needed to say hello, he wasn't using a turn of phrase or making a joke. The first thing he did when he sat down in the pilot's seat was tap a few buttons and flip a switch, a panel lighting up and beeping out a series of tones and warbles that repeated every five seconds.

"What's that?" Miru asked, leaning over to look at the panel.

"It's the friendly signal," Nevue explained, taking control of the ship and reorienting it, a large planet filling the cockpit window. "Just in case anyone is home to see us coming, they know we aren't here to wipe them out. We don't have an IFF transponder."

The ship kept moving, rumbling softly as Nevue activated the sublight engines, the small freighter now oriented chiefly away from the planet. A small moon, half blocked by the planet's horizon, slowly came into view. The planet itself was a mixture of red and cobalt gray, a strange combination, made only weirder by the light yellow clouds that covered a significant portion of it. The moon behind it was a very, very pale blue and seemed to be on the large side. Or maybe it was just closer than I was used to from Earth's moon?

"What kind of base was this?" I asked, looking away from the planet to our pilot. "That planet doesn't exactly look habitable."

"Oh, it's not. It would melt the skin off your bones in a few minutes and noticeably corrode the ship's hull after a few hours," He admitted. "It's a dead world, which makes its moon the perfect place to hand off goods. Whenever we got our hands on enough supplies to be worth the trip, we would seal it up, bring it to the moon and store it in a deep meteorite crater. The pick-up team would come by and haul it away, distributing it as needed. It's also our emergency contact point. There's a hyperwave comms unit that we can use to request a rendezvous point. They won't respond to random messages, just ones from specific units."

"Ah, so the Rebellion is still in the rebel cells stage?" I asked, Nevue nodding without looking away from the viewport.

"Partly. It's an important part of gathering resources, stirring up the rise to rebel, and really the only way to keep a presence on any world firmly in Imperial hands," He explained easily. "But it's not all small cells of freedom fighters. We have a fleet, and an army, though it's broken up and spread out around the galaxy. It's not all dead drops and code phrases."

I nodded in understanding and mentally pushed the lever between the Disney canon and Legends canon a bit further into the Disney section. The Legends canon never really dove into the pre-rebellion era that much, at least not that I knew of, and the idea of rebel cells slowly building an Alliance army generally came from the Disney side. It wasn't a guarantee, but it was worth keeping in mind.

We got closer and closer to the moon, slowly lowering to the small lunar satellite. We flew around its surface for a few minutes before Nevue pointed out toward the lip of a large meteorite crater.

"There it is," he said, before adjusting the ship to get closer, landing it a few meters away from the lip. "So, we have three EVA suits. Who wants to come with me?"

It took a while for Nal, Nevue, and myself to put on the suits, mostly because I had no idea what I was doing, and they both needed to help me, but soon Miru and Tatnia were sealed up on the main deck while we slowly depressurized the cargo bay. The suit was only a basic sealed environment suit, with a blue underlay and orange plates over that. The helmet was the same color scheme and actually reminded me of the original Spartan helmet from Halo, though the face plate was translucent, not one-sided.

The suit itself was a bit restrictive, and I needed to be careful not to cast anything that would ruin it, but I was way too excited at the prospect of a low-gravity moonwalk to care. I had spent the first ten years of my life assuring everyone that when I was older, I was going to be an astronaut and walk on the moon, and while this wasn't Luna, it was still part of a dream come true.

When the cargo bay door finally opened, I was the first one out, walking down the slight ramp to the moon's surface, I turned back to look at Nevue, who was looking around from the doorway.

"Does this moon have a name?" I asked, bouncing a little in place to get used to my new weight outside the ship's artificial gravity.

"No, the planet doesn't even have one, just a code number," Nevue answered, stepping down to the surface. "We always called it 'hand off point thirteen' or Point Thirteen."

I followed the Zabrak to the edge of the massive crater, looking down into the pit. It mainly seemed normal, though now that I was focusing, I could see the subtle footprints that covered a significant portion of the ground around us. Down in the middle of the crater was a platform, about three meters across and maybe four wide, the whole structure clearly painted to be as camouflaged as possible to the moon's surface.

"That platform was where we would secure things for pick up," Nevue explained, pointing down at it. "Though we sometimes had to improvise and spread it out a bit more. Then we could cover everything with camouflage tarps."

"How do we-" I started to ask, only to watch as he jumped over the lip and floated downward. "-get down… Right, I should have seen that coming."

I watched as he made his way down, doing a strange leaping walk that let him cover a lot of distance, though everything had that slow, low grave pacing. Eventually, Nal jumped after him, and after a deep breath, I did as well. I slowly bounced down to the bottom of the crater, doing my best not to fall on my face as I did. Eventually, I got a bit more confident, and when I reached the reasonably flat ground at the bottom of the crater, I jumped up as hard as I could.

I shot up and forward, floating through space for a full five seconds before the moon's low gravity finally caught up with me and I slowly landed, stumbling a bit but recovering. I turned to find both Nal and Nevue looking at me, suddenly very glad I didn't let out a shout as I flew.

"Hey, cut me a break. This is my first time in low gravity," I explained. "Low-tech planet, remember?"

Nevue shook his head and continued to walk towards the platform while Nal nodded in understanding.

"It is an interesting experience," He said as he got closer. "Very glad you're not the type to get violently ill."

"Yeah, me t- Wait, was that something that could happen?" I asked, turning as the Duros walked past me. "Was there a chance I would have just gotten violently ill?"

"Yes, some species have members who cannot stand in low gravity," He explained. "Humans are one such species."

"Jesus Christ, I would have been sick in the suit too!" I said, suddenly feeling a bit queasy from the thought of throwing up in a sealed environment. "You could have warned me!"

"Could have, but that wouldn't have been as funny."

I resisted the urge to shove the older man, instead following behind him and climbing up onto the platform. Now that we were standing on it, you could clearly tell that the legs were driven into the rocky moon's surface, probably to keep them from flying away every time someone bumped them. Nevue spent a few minutes walking around the small platform, looking down before eventually letting out "hah!" of success and kneeling down. He fiddled with something for another few seconds before pulling open a hidden hatch

He reached inside the hatch and pulled out a school locker-sized box, lifting it easily in the low gravity. Once he had it secure on the platform, he spent a minute studying the box, eventually opening a panel and typing on a small datapad-like interface. He typed for about thirty seconds before spending a minute re-reading what he had typed. When he was done, he nodded and tapped the keyboard again.

"Alright, that's done," He said. "Now help me get this box up into the cargo bay. I don't want to be in this suit any more than I have to."

The three of us spent about ten minutes moving the large mobile holonet connector into the cargo bay, closing the large door, and waiting for the bay to repressurize. When a light near the door turned green, we started removing the EVA suits. Our helmets came off first, popping off with a slight hiss of a seal breaking.

"Sithspawn, I hate these," Nev said, visibly restraining himself from dropping the helmet onto the ground. "They are never warm enough. I can't feel my fingers."

"At least it's better than a flight suit," I pointed out. "Nothing like wearing something willing to sacrifice your limbs to keep your body going."

Nevue shivered and shook his head, quickly removing the rest of his suit. When all three of us pulled off the final pieces, Tatna and Miru made their way down the ladder into the cargo bay. Miru headed straight to the box we had just brought in while Tatnia leaned against a crate.

"So, did it work?" She asked, her arms crossed.

"The message went through. Assuming someone is still checking the system, we should get a reply eventually," Nevue responded.

"Miru, don't mess with it," I said, having watched the mechanically inclined teenager start tapping the casing of the secure holonet unit.

"I wasn't gonna break it! I just want to see under the casing," She explained, pulling her hands away. "I've never seen a hyperwave unit like this."

"That's because it's custom-made," Nevue explained. "It's basically a cudgeled-together starfighter unit, sealed in a fancy box."

With the message sent, all we could do was wait. I was tempted to start learning another spell, but with no idea where the base would be, I had no way of knowing how long I had. Instead, I settled on practicing some of my novice magic, as well as the healing hands spell. It was boring, so I also passed the time by finishing up the inventory of goods and figuring out what we wanted to keep and what we wanted to sell to the rebels.

"Everything we keep is going to make transferring harder," Tatnia pointed out. "Not sure how you plan on shipping over all the credits once we drop off Nevue. You were planning on selling this thing, right?"

"You know, I don't have to be the only one making decisions," I pointed out. "I never claimed to be the leader."

Tatnia snorted in response, shaking her head,

"You know, before all of this," She responded, gesturing around vaguely. "I would have laughed at anyone who told me I would listen to what someone else told me to do. I'm not the brightest star in the galaxy, but even I can see you're the boss, Boss."

I grumbled as she smirked, knowing just how I felt about that.

"Fine, I won't say no. Just make sure you back me up when we inevitably find the person who thinks they can do a better job than me," I said, getting a raised eyebrow in response. "But yes, the plan is to sell this ship to the Rebellion, probably at a discount. While I'm not a joiner, the current status quo is too fucky not to lend a hand here and there. Anyway, we can sell them the ship with the caveat that they use it to shuttle us somewhere where we can buy another one. Then we just transfer stuff over. When we are done, they leave in this ship, and we leave in our new, bigger, and much better ship."

Tatnia nodded appreciatively of the idea before looking up at where the ladder disappeared into the roof of the cargo bay. She was clearly thinking about something, but I was happy to let her do so in silence as I read through some of the options for the pre-packaged, shelf-stable meals. Eventually, she spoke up.

"You think they can do it?" Tatnia asked. "Take down the Empire?"

"...Maybe," I answered, looking up at the brown-haired woman. "It will happen eventually either way."

"What do you mean?"

"Empires always fall, it's inevitable," I explained with a shrug, leaning back on my storage crate seat. "No matter what kind of government, no matter how they rule, they always fall eventually. Ironically, it's usually at the hands of its own people. Rebels who want a change or greedy people who want to rule. Even if it comes down to chance, eventually, it will happen."

"So you think the Galactic Republic falling was inevitable?" She asked, focused on me now.

"Absolutely. From what I know, it was a miracle it lasted as long as it did," I responded. "It was a bloated, corrupt, unresponsive, half-dead, greedy corpse. The Empire were just the fucks who put it out of its misery."

"... That was a lot more aggressive than I expected," Tatnia admitted, looking at me surprised.

"The only thing worse than someone being a dick, is someone being a dick while insisting that they have the moral high ground, and that they are doing what's best for the world," I pointed out. "If the Empire hadn't come along and taken over, I'm pretty sure there would still be a rebellion going on."

Tatnia and I chatted for a few more minutes before, eventually, she went off to get something to eat while I continued to multitask between practicing what magic I could inside a ship and looking through the inventory. Eventually, the holonet connector let out a series of beeps.

I called out for Nevue, pausing to listen for a reply. When none came, I started making my way over to the ladder, only for the Zabrak to appear on the ladder, climbing down. He quickly made his way to the custom machine, pulling open the display and reading the response. After a few minutes, he sent an answer before turning to look at me.

"They sent coordinates," He explained. "To a planet called Thila in the Outer Rim Territories, I-Sector."

"Really? Just like that?" I asked in disbelief. "Sounds a bit easy."

"Well, the messages have been in a double-layer code," He explained with a shrug. "And the hyperwave system we use is pretty secure."

"...Well alright. Not much we could do anyway," I admitted, shaking my head. "Get us there, Nevue. The quicker, the better."

Chapter Text

Nevue put the ship in hyperspace, pausing for a moment as we all watched the stars fly by in the dazzling display. Eventually, after everyone had left, Nevue got up to go as well, leaving the cockpit empty save Nal and me.

It was stunning that this ship, which was more or less on the lower end of speed according to everyone, was capable of crossing a not insignificant portion of the galaxy in less than a day. I knew my companions were annoyed that the low quality of the ship's hyperdrive had added hours onto the trip, but I couldn't help but be amazed. The sense of freedom, the feeling that we could go anywhere, an "anywhere" that included other planets, felt like the freedom of my first car multiplied but a million.

It also mixed in a sense scale that probably should have been disturbing but that I couldn't help but find reassuring, somehow. We were now one small group over a galaxy of people. We were just five people out of trillions of souls throughout the known universe. We were small, just a tiny spec on the cosmic scale, and hopefully, that meant we could do our business for a while without attracting too much attention.

Nal waved me off when asked if he needed anything as I stood up from my chair. I nodded and stretched before leaving the cockpit, mentally reviewing the spells I wanted to learn. Twelve hours in space meant that I had time to learn another spell.

I plopped down into one of the seats in the lounge, my grimoire out and on the table a second later. Out of the spells on my need-to-learn list, my first instinct was to go with respite. Unfortunately, I quickly learned that it could not replace sleep. It could hold off exhaustion for a while, but the crash became more and more severe as you put more and more strain on yourself. Eventually, your body and mind would start to deteriorate under the effects

Since respite wasn't going to suddenly double the amount of time I had to get shit done, I decided to leave it for later and go for the second option, conjure flame atronach. Conjure familiar had been extremely useful when I had the chance to plan our attacks, and the only thing that kept it from being even more useful was that I kept forgetting to use it. A summon that could shoot fire, take more hits, and would be immune to fire seemed like a great step up from a simple panther.

I read the description carefully, double-checking that I wasn't about to set the entire ship on fire. The flame atronachs in the game had a tendency to explode whenever they died and looked like they could set things on fire just by being close. Thankfully, with the more realistic version I had access to, they would only explode if I commanded them to. They could also control their ambient temperature to keep from burning down every building they were conjured inside. It would be warm, even uncomfortably so, but it wouldn't melt the plastic paneling off the walls.

I started work immediately, memorizing the two levels of matrices before recreating them in my arms and hand. This spell started all the way down by my elbow, the first matrix a long stretched series of shapes, bends, and turns that took up most of my forearm. Six and a half hours later, when half of the group was asleep, I cast the spell successfully, summoning a flame atronach in a small flash of flame that didn't feel all that hot. Like my sword and dagger, the conjured atronach was not actually pulled from the planes of Oblivion, but rather a construct of my own making.

As a result, the flame atronach didn't even vaguely resemble the in-game version. Where the game had a scantily clad, metal woman of fire, mine was fully armored, with blue-licking flames coming out from every crack and gap. The metal was mostly black, with hot red edges along some of the plating. It stood on its own two feet rather than floating around with a trail of fire like a dainty nymph. Its only connection to the in-game version was that mine was also feminine, though not nearly as… obvious as the original. As I watched, the flaming atronach looked around, and I could feel a slightly more intelligent connection through the spell's anchor. I was pretty sure that it was enough that I could give her more open-ended directions, and she would be able to figure out what I meant.

The atronach walked around for a bit, following my mental commands. I also told it to patrol around the area, and the construct proceeded to walk around in a small circle, unable to do much more in the cramped space. After a few seconds, I dismissed my summon, the construct disappearing in a flash of heatless flame and crackling magicka.

I let out a long breath I didn't even realize I was holding, letting my mana refill before casting the spell again, repeating it several dozen times before finally stopping. I was tired, sore, and hungry, but I had learned my second apprentice spell, and it was an impressive one. I quickly ate something to quiet my complaining stomach, continuing to practice the spell while I ate. When I finally stood up, I used healing to soothe my aches before immediately heading off to kick Nevue out of my bed. I had been nice enough to let him sleep a bit extra while I finished my spell, but now I desperately needed to sleep.

------------------------------

I woke up to someone nudging my shoulder and a voice talking. I rolled over in my cot to see Miru standing by my bed.

"What was that?" I asked, rolling over slightly so I wasn't straining my neck.

"I said Nal just set up our sonic shower in the corner. You might want to clean up a bit," She said, cutting me off when I opened my mouth to ask a follow-up question. "The one upstairs is tiny, and only half works. And yes, we are almost there. Just another twenty minutes before we drop out of hyperspace."

I nodded and slid to the side of the bed, sitting up and rubbing my face. I had no idea how long I had been asleep, but I could feel that it wasn't enough. I stood and stretched, using a healing spell to soothe a slight tightness in my back. Miru had one hand on the ladder when I called out.

"Hey, what happened to my jacket?" I asked. "I assume my armor was a lost cause, but did the jacket survive?"

"Uhh, last I saw it, Nal was pulling it off you after… to better get at your injuries," She responded, faltering for a moment before continuing. "Check by the bay door? That's where the sonic scrubber is anyway."

I nodded and turned, heading to the front of the cargo bay. The sonic shower was indeed set up in a corner, but I wanted my jacket first so I could wash it with the rest of my clothes and myself. I spent about five minutes looking for it, finally finding it jammed up behind a crate. It took a few minutes to get it out, but when I did, I was pleasantly surprised.

Because I had been wearing the jacket open, the blaster bolt had hit my armor on the uncovered parts. There was singing around the inside lining, and a bit of the material was noticeably stiffer than it had been before, but other than that, the jacket was still in good condition. I was smiling about my good luck until I realized that if the coat had been closed, I probably wouldn't have had the massive burns on my stomach.

I put the jacket on and stepped into the open-air sonic shower, feeling the pulsing waves clean me and my outfit. I spent a few extra minutes ensuring I was as clean as possible before turning off the transportable unit. I pulled my jacket off as I made my way to the ladder, doing my best to work the stiffness out of the one spot, nodding when I was moderately successful. I once again donned my jacket and climbed the ladder, making my way to the cockpit. Everyone else was already waiting, meaning I was stuck standing as there were only four seats.

"What's our ETA?" I asked.

"About ten minutes," Nal responded, looking back at me. "Where was your jacket?"

"Tucked back behind a crate," I said, looking down at it for a second. "On one hand, I'm glad it survived. On the other getting shot would have sucked less if I had been wearing it correctly."

"It's just a jacket. You should have been wearing it closed to protect yourself," She said, looking at me while shaking her head.

"It looks cooler open," I responded as if that was the only necessary response. "Though I'll need to pick up some more armor soon, do you think–"

Before I could finish my sentence, Tatnia cursed while Mire smiled and held out her hand. Tatnia put a small credit ingot in her palm while giving me the stink eye.

"Really?" She asked, crossing her arms and shaking her head. "You couldn't have waited until we were landed to remember your armor?"

"It saved my life. I've been fighting the urge to put it back since I woke up," I responded. "Did you guys seriously bet on me forgetting to ask about my armor?"

"We would have stopped you from leaving without it," Miru assured me before reaching down beside her chair and pulling out my old armor, which looked undamaged. "The plates are replaceable, and Nal got extras, so I put it back together."

"Oh, well, thanks," I said before quickly pulling off my jacket and pulling the armor back on. "Not sure how I feel about the betting, though."

"I had faith in you, Boss!" Miru said with a smile, giving me a thumbs up.

"I was going to show you the super cool thing that I learned, but I'm not sure I'm up for it anymore."

"Cooler than shooting lightning from your hands?" Miru asked, getting a chuckle from Nal.

"I think so," I said with a smirk before turning and walking out of the cockpit, Tatnia and Miru following after me.

I focused for a moment before casting conjure flame atronach a few feet in front of me, the now familiar armored summon appearing in a flash of magic and heatless flames. The summon remained motionless, even as Miru gasped and Tatnia's hand went to her hip, fingers around her pistol grip before she finally stopped.

"What in the hells is that?" She asked, voice sounding tense. "That can't be safe, Deacon. It's on fire!"

"It's called a flame atronach. It's kind of like an artificial elemental," I explained, though I wasn't sure if she understood that any better. "It's a better version of what I did on our first job. Remember my familiar?"

"That four-legged, see-through thing that chewed that guy's throat out?" Tatnia asked, sounding nervous as she walked around it. "Why is this one better?"

"It takes more energy to make, but it can take a lot more hits as well. It can also throw fireballs and do the same flame spray that I can do," I explained. "It can also explode if I tell it to."

Before they could ask anything else, the atronach jerked and faded into blue flames and crackling energy, disappearing in half a second. I spent a few more minutes explaining its capabilities and how it could be useful, as well as reconjuring the atronach when Nal wanted to see it. He seemed to approve and, as always, took my growing abilities in stride as if it was entirely normal for someone to be doing magic.

By the time I was finished showing off, and Tatnia had confirmed I wasn't about to melt a hole in the deck, it was just about time for us to drop out of hyperspace. We all made our way back into the cockpit, just in time for the brilliant light show outside the cockpit window to compress and normalize.

From our perspective, we were now flying above Thila, the large planet below us. Immediately Nevue guided us "down," the ship making its way into the planet's atmosphere. The planet's surface was riddled with canyons and mountains, massive on a scale that was hard to fathom as we flew over them. Some of the mountains were big enough that we could see them from orbit and spiking above the horizon, several dozen mountain ranges casting shadows over the valleys and canyons. We continued to fly, tension rising among us as we waited for something to happen.

After about five minutes of descending into the atmosphere, static cracked on our communication, which Nevue had apparently been keeping on. It seemed to rise and fall at random intervals, but after listening to it for a few minutes, Nevue nodded as if he had received a message. It took me a minute to realize that there must have been some sort of code in the rising and lowering of the static, like a Morse code equivalent.

Nevue adjusted our course, angling the ship down at a steeper angle and swooping a bit until we were pointed to a different location. After another few minutes, we stopped, clearing a particularly large mountaintop. On the other side was a deep valley, at the bottom of which was a surprisingly flat area, some sort of lowered mesa. As we got lower, we began to see cutaways in the side of the mountain, revealing hangar bays filled with ships, both starfighters and larger freighters. These bays had been completely hidden from above, and as we stopped in front of an empty one, I could see that they also had camouflage doors that would make them even harder to spot.

Nevue, with Nals help, guided the ship into one of the bays, landing on the carved stone floor after about two minutes. He then depowered the ship completely, the interior now dark save a few safety lights.

"Alright, let's try and keep this from devolving into a lightshow," The Zabrak rebel said as he stood up from his chair. "Don't make any crazy sudden moves, and keep your hands away from your blasters. Let me do the talking, at least at first, and then you can introduce yourself."

Already I could see people pouring out of the entrances into the once-empty bay. Dozens of armed soldiers took cover behind crates, boulders, and other equipment, all of them focusing their weapons on the ship. Two heavy blaster cannons were set up quickly by the entrances, each with two rebel soldiers manning them. These were obviously not useless slaver goons either. Each and every one of them was focused and ready.

We all made our way down to the full cargo bay, stopping by the still-closed bay door. Nevue gestured to the thick door, and after a moment, I reached out and slapped the controls, the door slowly sliding upward, revealing the carved-out hangar bay and the soldiers waiting for us.

Chapter Text

Nevue stepped out of the cargo bay slowly, his hands out and empty as he moved. When he was a few feet ahead of us, he stopped.

"I'm Nevue Loc. I messaged ahead that I was returning?" He called out, his voice echoing throughout the large stone hangar.

After a few seconds, a head popped out around the corner of one of the entrances into the large empty hangar bay. It stuck out just long enough for Nevue to spot it before dipping back around the corner. He smiled and called out.

"Thak Gorn! I saw that, it's good to see you survived!" He called out, turning his head to look back at us. "He was part of the team I ran with."

After about a minute, the Gotal stepped out fully from around the corner, with two more people, a Twi'lek woman, and a Mon Calamari male, following with him. Both of the additional people were wearing a vest uniform that I vaguely recognized as an officer's vest from some of the movies. They slowly made their way into the hangar, stopping about ten feet away from us.

"Nevue, it's good to see you alive," The Gotal, Thak, said when they stopped. "Who are your companions?"

"They are friends. Saved me from slavery," Nevue explained. "Are we the only survivors?"

"No, Salo and Maraliz also made it out," He responded solemnly.

"Only four?" Nevue asked, shaking his head. "Dammit..."

"You said your friends rescued you from slavery?" The Gotal asked. "How did you get wrapped up in that? We have you listed as KIA because you were cut off and wounded last we saw. Your stupid plan to lead them away is the only reason any of us lived, by the way."

"Well... I'm glad something good came from it, at least," He responded ruefully, though a smile quickly returned. "I managed to give the Imps the slip at the last second, but I passed out in my hiding space from blood loss."

He lifted up his shirt to show a gnarly-looking blaster scar that I had no idea he had. It was around the left side of his abdomen and looked like a mix of a grazing bullet wound and a high-temperature burn that had long ago healed up.

"Someone found me, slapped a bacta patch on me, and shipped me off to Nar Shaddaa," He explained, lowering his shirt. "I got tagged after we landed, and I spent the last few months weighing if I should just get it over with by killing the people who bought me. Luckily it didn't come to that."

The group was silent for a moment. The Twi'lek woman shared a look with Mon Calamari before looking at Thack. After a moment, she sighed and looked back at the rest of us.

"Alright, for now, we will give you the benefit of the doubt," The green-skinned Twi'lek said. "I am General Hera Syndulla, temporarily in charge of Thila outpost until the siege of Yavin 4 is over."

Tatnia gave me a slight shove, just enough to force me to step forward. I resisted the urge to curse, instead continuing to step forward as if it had been intentional.

"My name is Deacon Roy. I'm more or less the leader of this group," I said with a small bow. "We appreciate the trust."

"Let's move somewhere more comfortable. I want the full story," The General said. "I'm sorry, but while we are gone we will also be searching your ship."

"Well, it's only been ours for a few days. We had to borrow it for a quick escape," I explained. "But that shouldn't be a problem, as long as you don't mind one of us remaining behind?"

"As long as they don't get in the way."

I nodded and turned to Tatnia, who put her hand on Miru's shoulder and nodded, confirming both of them would be staying back. Miru didn't look happy about it, but I would make it up to her if this didn't go south. I would have preferred to keep us all together, but someone needed to stay behind and watch our money. I might trust some of the rebel leaders, and I might agree with parts of the movement, but I didn't trust some random soldier not to snag a couple of ingots from our pile.

The Mon Calamari stayed behind, directing the troops around as we left the hangar, some of them staying behind while the others jogged away through the two other entrances. A few also jogged to catch up to us, serving as an escort. As we left the hangar behind, I focused on the Twi'lek General. I recognized her name, as well as her face from one of the newer cartoons. It had a reputation for being good, but by the time it gained any momentum, I was already working two jobs and picking up odd jobs on the side. It had been on my list of things to watch, along with several Disney Star Wars stuff, but there was just never enough time.

I quickly ran through what I knew about her from the few clips I caught on youtube. I knew she was a pilot and ran with a crew, including who I think was the show's main character. She had a love interest, or a partner, who I was pretty sure was training the main character to be a Jedi. I looked around to see if anyone else was following behind us. Seeing none, I focused on the soldiers, paying particular attention to their belts to see if they had any lightsaber-esq cylinders clipped there. I racked my brain for anything else, even as we were led to a small lounge-like area. Unfortunately, I couldn't think of anything else useful beyond a comedy relief astromech.

As I racked my brain, Hera walked in confidently and sat down at the table while two of the guards stood on either side of the doorway. Nal, Nevue, and I followed inside, with Nal and myself sitting across from the General while Navue sat on the perpendicular side.

"So, Lieutenant Loc, why don't you tell us the rest of your story," She asked, leaning forward in interest, her elbows on the table.

Nevue nodded and began explaining what he had been up to since his last mission went bad. Some of this I already knew, as even though he had been relatively quiet about his past, he never missed an opportunity to talk shit about Nar Shaddaa, which often included his previous owners. Eventually, he explained how his last owner shipped him back to the slavers, and he had been scheduled to go through a few days of "education."

"Luckily, before I could get shipped off, these guys bought me," He said, gesturing to Nal and me. "I was not looking forward to being tortured into submission."

"They bought you?" Hera asked, her eyes wide, looking at both of us harshly. "What-"

"That has a context I should explain if that's alright?" I asked, giving a harsh look at Nevue, who was chuckling to himself, his sense of humor returning now that he was among his allies. "We immediately freed him after paying for him, including removing his slave implant. The point wasn't to buy a slave, but get our money into their credit ingot storage."

I started to explain what we had been up to, giving the General the basic outline of what my crew and I had been doing leading up to freeing Nevue. I skipped over my magic, explaining that we had tracking chips cut inside the credit ingots. Nevue had agreed to keep his mouth shut about it as well, as long as we stayed friendly to the Rebel Alliance. He also explained that if someone asked him directly if I had special abilities, he wouldn't lie. He was willing to keep things out of his report, but he was not willing to lie to his friends and superiors.

"They didn't find the trackers?" Hera asked, leaning back in her chair, looking skeptical. "That seems unlikely."

"Well, to be fair, Miru did an outstanding job at hiding the tracker inside the ingots," I assured her. "And if they were smart they wouldn't be slavers."

"I suppose. So what went wrong?" She asked. "You mentioned you stole that B-7 as a quick escape, and you're clearly not still on Nar Shaddaa, stealing from slavers. So why did you need to run?"

"Our plan worked too well," I explained with a shrug. "The market we bought Nevue from looked successful, but it didn't look like they would be a group we would have to worry about. Except the credit transport was carrying sixty thousand credits. I was hoping to get that much eventually, but spread out over a month, maybe two. We weren't prepared for the bounties and the attention from enforcers. Rather than tempt fate, we decided to get while the getting was good."

"Smart, can't imagine the Hutt's liked you stealing from them, though. I would watch out in the future, you'll probably have a price on your head soon, if you don't already."

"We… didn't steal from the Hutts. We intentionally avoided Hutt-owned markets because we didn't want to get them involved," I responded, a sinking feeling starting to form in my stomach.

"Sorry to burst your bubble Deacon, but everything on Nar Shaddaa is run by the Hutts. It's why we don't do much business there," She explained. "There is no way a business shipping that much money around wasn't owned by the Hutt's in some way. It's probably why it was so lightly protected. They assumed no one was... stupid enough to steal from the Hutts."

I stared at her for a long moment before I let out a long sigh, leaning back against the seat. Eventually, I shook myself off and rubbed my face, sitting back up. My mind raced, but I did my best to focus on the Twi'lek in front of me. I idly realized that she was the first person from the stories back home I had met, but I quickly pushed that thought away.

"Alright, thank you for sharing that with us. I guess we will be keeping our eyes open," I said. "And stepping up our timetable."

"What are your plans exactly?" General Syndulla asked.

"We plan on buying a ship, something big enough to run a small mercenary company out of," I responded. "Maybe a few smaller ships as escorts."

"An interesting goal, and by the sounds of it, you have the money to make at least the first part of that plan a reality. In fact…" The rebel leader seemed to think for a long moment before eventually continuing, having seemed to reach an internal conclusion. "We have contacts with a few shipbrokers that are sympathetic to our cause. With the right words, we might be able to help your money go a little further."

"Nova always has some good stuff," Nevue pointed out, looking at his superior. "Plus, I know them pretty well. I can escort them to her repair station."

"Are you sure? I was planning on putting your team back together. You're more than welcome to join them," The rebel leader asked.

"I would like to join my team, but these guys need a ride," Nevue responded, getting a confused look from his superior.

"We were hoping to sell you the B-7 and most of its cargo to you guys at a discount, something around twenty thousand for both," I explained simply. "We would then need a ride to the shipbroker,"

"That… seems like a low price," Hera responded, eyebrow raised. "Assuming the ship doesn't have anything wrong with it."

"It's in pretty good condition," Nevue assured her. "Better than you would expect, honestly, given its previous owner's occupation. And the supplies are useful, a few crates of blasters and ammo, some heavy cannons as well. Twenty thousand is a terrific deal."

"That only proves my point," She pointed out. "Why the low price?"

"We may not be interested in joining, but that doesn't mean we aren't sympathetic to the movement," I explained, Nal nodding in agreement. "In the future, we would be happy to work with you for a discount, maybe even donate our time for a good enough cause. We just need to get our feet under us first. We need a ship, a few more crew members… Probably don't have to explain that sort of stuff to you,"

"No, I know that process very well," She admitted with a smirk. "Alright, give some time for my people to inspect your ship and its cargo. If everything is in order, you've got yourself a deal. Nevue will bring you to Nova, they run a shipyard of sorts around an old repair platform. We buy a lot of ships from them. They always seem to have something worth buying."

"That's very generous of you, General," I responded.

"Please, you're practically giving away that B-7, it's worth at least fifteen thousand credits if it's in as decent quality as Nevue claims," She responded before pausing as if she was considering her next question. "Could I… ask about the young Twi'lek traveling with you?"

"Miru?" I asked, looking confused. "She is our mechanic, extremely talented from what I've seen."

"How old is she exactly?"

"She says she is seventeen," I explained. “I will be very happy when I can leave her on a ship to keep up with maintenance while the rest of us do the fighting. She has seen a lot in her life already, but that's no reason to pile on more."

The green-skinned Twi'lek woman studied me for a moment or three before eventually letting out a sigh.

"I apologize. My race is often mistreated and taken as slaves and… I have a soft spot for children,"

"I do as well, and honestly, she reminds me of one of my younger cousins," I explained, shaking my head. "Anything wanting to hurt her will have to go through the rest of the crew and me to do it, I promise."

"I believe you," She responded, before standing up from her seat. "Unfortunately, I don't have much in the way of spare time these days, so I'm going to have to leave you in the capable hands of your new escort."

General Syndulla said, gesturing to the two soldiers standing by the doorway. Both of them stood at attention now that we were looking at them.

"They can show you to some spare quarters," She said with a subtle smile. "I'd ask that you resist the urge to explore. We may be friendly, but I can't have you wandering around in high-security areas."

"Of course, we will probably stick around the ship, rest and leave tomorrow if that works for Nevue," I said, sticking my hand out, the confident Twi'lek general taking my hand and shaking it firmly.

Shortly after that, General Hera Syndulla left us alone with the soldiers, who seemed to stand a bit easier with their superior officer gone. I smiled and gestured to the door.

"We would like to get back to the hangar for now," I explained, the taller soldier nodding in understanding.

The taller soldier led the way back to the hangar, the second soldier following behind us by a few feet, preventing us from making a run for it or sneaking away. It didn't take long for us to reach the mostly empty Hangar bay. The ship was already being emptied, with Tatnia standing near the cargo bay entrance, watching as workers unloaded some of the cargo. She noticed us and nodded in our direction, prompting me to head over and see what I could do to help.

Chapter Text

The rebel workers made quick work of clearing out the B-7 cargo bay, emptying it of everything we didn't want in only an hour, which included the time we were off meeting General Syndulla. When workers hauled away the last crate, all that was left was the stuff we had brought from Nar Shaddaa, the MRV, and three crates, we wanted to keep from the ship's original cargo. The stolen cargo we kept was actually a mix of several different containers. A few extra pistols, rifles, and ammo from one crate, a month's worth of food stable food from another, as well as other odds and ends that Tatnia and Nal thought were worth keeping.

While we were getting our stuff settled, transferring what we wanted into different containers, I wondered out loud why the cargo for this ship had been so well stocked with weapons and other useful stuff, and Nal responded while chuckling.

"It's our fault," He explained, leaning back from the crate he had been sorting through. "They wanted to increase security after we stole from them the first time. They were smuggling in new equipment for more guards."

“Huh… lucky us I guess…” I admitted before shaking my head and getting back to work. "I would have rather freed another batch of slaves, though."

Nal nodded, and we finished getting our crates secure, connecting them to the cargo bay floor in their new positions by the back of the bay. By the time we were done, whoever the Rebels had gotten to do an inspection of the ship was also done and confirmed that the ship and cargo were well with twenty thousand credits. Twenty minutes later, we had two new containers of credits in our pile, both filled with credit chips instead of ingots.

"We need to get some sort of account set up at some point," I commented, all four of us sitting in the cargo bay, looking at the stacks of credit boxes. "I can't imagine the shipbroker is going to be excited to deal with all this."

"With their clientele, I'm sure they are used to it," Tatnia respond before looking back out of the cargo bay into the now active hangar. "Which reminds me, you are being really trusting with these people. Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"Do I trust every member? Not even close," I assured her. "But I trust the General, Nevue, and the general group. But no, I don't trust all of them, so I will be sleeping on board in one of the cots to keep an eye on the credits."

Tatnia nodded in agreement, volunteering to switch off if I wanted to. After we talked for a bit more about posting a watch to keep track of the over one hundred thousand credits we had on board. By that time, it was starting to get late, both for us and the actual planet's timescale, which just happened to have a similar time schedule to what we had become used to on Nar Shadda.

We spent a little while longer chatting, mostly discussing what sort of ship we were looking for, before the group was escorted to some better sleeping quarters while I stayed behind and slept in the cargo bay. When they were gone, I closed the bay doors, sealing them shut before sitting down at the edge of my bed and pulling out my grimoire.

It wasn't the most responsible thing, but I couldn't resist the urge to learn another spell, especially now that I would have time to recover from missing sleep. I also hoped that my natural "talent" with conjuration would keep me from being up too late.

I slowly worked my way through the description of conjure bound armor, carefully paying attention to its limitations. Like all conjured objects, its time limit was connected to how much mana I put into it, and since it was also locked around my body, I would be able to easily feed it more energy. According to the description, I would be able to summon it and keep it summoned indefinitely, as long as I was conscious and didn't run out of magicka to fuel them.

I decided to start by learning the upper torso armor first, since it covered all my vitals. It would also make learning the lower torso version easier, since the first stage matrix was the same for each spell. As usual, it took about thirty minutes for me to get each stage set, forming the two matrices in my hand. When I was sure I had the right shapes, lines, and angles, I started pushing more mana through them, slowly adjusting and shaping each part of the matrices until the magic flowed through easily. It took me about seven hours in total, keeping me up well past when I should have been asleep.

It was well worth it, though, as I stood up from the cot and summoned the bound armor, the magic wrapping around my arm as I cast it. The magic stretched down my arm, over my chest, and down my other arm, forming the armor as it went. It even stretched up to cover my head, though the magic was completely see-through when it finally covered my eyes. I looked down at my hands, which were now covered in the pale purple color of conjured objects. Once again, I was glad that the things I was conjuring weren't based on the daedric equipment from Skyrim, instead finding my hand and arms were wrapped in a semi-translucent set of plate armor, not some fear-inducing fantasy crap.

I moved around slowly, stretching and testing my range of motion while encased in the ethereal armor, finding that not only did it seem to weigh nothing, but it also didn't hamper my dexterity in the slightest. It seemed happy to clip through itself when I wanted to touch my arm, but was extremely solid when I tried to punch myself. I climbed up the ladder to the main deck, stepping into the bathroom so I could look at myself in the small mirror built into the wall. I could see my face through the purple glowing armor, the helmet still not hampering my vision at all. I had hoped that it would obscure my face, but I could hardly complain when everything else worked out so well.

Satisfied with how the top half of my bound armor looked, I quickly went back down into the cargo bay and ran it through even more testing. I shot myself with sparks, frostbite, and flames before slashing at it with a conjured dagger. The armor blocked several seconds of each destructive spell combined, though I could feel that it was extremely damaged at that point, and I needed to re-conjure it to test out the dagger, which did noticeable damage to it but still stopped completely.

I practiced the new conjuring spell for about thirty minutes, making sure I had it down completely before finally heading to bed, excited to learn the lower torso spell as well, when I got the chance. With any luck, I would have the entire trip to wherever this Nova shipbroker was.

With the spell learned and my testing complete, I eagerly climbed into my cot, falling asleep to the low ambient noise of the outside hangar, the natural wind of Thila occasionally rattling things around.

I woke up the next morning to the sound of a very active hangar outside the ship. I slowly sat up from my cot, my brain taking a few seconds to catch up. It was clearly much earlier than I had hoped to sleep too, but that's what I got for sleeping somewhere like an active hangar. I stretched and used a quick healing spell to clear up my aches before slowly making my way to one of the side doors of the B-7, tapping the control panel to open the thick, double-sealed door.

I stepped down and out of the small freighter and into the busy hangar bay. What had been an almost entirely empty space just a few hours ago was now abuzz with activity. Six X-Wings had landed at some point in the last few hours and were now in the process of getting looked over by several technicians and pilots.

While meeting Hera had been a bit jarring, her being the first in-universe person I had met so far, seeing an in-the-flesh, honest to god, mother fucking X-Wing, not fifteen feet away, had me looking on in awe, my mind completely blown away. Here was the symbol of the Rebellion, arguably one of the most famous and easily identified science fiction ships ever made, the subject of video games and an entire book series. My brother Brian and I had spent hours playing starfighters, running around our house, holding cheap X-Wing models, and making horrible imitations of their engines and the sound of lasers. This was a dream come to life.

Unbidden, I took a step forward to the closest starfighter, my attention locked onto it as I walked around, taking in every nook and cranny. I could see scoring along one of the S-foils, the sign of a very close call, most likely recent too. I could also see the ship was in pretty good shape despite that, though I lacked the technical knowledge to know exactly how good of condition it was in. What I could tell was that this was anything but a prop. It was clear as you looked at it that every piece had a purpose, that every plate was not just some random do-dad that the people at Lucasfilms stuck on to add some texture. This was starfighter, a weapon of war, and-

"Can I help you?"

I jumped when a voice half shouted out to me, needing the extra volume to cut over the tools and other echoing noises that filled the hangar. I also realized that I had been reaching out to touch the side of the starfighter, a big social faux pas when you didn't own the ship you were touching. I winced and pulled my hand back.

"Sorry, I wasn't really thinking," I explained sheepishly. "I've always loved the X-Wing design, and if I knew anything about flying, I would definitely want one of my own eventually."

As I talked, I looked over the S-foil again before turning to look at whoever had gotten my attention. It was a young man, probably about eight or ten years younger than me, with black hair and thick eyebrows. He was wearing a pilot's suit, but with all of the extra panels, tubes, and the white flak jacket removed, probably to make it easier to move around. He was looking at me with a raised eyebrow, most certainly wondering what the hell I was doing.

"Sorry, name's Deacon, I came in on the B-7 over there," I explained, stepping forward and holding out my hand, which the man shook. "Just dropping off one of your operatives we happened to pick up before moving on."

"Huh. Sounds like there's a story there," The man said with a smile. "I'm Wedge Antilles."

My brain screeched to a halt, studying the man's face. He did look a lot like the actor who played him in the original trilogy, though it was far from an exact match. I finally let go of his hand, coughing awkwardly before returning his smile.

"Maybe, it was certainly an adventure," I admitted with a chuckle, trying to cover up from the panic in my head.

I was talking to my childhood hero, the best pilot in the galaxy, Rogue Leader! Creator of Wraith Squadron and driving force behind the eventual invasion of Coruscant! An honest to god legend, currently in the process of forging that legend.

"My friends and I staged a breakout after we got picked up by slavers and dropped off at Nar Shaddaa," I explained, looking back at his starfighter. "We raided a couple of slaver holdings to make some cash before blasting out in the B-7."

The Rebellion hero scowled a bit when I mentioned slavery, nodding along as I told a highly abbreviated version of our story.

"Well, I'm glad you managed to escape. Slavery is a blight on the galaxy. I can only hope that when we take down the Empire, we can do something about it."

"Let's hope so."

"Are you here to join up?" The legendary pilot asked. "Even if you can't fly, we are always looking for soldiers, engineers, even specialists."

"No, my crew and I have plans to start a mercenary group now that we are off Nar Shaddaa," I explained with a wince. "I've already explained to General Syndulla that we are sympathetic to the cause, enough to work for cheap, and even donate our time if something particularly important comes up. But… I'm not much of a joiner."

"...Well, allies are almost as good as members," He said with a shrug. "It was nice talking to you, Deacon, but I need to finish my inspection before we take off again. We have to get back to Yavin 4 to help break the rest of the Alliance through the blockade."

"Sure, and… May the force be with you," I said, my inner child dancing with glee as Wedge gave me a serious nod, going back to his X-Wing.

I turned and headed back to the B-7, quickly climbing back inside, the double-sealed doors closing behind me. When the door shut all the way, my inner child broke free for a moment, and I danced in place while laughing.

"I shook Wedge Antilles' hand!" I said, laughing to myself. "Brian would be so fucking jealous!"

When I eventually calmed down, I made my way to the main deck of the ship, using the small kitchen system to make a small breakfast before eating it at the nearby table. My thoughts eventually drifted to what was next, what I needed to make happen in order to get my team in a good, solid position. We needed to have the ability to take on jobs and explore without having to look over our shoulders constantly, or at least know that when something bad did come knocking, we could handle it. The first step was a ship, something substantial enough to call a home base. If I wanted to start recruiting people, having a ship to live out of would make convincing people much more straightforward.

After that was securing supplies, which meant making money. I had a few ideas for that angle, some of which were as complicated as "listen to rumors and see if they pan out" to abusing some of my meta-knowledge. I knew a few places where I could make quite a bit of money or at least quite a bit of salvage, but unfortunately, some of those were a bit too advanced for now.

I finished up my meal quickly before heading down to the cargo bay, coming down just in time to see the cargo bay door open to reveal Miru, Nal, Tatnia and Nevue on the other side. There were also two rebel soldiers, who were both armed and carrying packs much more extensive than one would expect for just escorting some people around. One was a human woman, maybe a few years younger than me, while the other was a human man, just around my age.

"Morning guys. How's it going?" I asked, stepping off the ladder and walking to meet them halfway. "Everyone ready to go?"

"We are ready," Nevue said before gesturing to the additional soldiers. "This is Ayme Montera and Lario Vark. They are here as backup, just in case. General Syndulla was hesitant to let a newly purchased ship go with only your word we could have it back."

"Oh… fair enough, I hadn't thought about it like that," I admitted before nodding to both of them. "Welcome aboard. Thanks for joining us."

The two soldiers nodded before Nal reached over and tapped on the control panel for the bay door, the thick armored door slowly closing. The soldier walked further into the bay before dropping their packs while the rest of us made our way up to the bridge on the main deck. It didn't take long for Nevue and Tatnia, who volunteered to be the copilot this time, to get permission from hangar control to leave, the ship lifting off of the ground easily, slowly pulling out of the large hangar bay. After a quick flight up and out of Thila's atmosphere, Nevue plotted a course, and we left the mountainous planet behind.

Chapter Text

Nevue explained that the trip would take about eighteen hours, as the shipbroker was stationed in a distant corner of the galaxy, along the edge of Wild Space. Their business was located in deep space, on a repair platform that only a few people knew the location of, as most of their business was done by delivery or pick up. I was excited to have such a chunk of time to learn some new magic until I remembered our extra passengers.

The two rebel soldiers, who were essentially acting as bodyguards for Nevue and as extra insurance that the Rebel Alliance would get the ship they had just bought back, had set up some space for themselves in the cargo bay. This was fine for my first task, which was learning the lower torso portion of my bound armor spell, because I could just do that in the lounge area. But I had also been hoping to have Miru help me set up a target of some sort, one that would let me learn the lightning bolt spell, which was definitely not something I could do in the lounge.

Still, I had plenty of other things I could learn, and after a few minutes of consideration ended up picking the second level of the warding spell, steadfast ward. When I set to work, learning the lower torso bound armor spell barely took four hours because of my work on the upper torso bound armor and my "talent" with conjuration.

The steadfast ward took a bit longer, though my apparent talent with restoration kept it from being ridiculous and let me finish it with enough time to get some sleep before we arrived at our destination. Miru, Tatnia, Nevue, the female soldier, and I were all in the cockpit when we dropped from lightspeed. In the distance was a singular dot, a small station far enough away that there were no discernible features besides being vaguely blocky.

As we got closer, more and more details became visible. By the time Nevue used the ship's comms to contact whoever was on the station, we could see that the free-floating structure was simple and utilitarian, with a central, vaguely cuboid central structure and four massive hangar bays connected to that structure. One of the hangars led directly into a ship berth structure clearly meant for larger ships. Currently, the large berth was empty, and as we got closer, we could see that it also seemed to be nonfunctional, as all its guiding lights were off, and there was a lot of plating missing on its branches.

Despite it clearly being nonfunctional, there were a dozen or so ship frames attached to it, all of them clearly missing a lot of their parts. Some were barely even skeletons of ships, stripped down to just a basic framework.

It didn't take long for us to get permission to land in one of the hangars, the smallest one to the left of the large ship berth. As Nevue and Tatnia guided us in, Nevue explained what we were getting ourselves into.

"The station was sold to Nova's family shortly after the Clone Wars. Her family had connections in the Republic that worked just long enough in the early days of the Empire to snag it. It was heavily damaged at the time, but they repaired most of it before mothballing everything they didn't need. Basically, the hangars work, and there's enough functional living space for a few repair teams," He explained, pausing to gently land the ship inside the smallest hangar bay.

The bay had plenty of room for us several times over, even with the other ship, the type of which I didn't recognize, already landed in one corner. When we landed, Nevue flicked off a couple switches, and the ship slowly powered down to a resting state. After a short conversation, Tatnia volunteered to stay behind and watch the ship, as did the male soldier, while the rest of us exited via one of the side doorways in the cargo bay. My boots had hardly even touched the deck when a voice called out.

"Nevue! It's good to see you. It's been what, eight or nine months?" An older woman's voice called out, prompting me to search the hangar for the source. "I thought we talked about you messaging ahead when you come with a delivery?"

Along the far back end of the hangar was the main entrance, and above that was a second-story observation deck. There, leaning on the railing, was a human woman, probably fifteen or twenty years older than me, with brown and gray hair pulled up into a tight bun. Her face was starting to wrinkle, with crow's feet around her eyes and laugh lines in other places. She was dressed in a well-worn and stained pair of coveralls, with a tool-laden belt around her hips.

"Not here with a delivery, Nova, I have some friends here looking to make a purchase," He called out, leading us to stand under the platform. "They are looking for a decent-sized ship, something to run a mercenary group out of."

"Friends? Of yours or your bosses?" She asked, looking down at us with a raised eyebrow.

"Both! I was gone for so long because I managed to end up as a slave on Nar Shaddaa. It's a long story. " He explained, Nova's eyes going wide. "They personally freed me and got me back to my people. And in the process, offered to help the movement when they could, even sold them some goods we managed to obtain along the way for cheap."

"Sithspit, you managed to get yourself in some trouble, huh? Well, not gonna turn away a friend of yours, especially not after pulling your ass out of the fire," She said with a smile. "Come on in. I think we've got some options for what you're looking for."

Nevue once again led the way, this time going through the main entrance, a closed door that opened smoothly as we got closer. We made our way through a long corridor with doors on either side, most of them marked with signs that denoted them not to be opened. At an intersection, Nova joined us, stepping out of a turbolift. She immediately gave Nevue a hug before sharing handshakes all around. I introduced Nal and Miru before introducing myself.

"And I'm Deacon. Leader of sorts of our group. There are only four of us at the moment, but we are hoping to find something to grow into," I explained, the older woman nodding in understanding.

"I have a few things that can fit that bill, depending on just how big you're looking to get," She responded, gesturing with a nod down one of the hallways. "Let's start with hangar bay one. It's our largest bay and where we keep most of the finished ships."

She led us down the corridor and then through another doorway, climbing up a set of stairs before exiting out onto another walkway, this one overlooking a massive hangar that dwarfed the one we had just been in. Inside were dozens of ships, some of which I recognized and many that I did not. There were quite a few ships that looked like they belonged to the YT family, and there was even a LAAT Gunship tucked into a far corner.

Several of the ships had people and droids climbing on them, working diligently to repair obvious damage or replace worn parts. I spotted more than a few of what I was pretty sure were Verpine workers, welding and working on various ships.

"Alright, so how much firepower are you looking for?" She asked, gesturing to the large space. "We have a little bit of everything, from assault boats to craft more focused on transportation and freight. We also have a few ships that look like they are more focused on freight but have been heavily modified."

I stepped over to the railing that ran along the edge of the observation platform, leaning on it as I studied the ships. Some of the ships, mostly the ones I recognized, caught my eye, but if there was one thing I knew about buying something as big and expensive as a ship, it was that you should get a look at as many options as possible before making your choice.

"Firepower is good, but not the primary concern. I'm looking for space for my team to grow, and I want room to modify and add our own additions," I explained. "I plan on spending a solid chunk of change to make this ship a tough nut to crack. Do you have a list of ships and prices, maybe with some specifications?"

"I do," She answered, reaching down into her tool belt to pull out a palm projector pad and passing it to me with a smile. "Tell you what, I'll assign a droid to you, they will be able to show you around. If you're interested in one, just let them know, and they can contact me. Listen to the droid and any workers, and you'll be fine. While you're looking around…"

She turned to Nevua and pointed at him, a hand on her hip.

"You and I are going to go to my office. I want to hear more about what happened to you," She said, shaking her head. "I was worried sick, especially when your friends refused to tell me what happened!"

Despite her apparent annoyance, it was clear that she had actually been genuinely worried about the Zabrak. Nevue seemed to realize this and made no attempts at arguing with her as she led him away. Once they were gone, the door sliding shut after them, the female soldier, Ayme, let out a sigh.

"Guess I'll go back to the ship," She said, shaking her head.

"You sure?" I asked, taking pity on the obviously bored soldier. "I wouldn't mind an extra opinion."

"Really?"

"Yeah, you might see or think of something we missed," I responded with a shrug. "It's better than sitting in the B-7, just staring at the ceiling."

She shrugged, and together the four of us started looking through the options on the projector pad. We ended up sitting on a nearby couch, the pad on a table as we examined each projection. At some point, a heavily cobbled-together protocol droid, a combination of at least four different types, stepped through the doorway and greeted us.

"Hello, my name is B-3A7, but you may call me Beat. I understand you are looking to purchase a ship?" The male sounding droid asked, bowing slightly when we answered yes. "Very good. Have any of the op-op-options stood out to you?"

"Yeah, let's start off with Anvil Carrack." I asked, standing up and grabbing the pad off the table. "That caught our eye."

"Ah yes, the Carrack is a good choice!" The droid with a full body nod. "It is just down there, but I'm sure you are more interested in the interior. I shall lead the way!"

The heavily modified droid led us down to the main floor of the hangar. It then began a short and somewhat overly detailed tour of the ship. Most of the technical babble went over my head, but Miru seemed to be easily keeping up, while Nal seemed to catch most of it. It was Ayme that pointed out why this ship wouldn't work, proving my instincts about inviting her to be correct.

"It's a full package ship," She explained, peeking into a storage compartment. "Keyword being full. It's got everything you need but no room for modification. You'd have to sacrifice the cargo bay or do some pretty intense remodeling."

I looked to Miru, who nodded in agreement after some thought.

"She isn't wrong. It would be a pain to modify. Plus, Anvil Industries has a reputation for higher-end ships, I kind of doubt this is in our price range."

A quick check with Beat confirmed that it was out of our price range, if only barely, prompting us to leave for the next ship we had picked, a Barloz medium freighter. This one was on the other side of the primary hangar and was almost exactly what we were looking for. I had been hoping for a slightly bigger ship, but it was still well within an acceptable range. After a short tour, I was almost certain this was the ship we would be leaving with. Still, I wanted to see all of the options, so we had Beat lead us to the second-largest hangar, where a few more ships were being kept.

"I should warn you," The droid said as we made our way down a corridor. "The secondary hangar contains mostly ships that are under construction. Be vigilant that you do not interrupt the workers or-or-or venture into dangerous areas."

We stepped into the hangar through the central entrance, stepping into a much more active space. A few ships were going through complete overhauls, while a few others were being stripped for parts. As Beat guided us through, I noticed a large ship to one side, with dozens of droids and a few workers crawling all over it. It was long, with a curved, drawn-out face and two stubby wings. It also had five massive engines that I could work out. It was clearly damaged, with laser carbonization and slag marking the side facing us. Its top engine was also completely trashed and was in the process of being disassembled. The ship was big, bigger than anything else they had in the hangar by a not insignificant degree.

"What's that?" I asked, pointing at the ship.

"Hmm? Oh-oh-oh, the C-ROC Gozanti-Class Cruiser?” They asked, stopping to face the ship, which easily crested over the smaller ships around it. "It does stand ou-ou-out rather well, doesn't it? It was sold to us by a now-retired supplier on-on-only a few days ago."

"How much?"

"How- It is not currently for sale, it is still heavily damaged. Mistress Nova has not set a price for it."

I looked to Miru, who was squinting at the ship, clearly thinking about it.

"It's a lot of ship boss… but it would have plenty of room. I'm more familiar with the standard Gozanti, but from what I know of this class… it would work. Not gonna be cheap, though."

I looked at Nal, who shrugged in response.

"Ayme, any words of wisdom?" I asked, smiling at the rebel soldier.

"It would be better off in our hands," She said, pausing for a moment before continuing. "But it would probably work pretty well as a mobile base for a mercenary company."

"Umm, excuse me, but the C-ROC Gozanti-Class is not yet for sale," Beat repeated, finally getting a word in. "If you will follow me to-"

"Is there any way we could see inside of the C-ROC?" I asked, cutting the droid off.

"I… I would have to ask Mistress Nova," The droid eventually said. "On-on-one moment."

The droid stepped away, and after a few minutes, Nova and Nevue joined us, the former with a light frown on her face.

"Now, what's this about you wanting to take a look at the C-ROC?" She asked. "That ship won't be for sale for two weeks at least, and from what Nevue was telling me, it will be out of your price range by then."

I gave Nevue a harsh look, not happy that he had revealed what kind of money we had to throw around. He had the good sense to at least act like he was sorry, sheepishly picking at one of his horns.

"I get that it's a bit more than what we described, but I think we both know there's always a way to make a deal work," I vaguely pointed out. "Let us take a look inside, and if it's something we might want, then we can work something out."

Nova studied me for a moment before looking at Nevue. He shrugged in a "what can you do?" way, prompting the older shipbroker to let out a sigh.

"Alright, fine, I need to inspect the repair team's progress anyway," She admitted before stepping away to lead us to the ship.

Chapter Text

Nova led us into the ship through the forward entry ramp because the primary cargo elevator was being used to move parts in and out of the large ship. As we climbed up the ramp, we first stepped into a locker room area with sealed doors on both sides.

"This ship was originally a Separatist transport and was only recently recovered from a previously unknown dormant stronghold," Nova explained as she led us through the locker room. "The Separatists were primarily known for their droid army, but almost all ships like these did have an organic crew in control, supported by droids."

As we stepped through the opposite door, we entered into a much larger cargo area, which was mostly empty save three workers and a bunch of tools. They were focused on their task, and only one noticed their boss walking through the ship.

"The C-ROC was an in-house modification to the Gozanti class cruiser, which had been out for several years before the start of the Clone Wars. It was basically an attempt to revitalize the ship by fixing up a few issues, adding the cargo lanes on the wings, and moderately improving the hull composition while adding the sloping, shovel-like nose," The shipbroker stopped in the middle of the large cargo bay. "The Separatists took a portion of them and modified them even further, stripping out a lot of the bottom nose section for even more cargo storage. Between the wings and this bay, you have an incredible amount of storage or room for modifications. Pirates like to take these ships and turn them into overpowered gunboats or mine-layers."

She turned and walked through a large bay door, which was currently knocked off its rail and bent slightly. She waved to a pair of verpine workers, who bobbed their heads a bit in what I think was a greeting. Further in the room, I could see the cargo elevator lifting things up into the cargo bay.

"This area has a small amount of storage space but primarily leads to the outboard cargo lanes. These heavy sealed doors lead to a small maglock cargo space, each about three meters wide. Each row has a mag-field in place past the doors for extra protection, but I wouldn't rely on it. The bay doors are what keeps the space out. These grates…"

Stomped her feet on a grate, which, now that I looked, stood out from the rest of the floor plating. I could see a flushed hinge on one side of each panel.

"This is the access to the repair crawlway for emergency repairs. Much easier to access everything from the outside, but you work with what you can. There's more of them in the forward cargo bay."

We left back the way we came, Nova pointing out the hatches she had just mentioned as we walked around to a set of stairs. We climbed them to the second floor, exiting the stairwell into a long with doors on both sides and at each end.

"This is the floor where the organic crew would spend most of their time," She explained, gesturing down one end, the door marked with noticeable damage. "The ship maintained a small deployment of droids, but the controls and communications equipment went with the room it was stored in down there. We already junked most of it and sealed up the access from the floor below. It will be an empty space when we are done with it. Access to the internals for the smallest ion drive is back there as well. We are thinking about just removing it because it's so undersized it's hardly worth the upkeep."

She then gestured in the other direction before walking down the hall. We passed a repair droid carrying a heavy-looking part while a human worker walked behind it, waving a scanner around.

"When it arrived, the ship was built around a crew of five, with room for five more passengers. We plan on moving things around a bit, with the end result being a max capacity of twelve. The bedrooms will be cramped, but the lounge area more than makes up for it."

We stepped through an automatic door and into said lounge area, which was easily six or seven meters wide and just as long, which on a spaceship was shockingly luxurious. At the moment, the room was mostly empty save a kitchen system, which actually looked like a kitchen, complete with countertop and stools bolted to the floor. There were also two couches tucked in another corner, but both of them were old and could do with replacing.

"Some of the furniture was damaged, but we have replacements already lined up," She explained before we stepped through the final sealed doorway.

A thick security door slid open to reveal the cockpit, which, as far as I could tell, was completely intact. There were five chairs set up, one in the front and four facing along the side of the vaguely triangular room.

"For all their faults, the Separatists knew their way around automating a ship. In a pinch, one person could fly this entire ship, even keep the guns firing. But for better results, you have the copilot, two gunners, and the comms operator, who would double as a sensor specialist. And the pilot, obviously."

Nal stepped past me and sat down in the pilot's chair, closely examining the layout. After a few seconds, he looked back at me.

"I could fly it. Probably. CEC keeps their ships easy to use," He explained, scratching his chin. "Separatists changed very little."

"So you can handle it, but we should look for a full-time pilot?" I asked, Nal responding with a simple nod. "Alright, sounds good."

I turned to Nova, who was giving me an amused look, clearly curious as to where I was getting my confidence.

"How much for it, right now, with no more repairs?"

"As it is? Eighty thousand credits. But I wouldn't take your money, especially 'cause you're a friend of Nevue. This ship isn't safe as she is," She said emphatically, shaking her head. "The first floor doesn't hold pressure, and the back room is more melted slag than ship. Not to mention the top engine is barely worth scrapping. This ship needs thirty thousand credits of repairs before I would even consider letting someone buy it. Another forty thousand on top of that to get it to the kind of quality I built my business on."

"I get that," I said with a nod. "I'll give you eighty thousand credits to buy the ship. You take that money, put it somewhere safe, it's yours. I'll give you another twenty thousand to keep working on the repairs."

"That's not enough. Even with the friend of a friend discount."

"I know, which is why, while you're working on my ship, we go and take care of your job."

"My job?" Nova asks, her eyes narrowing as she looks at me. "What do you mean?"

"C'mon, I know how this works. Someone like you running a business like this? For as long as you have?" I said, gesturing widely. "Maybe there's a rumor you want investigated, or you have a line on some supplies you need. Maybe there is something special someone wants, or a big score tucked away somewhere you can't get to. There is always a job. Usually, more than one."

Nevue, who was standing behind Nova, looked at me with a raised eyebrow, clearly wondering when I had gone insane. I could practically hear Miru rolling her eyes beside me. Nal was the only one nodding in agreement, having spun the pilot's chair around.

"Boss, what are-" Miru started before Nova spoke up.

"Alright. Say I have something in mind. You would need a ship."

"We have one."

"Excuse me?' Nevue said, breaking into the conversation. "Ignoring the mind-boggling fact that Deacon was right about what he just said, you don't have a ship. The Rebellion has a ship that we agreed to use to ferry you here."

"Then we cut the Rebellion in," I said, giving Nova a look. "It's gotta be a big one, right? Something that could stand to make everyone a lot of money or a bunch of supplies? Maybe both?"

For a long moment, Nova was silent before finally letting out a grumble of confirmation.

"Fine, I do have something in mind. It's actually got to do with this ship and why it's so heavily damaged," She admitted. "But we aren't talking about it here. We are already slowing everyone down. Come on, we can talk business in my conference room."

It took us a few minutes to get back to the conference room that Nova had mentioned. It was a decent-sized table in a sealed-off room, with a holoprojector unit built into the table. Nothing special, all function over form. Tatnia and the second soldier, Lario, had joined us as well. The ship was safe here, and the money was already Nova's, assuming I could hammer out this deal.

"I have a few different crews that bring me ships now and again. Some I hire, and some just work on a contract. Carlion was a ship chaser that I had worked with on a few occasions and usually brought good stuff in," The older shipbroker started, leaning back in her chair, which I couldn't help but notice was a fair bit nicer than the ones everyone else was sitting in. "This time, though, I went to him. I've been sitting on a rumor of an old CIS base in the Outer Rim for a few months now. It was just a rumor, one I was pretty sure was a load of crap, but with your friends always needing ships...."

She trailed off, giving Nevue a look before she leaned forward and tapped on a control pad in front of her, the holoprojector lighting up and displaying a slowly rotating planet.

"This is… P-3 something something something. Just call it Stronghold," She said, ignoring that the planet's alphanumeric code appeared with the projection. "Its air is barely breathable, its weather is erratic and dangerous, and its home to, surprise surprise, a relatively large dormant CIS stronghold. Carlion and his crew landed their ship and investigated the base. Of course, since they were looking for ships to sell, that's where they started."

She tapped the control pad, and the projection changed, shifting to footage that appeared to be from the point of view of a landing ship. It showed several fortified structures, including a decent-sized hangar and a row of ships on a large landing pad, the C-ROC being the largest. The view spun as the ship landed, settling down by the C-ROC.

"Stop!" Miru called out, prompting Nova to press the pad to pause the feed before giving the young Twi'lek a look. "Go back like five seconds…aannndddd stop!"

Nova slowly reversed the footage, going until Miru called out again. As the view spun while the ship rotated to land, there was a two-second shot of a massive dish array sitting on top of the largest structure. It was also clearly destroyed, with a large chunk missing from one side and large portions of it blackened, slagged and destroyed.

"Well… That explains why it's still there," I said, leaning forward, "And it makes me feel a bit better about not having any surprise company. Good eyes, Miru."

I said, reaching over and squeezing her shoulder, getting a big smile in return. Nova looked impressed, nodding in agreement.

"Well, that's a bit of good luck. It almost makes up for what happened next," Nova said, leaning back in her comfortable chair again. "They were just starting to explore the second floor of the C-ROC when the stronghold defenses kicked in and started targeting their original ship. Realizing they didn't have much time, Carlion ordered his ship to take off, stranding him and two of his team. They worked for a few hours to get the C-ROC up and running, and when they did, they took off. The defenses took exception to that and tried to blast them out of the air too. They barely managed to limp back here, where Carlion retired on the spot when he saw just how karking wrecked the ship was."

"And you want us to go back there for the smaller ships?" Tatnia asked. "Seems like a big risk for a couple of transports and whatever's in the hangar."

"No, but if it goes well, we will get those, too," Nova answered, shaking her head. "If I had known there was something like this there, I wouldn't have sent Carlion, I would have hired someone with a bit more smarts. A base like this will have a central computer, and the side effect of automating everything is that everything stops when that stops. If you can get one of my slicer droids to the central computer, we could shut down the automated defenses along with everything else. But that's only the beginning. Because if that data core of that central computer is still intact, then there's going to be a lot of information on it. Things like supply depots, trade lanes, troop movements, and even shipyards. Now most of that is going to be long gone. But with a little luck and some smarts…."

"We could get our hands on a whole lot of resources," Nevue finished, leaning forward in his chair. "This… yeah, I'm in. Ayme, Lario?"

"Yeah, count me in," Lario responded eagerly.

"Just let the General know so she doesn't send someone to come looking for us," Ayme added.

"That just leaves one thing…What is everyone's cut?"

"Forty to the Rebellion, forty to Nova, and twenty to us," I suggested. "Not including the remaining repairs and a few extras for the C-ROC. And, I want in on any future finds you get off of the data core, if there are any. You'll need muscle anyway, and by then we will have expanded a bit."

"You realize that there aren't going to be any credits lying around," Nova pointed out. "And I want those ships on the landing pad."

"I know, and I'm alright with that," I agreed with a nod. "You can buy us out of our shares if we don't find anything we want, but I have a feeling we will end up finding some useful stuff."

"If the Rebellion agrees to split your buyout if you need it, then I can agree to that aspect," Nova said before crossing her arms. "But there needs to be a certain level of profit involved to cover all of the repairs, even with your twenty thousand inclusion."

"I'de think the shuttles and the other ships on the pad would cover that at least," I pointed out.

"Not after calculating profits and the cost of repair and updating them."

"Fine. If you fail to double the cost of my repairs, half of the cost will come from our cut," I offered.

"And if the whole thing comes apart?" She asks. "How do you pay for it then?"

"I will join the Rebellion," I said, looking at Nevue. "They can cover the repairs and a decent payout for my team if they don't want to join as well."

"Done!" Nevue said quickly, surprising the two rebel soldiers and Nova with his eagerness.

Nova looked back at me, suddenly analyzing me much closer than before, no doubt wondering why Nevue was so eager to recruit me to the cause. Guess my magic had made more of an impression than he had let on. Then again, I had been banking on that.

"Alright, that sounds like we have an agreement?" I asked, getting nods from everyone. "Good. Let's move onto the planning phase, I want at least a rough outline of what we are doing before committing ourselves."

Chapter Text

We spent another hour coming up with the plan, working together to forge something that was serviceable and that we hoped wouldn't immediately fall apart.

The plan was to travel to the planet on the B-7, landing a far distance from the base before hoofing it the rest of the way to avoid setting off any sensors. Meanwhile, Nova would remain in orbit in her own ship, along with a few others. If everything went south, we could bring them in for some air support, which would really just amount to them flying over the base at high speeds, peppering the base, and zipping back out before the turrets could take down their shields. Understandably, Nova didn't want to risk any ships in a slugging match. She was also hoping she could claim the turrets and affix them to her station, bolstering her defenses quite a bit.

Once we got there, we would sneak into the central building if everything went well. We knew that the buildings had power and at least some sensors since it had picked up Carlion's ship, so once we got close, we would probably be on a short timer before interior defenses came up, probably in the form of droids. At some point, it would devolve into a fight, but the hope was to break through deep enough into the building that we would be able to get to the central computer before the total weight of the stronghold dropped on us.

To aid us in getting through security, Nova was lending us two droids, R3-D4, who was green and yellow, and R4-C3, who was red and black, both of which beeped and whistled as they joined us in the smallest hanger, the one the B-7 was in.

"Arthree and Racer both have upgraded slicer protocols installed, as well as extra processing upgrades and infiltration tools," The shipbroker explained. "Either one of them is going to be enough to break through an old CIS terminal, as well as any security doors you run into. Don't let them get destroyed because the only other option you have to stop from being overrun with droids and take down the defenses is to destroy the computer. That would shut down the base, but it would also probably destroy the data core.

"Gotcha. Head on board, you two," I said, the droids beeping, the more angular-headed Racer leading the way. "Everyone all set?"

My team, which consisted of both my core group, Nevue, and the two extra Rebel soldiers, all nodded in confirmation. Miru was the only one who didn't, the pink-skinned girl still pouting by the doorway. I flat-out refused to let her come with us, something she hadn't appreciated. She had tried to convince me that her technical expertise would come in handy on the ground, but with the modified astromechs coming with us, her skills were a lot less critical. Instead, she would be riding with Nova on her ship, waiting in orbit for the okay to land.

I had pulled Nova aside privately when she was offloading the payment for the C-ROC and asked if she could give Miru a job and a place to live if the mission went south. I also wanted her to eventually give her the money for the ship since our deal would be broken, and she would be free to sell the ship to whoever she wanted. She agreed solemnly before slapping me on the shoulder.

"Nevue seems to think you're worth some hefty investment, that tells me you're no pushover. Don't focus on what could happen. You're only making it more likely that it will happen."

"Oh, I know. I'm confident we can make this happen," I said truthfully. "I trust my team, and I know what we are capable of. That doesn't mean I would leave this up to chance."

We finished unloading everything, both to clear things up and because all of our stuff would be going on the C-ROC eventually. When we were done, we floated in a simple cargo loader to haul the astromechs over any treacherous terrain we had to cross once we landed. Not long after that, we were ready to go, and everyone piled into the ship for another long series of hyperspace jumps, this time out of wild space, across half the galaxy to a basically unknown planet in the Outer Rim. We jumped seconds after Nova's ship did but before the other three she was leading could.

We had only been in hyperspace for about twenty minutes when Tatnia found me sitting on the cot in the cargo bay, reading the lightning bolt entry of the grimoire. She sat down next to me and, after a few minutes of silence, finally said something.

"So…did you realize the flaw in your plan yet?" She asked, prompting me to look over at her. "You plan on fighting the droids with us, right?"

"Of course…" I started trailing off for a moment before slapping my forehead. "The soldiers haven't seen me do my thing yet. And if they do, they will probably spill it right back to the rebels."

"Not just that, Boss," She said, pointing at the two astromechs, both of which were plugged into separate charging ports. "Nova's gonna have eyes on you too."

"Fuck… "

"Gonna make it work without doing anything weird?" She asked. "Hypothetically speaking, the droids could suffer an accident after finishing their task...."

"No… no, that's more trouble than it's worth," I said, shaking my head. "We are just going to have to trust our new friends to keep it to themselves. It's not like I wasn't throwing around lighting and stuff on Nar Shaddaa."

"You might not have been spotted."

"Please, on a planet like that? Someone saw me."

"So what does that mean?"

"It means… I don't know what it means, give me a minute to think."

I stood up from the cot and started to walk around the cargo bay, rubbing my face and basically pacing around as I thought to myself. The issue with my powers was that in a galaxy where the Force was a known factor, everyone was going to assume I was using the Force, especially people who were dependent on it. Someone like Palpatine or Yoda would never even consider the existence of some sort of alternative power. Even face to face, when I used magic, and they sensed nothing in the Force, some would assume I was somehow hiding my presence in the Force or something.

All this boiled down to one thing. When old Grandpappy Sheev caught wind that someone was throwing around lightning and summoning stuff from nothing, I was going to be hunted down, just like any Jedi or any other force user trying to stir shit up. I knew about the Inquisitors, Jedi hunters that took down any of them who managed to escape order 66, even though I hadn't seen much of the content they were in. I knew they existed in the Disney canon, but I was murky about their existence when it came to the time period around the original trilogy. They certainly didn't come after Luke during the movies.

Even if the Inquisitors were gone, I would still be hunted. Hell, I was probably already being hunted. There was a chance that what I did on Nar Shaddaa might be brushed off as parlor tricks and aberrant technology, but if I kept it up, even that thin facade would crack, and I would be put on a list and hunted down. We were already, most likely, on some Hutt's shit list, I really didn't want to be on the Emperor's.

"Boss, I think you're thinking about this too hard," Tatnia said, breaking me out of my rapidly spinning spiral. "If you're worried about being put on a wanted list, the Empire taking an interest in you, the galaxy is a huge place. There are plenty of systems that a wanted record from the Empire wouldn't even give people pause, and that doesn't include a large amount that would actually see it as a positive. Hell, if all else fails, we could always turn to the Rebellion. I know you wanted to maintain our independence, but I'm sure we could work something out in exchange for a safety net of resources and a list of planets and stations to take refuge in when shit gets tough."

As she talked, I considered her words, nodding along as she assured me. As she did, I began to realize that she was right. I was thinking in terms of my old life, where options got really slim if the government wanted you. You could slip away if the local police wanted to ask you some questions, but the FBI? Here though, there were entire planets that hated the Empire. Sure, I would have to keep a lookout, but that's what a loyal crew was for.

"Yeah… thanks, Tatnia. I guess I was still thinking about how things were back home," I explained, who nodded in agreement. "Still have to get used to all of this."

"I get it, Boss. Gotta be a big shock to go from one tiny little world to an entire galaxy."

"You have no idea. Alright, could you do me a favor and go get Nevue? Maybe trade places with him so he can keep the soldiers from shooting at me or trying to burn me at the stake or something."

Tatnia gave me a weird look, but I just waved her off, leaning back and sitting on one of the few remaining crates in the cargo bay. It didn't take long for Nevue and his compatriots to climb down the access ladder, the Zabrak, in particular, coming down with a little pep in his step.

"Right. So, I'm sure you're both wondering why Nevue was so eager to agree to the backup deal I made with Nova, despite it costing the Alliance a pretty penny?" I asked, both Lario and Ayme nodding slowly in confirmation. "Well, the deal is that I'm… not exactly normal. Now I want you both to visibly confirm what I am about to say to you. You are not in danger, what I'm about to do is safe, and you don't need to worry. Understand?"

Both of the soldiers looked a bit nervous, but after sharing a glance, they nodded again. I paused for another few seconds before nodding, mostly to myself, before starting to run down through my location-appropriate spells. I started by summoning my bound armor, figuring that starting with something focused on myself would help them get used to it. When I was covered in a glowing protective shell, I summoned a sword and a dagger before dismissing all of it in a shower of magical sparks and translucent smoke. I cast candlelight and summoned my familiar, which was finally too much for Lario, who pulled his blaster out and held it steadily at the large feline.

"What the hell is that!" He shouted, looking at Nevue, who was chuckling to himself, and then Ayme, who had taken a few steps back. "Nevue!"

"Basically?" Nevue asked, breaking through his chuckling. "Space wizard."

"Like a Jedi? Like the kid who blew up the Death Star?" Ayme asked, immediately catching my attention.

"Not according to him. According to Deacon, it's not the Force, but some sort of energy he has inside himself. All I know is that he can throw lightning and ice and fire from the palm of his hand and block blaster bolts with the other."

As he talked, I dismissed my familiar, Lario slowly calmed down after I did. He did look at me like I was a dangerous-looking animal, though, so it was probably safe to say he was still a bit nervous.

"Look, just treat him like a special asset and follow his lead," Nevue explained, patting the older soldier's shoulder. "He's in command for this op, by order of General Syndulla herself."

We spent the next ten minutes talking about my abilities, showing off a few more spells, including clearing up a stiff neck and a troublesome knee thing that Lario had been apparently ignoring for a few weeks. Any complaints he had about me wholly disappeared after that. Nevue also convinced me to let him record me, pointing out that if he was going to explain the situation, he would need proof so they would take him seriously.

Additionally, as I was showing off my flame atronach spell, I realized something I hadn't noticed before. Spells that weren't instant cast, most conjurations spells, or the calming spell, could be held for a long time before I was forced to cast. On top of that, it was easy to cancel them as well, the magic flowing back inside me with barely any loss. All I had to do was tug internally at the base of the first spell matrix, and the spell unraveled, the magic rushing back into my core.

With this new knowledge, I spent the rest of the trip learning two new spells, the first being lightning bolt because I needed a longer-range attack that would hopefully be effective against droids. I spent about seven hours learning the spell before starting to cast it, holding the electric energy in my hand. After a few seconds of holding it, I unraveled the spell, feeling the energy return to my body. It took me a few minutes to cast it again, but I could feel it getting easier every time I cast, held, and then unraveled the spell. It was much slower at working the spell matrix into my aetheric presence, or however the book had described the fact that spells got easier the more times you cast them, but it was working.

After spending an hour practicing the spell, I moved on to the second one, fast healing. I was tempted to learn another destruction spell, or maybe even elemental familiar, but I was already starting to lean heavily into the tank role for the team, so having a quicker heal option was a pretty safe bet. Learning the spell took me another seven hours, including the time to practice it a few dozen times to make sure it stuck. This left me with just enough time for six hours of sleep before we arrived at our destination.

We were all piled into the cockpit as we dropped out of hyperspace, the formation of five ships appearing one after the other, Nova's ship still in the lead, on the opposite side of the planet from the stronghold. As we agreed, we stayed comms silent and immediately started to pull ahead, soon entering the planet's atmosphere. Nova and her four other ships spread out, though the likelihood that they would be detected by a stronghold with such severely disabled sensors was tiny, spreading out made that even less likely.

We slowly made our descent toward the planet's surface, taking it slow to keep from throwing up too much heat as we cut through the planet's atmosphere. Again, most likely an unnecessary precaution, but there was no reason to risk it. Once we were a bit lower, Nevue and Tatnia guided us around the planet, getting closer and closer to our target. Below us was a dry, cracked, and desolate planet with very little in the way of flora or fauna. We did spot a few herds of strange-looking six-legged creatures, each the size of a speeder bike, as well as a few smaller forests growing around pools of greenish water, but beyond that, the planet was dead.

When we did finally land, Nevue powered down the ship to low power and turned his chair to look at me.

"It's probably a four-hour hike to the location from here, but there is very little chance they saw us," He explained. "The mission is yours, Deacon."

"Right. What did the weather scans say while we were coming in?

"There's a big storm on the other side of the continent and a smaller one to the far south, but neither of them was pointed at us," Tatnia answered. "We are good for a while."

"Okay, let's get the astromechs on their cargo loader, have a look around, and head out."

Chapter Text

The sparse, rocky, dry landscape made making our way to the stronghold a simple, if lengthy, process. The droids took turns pulling themselves for the most part, their wheels easily handling the dry, relatively stable ground. We did occasionally have to load them both onto the cargo loader and guide them ourselves, but that only happened a handful of times throughout the whole hike.

Unfortunately, simple does not necessarily mean easy, as when Nova said the atmosphere was barely breathable, she was being generous. The air was so dry that it hurt to breathe once your heart rate picked up and you started to breathe heavier. There was also a prevalent metallic taste in the air, which made me think there was something in it that humans probably shouldn't be breathing. We ended up taking light breathing masks from the ship's survival kit and turning them on their lowest setting, filtering out the more dangerous particulates and gasses while also trapping the moisture from our own breathing, meaning it was a lot more comfortable to do so. The low setting also meant that the breathing masks would last up to fifteen hours instead of eight.

With the major issues solved, the hike just took time, crossing massive plains of stone and gravel. We took several breaks to keep up our energy, during which I spent most of my time berating myself for not learning the respite spell. I was in decent shape, but hiking four hours through a planet-sized rocky desert was pushing me a lot harder than I wanted to admit. I made a note to put effort into building endurance after this was all over. If I was going to be fighting a lot, I needed to be able to keep up.

My only solace was that only the two rebel soldiers seemed to be easily handling the workout, as everyone but them was showing at least signs of fatigue. When we were about thirty minutes out, I called for a final rest, gathering everyone around.

"Alright, from here on out, we need to be careful about making noise. From the footage we have of the stronghold, it seems like approaching from the south is our best bet. West would provide us with better cover, but I'm worried about getting the astromechs through those steep cliffs. Plus, our target building is closer to the south."

As I talked, we all slowly recovered from the last hour-long leg of the hike. I was mostly repeating what we had already gone over during the planning session, but everyone listened closely regardless.

"Arthree and Race, stick with the group until we start taking fire. Hopefully, we will already be in the main building by then, but either way, once bolts start flying, I want you to play it safe. You two are the keys to this operation being more than a one-time find, so I don't want you to get hit by stray fire. Everyone understands the game plan?"
I got a series of nods and a low tone of confirmation from both of the droids, prompting me to nod back.

"Alright. Ten minutes to check your gear and get everything prepared, then we head in. Leave your packs here, Lario is carrying everything we might need in his."

Because we wanted to try and race to the central computer, we wanted to be as quick as possible. Lario was a good head taller than me and built like a brick, so he volunteered to carry the essentials while the rest of us traveled as lightly as possible. He nodded when I mentioned his burden before joining everyone else in checking their gear.

The soldiers had their blaster rifles and a spare pistol on their hips, as well as some basic armor that was definitely just stripped-down stormtrooper armor, painted black and green. Everyone else was using the blaster rifles we had bought on Nar Shaddaa, with Nevue reluctantly leaving the proton rifle behind. I was running light, with my blaster pistol on my hip being my only physical weapon. My magic was going to be my primary weapon for this adventure.

After ten minutes were up, everyone but Lario lined up their packs, and we covered them with a tan camo blanket. Once we were set and everyone double-checked they were ready, we started the last chunk of our hike, making our way to the outskirts, the southern side of the stronghold. With the rising tension and anticipation, this thirty-minute hike seemed to stretch on for a lot longer than anyone appreciated. When we finally arrived on the outskirts, we took cover behind along a slight ridge, Nal scanning the base with our electrobinoculars. After a few minutes, he handed them to me.

"We've got a problem, Boss," He said softly, prompting me to peek over the ridge.

The issue was immediately apparent. What was supposed to be an abandoned base, with the only immediate danger being the auto turret emplacements, was actually fully active. Dozens of battle droids patrolled the landing pad while others stood at sentry points, actively scanning the surroundings. Every doorway had at least two guard droids posted beside it, and there were several droids walking around, carrying things and completing tasks. A few repair droids were even working on one of the transports that Nova claimed.

I bit back a curse and slid back fully into full cover, passing the binoculars to Tatnia, who slid up to look.

"The whole base is active," I whispered, giving Nevue a look as he softly cursed. "The last alert must have brought the base online. There are at least fifty active battle droids, including on guard and sentries."

"Which means whatever is in the hangar might be active as well," Tatnia said, sliding back into cover next to me, handing the binoculars to Nevue. "If they have armor vehicles in there, we are fucked."

"We have two options. We push forward, or we bug out. Chances are the base will go back into shutdown if we give it enough time," I pointed out.

"But we have no idea how long that will take," Ayme pointed out. "If we get inside, any armor they have will be useless, there is no way they will shoot at the building continuing their central computer, not at anything that could put it at risk."

"I say we still push forward, Boss," Tatnia said.

"I agree, I just wanted everyone to understand the options," I explained. "Okay, the plan stays the same, but now instead of trying to beat the alert, the alert is most likely going to happen immediately. I'm going to lead the charge, then slow down and switch to following behind, trying to draw fire. Everyone else's goal is to get into the central building. Arthree, Race, once you have the door open, I need you to get ready to slam it closed again. Once everyone is inside, including me, slam the door shut and scramble it as best you can. Then it's a race to the central computer system."

The droids both bounced a bit, which I took as them understanding what I had just said. I took one long breath before slowly sliding around to the edge of our cover, peaking around to watch the patrols. As they moved, I could see that there were a few small gaps, but nothing that even came close to being big enough for us to slip through. The entrance to the central building was about two hundred meters, and it was doubtful that we would make it even half that distance without getting spotted. As I watched, I cast the upper and lower bound armor on myself, filling them completely to keep them around as long as possible. After a few minutes of watching the droid patrols, I saw an opening and took it.

"Go!" I whispered urgently, stepping out from behind the cover and running.

I could hear the rest of the team following behind me as we crossed the first fifty meters without anyone spotting us. At about the seventy-five-meter mark, I saw a patrol turning towards us, about fifteen battle droids, all armed with blaster rifles. I peeled off a bit and slowed down, watching the rest of the team keep moving past me, making a beeline for the central structure. As they passed, I started walking backward, my eyes on the patrol. All of them suddenly came to attention at once.

"Intruders!" One of the droids shouted, the call echoing across the entire landing structure, all of the robots spinning at once to look in our direction.

"Well… here we go!" I said, before dual casting steadfast ward, holding it out in front of myself.

The first few blaster bolts whizzed by me, not even getting close. Some of them weren't even aimed at me but at the rest of my team. I was about to tell them to get to cover since my distraction wasn't working until the first bolt hit the ward, draining about a tenth of its power and bouncing off. The bolt of red energy harmlessly slammed into the ground about ten meters away
.
"JEDI!"

Another call went out, this one even louder than the first. Suddenly all of the attention was on me, which was exactly what I wanted. As thirty or so droids opened fire on me at once, I was seriously starting to question my previous thought process.

"We are at the door, Boss!" Tatnia said, "Thirty seconds!"

Three more bolts hit my ward, all bouncing off wildly. One even crossed the gap between me and the nearest patrol to slam into one of the droids, drilling through its chest casing. I started moving backward as fast as I could, keeping the ward up and juking back and forth, trying my best to keep moving erratically. A fifth bolt hit the ward, and I could feel it weakening, my mana quickly running out.

I was backpedaling at full tilt now, red bolts slamming into the ground around me, whizzing past and occasionally hitting my ward. I could feel it get closer and closer to failing, my hands going numb from the impacts.

"It's open!" Tatnia called out. "RUN!"

My ward gave out just as she shouted, and I turned to run. I was about fifty meters from the doorway and could see the team taking cover inside, now returning fire, red bolts of lethal energy now whipping by me in both directions. I was moving as erratically as I could, but it was only a matter of time before-

The impact almost spun me around as a blaster bolt slammed into my shoulder. I could feel that my upper bound armor almost immediately gave out under the blast, but by some miracle it held. I fed it as much magic as I could, reinforcing it slightly, but focused on running as fast as I could. Luckily the reinforcement stabilized the armor just enough that when the second bolt hit me, this time in the small of my back, the armor shattered but still stopped any energy from reaching me. Unfortunately, the impact and subsequent shattering armor knocked me off my feet, throwing me to the ground, where I tumbled and rolled…

...Right through the doorway of the central structure.

The doors slammed shut just a few feet behind me, cutting off the exterior light. I quickly stood back up, my hand dipping to my hip to grab my blaster pistol, pulling it out even as I breathed heavily.

The interior of the structure was simple and utilitarian, though there was a lot of dust along the floor. The hallway that I had tumbled into was a three-way intersection, with open halls leading to the left and right but a sealed door towards the center of the building. The door was covered in carbonized blaster marks, but a cursory glance told me it was superficial damage
The hall was clear in both directions, prompting me to stand up straight and lower my pistol to my side. I looked at my team, checking out each of them before pulling off my mask and clipping it onto my hip.

"Anyone hurt?" I asked. "Everyone good?"

"Yeah, Boss, you kept them off us long enough to get the door open and into cover," Tatnia answered. "You okay? You took a few hits.…"

"I think armor held up, and the rest got deflected by the ward," I assured her before turning around. "My back alright?"

"Yeah, you're good," She responded, her hand dusting off my back. "Nothing got through."

"Right, okay, step one was a success then," I said, facing the rest of the team. "Arthree, Race, how goes it?"

Arthree spun around, and Racer pulled away from the door after a few seconds, their scomp link retracting back into their chassis, Racer letting out a long series of bleeps and bloops. I stared at the droid for a long moment before Nal spoke up.

"They scrambled exterior access," He explained. "Will take two hours, or destruction of the door to get in. Internal security is the last threat."

"They get a map in that process?" I asked, Artthree whistling before shifting slightly, his projector lighting up to display a holographic map.

The pale blue, 3D representation of the building spun around slightly and showed a blinking green light several floors down in a central chamber. It marked a route as well.

"Alright, that looks like a good path, lets-"

Before I could finish, the sound of heavy metallic footsteps came from the left hall. With barely a second to think of anything, the large frames of three battle droids came around the corner. Unlike the droids outside, however, these were not B1's. Instead of the tan cannon fooder the Separatists threw at their problems by the thousands, there were three beefed-up B2 Super battle droids.

The second they stepped around the corner, they opened fire, prompting us to do the same. Laser fire stitched down the walls and floor, and I had just enough time to call up another steadfast ward deflecting a handful of blaster bolts.

"Go! Get back to some cover!" I called out, holding the ward out in front of myself before charging my newest destruction spell.

An ark of lightning shot out from my hand, my lightning bolt spell slamming into the lead droid even as we all retreated. The electricity sank into the droid's arm, causing it to spark and swing out, spasming slightly before going limp. As I followed my team back down the hallway, I fired a second time, then a third and fourth, the battle droid finally going down, electricity sparking off its body as it spasmed to the ground.

The two other droids just stepped over their compatriot, their wrist-mounted blasters firing another chain of bolts. Lario and Nal leaned around the corner as I dove around it, laying down and covering the fire. As I dove, I barely managed to avoid a blast of red energy, my ward failing as my Magicka reserve was utterly depleted.

Tatnia quickly joined the other two, firing around the corner and taking down the two super battle droids with multiple volleys of mass fire, several shots finding weak points to drill into the metal of the droid, finally causing enough severe damage to drop them. When the two remaining droids collapsed, we all breathed a sigh of relief.

"Alright… let's keep moving," I said. "The sooner we can take down the central computer, the better."

Chapter Text

We quickly jogged past the smoking remains of the super battle droids, Lario pumping a few extra shots into each as we did. I didn't blame him in the slightest, they had been significantly more challenging to take down than the normal B1s, which tended to all but fall apart after the first hit or two.

By the time we made it all the way down the hall, I had re-summoned my armor, and my mana had regenerated. I was constantly feeding the armor magic to keep it at its strongest, which meant my magic was regenerating much slower than normal. To compensate, I took out my blaster pistol, sweeping down the next corridor as I stepped around the corner.

"Clear," I said, stepping around and making my way down the long hallway.

I found myself wanting to cast a steadfast ward, but the mana-intensive spell would drain me in a few seconds, with most of my magic already going to my armor. Still, my sword skills called for me to have something in my offhand, making me think that a thick, blaster-proof shield might actually be a decent idea. A scene from one of the early Marvel movies popped into my head, with Captain America kicking down a door with his shield in one hand and his pistol in the other. I had never been a fan of the Captain in comics or the movies, he always came off holier than thou to me, but that scene looked cool, and if I could find a metal resistant enough to blasters fire but light enough to carry around…

I shook my head to clear it of distractions. There would be time for getting creative with my load out when this was done.

I slowed down as we approached another sealed door, going past it and stopping on another side, my team coming in behind me. Racer pulled up next to it without prompting, linking to the doorway and immediately starting to slice into its controls. He gave a series of beeps, and Nal looked at me, holding up two fingers.

"Alright, take cover, guys, we need to hold here for two minutes," I prompted, pointing to the small cover that the sectioned hallway provided, Nevue and Ayme sliding into place. "We-"

The sound of machine parts whirring echoed through the space, cutting me off and prompting everyone to look around wildly. For a long second, we didn't see anything, only for two turrets to drop from the ceiling. They quickly spun around and targeted us in a blur of movement, both units relatively small and clearly designed for internal, anti-personnel purposes. Despite that, they were still obviously dangerous. The first one immediately targeted me, firing off a quick quartet of blasts that hit me square in the chest, slamming me against the door. The first three bolts cracked my bound armor easily before the third slammed into my physical armor.

The other turret swiveled further and aimed at Race, focusing on the slicer droid. Tatnia, who was standing beside the droid, wound up and kicked the smaller robot, the droid getting yanked free from the scomp connector just in time for the second turret to unleash its own quartet of bolts. All four of them slammed into the door control panel, which exploded in a spray of sparks and melted metal.

All of this happened in a split second, which was just enough time for Nal, Ayme, Nevue, and Lario to jerk their weapons up at the descended turrets and open fire, peppering the robotic weapons with a river of red bolts. The turrets exploded in a wave of sparks and slag, one falling out of its housing and smashing to the ground.

"Fuck, that hurts," I said, pulling myself off the door and already casting two fast heals on myself simultaneously.

The double fast heal inundated my body with energy, the golden healing magic sinking into my chest and immediately healing a significant portion of the damage. I immediately repeated the double cast, the pain receding almost completely, though I could still feel pulling when I stretched. Tatnia started to immediately check on me, finding that the armor just under my left pec was cracked, blackened, and basically ruined, but that my skin underneath looked like a three or four-week-old injury.

"I'm alright, Tatnia," I assured her, looking at the rest of the team. "We need to keep moving. Race, I'm assuming this door is a bust?"

The red and black droid let out a long solemn warble that confirmed my suspicions.

"I could…" Lario started, trailing off when I shook my head.

"No, that's our backup option. I don't want to waste it when we can just use the next one down and work from there," I said, already re-casting my bound armor. "Everyone keep your eyes open for more turrets, especially at intersections, doorways, and corners."

Everyone nodded, and again, we were on the move, quickly jogging down hallways. We eventually found the alternative doorway, which Racer cracked easily. Two more turrets dropped down from the ceiling, but this time we were ready and blasted them the second they came down. Once Racer opened the door itself, it immediately revealed six B1s on the other side of the doorway. Thankfully I had seen that coming, so we had all dropped into cover. Considering they were just standing in the middle of the hallway while we were safely protected by the door frame, we made quick work of them.

Slowly but surely, we made it down two more floors like this, blasting the occasional patrol of droids and taking out any turrets that dropped from the ceiling. We even managed to stamp out another trio of super droids, a much less daunting task now that we were prepared for them and weren't stuck in the open like the first time. I simply summoned a flame atronach and ordered it to charge at them. The conjured elemental managed to make it within a few feet of the first one before it was finally taken down. It stumbled and fell to the ground at their feet… only to detonate like a small grenade, staggering two of the more advanced droids and knocking the third on its ass. All of us popped around the corner at the sound of the explosion, having been waiting for it, and immediately opened fire on the now unfocused robots. It took a few seconds of sustained fire, but they went down eventually.

From the third floor down, the defenses became more and more intense. Soon we were facing down dozens of droids at once, both B1s and B2s, all determined to keep us from getting any lower. Luckily, in true CIS fashion, they just continued stacking the numbers, trying to overwhelm us with disposable droids. Not only did it barely slow us down, it actually, occasionally, made things easier for us. The droids would collapse when destroyed, blocking the path and sometimes causing the droids behind them to stumble as they tried to advance toward us. We went through a lot of ammo, but between spamming my flame atronach and the whole crew's firepower, we took down all of the threats in relatively quick succession.

When we finally entered the last floor, and Racer scrambled the security door behind us to give us time to work in peace, we immediately took a minute to take stock of the situation. According to Racer and Arthree, the droid forces had started breaking down doors to follow us, using whatever tools, and even their blasters, to get through. They were currently on the third floor, doing their best to break into the stairwell leading to the fourth. By Arthree's estimation, we had about thirty to forty minutes before they could reach us.

Once we had all gathered our wits, reloaded our weapons, and caught our breath, we started making our way to the center of the sixth floor, which according to Arthree, was where the direct access to the central computer access would be. As we moved deeper, it was clear that this floor was very different from the others in terms of defenses. Where the past few floors had been a near-constant cacophony of droids, blaster fire, and shouting, this floor was nearly silent, a low hum of high-energy conduits and coolant systems the only real noise.

When we finally found the main entrance to the central room, Arthree hooked themselves into the scomp port, slowly unlocking the door while we looked around nervously. We were so close to our goal, and the fact that this floor had, so far, been entirely unprotected left us all feeling on edge.

"Maybe droids aren't allowed down here?" Lario suggested. "Wouldn't want them to have access to their own systems… right?"

Before I could say anything to his guess, Arthree whistled a happy tune, the door opening up with a near-silent whoosh of air, a sign that the pressure had been different inside than out. With a victorious whistle, Arthree rolled around the door frame and into the room, making a beeline for the center.

"No! Wait!" I called out, taking a half step into the room and looking around quickly.

The room was cold, clean, and utilitarian, with a large holoprojector in the center. All around the room were what looked like server banks and computer equipment, each marked with blinking lights. As Arthree headed straight for the center console, his scomp link already extended, I extended my arm to keep Racer from rushing forward. The dome-headed droid managed to reach the center console, only for two hatches to open on opposite sides of the room, revealing just about the last thing I wanted to see.

"Get to cover!" I shouted as two droideka waddled out of their hiding place, their shields already deployed. "Arthree, watch out!"

The astromechs dome spun around and locked onto one of the dangerous battle bots, letting out a screech of terror as it tried to swivel around and run out, only to be blasted into smithereens by the combined effort of both droideka.

"Fuck, get to cover!" I shouted again, sliding against the door frame as the destroyer droids turned around and started walking toward the door, rapidly firing their blasters.

"What do we do?" Tatnia called out, leaning against the other side of the door frame, shouting to be heard over the constant barrage of laser bolts.

"Don't shoot them!' I shouted, seeing Ayme preparing to lean out and shoot back at the robots. "We can't risk a ricochet!"

Ayme cursed and leaned back around to cover, a pair of red energy bolts sparking where she had just been leaning. I peeked around the corner, trusting my armor to hold for at least one shot, desperate to get a look at what the large droids were doing. I pulled my head back immediately, looking up and down the hallway before finally coming up with an idea.

"Pull back!" I shouted, motioning everyone to move back the way we came. "We can't handle that kind of firepower! We need to leave! Pull back!"

Everyone looked at me like I was crazy until I grabbed Lario and spun him around, and started digging through his backpack, pulling out our two backup plans. Tatnia smirked and nodded, turning and walking away.

"You hear him! Retreat!" She shouted, prompting everyone on the left side of the door, the side we had come from, to run down the hallway towards the stairs we had taken down.

After a few seconds, Lario and I followed, with me holding a dual cast ward up to cover us both as we crossed the doorway. We continued to move, the whole team retreating partially up into the stairwell. While they did that, I stopped around the first corner, peeking around it to watch the door. I kept watch for a few seconds, until I finally saw the droideka leave the room, following behind us and making their way into the hallway. I pulled back and leaned against the wall, counting to five, before looking back to Lario, who was waiting for my signal.

"Now!"

The soldier squeezed the detonator he was holding, and the explosive charges that I had dropped on either side of the doorway as we "retreated" both went off simultaneously. The explosion shook the structure around us, scattering chunks of ferrocrete all the way down the hall to bounce around the corner. When the debris finally stopped, I turned to peek around the corner, pumping my fist when I saw that the droideka were both smoking piles of scrap.

I stepped around the corner and jogged back to the door to inspect the damage more closely. I was glad to see that the positioning of the explosives around the corner had directed the explosive force away from the entrance but still had enough power to destroy the destroyer droids.

We rushed back to the serving room, Racer following behind, giving the destroyed remains of his compatriot a wide berth before connecting to the mainframe. The droid whistled a slow tune, and Nal frowned.

"He believes he can crack the system in three to five minutes," The Duros explained.

I nodded and directed everyone to move around the room, to spread out and find a cover around the room, but to stay focused on the doorway. While they were moving into position, I walked to the entrance and stayed there, listening for the sounds of company.

Three and a half nerve-wracking minutes went by before Racer let out a triumphant series of whistles. Immediately the whole room went dark, every light, control pad, and sensor blinker going out before almost immediately coming back a split second later. The room lights clicked on first before the central core slowly came back online. The little astromech continued to beep whistle and warble, his scomp still spinning inside the connector.

"The base is completely locked down," Nal informed us. "All surviving battle droids are returning to their charging stations and storage racks. Even the super battle droids are shutting down. Apparently, they don't need the central computer to function but still follow its commands."

All of us cheered at the news, Tatnia slugging me in the shoulder as we gathered together by the computer's holoprojector.

"Racer, was Miru right that the comms were completely busted?" I asked, getting a warble that I could tell was a confirmation, but I still looked to Nal, who nodded.

"Alright, well, lock everything down. We need to head back up to the surface," I said. "I doubt the comm unit we packed is going to be able to get through all this ferrocrete."

Again the little robot warbled a confirmation and, after a few minutes, pulled away from the access port. Together we slowly made our way back through the building, climbing over the wrecked droids we had taken down along the way. As we got higher, we had to climb through several destroyed security doors, warped and scored with blaster fire and small-scale explosives.

As we stepped out into the harsh, dry exterior, all of us clipped our masks back on. Lario started to unpack his comm equipment with Ayme's help, quickly setting it up on the ground. Once it was done, I called up to Nova on our agreed-upon coms band. A few minutes and a short conversation later, Nova and her team were on the way down.

Chapter Text

As we waited for Nova and her other ships to fly down, I couldn't help but feel a little tense. While none of her ships even remotely resembled what you would call a warship, they were all armed. She also had a significant number of workers with her, who were no doubt also armed. We might be good, or at least decent, but between the ships and her superior numbers, we would be at her mercy. If she wanted to betray us and take this whole site for herself, this would be the perfect time to do it.

"When are your people getting here?" I asked Nevue, who seemed to have picked up on my nervousness.

"Within the next five or six hours," He answered before patting my shoulder. "Relax, Nova is a friend. I don't blame you for being nervous, though."

"Yeah, I know. Not exactly the best position to be in."

When the businesswoman finally arrived, she was the first one out of her ship, even as her other ships landed. As her workers followed her out, her other ships lowering their ramps, she looked around before turning back to address her people, giving orders and directing them to several tasks. A significant portion of the group broke off and started to inspect the ships on the landing pad while even more rushed into the buildings, weapons out as they began clearing everything, ensuring everything was safe. Before we could reach the older businesswoman, a pink missile streaked across the gap between us and collided with me.

"I'm alright, Miru, everyone is alright," I assured her, returning the teenage Twi'leks hug. "It was easy, no problems at all."

"I can clearly smell that your armor is burnt," She said, pulling away and inspecting my jacket and the armor beneath.

"Yeah, but you know me, I bounce back from that sort of thing," I said with a smirk, earning a slap to the shoulder before she turned to give a hug to Tatnia. Together, after a few more hugs, we crossed the rest of the distance to Nova.

"Good work, everyone," She said with a smile, stepping out to shake my hand, making me feel silly for my previous nervousness. "How did the mission go?"

"There were some complications at the beginning," I admitted, continuing when she raised her eyebrow. "The base was fully active when we got here. Patrols, lookout stations, the whole nine yards. But we managed to get inside without taking any injuries, and all it did was shrink our timeline a bit."

"Well, good job. The ships seem to be in good condition, despite being exposed for so long, and-"

"Nova!" A voice called urgently from the older woman's comms unit, cutting her off. "Nova, come in!"

"Sorry, hold on a second," She said, unclipping her comm and holding up. "Nova here, say again?"

"You're going to want to come to the hangar bay Ma'am," The voice said. "It's… well, you're going to want to see this."

She glanced at us, and I gestured for her to lead the way, all of us crossing the huge landing pad to the entrance into the hanger. It was larger than it seemed, and as we crossed from the harsh light into the darker, slightly cooler interior, we could finally see what Nova's worker had been talking about.

All three walls of the hanger, which went back surprisingly far into the rocky hill it was carved into, were lined with stuff. The left wall was crammed, floor to ceiling, with cargo crates ranging from smaller standard crates to massive shipping containers. The far back wall was filled with several storage units of droids, most of them B1's, but with several other types as well. Along the right wall were ten starfighters, most of them the robotic variants that I recognized from the movies, but there were also three X-wing look-alikes that I guessed were Z-95 headhunters.

But all of that paled in comparison to the large ship sitting at an angle in the center of the space. It was at least forty meters long, maybe more, and looked sleek and clean. Large windows were arrayed along the side, making me think that this was a pleasure craft rather than a warship. It seemed to be in great shape as well, with its red paint in almost perfect condition.

"Well… that just made this whole thing worth it," Nova said with a smirk, slapping my back. "That's a PLY 3000. It's worth at least a hundred and fifty thousand credits, probably closer to two hundred!"

"What the hell is a Personal Luxury Yacht doing out here in a military base?" Tatnia asked. "And in perfect condition?"

"Stera, Tedo, start going over this ship! I want to know how it looks on the inside!" Nova called out, her worker nodding before turning to other workers and barking orders at them.

"C'mon, let's inspect the rest of these buildings, maybe we might figure out what's going on here," Tatnia suggested, nodding toward the hangar exit. "Who knows, we might spot something useful."

We spent a few hours exploring the structures around the base, with Nevue and the soldiers splitting off to go their own way, leaving us, plus Racer, to start with the upper floors of the main structure, working our way down. The first and second floors were clearly designed as a sort of central command, which made sense considering the massive communication dish on the roof. While all the stations were dark, dozens of display pads were set up by the reinforced structure's long, horizontal windows that overlooked a significant portion of the base.

Underneath the command center floor was a floor of storage, filled with replacement parts, equipment, and tools, as well as other basic supplies. Below that, we found three floors of empty rooms, well furnished but simple, like a very basic apartment complex. I was surprised to find that many living quarters, as this base would have been perfectly functional with a handful of organic supervisors.

As we explored further down into the many rooms we had fought past but hadn't explored, it got more and more confusing. Storage filled with long-term supplies for organics. Room after room filled with clothes, linens, literal tons of food, everything a decent-sized group of people needed to survive for a long time. There was even a commercial-sized kitchen, staffed with robots that were now shut down and tucked into a series of charging bays in the corner.

The second to last floor, the one directly above the central computer, was split into three luxury living spaces. They were big, bigger than any apartment I had ever lived in or even seen, and were filled with high-quality furniture, computers, and all sorts of luxury amenities. As we explored the largest of the three, I directed Race, who had joined us when we split with Nevue, to access the computer terminal behind a large wooden desk. He whistled in confirmation while we looked around.

After about three minutes, he whistled out, and Nal and I headed to the desk, reading the data entry that Racer had pulled up. It described the timeframe in which the facility had been constructed, as well as what its purpose was.

"Son of a bitch, we found someone's hidey hole," I said after reading the document. "Look, right here. 'A bastion of last resort.' and 'holds supplies to last several years, should our investments in the Separatist movement turn sour.' Some CIS dumbass didn't want to face the music if they lost the war, so they built a place to hide if it started going bad. Must have never made it out here…."

"That explains the Yacht," Tatnia said, dropping down onto a couch that probably would have cost me a few months' pay before I died. "What do you think that means for the data core?"

"Could be a separate system, with no contact with the rest of CIS," Nal admitted with a shrug. "Or it could have been a sanctioned project. Might be connected to similar bases."

"Either way, we get what we need at the moment," I said, both of them nodding in agreement. "With any luck, it might lead to more profit later, but for now, it pays for our ship plus some starter funds while we search for more members."

"You said you would be taking most of our cut-in materials," Miru brought up. "Why was that?"

"Because when you're living on your own rules, supplies are worth more than any amount of credits," I explained, Nal nodding in agreement. "Fuel is likely our biggest issue that requires money to solve, everything else we can scavenge, bargain for, or loot from pirates, slavers, and other acceptable targets. Also, more specifically, I was betting that the C-ROC being stationed here would mean it would have supplies to maintain it."

"Oh… could that include some droids?" She asked, looking a bit nervous to be asking for something. "It's just that I've always wanted to tinker with droids, and the B1s would be a great way to start. Plus, I could use some extra hands maintaining a ship as large as the C-ROC…."

"I think we could likely convince them to pay us to haul the B1's away," I said with a chuckle. "They don't exactly have the best reputation. But yes, we can negotiate that, especially since I'm pretty sure some of the stuff you're going to end up making will be useful."

Miru preened at the compliment before Tatnia raised her hand.

"I want this couch," She said, now laying back on it, her eyes closed as she enjoyed the expensive seat.

"Why not the bed?" Nal suggested, the human woman's eyes flying open. "If they paid that much for their couch…."

Tatnia was up and off the couch before Nal could finish, looking around before making a beeline for the bedroom, Miru following close behind, looking around curiously.

We spent the next while unwinding and exploring the stronghold, making a note of anything we saw worth negotiating for. One building off the side of the central, large structure was some sort of garage containing five speeders, which Nal identified as Flitknots. They were unarmed, though, so not likely something I would ask for. Another one of the buildings contained what was clearly an armory, most of which was just blasters of different types and sizes. We already had blasters rifles, spare blasters, and spare blaster pistols, so most of that was useless to us. I did spot a few interesting things, but how much of it we would get would come down to how the negotiations went.

We were talking to Nevue about who was riding one of the unarmed speeders back to the B-7 to pick it up when the Rebel Alliance finally arrived. Three large ships landed on the pad, which was now well and truly full. Nevue and I ran out to greet whoever was in command, which turned out not to be necessary as a soldier met us halfway and handed Nevue a data pad without a word.

"Well… Good news, I'm now in charge of this operation from our side," He said, still reading from the tablet.

"What's the bad news?"

"The bad news is that I've been deemed too big of an asset to return to my team. I'm now forming a second team, basically doing the same thing," He said with a frown. "Damn… I was looking forward to seeing them again."

"No good deed goes unpunished," I said with a wince, Nevue letting out a snort of blank amusement. "Shall we go find Nova? Start negotiations?"

"Yeah… let me give my people some orders, and we can go find her."

Fifteen minutes later, the three of us, with my crew, a few rebel soldiers, and a pair of Nova's workers following behind us, began to divide up the loot, starting in the hangar. They both immediately started trying to claim the luxury yacht, as Nova hadn't made any claim to what was inside the hangar while we were originally discussing terms. Instead of joining in, mostly because it was useless to me, I offered to give up any claim to it in return for dibs on three large storage containers worth of parts for the C-ROC sitting in the hangar. They agreed before continuing to negotiate for the PLY.

Eventually, it was decided that Nova would get the Yacht if the Rebellion got the three Headhunters, all equipment set aside to repair them, and thirty thousand credits or something equivalent, which Nova agreed to. I asked for some of the droid starfighters at the request of Miru, and the two agreed as they weren't interested in getting them to work. In the end, I claimed four vulture droids and two tri fighters. Since both of them openly admitted to not wanting them, I managed to convince them to count them as only a thousand credits each, despite them being worth significantly more, even in scrap.

I was also able to convince them to let me take as many B1s as I wanted and to let me have ten super battle droids and two droideka. Nevue asked for the rest and offered to cut the credit IOU for the LPY 3000 in half in return, which Nova readily agreed to. I had to argue much harder to get a small team of labor droids and repair droids, five each, as Nova wanted them badly. I did eventually win, but I had to give up on the unarmed speeder bikes. Miru almost mentioned how I hadn't actually cared about getting them, but Tatnia thankfully got to her first. Nova was still getting thirty-five of each robot type anyway, so she didn't have much to complain about.

The general supplies were also hotly contested, as all three of us had use for them. Eventually, Nova and I agreed that the Rebellion needed them more, and so we settled on each of us getting a few crates of basic necessities and letting Nevue take the rest. Both of us then used that goodwill to claim most of the tools and spare equipment that were secured around the facility. I wanted Miru to have every tool she could possibly need to keep our ship running and do her tinkering. After a bit of negotiating, we settled on basically getting one of everything while Nova and Nevue would split the rest between them, heavily biased toward Nova.

The negotiations continued as we argued over who would get what and if this trade or that trade would stick to the forty-forty-twenty agreement we had all shaken on. In the end, the one item that we argued about the most was the turret emplacements that dotted the stronghold. I wanted one of the more powerful cannons to bump up the punch of the C-ROC, Nevue wanted them to jump-start the defenses of the Alliance's next base, and Nova wanted to build them into her station, which at the moment was only lightly armed.

Eventually, we settled on a compromise. I got one of the larger turrets for the C-ROC, Nevue got a few, and Nova got the vast majority. In exchange, Nova would repair several alliance ships for free and increase the scale of the modifications she would do to the C-ROC on top of its repair.

"Just what exactly are you looking to get done?" She asked when I started angling for more modifications. "There is a limit to what I can do without a working refit station."

"You were already talking about removing that tail thruster?" I asked, smirking when she nodded. "I want to take the heavy turret we just got and attach it there. Should make chasing us a much more daunting task."

"...That's not a bad idea, we could reroute the engine's power to shields, but let it switch to the cannon when you need a bit more firepower." She said, scratching her nose as she thought. "That shouldn't be too difficult either, though you may need a separate station to work that turret, working it into the existing systems wouldn't be worth the effort. What else are you thinking? We could do a few more like that, though you're going to start putting a strain on your ship's power systems if you add any more energy weapons."

"No, no more weapons. I think I only want one more modification, but this one is going to be a bit bigger," I admitted. "You know how the empire likes to use their new style of Gozanti cruisers to carry starfighters into combat? Well, Miru and I had an idea for something functionally similar, executed very differently.…"

Nova narrowed her eyes at me before shaking her head.

"Don't bother describing it to me now, we can sit down and plan it out later. For now, I have to get in contact with some more traders. There's a lot of goods nobody was interested in, and I'm not leaving them behind when there is money to be made."

Chapter Text

We spent another day at the Separatist stronghold, sleeping in several floors of apartment-esque rooms and living off of ship supplies. Nevue, Ayme, and Lario were the first to leave, the dozens of rebels and several ships they brought making quick work of the supplies, equipment, weapons, and starfighters they were taking with them. Nevue, my crew, and the soldiers shared a drink before they left, sitting in one of the larger lounge areas that were dotted along the living spaces.

"I'm already forming my new crew," Nevue explained, gesturing to Ayme and Lario, the latter of which raised his glass. "I might not get to rejoin my old team, but at least I'm not starting over with a completely new group."

"Are they saddling you with the B-7 too?" I asked, looking skeptical.

"Thank the Force, no. We are heading back to Thalia, where I'm looking to recruit a few more specialists. Once I'm done, our first assignment will be stealing an Imperial ship," He explained with a shrug.

"Seriously?" Tatnia asked, her eyes wide with surprise. "Real trial by fire, huh?"

"Well, I'll be gathering experienced operatives, so they expect a certain level of results," He explained. "Plus, we can do it from any world in the galaxy, which will give us the advantage of surprise."

"We wish you good luck," Nal added, reaching out and shaking the Zabrak's hand. "May fortune favor you."

We spent a while saying goodbye, sharing a few more drinks, and making small talk, laughing about our adventure so far. When the three rebels did eventually leave, the lounge felt much more empty than it really was.

Not long after the Alliance cleared out, we were transported back to Nova's repair station, riding with her on her ship while her people stayed behind to secure the last few things they wanted. A general salvage crew that Nova was familiar with was already stripping out the furniture and general equipment from the facility, which Nova promised would add a solid chunk of credits to the final pot.

Once we were back at the station, Nova pulled me aside rather energetically.

"I just reviewed Racer's footage of the mission," She said, looking at me with a severe expression. "Are you a Jedi?"

"No, I'm not," I assured her, rather fruitlessly by her continued harsh expression. "Beyond the fact that 'Jedi' does not just mean all Force users, but rather a single sect of Force users, I don't actually use the Force at all."

"I know what a Jedi is, Deacon. I'm sixty-three years old, and my family is from Coruscant. Even if we didn't rub shoulders with senators and the like before the Empire, I could see the Jedi Temple from my bedroom."

"Right… well, did you ever see them doing their thing?"

"...No, not in person. I met a few but never saw any in action," She admitted. "But I know crazy monk bantha-shit when I see it. Anyone throwing around stuff like that is on a short and very wanted list by the Empire, even if they don't know it yet."

"I know. It's why I'm so desperate for my own ship," I explained. "I want to be able to get up and go, to stay out from under the Empire's thumb."

"And you're painting a target on my business in the process!"

"Really? Any more than regularly dealing with the Rebellion?" I asked, giving her a look and crossing my arms. "There isn't anything connecting you to the C-ROC, especially if your slicers are as good as you say."

One of the few things that kept Nova's business safe, and something she had bragged about frequently, was her team's ability to "fix" a ship's ownership so that there was nothing questionable about it. Both she and Nevue had sworn by it, which led me to believe I could trust it.

"Oh, they are," She assured me, looking mollified but still a bit frustrated. "What were you, a Padawan, during the purge?"

"No, I already told you, I'm not a Jedi or a Force user," I insisted, repeating myself. "Jedi isn't synonymous with Force users anyway."

For a long moment, she stared me down, narrowing her eyes as she tapped her desk with a single finger. She looked like she was trying to use her own mind powers to figure me out before eventually giving up.

"... When your ship is done, I want you gone," She finally said. "I have nothing against you, and I never believed the propaganda that the Jedi Order betrayed the Republic. But you being here puts my workers and my business in danger. I can deal with nosey Imperials trying to sniff out the Rebellion and its sympathizers, but I don't have a clue how to handle your hokey mind stuff. I'm sorry."

I stood there, a few feet into the cluttered space Nova called an office, clenching my fist in frustration. A few dozen ideas ran through my head, but all of them ranged from bad to worse. So instead, I just let out a long breath and nodded.

"What about our deal?" I asked. "If that data core turns up more salvage opportunities?"

"The Rebellion will contact you," She answered. "Nevue said he left a way for you to communicate?"

I nodded, recalling the hyperwave unit that we had recovered during our initial search for a Rebel base to drop Nevue off at. It was waiting to get loaded onto the C-ROC, along with all of our stuff and the salvaged equipment and goods from the stronghold.

"Then that's how they will get in touch," She said, leaning back in her chair. "You'll be doing business through them mostly, as they have the data core now. Unless ships are involved, I'll likely just be taking a buyout or supplies."

"Fine," I answered before turning to leave without another word.

Despite her ultimatum, Nova honored her word and worked with Miru and me to implement the modifications to the C-ROC. The first modification, removing the center thruster and replacing it with a powerful laser cannon, was relatively easy, and she and her engineers did most of the work. When Miru presented her with the design for the second modification, she was impressed.

The C-ROC had four cargo lanes on each side of its wings, each one just over two meters wide. Each lane was equipped with a cargo locking system that could either grip a container directly with a clamping mechanism or use a standard mag-lock to snap it into place. Each of these lanes had a short hood that extended from the hull for protection, as well as a mag-field to keep the air in. Past that field was a sealed door that opened into the ship's first level. There were safeties and backups all around, and the sealing door for each bay was armored as if it was an exterior access point.

The plan was to remove the cargo lane hoods and create a new, higher-up roof. This would be built with hull-rated plating and extended out significantly further. The result would be two twelve-meter-wide hangar bays with a depth of just under eight meters and a height of just over six. Both sides would have a fully-fledged, military-rated mag-field to keep the air in, as well as blast doors that would roll down from the top, offering even more protection. The interior doors would also be replaced with a singular, much larger door on each side.

When it was done, we would be able to squeeze in two fighters on each side, maybe three, if their wingspans were especially small. Further, because it was a fully functional hangar, you could work on the ships while the C-ROC was moving, even in hyperspace. Even better, the hangars could still be used as storage.

It was impressive that Miru, in a hilariously short amount of time, had taken my simple prompt of "the wings are big enough to land a starfighter on" and turned it into a legitimate plan that Nova was not only happy to implement but also interested in purchasing from Miru.

"I know half a dozen people who fly around these ships," Nova explained. "Some of them in the Rebellion. If you let me buy this from you, I’ll send the basic idea to them. I'll be able to charge them thirty thousand credits for the modification, making a decent profit from it in the process. The most expensive thing is the extension to the artificial gravity."

Miru looked at me, and I nodded with a smile, gesturing for her to go ahead.

"How much?" Miru asked, looking back to Nova.

"Considering I have no guarantees that people will go for it? Three thousand credits."

"Five thousand."

"Three thousand five hundred."

"I'll give you the plans and one thousand credits," Miru said, catching me and Nova off guard. "In exchange for Racer."

"What?" I asked, looking at Miru. "What do we need him for?"

"Besides the fact that having a slicer droid is a good investment?" Miru asked, getting a nod of understanding from me. "The LE-repair droids can handle themselves, but he will make interfacing with the labor droids much easier. Plus, an astromech is a good droid to have around in general if we are living on a starship. The R4 series is meant for a more general repair, but it's still an astromech. If our navigator is ever broken, it could easily plot a course instead. It could probably help optimize the current navigator's calculations."

"Well…Racer… has a lot of aftermarket parts." Nova explained. "I have a few droids like him, so I'm not opposed to it, but he is worth six thousand credits at least."

"Two thousand, half of which is coming from your cut of the stronghold raid," I said, directing the last half to Miru, who nodded in agreement. "And we get Racer, along with the appropriate maintenance materials."

"Done," She said with a nod, reaching out and shaking hands with both of us. "I'll send him to your rooms in a little while.

"Just send him to Miru, he will be working under her."

The repairs and modifications to the C-ROC took another week and a half, which from what Miru and Nal said, was remarkably quick. I could only imagine Nova was pushing her crew to finish the job quickly so she could be done with us and, more specifically, get me off her station.

During our week of downtime, we each kept as busy as we could, despite the fact that we were stuck on a mostly empty station. Tatnia, Nal, and I all started some basic workouts in the morning, as we had all been a little disappointed in our conditioning when compared to Ayme and Lario. We spent a few hours every morning doing sit-ups, push-ups, burpees, and anything else I could remember from gym class. It sucked, and Miru teased us for it, but if we were going to make a living off being mercenaries and fighting, we needed to be a bit more than just casually in shape.

On top of that, Nal, Tatnia, and I familiarize ourselves with the C-ROC systems, specifically the bridge. Both of them knew that I was hoping to find a permanent pilot, so we focused on being able to man the guns and the comms control station in an attempt to keep the crew number down.

When I wasn't training, I was practicing magic, learning three new spells during the downtime. I could have learned more, but Nova was already nervous about having me around, so I wanted to keep from rocking the boat as much as possible. That said, I couldn't spend that much time doing nothing and not learn some magic.

I ended up learning ice spike, lightning rune, and elemental familiar. I was hoping ice spike would round out my offensive options, and I learned lightning rune because the trap we had laid for the destroyer droids had left a lasting impression on me. While playing Skyrim, I had never really used the rune traps as they seemed unnecessarily reactionary. After all, why set a trap when I was perfectly capable of taking the fight to the enemy? Having now been in several life-or-death conflicts, I understood just how nice it was to not have to stick my neck out while also taking down someone trying to kill me.

The elemental familiar was interesting, as it was really three spells in one. I could now cast my familiar at what was essentially its second level while also having a choice between shock, frost, or fire. This familiar was more robust, could do moderate amounts of damage based on the element, and was significantly tougher than the baseline familiar. It could also be set to explode on command or when it was dispelled by force, just like the flame atronach. Again, I now fully appreciated any magic I could cast that would let me take down threats without putting myself in harm's way.

While I only learned three spells, I also spent some time learning what was the equivalent of another perk from the game. After familiarizing myself with the lightning form of elemental familiar, I found an entry in my grimoire that definitely wasn't there before. It specifically focused on spellcasters who favored lightning, teaching me a trick that would basically allow me to save mana on each cast or spend the normal amount and increase the power of the spell significantly.

Basically, it boiled down to me overclocking or removing different parts of the spell matrix, relying on inherited properties of a sparks spell to keep the spell stable and, in some cases, prevent any kickback. As far as I could tell from the few times I tried it out in an abandoned room in the station, it reduced the mana needed for a spell by a third. Alternatively, it seemed to increase the potency by around a fifth, though I had no way to be sure.

While Nal, Tatnia, and I were training in various different ways, Miru was having a blast on the C-ROC, either watching her modifications come to life or doing her own modifications, specifically setting up her workshop. With my permission, she set up in the front nose of the ship, under the bridge. On one side, she set up workbenches, tools, a computer terminal, and everything she would need for her work and tinkering. On the other side, she set up a storage and charging station for the droids, setting up space for the LE repair droids, the PK Labor droids, and a space for Racer as well, though his station was in her workshop. The PK and LE droids, who had been helping her put everything together, were already stored in their stations, which just made it all the more clear that she had made room for a lot of new droids, which I could only imagine were for her future projects.

When the ship was finally finished, Tatnia was attempting to teach me Sabbacc when Nova came down to find us.

"She's done," She said unceremoniously with a blank face. "It's time for you to leave."

My crew, who up to this point hadn't been aware of the shipbroker's ultimatum, were clearly surprised by her sudden change in demeanor. Tatnia stood, ready to say something, but I stopped her.

"Alright, give us a bit to pack, and then we will get out of your hair," I said simply.

The older woman looked like she was about to say something, perhaps apologize or explain herself, but instead, she simply nodded before turning to leave.

Chapter Text

General Hera Syndulla slowly mixed her tap caf, having already put in a dash of sugar and a splash of nerf milk. As she waited, the newly promoted Commander Nevue Loc and his first subordinates, Lieutenant Lario Vark and Ensign Ayme Montera sat down across the table from her and her second-in-command, Commander Neshweh Gadic. They hadn't been working together long, but the Mon Calamari was dedicated, intelligent, and knew what they were doing, though they could be a bit heavy-handed when it came to sticking to the rules.

"Good to see you again, Commander Loc," General Syndulla said with a smile. "And congratulations on the promotion, you earned it."

"Thank you, general. If I might ask…"

"Who put you up for it?" The green-skinned Twi'lek asked, getting a nod in confirmation. "I did, contingent on your success with your latest mission. When it was confirmed your plan had worked, it was agreed that you had shown enough initiative and leadership qualities to lead your own team."

"Thank you, General," He responded, though she could tell he wasn't ecstatic about the promotion.

"You're welcome," She responded. "I imagine your old team is looking forward to congratulating you."

"They are still here?" He asked, visibly perking up. "I would have thought they would be gone already."

"Normally, they would be, but I wanted to make absolutely sure they had everything they needed," She explained with a smirk. "I believe Ensign Gorn was bragging about managing to secure a bottle of brandy."

The horned humanoid was clearly smiling now, chuckling when she mentioned the brandy.

"Thank you, General. That… that will make transitioning to leading my own team much easier."

"Glad I could help. Now, why don't you start by describing how your mission went?" She asked. "I have to admit, something about your friends… They remind me of my own team."

"Well, General… I think we need to start with an admission of my own," Commander Loc said, sharing a look with Lieutenant Vark. "As you can imagine, after Deacon and his crew saved me from Nar Shaddaa, I was extremely grateful. When they asked me for a favor… I felt obliged to agree."

Commander Gadic leaned forward as if sensing an admittance of wrongdoing while General Syndulla simply raised an eyebrow.

"As he explained, they are sympathetic, but none of them are joiners. If I could describe them as anything, it would be free spirits, wanderers, maybe."

"I know the type," General Syndulla said, prompting Nevue to continue.

"Well… Deacon asked me to hold back information on… his abilities. I swear on my oath that the second he was a threat to the Alliance, or if anyone asked directly, I would come forward, but… I owed him."

For a moment, Commander Gadic opened his mouth, his fleshy whiskers bouncing, but General Syndulla put her hand on his shoulder. The wet-skinned humanoid didn't stop looking angry, but he did stay silent, closing his mouth.

"What sort of abilities?" The General asked with a raised brow.

"I… Think it would be easier to show you."

The rebel soldier produced a small holoprojector, tapping a few buttons before putting it down on the table. It began to play a montage of clips, all of which were obviously recorded in such a way that the subject wouldn't notice they were being recorded. It clearly showed Deacon focusing as he looked at a wall. After a few seconds, a glow started to circle around his hands before a streak of flames shot out from his palms, searing the distant wall and turning it black. It was followed by another spray, this one causing the way to frost over. He finished it by throwing sparks of electricity, prompting General Syndulla to gasp.

The clips continued, shifting to a different setting, the cargo bay of the B-7. Deacon clearly knew he was being recorded, though he also clearly didn't like it.

"If you want the General to believe me that you have powers, you need to demonstrate them," Commander Nevue's recorded voice said. "You don't have to throw fire around or anything, just do something."

"Alright, just… make sure they know I'm not a Jedi, alright? This isn't the Force," He said emphatically before focusing for a second. "It won't matter much to most people, I want to be able to tell them I told you so eventually."

His hands glowed for a few moments before some sort of purple construct appeared around him, looking like some sort of suit of armor from old fantasy stories. It covered his whole body, which he showed off by spreading his arms and turning around. He then summoned a much more solid construct, a humanoid figure… a very different-looking metal humanoid dripping with blue flame suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

"Anything else?"

"Do the healing one," The voice of Lieutenant Vark suggested, prompting Deacon to throw up his hands.

"Fine, but one of you is going to have to injure yourself first, I'm not doing it."

After a bit of bickering, the soldier sliced his arm with a vibroblade, the cut immediately bleeding. While mumbling something about them cleaning up the mess as well, Deacon aimed his hand at the now wounded soldier, his hand glowing a bright golden light. After a few seconds, he stopped.

"How's it look?" He asked, prompting Lieutenant Vark to wipe at the wound.

"Uh… looks like it's a week old."

"Alright, let me finish it," Deacon responded, waiting a few seconds before focusing on the soldier again, whose arm finished healing before the onlookers' eyes. "There, that good enough?"

"I think that will do great, Deacon, thanks."

The recording ended, leaving the room in utter silence, one side from shock, the other from nervousness.

"You kept that from us?" Commander Gadic. "This is outrageous! Another Jedi could be invaluable to the Rebellion, what gives-"

"He wasn't interested in joining," Commander Loc shot back. "And last time I checked, we do not conscript! Unless that changed while I was stuck as a slave?"

The room was silent for a long moment, tension thick in the air. After a long moment, General Syndulla spoke.

"While we would have preferred being kept in the loop, we can hardly demand the secrets of people who don't fall under our command," She said, sending the Mon Calamari a look. "Why tell us now?"

"Because he realized that he needed to choose between revealing his powers to Lario, Ayme, and Nova to ensure the mission went well, or basically handicap himself, put the mission at risk but retain his secret. He chose the mission."

"We need to contact him, offer him incentives to join. If we get Intelligence to investigate him, maybe we could find-"

"If you are suggesting we find a way to blackmail the people who rescued me from slavery, we are going to have very strong words, Commander Gadic," Commander Loc said, both of the soldiers sitting next to him looking angry as well.

The aquatic humanoid looked to his superior, who was also clearly unhappy with the avenue he was walking.

"No, no, of course not," He responded, backpedaling. "But think of the edge he would give us! Commander Skywalker has only the smallest amount of training and is one of the Rebellion's best pilots! He blew up the Death Star! This Deacon Roy is clearly better trained, as there are no reports of Skywalker ever doing anything of that scale."

"Deacon has repeatedly assured me that he is not a Jedi and not a Force user because, apparently, those aren't mutually exclusive," Nevue explained, General Syndulla nodding in confirmation. "While it's true he might be delusional, he never gave me a reason to think he would have a problem admitting it."

While Commander Gadic made a snapping noise with his large mouth, a Mon Calamari tell of disbelief and annoyance, General Syndulla leaned forward.

"What else can you tell us?" She asked. "Did he ever meditate? Did he have a lightsaber? Did he ever move things with an invisible force, mess with anyone's mind?"

"His… magic," Nevue started, clearly not liking the word. "Was never invisible, his hands always glowed in some way when he was using it. The closest thing he ever did to meditation was when he was learning a new technique. He would read from a rather large book, which… actually, now that I think about it, he could summon that book from nowhere, and that didn't cause a glow or anything. But he would spend a few hours studying and puzzling it out before practicing it for a while. No meditating and no lightsaber."

"But messing with people's minds?" The Twi'lek asked, getting a wince from the Zabrak.

"He did claim to have two abilities that affect the mind, one of which I experienced shortly after they saved me from slavery," He explained. "I originally refused to cooperate, so he used what he called "Calm," which essentially just made me pliable and gullible. It lasted a few seconds before fading. He also had one called "Fury," which would apparently make someone hostile to everyone around them, including allies, but again only lasted for a short period of time."

"What about his temperament?" General Syndulla asked. "Any bouts of anger? You may not be aware, but I have had some exposure to Force users. Mind manipulation, the ability to conjure lightning, and an unstable mind are prime signs of a dark Force user."

"He never showed any signs of being unstable. The closest thing to an obsession I saw from him was his targeting of slavers on Nar Shaddaa, and he was quick to abandon that when it became dangerous to the team," Commander Loc answered cleanly, with a preciseness that spoke to a growing frustration that he was working hard to contain.

Commander Gadic once again started to say something, and once again, General Syndulla silenced him with a look.

"For now, Deacon's abilities will stay between us. I will share the information on a need-to-know basis with my peers, but since he has been nothing but helpful to the movement, I see no reason to not respect his desire for privacy," General Syndulla said. "And that is an order, Commander Gadic. The last thing we want is to alienate him by being the source of his secret getting out. As much as we might wish that the Alliance has no leaks, we know that's not true."

With a wet rattle, the Mon Calamari equivalent to a groan, Commander Gadic nodded, leaning back in his seat. He was clearly not thrilled, but then again, he was rarely anything other than serious and stoic anyway.

"With that out of the way, Commander, why don't you tell us about the mission?" General Syndulla suggested.

"We arrived on location about four hours away from the stronghold.…"

Commander Loc spent the next hour or so describing how the mission went, from the initial challenge of the base being on full alert to the surprise reveal of the internal turret system and the fight against the superior B2 battle droids. Commander Gadic was clearly very interested in the descriptions of Deacon's abilities but remained silent during the debriefing.

"We discover the reason for the stronghold's existence in the largest luxury suite," He finished. "And looking back, it makes sense. There weren't enough droids to defend from a full invasion, so they most likely hoped that secrecy would be enough. The LPY 3000 was on sit as an escape craft should the base be discovered, and the droids on hand were there to hold off whoever came looking long enough for them to escape… again."

"I agree with your judgment, and so far, the data we have sliced off the top of the data core does as well," Commander Gadic responded. "At least we have that to entice Deacon Roy to return. If they work with us more, perhaps we can convince them to join us on a more permanent basis."

"In any case," General Syndulla said, cutting off Nevue's response. "You managed to secure quite a lot of supplies that we desperately needed, and not just the weapons. The foodstuffs and daily necessities that you brought back are an unexpected and sorely needed addition. We also have the ships Nova will be repairing already picked out, all reasonable projects. We aren't looking to pull any over on someone who has worked with us like Nova has."

They continued to discuss the goods, materials, and resources they obtained from the stronghold, including the credits that would eventually be coming in from the sales of everything they hadn't taken. Eventually, Commander Gadic asked a question that had been on his mind since he had reviewed the shipment logs.

"Why did you take the droids?" He asked, scrolling through his datapad to find the corresponding entry. "I understand that Deacon Roy and his crew claimed ten super battle droids, two droideka, and thirty-five normal battle droids. Why did you take the rest, a total of three hundred droids, mostly B1s with fifty B2s and sixteen droideka?"

"Well… as you can imagine, I had never had the pleasure of fighting separatist droids before," Commander Loc explained. "It was an interesting experience, to say the least. But after, I had an interesting thought. Well, two, actually. The first was that having a group of combatants that you could essentially throw away, both on a large and small scale, could be extremely useful. I know from experience that having a single disposable asset in the field can be incredibly useful. I can imagine that on a larger scale, that continues to be true."

Commander Gadic nodded appreciatively, as did the General, both of them having experience with just such moments.

"I was also struck with how effective a droid could be… if they just weren't so stupid," He continued, General Syndulla scoffing out a laugh. "The B2's were walking heavy weapons platforms, with solid armor. Some of them even had artillery on one arm! But all they did was walk at us slowly. If we paired a B2 to a soldier, let it develop a bit, and trained the soldier to utilize them properly, it could be a potent combination. Even the B1s could be useful with some plating welded to them."

"Are you suggesting we deploy them on a large scale?" The General asked, the Commander gesturing vaguely.

"I'm suggesting we play around with them, see where we can find a use for them," He explained with a shrug. "Worse comes to worst, we drop them in an Imperial compound and tell them to go to work, use them as a distraction. But something tells me that they will be more useful than that. Call it a gut feeling."

"Very well, Commander Loc, I will make a suggestion and see if anyone wants to mess around with them. I'm guessing we will get a few takers, for novelty's sake, if nothing else."

"Thank you, General."

"No, Commander, thank you," She responded, standing up and offering her subordinate her hand, which he gladly shook. "You managed to turn an escort mission into a significant boon with nothing but an extra few days spent. Keep up the good work."

The Zabrak saluted, as did the two soldiers next to him, General Syndulla and Commander Gadic returning the gesture.

"You're dismissed, Commander, go find your old team and introduce them to the start of your new one. You have a day of leave tomorrow, after which we have your next assignment ready."

The newly minted Commander nodded and left the room, the two soldiers following behind him.

Chapter Text

Nova might have been desperate to get me off her station, but she knew better than to keep us from doing a small naming ceremony. Most of the workers turned up to watch Miru use a fancy painting droid to paint the C-ROC’s new name along the upper side of the ship, above the new hangar.

“What does it mean?” One of the workers asked. “I don’t recognize the name.”

“It’s a name from one of my home planet's legends,” I explained. “About a mortal king with the soul of a dragon who rose to godhood.”

The large red words “Talos Chariot” contrasted with the rest of the light tan hull. There were still some blue highlights in a few spots, leftovers from the CIS markings, but Miru promised that she would fix that once we landed at our next destination.

The naming ceremony was short, a simple speech in a language I didn’t recognize, but that one of the craftsmen assured me was a blessing of some sort. When that was done, we poured a blue drink of some kind over one of the landing struts, passing the remaining liquid around for those who witnessed the event to take a single sip. It was a sweet syrupy liquor, one that seemed really out of place in a ritual like this.

As quickly as it started, the ceremony was over, the workers probably sensing how impatient Nova was. With minimal delay, we climbed up the access ramp and made our way up to the bridge, Nal was silent, sitting down in the pilot's chair, while Tatnia dropped into the copilot's seat beside him. I sat down in the comms seat, tabbing through a few things to check out the sensor readings, mostly to pass the time. Behind me, Miru sat down at a gunner's seat, though she didn’t activate anything, instead spinning around to watch us. After about ten minutes, Nal looked over at me.

“We’re all set, Boss.”

“Take us out. I already checked the cargo bay. We have everything owed to us.”

The blue-skinned Duros nodded and tapped a few more things before grabbing the primary control sticks, dialing something down, and lifting us off the hangar floor. Slowly but surely, we pulled out of the massive hangar bay, the people who had remained watching us go. When the blue film of the mag-field finally pulled away completely, Nal increased our speed and continued to pull away until there were several hundred meters between us and the station. Once we were at a generously safe distance, he shifted the ship's orientation and guided us into the darkness of space.

“Okay, can I ask what that was about now?” Miru asked, looking over at me with exasperation. “Why did Nova turn into a jerk all of a sudden?”

“She thought I was a Jedi,” I explained, still focused on the comms panel in front of me. “She was worried what kind of backlash that would bring.”

“But she was supporting the Rebellion!” The teenager responded. “She should be happy you were around doing stuff!”

“My abilities are a big unknown for most people,” I explained, shaking my head and turning my seat to face the confused girl. “And that scares a lot of them. To be fair to her, if I was a Jedi, she would be right, being there could lead dangerous people to her station. The Force… it can be like a signal flare to other people tapping into it.”

“But you don’t use it… right?”

“I don’t, but I couldn’t convince her of that,” I answered with a shrug. “Not much I can do about it. She paid us our share, gave us what we negotiated for, and finished our repairs and modifications. I’m sorry that I got us the boot, but next time-”

“It's her fault for being paranoid,” Tatnia said, cutting my apology off. “We weren't welcome anyway. Besides, we have places to be.”

“Was getting bored,” Nal added simply. “What was the final total?”

“Thirty-two thousand and some change deposited into our account,” I said with a smile. “Not bad considering what else we got out of the deal.”

One of the first things I did with our downtime was figure out how to store our money better. Hauling around so many credit ingots and chips had been a constant source of stress. Luckily most banking groups, including the independent group that we were now using, had systems in place for mercenary groups like ours. Tatnia, Nal, and I had access to the funds, and could pull and put money in whenever we wanted, though anything over a certain amount sent out a warning, and going even high required the permission of multiple account holders. I could also set up ancillary accounts for anyone working for us, shifting their cuts into these accounts for them to access and to do with as they please.

“That will last us a few months with the supplies we already have,” Tatnia said. “Fuel is what's going to cut into that the most. That and docking fees.”

“Which means we need to hurry up and recruit some more members so we can start taking jobs,” I asked, craning my neck to look over Nal’s shoulder. “How long will it take to plot a course?”

“I got the navigator working on it earlier, it's already finished.”

“Alright, whenever you’re ready,” I responded, tapping my console into hibernation. “The quicker we get to Ter’skar, the better.”

“It's pronounced Terr’skiar,” Nal corrected as I stood from my console and stretched, leaving the bridge and heading back.

We had talked a lot about where our first destination would be, and after a bit of a discussion, we decided that the best place to start looking for new recruits would be a world with plenty of traffic, specifically a trade world. Hyperspace lanes occasionally intersected on systems with habitable worlds, which then exploded with trade and other industries. Tatnia, who had experience traveling around to worlds like Terr’skiar, assured me we would find what we were looking for there.

“I guarantee there will be several cantinas nearby, no matter where we land, that are known as a place that pilots without ships go to hang out,” She said over a cup of caf. “If we land around a big city, I’m willing to bet there will be a bar filled with pilots who specifically fly Corellian ships!”

“What about fighters? People who will join us when we are doing actual mercenary work?”

“They’ll be around,” Tatnia assured me. “Might have to look a little harder, but they will be there. It's a big planet, and it's easy to get stuck at a place like this if your ride sells out or loses their ship.”

As Tatnia and Nal piloted the ship, Miru and I headed down to the cargo hold, exploring the recently finished hangar bays. They already had ships inside them, the two tri fighters on one side and two of the vulture droids on the other. The two remaining vulture droids were in pieces, stored in the cargo bay in a large cargo container.

“What do you think?” I asked the young, mechanically inclined Twi’lek. “Did they do a good job?”

“It’s a bit bare bones, but yeah, it's well built,” She answered, heading over to port side bay, examining one of the tri fighters. “I’m going to have one of the droids work on connecting them to the intercom system and connecting systems to the bridge, but yeah.”

I watched her fiddle with the tri-fighter for a few minutes before she pulled back and frowned.

“What's wrong?”

“I was hoping I would be able to crack one of these open with standard tools, but they used something proprietary,” She answered. “I’m going to have to cut it open.”

“Why do you need to cut it open?” I asked. “What did you want these for anyway? I have to warn you that if we manage to get our hands on a pilot-capable starfighter, the vulture droids are first on the chopping block of what gets the boot."

“I want to get them working again,” She explained. “Racer has a copy of their command codes, and I think I can get them active.”

“Be very, very, very careful with that Miru, droid ships might have a bad reputation for being junk nowadays, but they are still very lethal. If you flip their switch and they go hostile inside of the ship...?"

“I know, I’m disabling a bunch of their systems first,” She assured me. “I think the tri fighters will be the best place to start, most of their intelligence is already part of the starfighter, so I should be able to just modify that programing a bit. The vulture droids, though? They relied on the central computer to do a lot of their thinking….”

She trailed off as she focused on what she was working on, leaving the hangar bay quiet. After a moment, I turned to go, and she stopped and turned to me.

“Deacon… Thanks for getting all this stuff. The tools, the droids, the ships. We would have gotten a much bigger cut if you hadn’t gotten all of this for me.”

“Hey, you're our head mechanic, I need to keep you stocked and ready to keep this ship in top shape,” I said with a smile. “Besides, so far, you haven't given me any reason to regret indulging you.”

“I promise you won’t! I’ll start paying for my own stuff and-” She responded, her eyes getting wide before I held up my hand.

“That wasn’t a threat or a bottom line Miru, just stating a fact,” I explained before gesturing around. “I mean, look, you took a small suggestion I made and drastically improved the Chariot's capabilities. These hangar bays are superior in every way to those cargo lanes and massively increased our effectiveness. As long as your tinkering occasionally leads to stuff like this, I am more than happy to cut engineering a bigger budget. Just do me a favor and keep me updated on your plans and how your tinkering goes, okay?”

She turned away from me, looking intently at the robotic starfighter in front of her. I could hear her sniff slightly and watched as she wiped her face before turning back.

“Yeah, I can definitely do that, Boss.”

“Good. Now I’m going to go-”

I stopped talking as the ship shifted slightly around us, the telltale sign that we had jumped to lightspeed.

“I’m gonna take a more accurate stock of what our food looks like and start working on a shopping list. If you think of anything, just tell me, let me know.”

She nodded and got back to work before quickly looking back at me.

“Oh! By the way, Racer is in his charging bay, running a defrag and corruption scan. I might have been a bit rough removing some of the loyalty parameters concerning Nova after she started being rude to you….”

I chuckled and nodded before exiting the hangar bay, a smaller section of the huge access door opening to let me through, sealing shut behind me. In truth, the list I was hoping to put together was less of a shopping list and more of a shopping, salvage and stealing list. Some of the stuff we would inevitably end up having to buy, but the more we could salvage and steal while on the job, at least from criminals, the better.

“Definitely need to pick up a replacement for the A5…” I mumbled to myself, pulling out my datapad and starting the list with “armed speeder support.”

Taking stock of the food didn’t take long, nor did coming up with a long list of things I wanted us to have access to. I was hoping we could gather some of the stuff on the list over time, like speeder bikes. Everyone and their uncle had a speeder bike, and there was no doubt in my mind that we would end up salvaging more than a few.

On the other hand, one thing I was sure we would end up having to buy was some good quality armor. I knew for a fact that there were metals out there that you could make blaster-proof armor from, phrik being one that came to mind, but I knew that was prohibitively expensive. Still, I refused to believe that there wasn’t someone out there producing actually effective armor that was also vaguely affordable, I just needed to find them. I remember there being a massive variety of armor in Knights of the Old Republic games, so where was the “modern” equivalent?

I added an addendum to the armor entry on my list, the word “custom?” followed by a few credit signs dollar. I wondered what kind of state Mandalore was in and if there was some Mandalorian armor we could buy. It would be massively expensive, for sure, but potentially worth the investment.

With a dozen and one idea bouncing around in my skull, I slid my datapad back into my jacket before heading back up to the second deck, heading to the captain's room, which I had reluctantly accepted as my own. I had attempted to convince Nova that she should split the larger room in half and turn them both, as well as the private bathroom, into more bedrooms, but she wasn’t having it, insisting that the captain’s room was an important part of the ship. I had to admit that her point of not having one decrease the resale value of the ship made sense, but I never planned on selling this ship, so it didn’t really matter.

I sat down at the corner of my bed, slowly pulling off my boots, my jacket, and my armor, which I had taken to wearing around near constantly. As I finished and looked around, I had to admit having my own space would be nice. Having a bigger bed wasn’t bad either, even if I knew that Tatnia had a bigger one in her room. She had somehow actually convinced Nova to take one of the luxury beds from the CIS hidey hole and put it in her room. It filled up most of the room, but I had a feeling she thought it was completely worth it.

As I got undressed from my heavier gear, I could feel the tension falling off of me. Not having a place to call my own, a place to work from, to return to, to really call home, it had been grating on me, especially after a week of feeling the unwelcome vibes that Nova had been throwing off. The fact that I was sharing that home with my crew, a team of people who I could trust, that only made it better.

I stood up from the bed and made my way to the computer terminal in the corner of the room, sitting down in the comfortable chair and spinning to face the computer. I locked the system off with a flick before summoning my grimoire and laying it across the now blank pad. I had been kicking myself for not learning the respite spell during the assault on the CIS base, and while I had focused on other things during our week on Nova’s station, there was no way I would pass up on the opportunity now.

I leaned back in the chair, sinking into the surprisingly comfortable cushion as I started to read through the description of the spell again, before eventually moving onto the general structure of the two leveled matrices. We had almost a full day in hyperspace before we would arrive at Terr’skiar, which meant I had plenty of time to learn this spell and master it.

Chapter Text

Landing on a planet that was as active as Terr'skiar was an interesting experience. As we approached the planet, the planetary space command for our sector contacted us directly, asking who we were and what our purpose was. Tatnia gave them our information, our purpose, as well as several other bits of information. Typically, the person on the comms station would do that, but while I could use the console, I had been focusing on the sensor portion. I was learning, though.

After a few minutes of comms silence, we were told to move to a specific set of coordinates while they found a berth for us to land at.

"Trade worlds are usually the easiest to get in and out of," Nal explained as we essentially pulled into a queue behind a few other ships. "You wait your turn, then land. Occasionally have to deal with a surprise inspection."

"Do we have to worry about an inspection?" I asked. "We do have some military stuff on board…."

"Borderline, they wouldn't hassle us for it unless something else was wrong," He explained. "Can't blame people for wanting to defend their ships."

"Are other places harder to get on?"

"Depends on what kind of Imperial presence is on the planet, usually," Tatnia answered, still looking down at her console. "Some worlds just don't like offworlders or cater to "High Class" groups, so they try to keep control over who's coming and going. Government-funded landing pads only, strict control of who can and can't come in, that kind of stuff."

"And trade worlds are different because that makes business slow?" I guessed, getting a nod in response

"And time is credits. All that stuff slows the trading process down to a crawl," She explained. "The Empire expects trade groups to protect themselves."

As we waited, Miru joined us on the bridge, dropping down into an empty seat and spinning around once before facing the rest of us. After a few minutes of toying with her datapad she finally spoke up.

"So… if I have a list of things that I think we should have on hand, would you guys get it for me?" She asked, biting her lip. "Not stuff for personal projects, but for ship repair."

"What do you need?"

"The biggest concern right now is metal stock," She explained. "I need to be able to put together a rig or patch a crack or even reinforce something to prevent problems," She explained, shifting a lekku around her shoulder. "We have a good stock of internal parts from the base. Those crates you got easily have twenty-five thousand credits worth of parts and materials, probably more."

"Seriously?" I asked with wide eyes. "I had no idea, we didn't count them as being nearly worth that."

"Mhmm, it's more than enough for basic repair and would be sufficient to repair a lot of intentional damage," She explained. "But we would still need a general stock of metal to fix things that aren't standard parts or to build anything you might want."

"Okay, we can get that, Nal?" I asked, the older Duros nodding at me. "Since you're staying here to watch the ship, work with Miru to get what we need, preferably shipped to us since we don't have any way to get it ourselves. Better to air on the side of surplus, but keep it reasonable."

We chatted a bit more before a beep on the console got our attention, prompting Tatnia to activate the comms unit at the co-pilots seat, Nal motioning us to quiet down.

"Attention, Talos Chariot, you are being directed to sector 5B, please make your way to the accompanying coordinates and enter the atmosphere. Be aware that entering restricted airspace will net you a substantial fine, and refusal to leave will result in your speedy destruction. Have a safe trip."

It took another fifteen minutes for us to get in position and follow the proper directions into the atmosphere, the larger ship easily staying steady all the way down to the large landing pad. The pad was four or five miles from one of the several massive city centers that dotted the trade planet.

As we slowly made our descent, the sound of the Chariot's massive landing gear being deployed vibrated through the ship. As we finally made contact with the thick ferrocrete landing pad, we could feel the landing gear absorb the last bit of inertia, the built-in shock absorbers easily handling it.

"Alright, meet you down at the boarding ramp in five Tatnia, I need to get my stuff," I said, standing from the sensor station.

As I stood and started leaving the bridge, Miru jumped up and followed me out, walking quickly past me, and heading down the first set of stairs to the first deck. I was just about done getting ready when I grabbed my holster, only to find it empty. With a curse, I strapped it on and started looking around my room for it. After a minute or so, I tapped on the intercom.

"Nal, have you seen-" I started to ask, only for my door to open, Miru standing on the other side, holding my pistol and looking slightly winded. "Never mind."

The young mechanic winced and held my weapon out to me, gripping the barrel so I could grab it by the grip.

"Sorry, I wanted to surprise you with it," She explained as I slid it back into its holster. "I fixed the charging shot option, so you can use that now if you need a bit more of a punch."

"I thought that was going to take some specific parts," I said, trying to remember what Nal initially said. "How did you manage that?"

"It wasn't hard, the parts are common. I just needed a few bits from one of the super battle droids and one of the spare pistols we got from the CIS base," She said with a smug smirk, following me as I made my way down to the first deck. "So you activate it by pressing the button on the side and pulling the trigger, that's what starts the charging. You can charge it for just a second to add an extra kick, but if you hold the trigger down for long enough, it will dump everything left in the pack."

As she explained how it worked, I pulled the pistol out, examining it as we walked, stopping by the interior side of the airlock.

"Be careful, though, once you start the overcharge, you're committed, the only way to release that energy is to shoot it. And you can't hold it for too long either, you'll melt the pistol in your hands. Also, shooting too many overcharged shots in a row will make it overheat and stop responding until it cools down."

I nodded, flipping the pistol over to check the other side before sliding it back into my holster.

"Thanks, Miru, this will come in handy eventually," I said, tapping the door open and walking through, nodding to Tatnia, who was already lowering the ramp. "Make sure you don't overwork yourself, alright?"

"Alright, have fun and good luck!" She said before heading to her workshop, walking out of view.

As we left down the boarding ramp, I tapped the intercom right by the stairway.

"The ship's yours, Nal, let us know if anything comes up."

"Will do, Boss. Good luck."

As we crossed the large landing pad that the space traffic controller assigned us, which was just big enough for the Chariot to land on, Tatnia brought up a question I had been contemplating for a while now.

"So, boss… How are we going to handle this whole thing?" She asked as she pulled out her comm unit to call a speeder taxi. "We got a couple secrets that it might be better not to share."

"Yeah, I've been trying to figure that out myself," I admitted, watching the sky for a moment. "I think that our best bet is to be as honest as possible at first. We are a small crew who just got their hands on a ship. We want to expand our crew, including a full-time pilot and maybe a co-pilot. We expect that we might get into some trouble eventually, as we plan on being bounty hunters, mercenaries, and all-around for-hire muscle. Emphasize that we will not be doing anything morally wrong, but sometimes the law is part of the problem."

As I talked, Tatnia spotted an incoming speeder, which slowed greatly as it dropped down below forty feet. I waved to get the driver's attention, who angled slightly to land near us.

"And your magic?" She asked, which caught me off guard. I knew I had called it magic a few times, but so far, no one else had seriously called it that.

"That's something we can save for a while until we really get a sense for them," I answered, holding my hand up to block some of the dust the speeder was kicking our way. "Ideally, we find at least a pilot, maybe a co-pilot, and at least two more people to join us on missions. A team of five sounds like a good place to start."

"Think we should introduce ourselves as adventurers?" She asked with a teasing smirk.

"Laugh now, but after a few months of doing the kind of things I have planned, you'll be calling it that, too," I responded confidently, getting a curious-looking response.

"What kind of stuff do you have in mind anyway?" She asked as we both climbed into the Taxi, looking forward to the droid controlling the speeder. "Take us to a pilot bar, someplace they go while looking for more work. If there is somewhere that people specialize in Corellian ships, go there."

The droid beeped a confirmation before the speeder lifted off into the air again, its repulsorlifts whining as it accelerated.

"I have a few ideas for some… potentially weird stuff," I admitted. "But we should start off with some basic mercenary or bounty work, so we can familiarize ourselves with the new people. I also need to work a bit more on my… Tracking equipment. I've been working on it off and on, but if I get better at it, I'll probably be able to lead us to quite a few interesting things."

"And in the meantime?"

"We take basic mercenary work, take out bounties, stuff like that," I explained, continuing when Tatnia gave me a look. "You're telling me that there aren't places to find that kind of stuff? I mean, if we can head to a bar and expect it to be filled with pilots looking for work, there have to be bars where mercenaries go looking for work, right?"

"Usually… alright, fair point," She admitted. "How do you know that if you never left your backwater planet?"

"The more things change, the more they stay the same," I responded. "You just gotta know what trope to apply where."

After thirty minutes of traveling, the speeder taxi landed in an open area, a small screen lighting asking for payment. I swiped my credit chip, the screen blinking green before the door swung up to let us out.

"Your destination is twenty feet down the road, a bar called the Star Song." The droid said before the door closed behind us, sealing it shut.

We quickly got off the street and made our way to where the droid described. When we got closer, Tatnia put her hand on my shoulder, getting my attention.

"I know you're not an idiot, but… just let me take the lead at first, okay?" She said. "I know a thing or two about this, so I'll find some people, and you can lead the actual recruitment, sound good?"

"Works for me," I agreed.

"Good. When we go in, don't freak out studying everyone, you'll just put everyone on edge. We go in, find a place to sit, preferably at the bar and relax for a while."

I nodded and followed her, making our way to a ferrocrete building that was painted blue, with the roof painted an even, navy blue. The front doors were a gray-black color and opened easily as Tatnia led us inside. It took a few seconds for our eyes to adjust to the low light, but after a few seconds, we headed straight to the bar.

The cantina was about half full, which was kind of surprising considering how early in the day it was. Quite a few people turned to look at us but quickly went back to their drinks and conversations. Wordlessly, Tatnia nodded to the bar, and both of us made our way there, claiming two seats for ourselves. The human bartender gave us a look, and Tatnia held up two fingers.

"Two Elba beers," She said, the black-haired man nodding and turning to an enormous container, pulling it open, and pulling two green bottles out.

As we sipped our drinks Tatnia and I made small talk, discussing what kind of speeder we should be looking for.

"I would love to have the A5 back," I said, shaking my head. "That was pretty much exactly what we needed. Slightly armored, armed, big enough to carry us around, could switch between air speeder and ground speeder."

"Would it even fit in the hold?" Tatnia asked. "Or the cargo elevator?"

"Doesn't matter, it would have definitely fit in one of the hangars, and it would have been well worth the space."

"We need a transport ship, one that will fit in the hangar," She said after a silent moment. "Landing the Chariot every time we have business is going to get old quickly."

"What kind of options do we have?

"It's a bit tight, but we can probably find something. Might end up being an ugly no-name box, but there are plenty of those out there, just gotta find one that isn't bantha-shit."

We continued to chat for a while, each having a second beer before Tatnia waved over to the barkeep. She slid a ten-credit ingot on the table and smiled.

"We are looking for a pilot, someone with experience in larger Corellian ships, any recommendations?"

"How big?" He asked, reaching out to take the money

"An old Gozanti class."

"...Try Calima over there, the Tholothian," He said after a moment, pointing across the bar. "She's been planetside for a bit, but she seems kind enough."

I followed his gesture to see a humanoid woman with darker skin that was tinged blue and, in some places, purple. Her head was capped with large, dense-looking dark blue scales, almost like an indigo turtle shell. Coming from that cap were around a dozen all-white tendrils hanging down to her shoulder, each starting an inch or so wide and growing thicker the further down you went, almost like a paddle or a scoop. She was sitting perpendicular to us on the other side of the bar but seemed focused on her datapad.

I stood up, stretching my leg a bit before Tatnia grabbed my arm to get my attention.

"Tholothians can live a really long time, so don't assume her age," She warned before turning back to the bartender. "A refill for whatever she is drinking now."

He smirked and grabbed a glass, filled it with ice, and poured in what appeared to be just water before placing it on the bar top.

"On the house."

Tatnia gave him a sour look, but I just chuckled and gave him a two-finger salute before grabbing my beer and the glass of water, before heading over to the women's table.

"C'mon, let's introduce ourselves."

Chapter Text

I sat down across from the Tholothian, placing the refill in the center of the table, while Tatnia sat down next to me.

"Hello, my name is Deacon, this is Tatnia," I said with a smile. "Are you Calima?"

"I am," She responded with a slow nod. "How can I help you?"

"The bartender said you have experience flying some of the larger Corellian Engineering ships."

The woman put her datapad down, studying both of us for a long second before nodding and leaning back in her chair.

"That's true, though once you know one... you know the rest," She admitted, a slight Corellian accent carrying through her voice. "At least for most CEC ships. Are you looking for a pilot?"

"We are. We have a modified C-ROC Gozanti class, and while we can fly her, we are looking to expand the crew."

"A C-ROC?" She asked, narrowing her eyes. "A lot of… bad people use those ships. You aren't pirates, are you? Smugglers? Because I won't work for the Hutts or for anyone breaking the law in that way."

"We aren't pirates, and we aren't smugglers," I assured her. "Maybe I could tell you a bit about how we got started and what we plan on doing, then you can decide if you're interested?"

After a moment of thinking, she nodded, taking a sip of the refill we brought before gesturing for me to start.

"Well, I'm from a backwater planet in the middle of nowhere. I managed to leave but almost immediately got snapped up by slavers…."

As I talked, I could see the sympathy in her eyes, switching to approval as we described some of the raids on the slaver businesses that we did. I talked around the fact that Nevue was a rebel because openly admitting that while in public would be stupid, but I shared enough for her to get the gist of the story. Of course, I also left out my abilities.

"That… well, it's certainly a story," She said when I was done. "Glad to see you're making the best of a bad round of Sabbacc."

"We play the hand we are dealt," I responded with a shrug. "I wish we could have made it off Nar Shaddaa without throwing up as many flags, but I won't pretend to be sad we got to make our start off Hutt money."

"I can imagine. You know…people would find the fact that the Hutts might be after you worrying and a solid reason to deny your offer…."

"Maybe, but I'm not sure we want anyone on the team who couldn't stand the idea," I explained. "Plus, this is going to be an active position. We will see violence, and any pilot we hire needs to be okay with that."

"Do you plan on fighting them more?" She asked, watching me closely. "You might be able to slip under their scanners or even pay them back…."

"Yeah, not capitulating to them, that's for sure," I said, shaking my head. "If we stumble on a slaver ring or there's a bounty on slavers, those are more than acceptable. I'm a bit worried that my team won't be ready to go against the Hutts openly, not yet at least."

"That… is reasonable. The truth is, I have a bit of history with a few of the Hutts. I'm not exactly openly hunted… but they do not like me very much."

"How in the hell did you manage that?" Tatnia asked, leaning forward. "The Hutts and their cartels are happy to kill their own people just for the fun of it, how did you piss them off and not get put on a hunted list?"

"The Hutts might be… conniving, greedy, selfish piles of bantha shit, but they aren't stupid, and they don't waste money," The Tholothian explained. "I signed a contract to pilot for a group that turned out to be a front. When I learned I was piloting ships with spice stuffed in the deck paneling, I managed to get out of the contract with all my pay. They were pissed… but not enough to call for bounty hunters.

"Does that have anything to do with why you haven't been hired?" I asked. "Did you get blacklisted?"

"Most people see any negative involvement with the Hutts… and their syndicates as a big enough issue to pass me over," She explained. "I don't see the issue, it's not as if it's as exciting as your story."

"Well, I happen to see it as a good sign. Are you interested in working with us?"

"I… have to admit, I am," She responded, leaning forward. "How does the payment work?"

"You would be paid a portion of the payout from whatever job, salvage, or bounty we complete," I explained with a smile. "If the payouts are under a certain amount, we will just divvy it out entirely, but over an amount, we will split a percentage, and the rest will go to improving our equipment, future repairs, fuel, docking, supplies, things like that. Oh, and living expenses, we will cover those as well."

"And what would my share look like?"

I pause, looking confused for a moment before Tatnia lets out an amused huff.

"She means what percent of the payout will she see," She explained while looking at me before looking back at our potential pilot. "And he is confused because he thought it was obvious. Everyone gets an equal share."

"Truly? What about him?" She asked, looking at me with a raised eyebrow.

"The same as everyone else," Tatnia confirmed. "He did it without any prompting, the very first time we made money, when it was just three of us."

"I might be the leader, but everyone works together to get the job done," I explained with a shrug. "Why should I get paid more just because they call me Boss? I've had enough shit jobs to know better."

Calima looked at Tatnia with a surprised and curious look, the human woman smirking and nodding in return.

"Yes, you just heard that, and yes, he actually believes that," she answered. "As far as I can tell, at least."

"Well… That settles it," Calima said, holding out her hand. "I would be very interested in working with you and your team, Deacon."

"Great!" I said with a smile, reaching out to shake her hand. "Now let's talk about time frames…"

Unsurprisingly, Calima was eager to get started, having spent the last three weeks watching her savings slowly go down as she waited for someone to come by and hire her. We talked about the ship, about how it was a recovered CIS cruiser that still had some of its automation intact. We also went over what else was expected of her beyond piloting.

"We expect you to help defend the ship, but no, we wouldn't expect you to come on our more violent mission. In fact, having someone to hold down the fort is half of why I want a dedicated pilot."

"It's definitely not my strong suit, but I know how to take care of myself," She assured us. "I'm a halfway decent shot with my pistol and have some starfighter training."

"We will keep that in mind," I assured her.

When we were done, and all our questions were answered, I took a picture of her and sent it to Nal through my commlink. When I was done telling the Duros that she would be on her way in a few hours, she left to go back to her temporary lodgings to grab her stuff. I handed her a fifty credit ingot to help cover the air speeder, and she looked at me for a long moment after taking it, taking and laughing after looking at Tatnia, who just rolled her eyes.

"You're too nice, Boss, but most taxis don't take ingots," She said, shaking her head. "I would be more worried that you were going to get suckered if I didn't know you're too paranoid for that."

"You know me so well, Tatnia," I responded with a smirk. "The coin was so I could track her if something happens."

"... Like I said, paranoid."

We left the bar, waving down another air speeder and climbing in. After a short conversation with the driver, who was actually organic, we were once again crossing the city, high in the air. After a ten-minute ride, we were dropped off at another bar, this one considerably more rough looking.

"Are we sure we should be recruiting from here?" I asked as we crossed a courtyard-like area to get to the bar. "Getting a 'bad side of town' vibe from this place."

"Really?" She asked, giving me a side look. "Just wait until we go to bars on outskirt worlds, this place looks downright pleasant compared to some of them."

We went inside, stopping by the entrance. This place was even more packed than the last, with only a few open tables that I could see. Luckily, as we got closer to the bar, someone who had been sitting by an empty space stood up, letting Tatnia and me sit down without issues.

Just like before, we spent a few minutes making small talk, slowly sipping our drinks. This time our conversation was primarily about if we should buy a transport speeder now or try and pick one up along the way.

"I think we should just buy one," Tatnia said with a shrug. "We need a few too many things out of it to rely on finding the perfect match. Besides, if we do find a better one down the road, we could always sell it."

"I'm just a bit hesitant to spend a bunch of money before making a bit of a buffer," I explained, taking a sip of my beer.

"Transport is too important," Tatnia pointed out. "We need a few speeder bikes and a transport speeder. Being able to move around once we land on a planet is important. We can hire taxis here, but when we are transporting a bounty? Or assaulting a pirate base?"

"Yeah, alright, fair enough. Alright, we can-"

"Excuse me," A voice said from behind us, prompting both of us to turn around. "I couldn't help but overhear. You said you are looking for speeders?"

Standing there was a human, about twenty, maybe twenty-five years old, with black hair and brown eyes. His hand was wrapped in a bandage, and he had a bacta pack on his cheek, the rest of his face slightly off color like the very tail end of a bad bruise.

"Can we help you?" Tatnia asked, her hand sliding downward, something the beaten man noticed.

"Ah. Well. You're looking for transport? A speeder and some bikes, right?" He asked, to which I nodded slowly. "Good. I have an offer, a way you could make a bit of money and get what you're looking for. I can explain everything, but… maybe at a more private table?"

Tatnia and I shared a look, and with a shrug I stood, my crewmate standing with me.

"Alright, lead the way."

He nodded and led us to a table in the far back of the bar, handing a waitress a credit ingot and a few words as we sat, the woman nodding and rushing away. He seemed to sit down slowly, like someone who was in pain.

"So, my names Julus, Julus Centall," He started, reaching across the relatively small table to shake our hands. "Thanks for hearing me out."

"No problem, I'm Deacon, and this is Tatnia," I responded. "Just to be clear, we are just listening. What exactly are you proposing?"

"Okay, right, so you can tell I am a little roughed up?" He asked, raising his bandaged hand. "So this happened two weeks ago. Zandev and I, we…."

He paused for a moment, seeming to hold something back before continuing.

"We were coming home one night and got dropped off in the wrong part of the city. We… well, we had been celebrating our latest paycheck, so we didn't notice until we landed. Before we could get a ride home, we were ambushed."

"Ambushed? By what?"

"A gang, the Blood Cores. They claim a small garage in the corner of the lower Gyyeresu District on the east side," He answered, shaking his head. "They are a tiny little gang, no more than eight people, and we just happened to get stuck on their turf."

He paused, shifting in his seat slight, looking down at his hands while letting a long breath go.
"While we were waiting for a cab when they showed up, starting getting aggressive," He explained, shaking his head. "I'm not bad in a fight, and... I get cocky when I drink. I tried to tell them to get lost, got in one of their faces, and.... they took offense to that. They took turns beating the snot out of me. When Zander tried to stop them they killed him."

The waitress came along and brought us drinks, putting a glass of water in front of Julus. He grabbed the glass and stared at it for a moment before recovering.

"Zandev was like a… hells, he was my brother. I knew him for most of my life. And I got him killed because I can't keep my mouth shut when I get buzzed," He explained, taking a long drink of water before wiping his face and his eyes. "Sorry, it's been two weeks, but…"

"It's alright, take your time," I said gently, the young man nodding.

"Right, okay. So the Blood Cores ride around on five speeder bikes and a speeder. I don't know how they got their hands on them, but their bikes are C-PH models, military tech," He said, shaking his head clear before continuing. "I think the air speeder was a modified Arrow-10 Light. It's enclosed, carries four people, and it's got a turret. That's what you're looking for, right?"

"How do you know all this information about them?" Tatnia asked, narrowing her eyes. "That's a lot of information about a group you met once, two weeks ago."

"...I don't think I could ever forget a single detail of that night," He admitted with a deceptively normal shrug. "And I did my research, as best as I could anyway."

"So… what exactly are you looking for from us?" I asked, wanting to confirm my suspicion.

"Right. I'm willing to pay you five thousand credits to wipe the Blood Cores out. No warning, no second chances, no chance to wiggle out on technicalities or for good behavior," he explained coldly. "You can take their gear when you're done, I don't care. I just want them dead."

"I'm not opposed to being called in for a little justice, especially when I'm getting paid for it and get the salvage," I admitted before sharing a look with Tatnia. "But we are actually here to recruit more members. At the moment, we only have three active combatants on our crew."

"I could help," He offered. "I'm a bit roughed up, but nothing would stop me from putting them down."

"Be that as it may-"

"Please, the fact that you just happen to be looking for something they have and are looking for work…." He trailed off. "I don't have enough money to hire anyone, and most people would consider the salvage a bonus, not part of the pay. But since you're looking for that kind of stuff…"

Tatnia and I share another look, and this time I give a subtle shrug. She groans in response and rolls her eyes.

"Alright, tell us everything you've learned, everything you know about this gang," she said, leaning forward. "After that, we will discuss it with our team."

Chapter Text

"Thank you, thank you," He said, sagging in relief. "I… No one has even offered that much, at this point, I was contemplating trying to do it myself…"

"My first question is, why haven't you gone to the police or the security forces?" I asked. "I assume they have something like that here?"

"We do, the Terr'skiar Planetary Security Force. And I did. They don't care about anything that doesn't affect the traders," He spat, shaking his head. "The Blood Cores are small time and keep to their neighborhood. Sure, they terrorize that neighborhood, but they don't go anywhere near the trade centers, warehouse districts, or high-end parts of the city. I reported Zandev's murder, and they promised to investigate, but nothing happened after a week. I went to ask what was wrong, and they told me there was nothing they could do."

He clenched his uninjured fist and his jaw, anger almost radiating off of him.

"Zandev's only crime was trying to stop me from getting beaten to death, and they killed him. And laughed! I…” He let out a long breath, shaking his head. "The idea that they are out there, enjoying their lives after what they did to him… I can't live with that."

"I don't blame you," I said with a solemn frown. "What else can you tell us about them? We need to know what we might be getting into."

Over the next fifteen minutes, Julus explained everything he had learned about the small-time gang, including their home base and some of their more recent crimes. They lived out of an old abandoned garage, which was only empty because they ran off the previous owner. They treated the neighborhood that they lived in as their own little fiefdom, charging protection money and roughing up anyone who didn't pay up. According to the recovering young man, several people told him that when they first moved in, they made an example of the first few people who tried to stand up to them.

"But there were no reports?" I asked. "Nobody told the Security Force?"

"In an area like that, the TPSF is just another gang," Julus explained. "They come in, rough up people who are just trying to survive, arrest anyone who complains, and usually just make the situation worse by pissing people off. Most of them are dirty anyway."

I frowned, unable to make up my mind as the obviously still grieving man explained the situation. I wasn't getting any bad vibes from Julus, he felt sincere and seemed to be truly grieving for the loss of his friend. But I wasn't comfortable committing my team to be executioners without making sure that the people on the chopping block had it coming. I would need to get back to the Chariot and see what everyone thought.

"Okay. We need to take this back to the rest of the crew," I eventually said, Julus nodding eagerly. "Personally, from what you've said, this looks like a solid opportunity. And you want to participate?"

"Yes. I'm still sore in some places, but I'm not missing this."

"Do you have experience with this kind of thing?" Tatnia asked before I could.

"I am a security guard for a warehouse company, we walk patrols at night and sometimes accompany transports when they are carrying anything particularly valuable," He explained. "I'm a fair pilot with most speeders and a better shot than most with a blaster. My father taught me how to shoot when I was younger, and my job pays for extra training."

"And what about actual light-fights?" Tatnia asked. "Have you ever been in one of those?"

"A few, maybe five or six," He responded. "We had to fight off a couple robbery attempts, as well as a few warehouse raids."

"Alright, so it's unlikely that you'll freeze at least," She said. "Assuming you're telling the truth."

"We will head back to our ship and talk to the team," I said, slowly standing. "Give me your comm number so we can get in contact with you when we have reached a decision."

He quickly rattled off his number, and I fed it to my comm before giving the man a nod. We shook hands again before leaving the back corner of the room. As we did, Tatnia tugged me back to the bar itself. She put a credit ingot down on the counter, which got the bartender's attention.

"The man we were talking to, anything you can tell us?" She asked, watching the bartender pick up the ingot

"He's been in every day for a week, at least," He said, shaking his head. "Trying to put a hit on some gang. Isn't offering nearly enough, though."

"Thanks. Have a good afternoon," She responded before we both headed out of the cantina.

Fifteen minutes later and we were climbing up into the Chariot. As we stepped through the prep room and past the airlock, Miru came around to greet us from her workshop, Racer following right behind her.

"How did it go?" She asked, wiping her hands on a greasy rag before throwing it back into her space. "Nal said you found a pilot but hasn't said anything else."

"We might have stumbled into a job," I admitted, Miru's eyes widening slightly in surprise. "C'mon, we can explain it over food, I'm starving, and I've been drinking on an empty stomach."

It only takes a few minutes for the whole team to meet up in the lounge area. I was standing behind the countertop while Nal, Tatnia, and Miru sat on the stools, everyone eating from their food packets.

"So, Julus overheard us talking about speeders and essentially used that to offset the fact that he couldn't really afford what it would really cost to wipe out the gang," I explained. "My first instinct was to believe him, but we need to be sure before we do anything drastic. Racer?"

The droid's angular head spins as we wheel out from behind the counter, focusing on me with a string of beeps.

"Do you think you could skim the top of the local security force branch and see what they have on them?" I asked. "Don't slice any deeper than you have to, and don't do anything that would lead back to us."

The little astromech whistled in confirmation, spinning around and heading straight to the cockpit to connect to the comm unit there, as it would have a better connection.

"The pay is crap, but the salvage would save us a lot of money and solve one of our biggest problems," Tatnia admitted.

"More than that," Nal said, shaking his head. "C-PH is top of the line. Each is worth five thousand credits, in decent shape."

"Seriously?" I asked with wide eyes. "How the hell did they get their hands on that?"

"They stole it." Miru said, reading from her datapad. "Racer just sent this, it looks like they stole them from a bigger gang, one with much more resources. That's why the TPSF hasn't gone after them. They stole from a gang and then ratted them out to the Security Force. As long as they keep screwing over other gangs, they are willing to look the other way."

"Even with the crimes that have been reported?"

"Yup," Miru responded. "They don't really care. The bastards probably just assume that they will get themselves wiped out eventually, so there's no reason to spend resources, especially not while they can whittle down the bigger gangs in the meantime."

"What other crimes are they guilty of?" I asked, prompting Miru to scroll through her information.

"They know about two more murders, drug trafficking, assaults… a few sexual assaults."

"... Now I'm tempted to hit the TPSF as well, just to fuck with them," I said, shaking my head. "What kind of assholes let people like that walk around when they are supposed to… Fucking hell. Okay, Unless anyone has a problem, I'm going to call Julus and tell him we will take the job, have him come here so we can plan it out."

When no one spoke up, and Nal and Tatnia nodded in agreement, I stood and walked a bit away from the table, pulling out my comms unit. A quick scroll through my contacts later, and the call was sent, connecting almost immediately.

"Julus? Yeah, it's Deacon. My team has agreed to take your offer," I said, smiling as the younger human shouted in happiness. "I'm going to send you the info for where our docking bay is. Catch a ride here so we can start the planning process."

"Alright, great! Yes, I'll head right over." He responded, his smile audible. "I'll be there in ten."

I said a quick goodbye before hanging up, sliding my comm back into my pocket. Before I could turn back to the group, though, my comms dinged loudly, a call coming in. I quickly took the device back out and activated it.

"Hello?"

"Hello, Deacon, this is Calima… I have just arrived at your docking bay. Your ship is interesting, I don't think I have ever seen a C-ROC quite like this."

"It's an original modification," I admitted. "Our own engineer designed it. Hold on a second. I'll be down to let you in."

I made my way down to the boarding ramp, tapping the button to deploy it down. When it made contact with the landing pad, Calima came into view. She was wearing a single backpack and was carrying a second bag. As she reached the top of the stairs, I took the second bag for her, hefting it relatively easily.

"Thanks… So this is already different from the last time I was on a C-ROC," She admitted, looking around the airlock-style ready room.

"I wouldn't know, but like I said, it was heavily modified as a hauler for the Separatists," I explained, leading her out of the room and into the cargo bay.

"Definitely modified...this cargo bay is much more open," She said.

"So I have been told," I said as we stepped into the cargo bay, stopping and gesturing to Miru's space. "This is Miru's workshop, she is the team's engineer and builder. She is a bit young, so when we leave to go on missions, she will likely be here with you. The other side had charging stations for droids."

"And those are your spoils from the 'salvage' mission," She said, pointing to the stacked and folded-up droids against one side of the cargo bay.

I nodded and continued the short tour, showing her the large door to the hangars before leading her upstairs.

"You can claim any of these rooms, they have double beds, but we don't plan on having enough people to fill them yet, so feel free to use it as storage for now," I explained, watching her pick one of the rooms, the door opening smoothly.

"Huh… not bad. Definitely been stuck in worse," She said as she walked in, looked around, and nodded. "Not having to share will make it much easier for now."

She tossed her bag into her bed, taking the one I was carrying and putting it down beside it. She took off her jacket and hung it up before turning to smile at me, her tendrils moving as she did.

"I'd like to see the cockpit…."

I nodded and led her down the hall to the lounge, where everyone was still waiting. She spotted everyone and gave a short bow.

“Miru, Nal, this is Calima. She is our new primary pilot," I said, smiling as Miru stood up from her chair and held out her hand, which the Tholothian shook.

"It's nice to meet you, are you gathered to meet me?" She asked, turning to look at me.

"I would have done that, but we were already gathered for lunch and to discuss and offer. Are you hungry?"

"No… thank you, I ate before leaving my previous apartment. But thank you," She said. "May I ask what kind of offer?"

"Yeah, of course. Why don't I take you to the bridge and explain? These guys have already heard and agreed to the offer."

"Very well…"

I led her to the bridge, and the Tholothian immediately claimed the pilot's chair, examining the various screens, buttons, levers, and knobs in front of her, humming in what I was pretty sure was approval. After a minute or so of this, I started going over the offer. When I got to the part about how the TPSF was letting this all happen, Calima did not seem surprised.

"The TPSF is… almost completely owned by the major shipping companies that use Terr'skiar as a stopping point. They get involved, keep the peace, and patrol more affluent areas, but they have all but given up… on the outskirts," She explained. "It does not surprise me that they are doing nothing about this gang."

We talked a bit more about the ship, its modifications, and its automation, which she was a big fan of. After about five minutes, she leaned back and nodded confidently.

"I can easily pilot this ship, it is a simplified modification to the standard Corellian Engineering control scheme," She assured me, turning back in her chair. "I could likely fly this ship unaided… save for combat situations."

"That's good to hear, there will probably be someone up here with you just in case, but it's good to know you can manage."

When we left the bridge, opening the reinforced bridge access door, I found most of my team talking to Julus. He looked mostly the same, though the bandage on his hand was gone. He was still clearly nursing an injury there, but it seemed he was putting that aside for the moment and dealing with the resulting pain. He also looked invigorated, the news that we were taking his offer clearly having given him new energy.

"Julus, glad you're here," I said, gesturing to Calima. "This is our new pilot, just joined with us today."

The two shared a simple nod, and I clapped my hands before gesturing to the large table that took up the corner of the lounge area, with enough seats for all of us. It was opposite the kitchen system, the counter, and stools, and was another piece of furniture we claimed from the Separatist base.

"Right, well now that you're here, we can talk about business and how this operation you brought to us is going to go. Have a seat, and let's get started."

Chapter Text

"So, we are taking the offer Julus," I repeated once we were all sitting, getting an eager nod in return. "But I want to make this clear. This is not a pistol at dawn, airing your grievances and dueling to the death kind of situation. This is an execution. Cold, clean, and simple. We aren't holding back to be fair or giving you the opportunity to see the life leave anyone's eyes."

"I don't care. I may not be able to handle them being alive when Zandev is dead, but I'm not looking for a show," He agreed, nodding once. "I just want them dead, like you said, clean and simple."

"Good. Then my suggestion is that we wait until it's dark, until they are all asleep, and we catch them in their beds," I said, Miru wincing, but Nal and Tatnia nodding in agreement. "If I get my way, we wouldn't even be in the same building when they are all alive, but depending on what that garage you mentioned is made of, that might not be possible. Nal, do you think you could get your hands on some more ammo for the proton rifle?"

"Here? Easily," He said simply.

"Good. How about some night mission gear?"

"Night vision goggles?" He asked. "Or thermal? It is possible to have both, but pricey."

"Less than five hundred credits per pair?" I asked, the blue-skinned alien nodding in confirmation. "Then get five, they are a handy bit of gear, so there is no reason not to get our hands on them while we can."

He nodded again, quickly pulling out his datapad and starting to scroll through something.

"Next, I want to know what this garage and the area around it looks like before we start this," I said, looking at Tatnia. "Can you handle that? It might be as simple as having Racer look into public records, or you might have to take some pictures yourself. If that's the case, I don't want you to even land near their territory, alright?"

"I can handle that."

"Good. Once we get those pictures, we can start planning this for real," I said, turning to Julus. "You're welcome to stay here until we execute the plan. We have to make sure you're geared up properly anyway."

Tatnia and Racer made their way to the bridge while Calima made her way to her room to unpack. Miru and I took Julus down to the cargo bay, where we were keeping all of the spare gear we had acquired so far. He needed armor, a helmet, and a blaster rifle, which we had plenty to spare. He did have his own pistol, two of them, in fact.

"You like them?" He asked when he saw me looking at them. "They were my fathers, he gave them to me before he passed. The only thing he left me."

"What are they?" Miru asked. "I don't recognize the make."

"That doesn't surprise me, they are apparently pretty rare. I was gonna sell them, but Zandev convinced me not to," He admitted, looking down at the two blasters on either hip. "They are Westar-35s. They pack a mean punch and are pretty accurate, but I never really invested the time in learning how to shoot them both at the same time."

By the time we had his armor and other gear set up, Nal was getting ready to leave. He took the MVR out to go shopping for what I asked for, driving the speeder bike right out of the starboard hangar. He dropped until he was five or six feet off the ground before his repulsors compensated, and he zoomed off.

"On a scale of one to ten, how difficult was what he just did?" I asked Miru, though Julus was the one who spoke up first.

"Oh. Right, on a civilian bike, that would be a hard eight," He said, still looking around the hangar curiously. "But a military bike is designed to go everywhere, including from high ledges to lower ground. It would have compensated for the change automatically."

"What about coming back in?"

"If he comes in slow, it should be fine."

I gave Miru a look, and she nodded in confirmation before turning to leave the hangar bay. As I was stepping through the smaller door, Miru turned and headed to her workshop. "Let me know if you need anything, Boss, I'm just tinkering!"

"Alright, have fun," I said, heading to the stairs, Julus following behind.

"So. she is a bit on the young side," He commented as we stepped onto the second deck. "Is she going to be coming with us?"

"No, Miru is our engineer," I explained, turning my head to look at him. "She is the one who designed the hangar modifications."

"Oh, alright."

It was only about an hour before Tatnia and Nal had completed their tasks, the crew plus Julus once again sitting down around the large table in the lounge. Nal had returned from his trip and unloaded two cases of ammo for the proton rifle and five smaller boxes containing goggles that could switch between thermal and night vision. I carefully opened one of the latter boxes, examining the goggles before handing them to Nal to inspect.

After that, Racer used his holoprojector to show off the images that Tatnia and he found on the holonet, with minimal slicing required. The garage itself was surprisingly large, a double-floored structure with two large bays and what looks like the office portion next to that. The first floor was ferrocrete, while the second floor, which formed a lip around the structure, was some sort of metal paneling with a few windows. Everything was in pretty good condition, and there was a speeder and two speeder bikes parked into the front ferrocrete pad.

"I assume these are from before the Blood Cores settled in?" I asked.

"Yeah, by about four months," Tatnia answered. "Racer also dug up some shots of the surrounding area."

The holo-projection shifted, showing off a few buildings with the garage showing up a few times in the corner or background. After about ten photos Racer projected a wireframe version, clearly compiled from everything he had just shown us, outlining all surrounding buildings.

"Damn, that's useful," I said, examining the slowly rotating projection.

"Nova wasn't kidding when she said she upgraded him," Miru said proudly. "Racer has a hell of a lot of power and tools stuffed into his frame."

The astromech whistled a long string that sounded vaguely proud. After watching the projection for a few minutes, I motioned for Racer to stop the slow rotation.

"Okay, I think our best bet is to ambush them, most likely starting with you, Nal, up on this roof," I said, pointing out the three-story building across the street from the garage. "You should have no problem shooting down into these windows with the proton rifle. Considering just how many vehicles Julus says they have, sleeping on the ground floor is unlikely. Still, we need to be prepared for that."

I gestured for Racer to zoom in on the front of the building. When the view changed, I continued.

"Now, a lot of this depends on where they are, but I'm going to assume the garage doors will be closed. If they aren't, we can take advantage of that, but we plan for them being shut," I explained, pointing to a row of windows that dotted the first floor. "Once Nal opens fire, taking out as many as he can through the windows, Tatnia, Julus and I will come in through these lower windows here."

As I pointed, several basic outlines of people appeared on the exterior of the projected model. I gave Racer an impressed look before continuing.

"If they stay on the second floor, then Nal can take them all out, but once they make it down to the first floor, which I'm guessing they will try, we ambush them there."

I sat down in my chair, leaning back and looking at everyone. Nal, Tatnia, and Julus were listening closely, while Miru and Calima were listening with much less enthusiasm.

"Our biggest goal here is to keep them from getting on their speeders. Not just because we want them intact but because it would give them a major advantage in firepower. Miru…”

The pink-skinned mechanic sat up straight, eyes wide, clearly not expecting to be called on.

"I want you and Racer here, listening in to TPSF comms. Do you think you could crack into those Racer?"

The droid wiggled and whistled out a complicated tune, which, of course, meant nothing to me.

"He says that he won't be able to hear them word for word, that's too protected for him to slice without being noticed," Miru translated. "But, he could get enough information to know if they are responding to a general neighborhood."

"That's good enough. I'm hoping we can skip their involvement, and I need to know if that changes. Calima?"

"I assume you want to be ready to lift off, just in case?" She asked, having been a bit more prepared to respond than Miru. "I can do that… but I will warn you that there are security forces in space around the planet. They could try and stop us."

"I'm hoping that they won't take it that far, but if it comes to that, we will just have to outfly them," I said with a wince. "Can you do that?"

"Most likely. If we get really unlucky… It might be difficult, but I think I can handle it."

"Good. Alright, we could get this done tonight, or we could push it off tomorrow and get a little more time to prepare, any preference?"

"I would rather get this done with," Tatnia responded, leaning forward in her seat. "No use putting it off."

When Nal only nodded in agreement, and Julus looked like he was ready to do it right now, for obvious reasons, I considered the matter settled.

"That works for me. Let's get everything packed up and ready to go, then we can have an early dinner. After that, we head out."

Another series of nods from around the table, and we got to work. Miru, Nal, and I broke down the proton rifle and four of our blaster rifles, fitting them and the goggles into the cargo container attached to the MVR. When that was done, we gathered around in the lounge and shared our meal. As we ate, I looked over at Calima, who was listening to the conversations but was staying mostly quiet.

"Sorry that your first day is so eventful," I apologized. "We had no idea that things would kick off like this, but it's a good opportunity so we couldn't pass it up."

"I understand… You don't have to worry," She said with a smile. "This may be more exciting than I'm used to, but I had a feeling working with you would be like this when you described your last few weeks."

"Well, that's good," I responded. "I'm glad that it wasn't a surprise at least."

We finished dinner quickly, and it was time to get to work. Nal flew out on the MVR again, carrying our rifles so that we wouldn't have to, while Tatnia, Julus, and I called in a cab. It was starting to get dark by the time we landed several blocks from our target.

As we walked the rest of the way, a ten-minute trek through a few alleyways, we did our best to seem inconspicuous. Julus kept looking around as if he expected the Blood Cores to come swooping down at any minute, but I couldn't blame him for being nervous so close to where his friend was killed.

Eventually, we got to the building that Nal was waiting for us behind, having landed the MVR in an alleyway. There we waited, out of sight from the street, while it slowly got darker and darker. Eventually, Nal passed out the night vision goggles, and we all started assembling our rifles.

"There's a clear path to the garage from here, through these alleys," Nal explained, pointing to a small path between two abandoned buildings to his left. "Just keep walking straight until you reach the street."

"Alright, comm us when you're in position, and we will head in," I said, watching as he nodded and started climbing a nearby ladder, heading up to the roof.

A quick glance at Tatnia and Julus, and we headed out, with me in the lead, slowly making our way through the alleys, following Nal's instructions. We held our rifles tucked under our jackets to hide them as best we could, though it was obvious what we were carrying to anything more than a passing glance.

After another minute of walking, we stopped, having reached the road. Across the street was the garage, lights still on inside. We could hear thumping, loud music clear through the garage bay doors. I held up my hand as I spotted two people, a Rodian and a Weequay, sitting outside. They had something in their mouths, some sort of Star Wars cigarette equivalent that my extra knowledge didn't know about. I held up my hand to motion to Tatnia and Julus, and all three of us walked back enough to be covered by the shadows of their alley. I crouched down low and pulled out my comm, tabbing it to Nal.

"Nal, they are still awake, stay down until the garage goes dark," I said softly into the comms.

".... Understood," Nal replied just as quietly.

For the next two hours, we waited in the darkness of the dirty, trash-filled alley, waiting for the gang to finally shut down for the day. At ten minutes past the two-hour mark, just about when I started to worry that they would party all night long, the music finally cut off.

There was shouting from inside the garage, the responding complaining voices coming through even with the building mostly sealed up. After a while, the building quieted down, and after twenty minutes, it finally went dark.

"Can confirm, sleeping on the second floor," Nal said softly through the comms, confirming at least one portion of our plan.

The lights in and around the building turning off flooded the street with darkness. All the public lighting near the building had been destroyed, the nearest lights coming from far down the street. Silently, we all pulled the goggles down over our faces, toggling on the night vision. At first, I was overwhelmed by the brightness, but the goggles quickly compensated, revealing a new bright world, though tinged with green. After a minute, I switched to thermal, only to immediately switch it back when I realized it was useless through the solidly built structure.

We waited another hour for everyone to fall asleep before Tatnia, Julus, and I crossed the street, keeping our heads down and moving as silently as possible, not stopping until our backs were against the ferrocrete wall of the garage. Each of us lined up near a different window, each of us sharing a look before I held up one hand left hand, giving Nal the ready signal.

I adjusted my rifle, holding it ready as I let out a slow breath. I could feel myself wanting to cast my armor on myself. I felt naked without it, but I focused on the fact that this was not like the Separatist raid, if they even got a shot off at us, we had already fucked up.

Suddenly the relative silence surrounding us was broken by the familiar whining sound of the proton rifle charging from across the street before a beam of yellow energy punched through one of the second-story windows. The whine immediately started again, firing not a second later.

A riot of shouting, screaming, and cursing echoed across the street as the Blood Core gang was cut in half in just over thirty seconds.

"I can't see the rest," Nal said, his voice coming from my jacket pocket, much louder now. "Coming down the stairs."

"Go!" I shouted, before turning and looking in through the window, the night vision goggles letting me see into the dark room easily.

Unfortunately, all I could see was the air speeder, filling up a large portion of the bay and blocking my view into the rest of the garage. I turned, planning to run around Tatnia and Julus to another window, only to see a staggering rapid spray of blaster bolts coming from inside the building, catching Julus in the side and throwing him to the ground, at least three bolts hitting him before he hit the ground.

A yellow beam of proton energy lanced down into the window from Nal, a choking scream cutting off the spray of energy, silencing whoever had surprised Julus. I pulled away from the structure, running around and watching as Tatnia focused and fired through her window. When I reached the window that Julus had been looking through, I peeked around the corner, moving away just in time to avoid catching another dozen sprays of lethal red energy.

"Fuck this!" I said, charging my bound armor and casting it immediately.

Now protected by glowing conjured energy, I turned around the corner, this time coming out completely. I tanked the two out of over a dozen blaster bolts that managed to hit and drilled my own triple shot burst directly into a half-dressed Weequay holding a massive repeater blaster cannon, standing over the corpse of a blue Twi'lek female. Two of my shots hit his chest, seeming to do very little, before my final shot somehow found his eye, taking off most of his head before his corpse fell to the floor.

"How many did everyone get?" I called out loud enough for Nal to hear me across the street.

"Two," Tatnia responded, still looking into the garage, her still rifle up.

"Five," Nal added, his voice coming through my comms.

"And I got one. Nal, keep us covered, but I think that was everyone!" I said, turning back to Julus, who was still on the ground.

Both Tatnia and I rushed to the younger man, who was pale and breathing slowly. Before I could say anything or start to heal him, he grabbed my hand.

"It's okay," He said. "I… I did what I needed to do. I don't mind following my brother."
"Yeah, but I bet he would want you to live," I said, pulling my hand away. "Now sit still. You're gonna be fine."

"No way, I know-"

Before he could continue, I pulled his jacket aside and poured a dual-cast healing spell into the charred wound on his stomach and upper chest. Whatever that bastard had been shooting, it had been powerful because it punched right through his armor and started to cook him. I emptied my magic into him, his eyes widening as he felt it suffuse his wounds.

"Wh-what was that?" He asked, looking up at me. "What-"

"Team secret," I said, shaking my head with a smirk. "Just be thankful I like you, now keep still."

After a few seconds, I pumped him full of healing magic again, repeating it twice more until his color had marginally returned. He was looking at me with wide eyes, but before he could say anything, I shook my head.

"No, not now. We have work to do," I said. "You can ask questions when we are done. Alright?"

He nodded slowly before starting to push himself up.

"No, not yet," I said, pushing him back down flat. "A few more times, then we can get to work. Tat, keep an eye out, this is going to take a minute."

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

After the door to Julus's new room shut, sealing him inside so he could rest after his rather eventful night, I barely made it ten steps before Tatnia stopped me.

"I assume you invited him…."

"To keep an eye on him?" I finished quietly, Tatnia nodding in confirmation. "It's not the only reason, but yeah."

"What's the other reason?"

"We need more crew anyway, and he seemed to know what he was doing," I said with a shrug.

"He didn't do anything, he got hit before he did anything," She pointed out.

"Through no fault of his own," I countered. "He stayed cool, calm, and collected. He didn't even panic when he thought he was dying. I want him close by, but he also isn't a bad choice from what he told us about his job."

"Assuming he was telling the truth."

"That's… a fair point. We can ask Racer to see if he can get us access to his work records, and maybe we can run him through some drills at some point," I suggested.

We made our way to the lounge area, where the rest of the crew was already waiting. I made a quick announcement that Julus was joining us. Nal didn't seem surprised, and Miru and Calima simply nodded. We spent a few more hours on alert, basically just sitting around, ready to react if Racer called from the cockpit that the cops were on their way. When nothing happened, most of the crew headed to sleep. I wasn't far behind them, only asking Racer to confirm Julus's story and work history before turning in.

The next morning I woke up late, unsurprising considering how late everyone was up the night before. I quickly read Racer's information on Julus, which was basically a few police and internal reports confirming his presence at a few attempted robberies and raids. After reading through some of those, I cleaned up in the sonic shower and headed out into the ship, making my way to the lounge. Tatnia and Calima were having breakfast, chatting about her stay on the planet.

"It didn't seem that bad," Tatnia said, giving me a nod as I entered.

"Oh, there are… Certainly worse trade worlds," Calima admitted with a shrug. "But Terr'skiar has a lot of issues under the surface. The ruling trade groups are cutthroat and greedy. There is even a Hutt in control of one, though she is apparently an exile."

I grabbed a small breakfast bar from the kitchen system, waving as I left the lounge and headed down to the first deck, heading down into the forward cargo bay. The large forward space was abuzz with activity, with Miru, Julus, Nal, and three of our five LE repair droids. I noticed one of the droids was painted red rather than the blue and white combination that the others shared.

The cargo bay had clearly been re-organized, most likely to make room for the group's current project, the speeder bikes we acquired. As I looked around, I noticed there were quite a few less battle droids, and those that remained were neatly stored in the custom charging bays Miru had made. I could see five B2s, with the remaining free spaces filled with B1s.

As I watched, I could see the three LE droids steadily taking apart one of the C-PH speeders, with another one already disassembled. The remaining three were being worked on by Mire, Nal and Julus.

"Morning, everyone," I said as I looked around. "So what's the verdict?"

Miru stood from the bike she was working on and grabbed a rag, cleaning some of the grease off of her hands.

"They were in rough shape, Boss," She admitted, shaking her head. "After looking through them all, Nal and I decided it was better to completely disassemble two of them and then use the parts that were still good to fix up the remaining three. Sorry for not letting you know, but-"

"Don't worry about it, Miru, if you say they weren't worth saving, I believe you," I assured her. "Engineering is your wheelhouse."

"Well, I think that these will be up and running by the end of today… probably," She said, adding the last bit after a pause. "The air speeder is pretty much the same, but we don't have replacement parts. I made a list, and we will need to buy a few parts before I would be comfortable flying it around. It's honestly a miracle it made it back to the ship."

"How much will they cost?"

"No more than three thousand," She explained. "Probably closer to two if I can find them for a good price."

"I'd like to get the air speeder up and running, especially since we really can't fly the bikes around casually, on this planet especially or any with a big Imperial presence," I said, continuing when Miru looked confused. "They are military tech, they will catch a lot of attention if we fly them around. The speeder is much less conspicuous, even if it's armed."

"Oh… should I stop and focus on that?"
"No, they all need to be finished," I assured her. "We can use a taxi in the meantime. Just get the parts before we leave."

"When will that be?" Nal asked, now wiping his own hands clean.

"I want to see if we can find one more person, someone capable of fighting before we leave. That said, four people is enough to complete some basic jobs," I responded. "So I'm compromising and spending another day searching, and if we don't find anyone, we are finding a bounty or a job posting somewhere and heading out."

"I will take her to a shop today," Nal confirmed, looking at Miru, who smiled.

"Great. I'm going to be heading out with Tatnia soon, let me know if something comes up when we are gone."

I turned to leave before stopping, spotting the red droid again from the corner of my eye.

"Why is one painted red?"

"Oh, he is the prime," Miru explained. "I'm going to keep him on and powered more frequently, doing checkups and looking for faults around the ship. Over time he will develop a personality."

"And that's a good thing?"

"Sometimes, depending on what develops," She explained before adding with a shrug. "If it's not, I'll wipe it and try again."

"Huh… alright!"

I made my way back to my room and quickly got ready, throwing on my armor and my jacket and putting my blaster pistol on my hip before heading out to find Tatnia. I went over my plan with her to spend another day looking for a new crewmate before leaving, successful or not.

Twenty minutes later, Tatnia and I were once again in a taxi on our way back to the same bar we had been to the day before. We got a similar reaction as we stepped inside, though there were a few more considering looks as we walked to the bar. Tatnia ordered a caf for each of us as we sat down at the bar, since neither of us was interested in alcohol this early in the morning.

Eventually, we asked the bartender if there was anyone looking for long-term work, specifically working for a mercenary team. He directed us to a few people sitting around the bar, but as we talked to them, I didn't think any of them were a good enough fit.

"You're being too picky, Boss," She said after we assured the fifth person that we would comm them if we changed our minds.

"I'm not inviting anyone on the ship that I wouldn't feel comfortable leaving Miru alone with," I said emphatically.

"I… guess that's a good point," Tatnia agreed, wincing slightly.

Not long after that, we were on our way home. We stepped through the entryway and into the forward cargo hold to find the remaining three speeder bikes, cleaned and freshly painted, arrayed side by side, tucked against the starboard wall. All four of the crew that had stayed behind, Julus, Miru, Nal, and Calima, were standing and sitting by the door. Julus had a blaster pistol in his hand but had turned to see us. Down on the other end of the ship was a target painted on a big sheet of metal.

"What are you guys doing?" I asked Nal. "I thought you would set up outside."

"This pistol has adjustable output settings," Miru explained. "We turned it all the way down, and it's like a training blaster. And I don't think the owner of the landing pad would like us shooting up his property."

I let out a long sigh before gesturing for them to continue.

"Alright, Julus, show us what you got," I said, watching as he nodded and turned back to the target.

We watched for a while, Julus proving that he was, in fact, a really good shot, better than Tatnia and I with a blaster pistol at least. We took turns for a while before we broke down the practice setup. A quick conversation with everyone, and we decided to leave tonight before the landing pad owner could charge us for another day.

It took just under an hour for us to call in our intention to leave, get a flight plan, pull away from Terr'skiar and jump to hyperspace. It was a short jump, just long enough to put us in the open and endless void of space. When our sensors read that everything was clear, I called a meeting. Everyone made their way to the lounge area, sitting down at the meeting table.

"With Calima and Julus on board, our new transportation acquired, and the Talos Chariot, we have completed my first goal." I explained, leaning forward in my chair, which was the head of the table. "Which means it's time to talk about secondary goals."

"You mean taking bounties, doing mercenary work?" Miru asked, looking confused. "Do you have other things in mind?"

"I do. I have several. Some of them are too far in the future to even think about, but for now, my next goal is pretty simple. Build a name, build up resources, build up our money."

"Why?" Nal asked. "Those are important, but you seem to be thinking of something specific."

"As impressive as what we have achieved so far is, I want to go further," I explained. "This ship, us, the equipment we have, our skills, it's impressive, but ultimately just a small footnote. We could leverage it if we are lucky and determined, but I want to be able to do more. I want to do more. Maybe we side with the Rebellion, maybe we try to take down slavery on a much bigger scale. Maybe we build a fleet and stamp out the Hutts. There are a lot of possibilities out there, and I want the strength and ability to do them when we want to."

My crew was looking at me as I talked. Miru, Nal, and Tatnia seemed to understand where I was coming from. They had all experienced slavery in some way, even if it was just a taste for Nal and Tatnia. The desire to never be in that situation again, to never be that vulnerable, to never be that powerless, it was strong enough for them to understand and want the same thing I did.

My reason was just a lot more simple. I had lived a good chunk of my life working for other people, usually working way too hard for way too little. I wanted to be free, wanted to be a powerful enough player that fucking no one could push me around. I wasn't looking to be the next emperor, and I wasn't a fan of the idea of leading a large group, but that didn't matter. If leading was the cost for respect and just the right amount of fear to keep assholes from doing stupid shit, then so be it. Even better, with that kind of clout, I could help people. Still, make money, yeah, but actually be able to help as well.

"Julus, Calima, I know that this is a lot to hear so soon after joining up, but it's not nearly as intense as it sounds. It just means that I'm looking to expand, and some of our jobs are going to be focused on that."

"You may not have… said it out loud, but I would have had to be deaf and blind to not be able to see your ambition," Calima assured me with a smirk. "As long as you… do not expect me to die for your ambition, and I get my cut, then I'm happy."

"Yeah. Same," Julus added. "You don't do subtle very well, Boss."

"I know," I responded with a smile. "that's what I have you guys for, right?"

"So, if the goal is to grow, with a capital Grek, what's our first move?" Tatnia asked.

"Well, I would like to make some more money, finish building up a bit more," I answered. "I know Miru has some plans she wants to implement that will hopefully improve our fighting capabilities."

"I… have a few ideas," She admitted. "I… Well, I can go over them later, but my first goal is to get the two tri-fighters up and running and tied to our commands. Then maybe do something with the vulture droids?"

"Right. Well, stuff like that will take money, and I would also maybe consider getting a second ship, one to pilot alongside ours. Long-term, however… I think working with the Rebellion is something we should consider."

"You seemed pretty against that before," Tatnia pointed out. "What changed?"

"I'm against joining completely. But working alongside them?" I explained. "The Empire is a blight, and eventually, it's going to fall. I have a good feeling that the Rebels have a solid chance of making that happen. It… well fuck it sounds manipulative and cold, but getting in on the ground floor now…."

"You're hoping to ride their wave of success?" Julus asked, making me wince.

"Pretty much. Don't get me wrong, I do believe in their cause, and I do want them to succeed. It just so happens that it's also a great opportunity," I explained. "Having a say in what comes next wouldn't be so bad either."

Depending on what canon was dominant, the New Republic that the Rebellion built was either going to be completely inept or partially inept and very unstable. Maybe I could influence that to change, but in order to do that, I would have to have influence first. And in order to do that, my group would have to be more than a few people in one cruiser.

"Well. I have nothing against that plan," Julus said. "I have no real love for the Empire, though I don't have any love for the Rebellion either."

"I… Would also be alright with this," Calima said with a small smile. "The Empire is, indeed, a blight… I would happily help wipe it out, especially if we can gain from it."

All it took to understand if Miru, Tatnia, and Nal were on board was a look.

"Alright. So, our current game plan is to take some jobs, save some money, spend some money, build up our capabilities, and see if we can't get back to the Rebellion and be useful," I said, getting nods in agreement. "Great. Now… how do mercenaries usually find work?"

Chapter Text

“What about this one?” Tatnia asked, looking down. “A bounty for a smuggler who stiffed a trader and caused three deaths when he ran. Five thousand credits alive so he can stand trial, two and a half if he is dead, with proof. Last seen on Ilos.”

She turned her datapad to me, showing off a humanoid of a species I didn’t recognize. I shook my head in a negative.

“Seems like not enough to make it worth heading out there,” I said.

“If we don’t join the bounty hunters guild, this is about all we can expect, bounty-wise,” She pointed out, but still pulled the datapad back, continuing to look through the listings.

It had been just under two days since we had taken off of Terr’skiar. Since then, we have been working on preparing and finding our next mission. While we still had a buffer in terms of credits and were doing very well in terms of materials and equipment, we would definitely need to keep making money.

“I’ve got something,” Nal said, reading his datapad. “A small mining center on a planet not far from here has been getting hit by a raider gang.”

“That… sounds pretty good. What's the pay?”

“Ten thousand, fifteen if we can recover what they have stolen. We also get salvage rights to anything that doesn't belong to the town.” Nal responded.

“What kind of info do they have on their numbers and equipment?”

“The report claims between fifteen and twenty strong,” He answered. “With speeders, blasters, and other movable equipment.”

“And the camp?”

“They don’t know. They sweep in, steal what they want and leave just as quickly. The town doesn't have the equipment to do anything about it, especially as the raiders made sure to destroy any defenses they had in the first few raids.”

“Alright, how far away is it?”

“Are you sure?” Tatnia asked. “Twenty is a lot of people to fight at once.”

“You’re right. It would be,” I responded with a smirk. “If we were going let it be a fair fight in any way. Nal?”

“Three systems away, ten hours.”

“Alright, send them a message that we are on our way.”

----------------------

Ten hours later, we were landing on the outskirts of a decent-sized town on the planet of Itander, a mostly rocky, snow-covered planet that had a band of more hospitable space around its equator. The town, Solinda, had a similar aesthetic to Mos Eisley, with ferrocrete buildings making up the vast majority of structures, with prefab metal and polymer structures sprinkled around throughout.

As we landed on the outskirts, I could see that some of the citizens were clearing out as fast as they could, mostly parents leading their children indoors away from the newcomers, while others made their way out of their homes to get a better look at what was going on. Calima landed us smoothly, flipping a handful of switches once we were securely on the ground.

“Keep her warmed up, if the raiders come by while we are talking, take off and provide air support,” I told the Tholothian, standing up from comms control. “Julus, help Miru unload the Arrow and two C-PHs. Nal and Tatnia, let's go say hello.”

I got a series of confirmations, which I expected since I was really just repeating our already set plan before everyone but Calima left the bridge behind. Nal, Tatnia, and I headed out to the forward cargo bay, passing by Miru as she moved our bikes into position.

“You guys all set?” I asked as we stepped into the expedition room airlock, going through my own pat down to make sure I had everything.

“All set.”

“Ready to go.”

I nodded and opened the exterior door, my two teammates stepping through before I sealed it after us. I tapped the exterior intercom system to activate it, all three of us heading down the access ramp, stepping down onto the rocky planet. A cold breeze carried through, making me glad I had brought my jacket. A quick look around showed one person standing ahead of the small crowd that had formed about a hundred feet from the Talos Chariot. It was a Besalisk, a four-armed behemoth with a boney skull and a large mouth. They were wearing considerably fewer layers than everyone around it, seemingly comfortable in a simple tunic and shorts.

The three of us crossed the distance slowly, eventually stopping in front of the four-armed humanoid. He was a full head taller than me and built like a brick house.

“Hello, my name's Deacon. We are here for the mercenary work you posted,” I said, holding a hand out toward the large brown and maroon-skinned alien. “I’m hoping you got our response.”

“Aye, we did,” He said in a gruff voice, looking up past me at the Chariot. “You certainly seem to have the tonnage to take care of some raiders. Names Rabben Corgug, the head foreman of the town claim.”

One of Rabben’s massive hands swallowed mine, shaking it roughly.

“We would have taken care of this ourselves, but the karking mynock bastards sabotaged our defensive turrets,” He explained, getting to a nearby pile of rubble. “Now we have to deal with them raiders and roving beasts, and too few of us are prepared for a fight.”
“And when you try and get more.…”

“They blow those up, too,” He finished, nodding in confirmation. “Don’t even know where they set up, so we can’t go out and take them ourselves. Tried the surrounding area, but too far out, and folks stop coming back.”

“Well, rest assured, we can solve your raider problem,” I said confidently, gesturing back to the ship, where Julus was just flying the Arrow out of the starboard hangar. “We are going to do some patrols around the area while the Talos Chariot goes a bit higher and runs some scans.”

“That's not gonna do ya any good,” The Besalisk said, shaking his head. “Smart money is on them digging down into the snow. Go down deep enough, and a normal sensor reading won't penetrate well enough to pick them out.”

"Maybe not, but it will give us plenty of warning when they start getting close,” I explained, the larger humanoid reluctantly nodding.

Once we had responded to the work posting, the crew and I spent a few hours spitballing what the best way to complete the job was. Obviously, being able to use the Chariot to take them down, with no risk to ourselves, was ideal, but Calima had pointed out what Rabben just had about the snow and ice, which meant if we wanted to locate their camp, we would have to get a little tricky. As far as Calima knew, the plan was to keep track of any raiders who ran when we ambushed them, as they would have little choice but to return to their base. In reality, once I spotted them, my clairvoyance spell would be able to track them. I was getting pretty good at it by this point, so seeing the raiders in person should be enough for me to track them, even if they weren't close to me.

“Boss,” Nal said to get my attention before stepping forward and facing Rabben. “What have they been taking?”
“Food and supplies mostly,” He answered. “We don’t keep large amounts of credits on the planet, our profits get stored in a bank and we purchase new things on the holonet.”

“How frequently are the raids?”

“Every two weeks or so,” The large male humanoid responded. “What are ya getting at?”

“They might be relying on your supplies to survive,” I answered when I caught on, Nal nodding in confirmation. “Which means it's going to be a lot easier to trick them into attacking.”

“Trick? No need to trick, they come on their own!” A human man said from behind Rabben.

“Well, if they do, we can take them out and then track them back to where they’ve set up camp,” I explained, happy our original plan would work. “The point is that if they need what you have, they are coming back if they think they have a chance.”

I pulled out my comms unit and turned back to the ship, looking up where I knew Calima was sitting and watching. I made sure to hold it up to my face, covering my mouth.

“Alright, Calima, when Miru and Julus are done offloading the speeders, the plan is a go,” I said.

She sent back a confirmation, and I slid my comm back into my jacket, watching Julus and Miru work. Once they were done, Julus stayed in the Arrow, and Miru made her way over to us.

“And now, in case someone is watching….” I said, reaching into my jacket, pulling out a small sack of credits, and putting them in the young Twi’leks hands. “We pretend to pay you, shake on it….”

We shook hands, and Miru nodded, clearly working to keep from smiling at the act. When we were done, she quickly made her way back to the ship before Calima lifted off from the rocky surface, kicking up all sorts of dust as she flew away into the sky.

“Why… why are they leaving!?” One of the people behind Rabben said, sounding shocked and scared.

“They aren’t,” Rabben responded, shaking his head as he looked over his shoulder and then back at us. “They are setting a trap. And we are bait.”

“Yes… technically that is true,” I admitted, rubbing the back of my head. “But we should have an early enough warning to keep everyone safe. And we are still going to be here, meaning that they won't be able to just roll through town unimpeded.”

“I don’t like it… but we don’t have much of a choice,” Rabben said, giving me a hard look before turning back to the crowd. “Alright, people, back to work. None of ya have enough time free to be sitting around doing nothing!”

The larger humanoid started walking behind the leaving crowd, and I turned to Nal and Tatnia.

“Start running patrols with the speeders,” I said, nodding toward the leaving foreman. “I want to talk to the big guy some more. If the cold starts getting to you, rotate through the Arrow. I’ll find you or call for a pickup when I’m done chatting.”

Nal nodded, but Tatnia looked hesitant to leave me alone. I gave her a raised eyebrow, and she reluctantly headed to where the Arrow and the C-PHs were parked. I turned back to the town, jogging to catch up with Rabben.

“Foreman Corgug could-” I started to say when I caught up with him.

“I don’t sign your paychecks, boy, you don’t gotta call me that,” He said, not slowing down as he moved through the streets of the mining town.

“Technically, I think you’ll be signing at least one of them, but fine. Rabben, mind answering a few questions?”

“As long as they pertain to the job we hired you for,” He responded.

“Do the raiders usually attack from one direction, or is it random?”

“They come from the east more, but not by much.”

“Huh. Okay, what are you guys mining here?”

“Platinum.”

“How big is your claim?”

“The planet.”

“You guys own the planet?” I asked, surprise leaking into my voice.

“No. As the first settlers, we have the first claim. Just means people wanting to mine or settle on the planet need to come through us. We can sell them claims or ask for a portion of their profits.”

“That seems…”

“Strange? Corrupt? Easily abusable?” He listed off with a snort. “That's because that's how they want it. It's usually how mining corpos keep a grip on the best mining claims. They scan a hundred planets before we can even leave the docking bay, settle all the good ones, and leave the rest of us claims that barely profit. We got lucky finding this, but we won't ever be rich. Better than being slaves in all but name, though.”

“I’d have to agree,” I said, looking up to see the Arrow flying over the town, a lot of other people stopping to do the same. “When did the raiders show up?”

“Three months ago, after the melt,” He answered, waving to someone as we passed a shop, continuing to answer my next question before I could ask it. “The planet's orbit is slightly elliptical, there's a two-month time when it's a few degrees warmer. Most of it stays frozen, but the clear, livable strip around the equator expands by a good distance on each side.”

“Interesting. Any chances they have someone in the town, a contact or informant?”

That question finally got him to look at me, reading my face for a long moment before finally grunting and shrugging.

“It’s possible, but no one comes to mind.”

I pulled out my comm unit and relayed that information to my team, telling them to keep an eye out for anyone behaving suspiciously. They confirmed it and reported that they had made a few loops around the town and couldn't see anyone on the outskirts.

“Do a few more wider loops around and then land for a while,” I responded. “We need to look like hired guards.”

“So lazy, cheap, and useless?” Tatnia asked, getting a laugh from Rabben.

Despite her joke, I could hear the sound of the airspeed and bikes getting more distant as they expanded their patrol. I talked a bit more with Rabben, mostly about when supply drops came by, how often their ore was picked up, and what their general profit levels were. He was getting a bit annoyed with my pestering but answered everything I asked to at least some extent. Eventually, I split up and headed to where my team had landed.

“Spot anything?” I asked when I got close enough, stopping by Tatnia, who was sitting on one of the C-PHs.

“Saw a few bits of trash, some animal carcasses, and one speeder wreck, but that wasn’t very far out.” She responded. “Beyond that, nothing.”

“Alright. I’m going to do a few loops to get a sense for the town, you and Nal warm in the Arrow,” I said, nodding towards the air speeder. “When I get back, we can trade, and I’ll ride in the back. Oh, and shift over to the east side, that's where most of the attacks have been coming from.”

They both hopped off their bikes, and I climbed onto one, turning it on and spending a minute getting used to the controls before zipping away. The truth was I needed a bit of time to familiarize myself with this speeder as I was just barely able to fly it. We spent some time going over the controls on the way to this frozen rock, but I needed some time to work it all out.

After a few trips out into the rocky tundra and five or six trips around the town, I was feeling pretty confident with the more complicated controls, including the forward-facing blaster cannon, which actually seemed to pack a pretty serious punch, at least it did when the target was the rocks and boulders out in the tundra.

When I was finally satisfied with my flying, I flew around the town again, slowly stopping at the Arrow. Nal was already outside, sitting on his C-PH. As I came to a stop beside him, I turned the speeder down to idle.

For a long moment, we sat there, staring out into the white and brown expanse. After a while, I sagged a bit and cursed.

“Dammit. I should have realized how boring this would be.”

Chapter Text

It didn't take long for me to realize that my assumption about how to deal with the cold was very wrong. While the interior of the Arrow was nice and warm, anyone stuck driving the C-PHs around quickly got cold enough that it was a genuine medical concern. Even with rotating out every fifteen minutes of patrolling and sitting around, we were quickly getting way too cold to function properly.

I could heal away frostbite, but that didn't mean any of us wanted to actually get it.

I made a quick call to Rabben with my comm, and when he stopped laughing at me for taking that long to realize it was a genuine issue, he agreed to round up some clean winter wear in exchange for three of the spare blaster rifles we had stashed in the Arrow. Thirty minutes and a quick exchange later, and we were all wrapped up in cold-rated jackets and pants, with gloves and face masks.

"Thank you, we don't have much experience with planets this cold," I explained to the Besalisk, trying my best to make it sound like a simple oversight rather than a symptom of inexperience.

"'s hardly a fair trade, couple bits of clothes for three blasters," Rabben admitted with a shrug. "Dilip was happy to turn a profit in the trade."

When the large humanoid left to return to his work, I turned back to my ground team, watching as they finished bundling up. Nal was leaving most of it off as he was piloting Arrow, but Julus and Tatnia eagerly strapped on every extra layer.

"Alright, we can stretch out the rotation a bit more, but let's see how efficient this gear is before setting a time.…" I said, trailing off slightly with a wince. "So we are going to be flying around, on patrol for several more hours… I would like to try and learn some new magic, but I can't do that while on a C-PH…."

Nal chuckled as he realized I was basically asking to hog the gunner seat of the Arrow while everyone else flew around, Tatnia and Julus catching on shortly after.

"It's fine, Boss, this gear feels warm, and we can rotate out the pilot," Tatnia assured me. "Every bit you learn makes our team more powerful, so it's worth the cold and time."

Nal and Julus agreed that it was fine, so the blue-skinned Duros and myself climbed into the Arrow. I took the back seat, the one that had a fold-down screen and a control system for the roof turret. I quickly collapsed and moved the turret controls out of the way, allowing me to summon my grimoire. I took a few minutes to familiarize myself with my options before flipping to the segment about the fire rune spell and beginning to study.

The first day of patrolling and waiting passed slowly but steadily. I managed to learn fire rune pretty easily, happily adding it to my repertoire by the end of the day. We ended up testing it outside of town as we investigated the crashed speeder the team had stumbled on while I was talking to Besalisk. The explosion it caused was decent, though I had a feeling it looked more potent than it actually was due to the fireball it spat out. There was no doubt it would take out people in even a medium level of armor, but it wasn't taking down air speeders anytime soon… Probably.

Patrols continued on into the next day, and I flew around on one of the C-PHs, practicing my magic since I could do that on the back of a moving speeder. I spent the first half of the day casting each spell before canceling it, repeating that dozens and dozens of times. The second half of the day, while flying around on patrol, I dedicated completely to mastering the clairvoyance spell as soon as possible, trying my best to push it to the limit. The sooner I could use it to locate stuff I had never seen in person, the better.

To practice the spell, I started with the easy stuff, scanning for odds and ends I knew were on the Talos Chariot. It was a warm-up, something to let me really get a feel for how the spell felt and worked. Eventually, when I was satisfied I had mastered the basic levels of the spell, I started pushing it further by searching for some of the ingots we used to buy Nevue. While doing that didn't take more energy or change the nature of the spell, I could feel it reaching further, latching on to the astronomically distant credit ingot.

As I practiced, I could feel myself getting better and better with the spell, the aetheric linking that let the spell connect to distant objects, people, and locations getting more and more manageable. My ultimate test, the confirmation that I had successfully mastered the spell, was trying to get the spell's arrow to point to Cloud City, a place that I chose at random because I had obviously never been there but had seen a half dozen times in the movies.

I was getting closer, but by the end of the day, I still hadn't managed to link to something I had never seen personally. I was pretty sure my seemingly natural ineptitude with illusion magic was holding me back, despite the fact that I knew the matrix by heart and had it firmly ingrained into my aetheric field.

On the third day of flying around on patrols, killing time waiting for the raiders to show up on the Talos Chariot's sensors, I was back in the back of the Arrow, my grimoire opened to the muffle spell. So far, we hadn't really been using stealth, at least not to the point where the ability to silence yourself was useful, but I knew at some point it could come in handy, so I wanted to at least know it.

In total, the new spell took me just under nine hours to learn, my issue with illusion magic once again rearing its head. By the end of it, I was just glad that there were very few spells I desperately wanted from the illusion branch of magic.

Between practicing and learning magic, patrolling, and keeping an eye out for people sneaking around the outskirts of the mining town, I also had plenty of time to observe the town itself. It was clear to see that the stress of the constant threat of raids was grinding on its citizens. I saw three fights between citizens, one of which I almost stepped in to break up when Rabben arrived to do so.

It didn't help that there were a surprising amount of people crammed into the relatively small town, enough that I was confused about where they were all staying. When I wondered that question out loud, Nal pointed out that there were probably apartments underground to help lower heating costs. It certainly explained why some of the prefab-looking buildings seemed to house multiple families while not being all that much bigger than the ferrocrete buildings that made up the majority of the town's structures.

We were about halfway through the fourth day when Calima called me out of the blue, cutting me off during a conversation with Tatnia.

"Say again, Calima?" I asked after pulling my comm out.

"Sensors are… picking up energy signatures coming towards the town," She repeated. "We are orienting to descend from behind them to keep them from running away. Racer has already calculated a possible general area where their camp might be."

"How long do we have?"

"... forty-five minutes at… their current speed," Calima responded. "From the west."

"Alright, get into position, I want you to hit them just before they get to the town," I explained.

"Understood… Good luck."

I quickly called Rabben to warn him, and within fifteen minutes, the entire town had disappeared into whatever buildings the people called home. It was actually kind of eerie, watching a whole town disappear, with hardly any shouting or panic, save a few startled kids.

As I looked around, I could see a dozen or so people making their way to the roofs of some of the taller structures, taking cover as best they could, including Rabben himself. They were armed and ready, clearly prepared to defend the town as best they could if we failed. My team got ready just as quickly, with Nal and I on the C-PH's while Julus piloted the Arrow and Tatnia manned its turret. We swung around the town and slowed by the west-facing section, ready to intercept any of the raiders if they managed to get through the coming ambush.

After about thirty-five minutes, Nal spotted and pointed them out. The large group was visible in the distance, more than twenty speeders, all making a beeline toward us and the town. I raised our electrobinoculars, focusing on them easily as the advanced compensated for their movement.

They were a rag-tag group dressed in winter clothes of various colors and designs, some newer, while others were ragged and torn, their faces covered with black face masks and goggles. Their speeders were all painted white, but that didn't stop me from immediately recognizing the classic 74-Z design. On top of that, most of the raiders had blaster weapons slung across their chest, ready to access but out of the way enough to drive. As far as I could tell, like their bikes, all of them were armed with the same thing.

“Two minutes out… starting rapid descent…” Calima said, my comm now set loud enough to hear from my pocket.

I knew that ships meant for space travel were fast, in the same way that I knew the 747s that seemed to go so slowly in the distance were actually traveling extremely fast. However, it's one thing to know that and another to see a seventy-three-meter-long spaceship drop from the high atmosphere to about a hundred and fifty meters off the ground, almost on top of the large biker swarm.

It was incredible to watch as the Talos Chariot moved fast enough that by the time it was on the raiders, slowing down to match their speed, they had barely had enough time to react to it at all. And now that it was there, they weren't getting away.

Immediately the quad laser turret on the bottom of the vessel deployed, swiveling around and unloading a deluge of red energy bolts. It was similar to the weapon mounted to the Millenium Falcon and was designed to take down shielded starfighters, which meant it was very overqualified for this use.

The blasts of energy eviscerated the first three speeders instantly, the vehicles detonating in explosions that knocked out another raider. Near misses were lethal as well, each blast exploding violently and hurling rocks and chunks of frozen dirt like frag mines going off. The Chariots tail mounted heavy cannon, the newest addition to the ship's direct armament, swiveled around as well, firing deadly beams of energy down at the back row of speeders, killing two more and causing another to tumble off their bike, most likely dying when they hit the ground.

To their credit, the raiders reacted a lot smoother than any raider gang had any right to. Instead of the chaos and mayhem that I had been expecting, the remaining bikes peeled off into three groups, smoothly reorienting to avoid more fire. They spread out as well, making it much more difficult to take out multiple targets at once. If our only ace in the hole had been the ship, we would have been in trouble, as it wouldn't have been able to stop all three groups at once. Instead, two gray streaks burst out of the Chariot's starboard hangar as the fruits of Miru's labor were deployed.

Our brilliant engineer had had three days to herself, waiting for the raiders to take the bait, and she had not been idle. Between her own programming skills and Racers, she had torn down the loyalty sections of the droid tri-fighters and slaved their command code to her own commands. Their controls were a little clunky, something Miru was confident she could fix, but painting seven fleeing speeder bikes as targets for an airstrike was pretty straightforward.

The tri fighters tore after the second largest group, flying far faster than the Chariot and swerving at angles that would have torn the much larger vessel to pieces. Their advanced targeting systems and a mix of laser weapons erased their targets in a matter of seconds, leaving trails of blue thruster energy as they flew a patrol circuit around the town.

Meanwhile, Miru, who was manning the C-ROC's tail cannon, and Calima wiped out the largest group almost as fast, the only delay caused by trying to match the speeder bikes maneuverability with their heavy weapons.

That just left the smallest group, four speeder bikes that, at first, had stayed straight, heading directly for us and the town. Funnily enough, after seeing their compatriots die with very little effort, they seemed much less eager to attack the town, especially when they got close enough to see us waiting for them. The remaining four speeders slowed and turned before burning away, back the way they came, as fast as they could.

"Our turn!" I said before gunning my own speeder bike.

Nal easily kept up with me, our extremely fast bikes whipping away from the Arrow and chasing after the fleeing raiders. According to Miru, the Empire apparently designed C-PH to be the fastest speeder bike available. Miru had attempted to explain to me how it managed to hold that title, but it had gone over my head. Now though, as we whipped past rocks, snow mounds, and the charred, slagged remains of raider bikes and the drivers, I at least understood what it meant.

The C-PH was fucking FAST.

Until now, even when I was practicing before, I had yet to open one up and go, but boy did it have a whole lot of get up and fucking go. Both Nal and I held on tightly as we chased after the raiders, quickly catching up to them, my bike letting out a long beep, letting me know whoever I was chasing just came into weapons targeting range.

I clamped down my finger on the fire control, the forward-facing cannon dumping a barrage of red energy, chasing after the still-running speeder bikes. The self-adjusting targeting system tried to lock on and direct my fire, but between my own movement and the raider's surprisingly skilled and effective juking, I couldn't land a shot.

Nal, on the other hand, seemed to know something I didn't, or at least could compensate for the movement well enough to rake his blaster fire across the closest bike, the back end exploding in sparks and fire, the driver tumbling off and vanishing, turning a long streak of the icy, broken stone ground red.

We continued to chase after them, easily keeping up with them for another few minutes, managing to take out a second speeder and rider before I made a gesture to Nal, both of us slowing significantly, turning back as if we were heading back to town. We flew for about fifteen seconds before stopping, waiting for the Arrow to catch up.

"Was that sufficient?" Nal asked as we came to a stop.

I raised my hand and, for a moment, focused on one of the two raiders who had "Escaped" before casting the arrow version of clairvoyance. My hand glowed for a second before the familiar pale white arrow appeared, wobbling slightly as it pointed back toward the raiders.

"Yup!" I said. "We got them!"

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

The rest of the day was a flurry of constant activity.

The prisoners were transported back to Solinda, where they were promptly executed for their crimes. When I explained what the real story was behind the "raiders," Rabben seemed to be partly ecstatic and partly terrified. He asked very urgently if he could join me as we went back to the camp, and I agreed.

Very quickly, he recognized most of the equipment, having used it himself multiple times.

"It's a deep scanning system," He explained, activating it with a few button taps. "It's supposed ta be a powerful all-purpose scanner, but this brand is known for seeing raw resources."

The device came in two pieces, one of which was its computer system, which was what Rabben was working on. After a few minutes of scanning, he pulled out his comm unit, downloading some data to it.

"They have been scanning since before their first raid," He explained, his usual rough demeanor fading behind a bubbling nervousness and wired energy. "And already they managed to uncover two mineral deposits! From what I can see, they are worth, a minimum, as much as both our platinum mines combined… EACH!"

"Have they been transmitting their data?"

"In batches," He responded. "I don't know when the last message was, just when the data was accessed. I need to return to Solinda, contact some people. This planet just became very valuable."

I had Nal drive him back in the speeder, and stayed behind to help with the looting. When I had gone to drop off our prisoners, they had gotten a jump start on going through the camp, picking out what was worth keeping, what was worth selling to the town, and what was worth hauling away to sell off the world. By the time I had returned with Rabben, Racer was already directing the labor droids to disassemble two of the temporary structures. Deployed, the structures were about six meters wide and ten long, but disassembled, they flat packed away into a tiny fraction of the space they provided.

The longer we went through everything, the more we realized that most of the stuff was better off being sold back to Solinda, as we really had no use for it. On top of the temporary structures, we also took some of their survival gear, specifically some heating units, water filtration systems, energy units, and a few more bits that essentially equated to Sci-fi camping gear.

On top of that, we also snagged the scanner system the mercenaries had been using to scan for ore deposits. According to Miru, it was a very nice system and worth taking. She apparently already had an idea in mind and had to be reminded to finish going over the equipment before running off to tinker. I was tempted to grab the laser cutter they used to make the underground base itself, but according to Nal, it was a low-powered version and wasn't actually worth much. On top of that, we already had two blaster rifles that could do similar things just by fiddling with their settings.

With everything we wanted to keep stored on the Chariot, we quickly loaded up the Arrow and C-PHs, before Calima flew us back to Solinda. We landed around the same spot as we had when we first came to the snow-covered planet. By then, it was starting to get dark, and as Nal and I stepped out, we were immediately directed to the town hall, where Rabben was still working.

Stepping into one of the larger ferrocrete structures in town, Nal and I both stopped to appreciate the whirlwind of work that was happening in front of us. Rabben was talking to three people at once through a holoprojector, negotiating the price of a land claim. When I realized they were talking about a down payment of just under three million credits, the number slowly creeping upwards, I mentally tossed out the idea of basically giving away all of the gear still at the mercenary camp. They could clearly afford to pay for it in full.

When Rabben was finally done with his negotiations, settling on the offer made by a Rodian for 4.3 million credits and 10% of their net profits, he turned to me with a smile. Behind him, the holoprojector shifted to show the planet, which was now dotted with two green marks.

"Sorry for making you wait," He said, smiling despite how tired and frantic he looked.

"It's alright, this is clearly big news to you," I said.

"You have no idea, my friend," The Besalisk said, patting my shoulder with a thump. "You've just turned the fates of this entire town on its head! Days ago, we were contemplating shutting down and leaving. Today, every member of this town is more wealthy than they ever dreamed of being."

"How come you guys missed these deposits before?" Nal asked, looking past the large leader to the holoprojector behind him.

"Because we bought them original scans from the Mining Guild," He responded, shaking his head. "We knew of the two deposits of platinum our mines sit on, as well as three smaller sites, but that's it, ya. But now? We plan on scanning around as much of the planet as possible."

"Well, I'm glad we could help you out," I said with a smile, the larger man chuckling. "We've taken what we want from the campsite, interested in buying the rest?"

"What's left?"

Nal pulled out his data pad and started listing the general outline of what remained in the camp, the Besalisk nodding along as he did. When he got to the bottom, Rabben was silent for a moment before making his offer.

"Ten thousand. And I want any salvage from the bikes around here."

"Fifteen. And that's fine."

"Eleven thousand. Don't forget the stuff that is ours was part of the original deal."

"I remember just fine. Thirteen."

"Twelve thousand… and another five if you wait to leave until after our new security arrives."

"New security?" I asked with a raised eyebrow. "What new security, and how long?"

"Our planet is now worth millions and millions of credits," He explained. "More if we keep finding deposits in our deep scans. We need more than just one cruiser to protect us now, especially if the Miners Guild doesn't decide to cut their losses. I'm hoping to spend a chunk of what we just made in those sales to hire them."

"How long?" I repeated. "We can stay for a while, especially if you are paying us, but we do need to move on eventually..."

"Fine, six thousand for four days, then another two grand per day after that," Rabben offered, extending his hand. "Deal?"

"...Deal," I confirmed, shaking his hand.

"Good. Telami!" Rabben shouted, waving down one of the many people running around the large room. "Pay this man, twenty-seven thousand. Fifteen for the original deal and twelve for the extra equipment."

"Right away, sir," The small, mouse-esque humanoid said, pulling me aside while Rabben shouted to another person, telling them to get a crew together to grab their newly purchased equipment.

A quick exchange of information later, and our group account was twenty-seven thousand credits richer. I immediately took nine thousand credits out and split it out between everyone, paying everyone in my crew, before heading back to the Talos Chariot.

-------------------------

The crew was happy to stick around for a few days and get paid to basically wait, although Tatnia did point out that we would be expected to defend the town if something did come up. I assured her, just like always, I was happy to help but not eager to become a martyr, as horrible as it would be to just leave. If the miners guild showed up, I would help negotiate a surrender or even evacuate people, but I wasn't about to sacrifice my team for a hopeless fight.

Miru was perhaps the most excited to have some extra time, as she had a project for the LE-Repair droids that would be much easier for them to do planetside.

Her project, which she fully designed out so that the LE droids could do most of the work themselves, was to put the Tri-fighters on the exterior of the ship so that we could clear up even more hangar space. The addition would use some of the mag-locks and clamps that were removed from the wings during the hangar modification. There would be four attachment points located under the "Wings" of the ship. Unfortunately, there was one major problem.

"Most droids used by the separatists are very, very illegal to use," Miru explained, getting a wince from me. "So, I need to modify the Tri-fighters enough that they don't look like droids. Otherwise, the second we land on a world with a heavy Imperial presence, we are going to get in big trouble."

"Does that include the B1s and B2s?"

"Yeah. Not worried about that, though, they will be easy to disguise with a bit of metal plating stock, and no one will ask any questions. "The tri-fighter, however, is going to be stuck to the outside of the Chariot, completely obvious. I have an idea… but it's going to take a chunk of our metal stock."

"Alright, show me what you got."

The very eager mechanical genius led me down to her workshop, practically bouncing with energy. It was the morning of the first day of our extended watch on Itander, and I could tell she had been holding herself back since she woke up.

She sat down on a chair and tapped into her computer, a holo projection of the tri-fighter appearing next to her, showing several precise measurements. She described removing the top wing of the tri-fighter and shifting the engine components inside to compensate, as well as removing the missile support frame under the starfighter. The projected image shifted and changed as she described what she wanted. According to the pink-skinned Twi'lek, the reduced weight and height would let her use metal plating to cover the bottom wings. The resulting modification gave the tri-fighter an angular teardrop shape that terminated at the engines suddenly before the tail of the teardrop. The central sphere, where the primary control unit and droid brain sat, was still mostly exposed at the top and bottom.

"The ship would lose a single laser cannon and the ability to carry missiles, but we would have gone bankrupt keeping those stocked anyway. The reduction in weight compensates for the new metal frame, as well as this," She said, a small addition planting itself inside some of the empty space created by the metal frame and plating. "A shield generator. There isn't enough space or energy for anything massively powerful, but even a low-level shield would improve its survivability by a lot. And they are already a pretty deadly starfighter."

"How much will that cost?"

"The shield generator?" She asked, continuing when I nodded. "Depends on what kind we get, if it's used, and how old it is. There is enough space for several dozen different models that I know of. Somewhere between three to eight thousand if it's used, five to twelve if it's new."

"Something used then, I don't want these becoming too expensive to throw away if we need to."

"Sure, it makes sense to me," She agreed. "Does that mean…."

"Yes, you can start the modifications. Do one at a time so that if something comes up, we will at least have one. What's the word on the vulture droids?"

"I haven't started working out their coding, I wanted to get the tri fighters usable first," She explained with a shrug. "Their programming is really basic, so it won't take long. The downside is that they aren't very good. Kinda just a group of moves tied together with instructions on when to use them. Plus, they only last like five minutes without the solid fuel slug they use."

"... Kinda sounds like they are useless."

"They might make a good distraction?" She suggested tentatively. "I don't know, they might not be worth working on."

"Could you use their armor?" I asked, continuing when she gave me a confused look. "As the metal plating for the tri-fighter modification."

"...Yeah, I could. I have all the right tools to work with metal… It would also be better suited, lighter, but probably tougher since it is specifically tempered as armored," She said, going over it in her head. "Does that mean you're giving up on the vulture droids? Because if you are, I could use their parts for other stuff…."

"If they are as useless as you say they are, then yeah. Do me a favor and use the parts from the ones we already disassembled first, alright? And finish the tri-fighters before moving on to your next project."

"I have like five projects going on at once," She said, putting her hands on her hips. "One more won't hurt!"

I chuckled and patted her shoulder, leaving her to her work while I went to find some breakfast. By the time I had finished, Miru already had four of the LE droids working on the exterior mounts, while she was already working on the first tri-fighter, the fifth LE droid working with her.

Over the next few days, all the way to the fifth day, we all did our best to keep busy. I worked my way through four spells, ice rune, elemental bolt, firebolt, and bound battle axe. At this point, I was starting to get closer to working on the apprentice-level spells that I really had no reason to learn but would anyway in case it counted towards when I would unlock adept-level magic.

The entire crew took turns working with Miru, helping her remold some of the armor pieces from the vulture droids into plating for the tri-fighters. It wasn't particularly difficult, her tools did most of the work. The most challenging part was maneuvering some of the awkward pieces into her workshop. Calima was the only one not to help, but considering she spent most of her time in the cockpit, keeping an eye on the sensors, none of us were complaining.

By the time the fifth day rolled around, Mirue had completed her modifications and then some, painting the tri fighters to even further obfuscate their original design, settling on a simple design of spaceship white with blue highlights. For now, the modified tri-fighter, now nicknamed raindrops by the crew, sat in the starboard hangar bay, waiting for us to exit the atmosphere to attach to their exterior mounts. According to Miru, that wasn't necessary, but I wanted to ensure they could handle the docking process first.

Thankfully we wouldn't have to wait long, as the first wave of extra security finally arrived in the form of several drop ships and a Clone Wars-era Arquitens light cruiser, as well as a squadron of mixed starfighters. The Arquiten set up in the atmosphere and would soon be joined by more ships, while the starfighter squadron and drop ships landed near Solinda, quickly setting up a base camp. Not long after they arrived, Rabben made his way to the Chariot, and I headed out to meet him.

"I want to thank you again," He said, shaking my hand with his massive grip. "If you and ya crew hadn't come by, we would have left this claim behind without knowing we were giving up our fortunes."

"I'm just glad we could keep you from getting cheated," I responded with a smile and a nod. "We will be heading out soon now that your new security is here."

"I thought as much," He said with a large smile. "We already transferred your second payment, as well as a bonus for going the extra klick. I suspect Itander and Solinda are about to see some rather impressive growth, so if you ever need a place to lay low, you have it."

"Appreciated," I said simply. "It was nice meeting you, Rabben. Good luck."

Chapter Text

With our first proper mercenary mission completed, we left Itander behind a few hours after Rabben stopped by to say goodbye. Once in space, Miru deployed the raindrop fighters out of the hangar bay, directing them up and under the ship, where the mag-lock and cargo clamps locked them against the hull. When they attached, a muffled thud reverberated through the ship.

"Oookay, the raindrops are properly attached," Miru said with a smile. "We are good to go!"

"Great," Julus said, having joined Miru and I down in the hangar bay for the occasion. "Where are we going?"

"For now? The middle of nowhere so we can have a group meeting," I responded, Miru, Julus, and Racer all following as I made my way up to the bridge. "We have some options to discuss."

It took a few minutes to get everyone together, Calima the last one to arrive since she was plotting a course to a random spot in nearby space. We made a quick two-minute jump to the edge of the Itander system before the Tholothian left the bridge and sat down at the large lounge table.

"Alright. So our first mercenary mission was a rather resounding success," I said with a smile, everyone cheering and patting each others backs. "Everyone performed great, we got some decent gear out of it, made much more money than I expected, and managed to make Solinda fucking rich. If all things go well for Rabben, we have a pretty loyal place to retreat to, should we need to."

"What was our final… Payment?" Calima asked. "I saw the money in my account, but I am curious what we made in total."

"I was getting to that," I assured her before pulling out my data pad. "We got the full fifteen thousand for stopping the raider and returning most of what they stole that wasn't food. Another twelve for the leftover gear we sold to them, and then another eight for hanging around until their new security forces arrived. Rabben was also kind enough to give us three thousand credits as a bonus for helping them figure out what was going on in the first place. Which reminds me.…"

I opened up the business account again, taking the three thousand dollar bonus and spreading it out evenly between everyone before confirming the transfer. Not long after I did, the crew's comms started to go off.

"That's your account, I split the bonus between everyone," I explained, Julus letting out a cheer in response. "That brings us up to fifty-four thousand credits in total, not a bad chunk of credits."

"So what's next?" Julus asked, repeating his earlier question.

"Well, we have a few options," I said, leaning back in my chair. "Miru getting the tri-fighters up and running and then modifying them into the raindrops has massively increased our capabilities."

"It wasn't that hard, Racer helped with the code, and all I did for the conversion was remove some stuff and move other stuff around," She insisted, a hint of a blush on her cheeks. "The only tough part was the charging ports on their mounting."

"Wait, they don't run on fuel?"

"They do, but they can also last about ten minutes without it," She assured me. "By default, they use the fuel first, but I switched it so we don't have to worry about filling them up as often."

"Right… Well, Miru also wants to add a shield generator to the raindrops, which we would have to purchase," I said. "After seeing how the tri-fighters trivialized driving off the raiders, I think the raindrops are a solid investment. Plus, we can sell the vulture droids to make up part of the cost."

"Won't be able to sell those," Nal responded. "Not legally. CIS droids are illegal to own, remember?"

"... And if we didn't care about it being legal?" I asked.

"I could probably figure it out," Tatnia said. "But it will take a few days, and we will have to go to the right planet. But there are no guarantees anyone will be interested. It's kind of a specialty item…. That said, just selling them to a scrap yard will probably get us four, maybe five thousand?"

"Well… shit. Alright, let's scrap them then. They are taking up space, and I'm hoping to fill it soon."

"With what?" Miru asked.

"To start with? A transport ship of some kind," I answered. "Landing this every time we go to a planet is a waste of money. An armed transport will give us more options, more flexibility, and more firepower."

"Well, we can pick up something like that on any world with enough interplanetary traffic," Tatnia said. "Like I said before, it might be a no-name box with guns, engines, and shields, but you don't need much more than that."

We talked a bit more before settling on a vague plan. We needed to refuel, buy a transport and some shield generators, all while hopefully scrapping the two intact vulture droids to make up for some of what we spend. After that, we would head out, looking for more mercenary work.

"Is it worth the hassle to join the bounty hunters guild?" I asked. "You said we weren't likely to get any good bounties if we didn't."

"They have lots of rules," Nal responded. "If you break them, they will come after you. Some of them are… restrictive. Especially if you have morals."

"Yeah, I don't want that," I said, shaking my head.

"Well. Uh. I'm already a low-level member," Julus volunteered, the rest of the crew looking over at him. "Well, technically, I'm not at the moment. But if I paid my dues and the fines for not paying them for so long…."

"... Seriously? You didn't think to bring that up earlier?" I asked, looking at him incredulously. "Like when we were discussing bounties and how we couldn't access any good ones?"

"I wasn't there for that," He said. "Not saying I shouldn't have mentioned it sooner, Boss. But I was helping Miru fix the Arrow when you were going over potential jobs."

I let out a long, defeated sigh before shaking my head and rubbing my face.

"Anyone else has something similar?" I asked when I had recovered enough. "Nobody is secretly royalty from the Hapes Consortium or part of the Chiss Ascendancy? No?"

"What's the Chiss Ascendency?" Miru asked Nal quietly, who shrugged but looked equally curious.

"Why are you a member?" I asked, ignoring Miru and Nal.

"If money was ever tight, or if Zandev and I had our eye on a big purchase, we would run a few bounties," He explained, a nostalgic smile on his face. "Just local stuff, nothing too exciting, mostly just dragging people who skipped bail back to a jail cell. Being a member cuts the taxes you pay on money from official bounties to a third, so it's worth it."

"Alright, well, that's an option for the future," I said. "Assuming you could be our go-between, handing in bounties. For now, let's figure out what planet we are stopping at to offload the vultures and find a transport."

Racer projected a stellar map, and we discussed the best place to try and offload the vultures, fuel the Chariot and let Miru do her shopping. Eventually, we settled on the relatively nearby world of Daalang, a middling populated world just outside of Hutt Space. Calima set a course, everyone settling in for a four fourteen hour trip. When I spotted Miru immediately heading back to her workshop, I called out to get her attention.

"Miru, take it easy, please," I requested, the young Twi'lek turning to face me. "You've been working hard for the last few days getting the raindrops finished."

"Working on stuff is how I relax, though," She pointed out, seemingly worried I would ban her from her workshop or something.

"Okay, but take it easy, yeah?" I asked. "Non-stop work and stress is bad for you, and it wears you down, which has a tendency to catch up with you at the worst times. So just take it easy, okay?"

"Alright. I'll work on some programming and watch some stuff on the Holonet," She agreed. "What are you doing?"

"Practicing my clairvoyance and-"

"Your… what?" Calima asked, still sitting at the table.

"My… oh, right. We haven't gone over that with you yet.…" I said, rubbing my forehead. "So-

"He's a space wizard!" Miru shouted, cutting off Nal and Tatnia, probably from saying the same thing.

"He's… a what?"

"A space wizard!"

"... Come with me, Calima, I can show you down in the cargo bay," I said with a long sigh. "Would have been nice to ease you into it, but no helping it now."

Still looking confused, Calima stood up slowly, following down to the cargo bay.

-------------------------------

By now, I was an old hand at explaining how my magic worked, what it was, and what kind of stuff I could do. So far, everyone accepted the explanation that it was something from my homeworld, or at least one of those strange mysteries you sometimes hear about when traveling around the galaxy. After a fifteen-minute show for Calima, she went back upstairs, looking a little shell-shocked but not enough to consider leaving us or anything that drastic.

Over the next four hours, I worked on my clairvoyance more, stretching it out as much as I could. About two hours in, I finally achieved one of the first levels of clairvoyance mastery, or at least expertise, the ability to locate objects similar to one you had already identified. Its range was small, I could barely locate a second bolt on the other side of the ship while holding an almost exact copy in my hand, but that was already useful. Or rather, I'm sure it would be, especially as the range had already expanded past the length of the ship by the end of the third hour. This was just the first step in mastering the clairvoyance spell with the next stage, the one I was really looking to learn, finding objects I had seen in detailed images, sketches, or magical reproductions. Once I could do that, I would probably stop spending so much time with the locating spell, as I really didn't care about the even further higher levels of mastery.

When we finally landed on Daalang, I negotiated with the owner of the landing pad to supply us with fuel, which he promised would arrive by the end of the day. We didn't technically need a refill, at least according to Calima, but I would prefer to keep the reactors topped off. Miru and Nal managed to find a scrap yard that would buy the two intact vultures for five thousand credits each, not bad considering how little I originally "paid" for them. At the prompting of Miru, we also negotiated with the yard owner for two used shield generator units in exchange. He eagerly agreed, and after trading a few pictures back and forth, Miru agreed the ones we settled on were good quality. In the end, a hauler came by about four hours after we agreed to the deal, dropping off two higher-end starfighter shield generators and taking the vultures, as well as two thousand extra credits.

"These are perfect Boss, they should fit nicely in the raindrops," Miru said as the labor bots, directed by Racer, carried the units onto the cargo lift. "I'm gonna add in some of the spare vulture power cells as well to help keep the shields running without affecting the speed or how long it can run without using fuel."

"That's not gonna slow it down?" I asked as she stepped onto the cargo lift with the droids and parts.

"Nope, on top of the rocket mounts and the dorsal wing, I also removed some of its paneling since it was just going to be covered by more paneling," She explained. "With all the changes done, it should be just about the same weight, maybe just a tad heavier."

I let the young mechanic go, she was clearly eager to get started prepping everything for the final modifications to the raindrops. She hadn't expected to get the shields this quickly, but she was thankful I was still prioritizing what she wanted.

It was hard not to after seeing what the tri-fighters had done on Itander.

By the time everything was loaded and offloaded, and our fuel was delivered, it was already starting to get late. I spent the downtime looking through the inventories of several ship brokers, trying to find the best fit for what we were looking for. I quickly found that Tatnia had been nearly a hundred percent correct, most of what I found in our price range and our required size were no name boxes with very little originality.

"How did you know there would be so many like this?" I asked him, tilting my data pad toward her.

"Because hundreds of planets and species make their own shuttles," She explained with a shrug. "There's no hyperdrive and no reason for showing off when your only goal is to go from planetside to a waiting ship."

"Right. Sounds like I should definitely bring one of you guys to tell me if it's junk or not…."

I eventually found two locations not far from us, each one having a couple of shuttles that would fit what we were looking for. Unfortunately, with how late it had gotten, I decided that going out to find it could wait until the following day.

When Tatnia and I finally did get up and head out early the following day, we ended up taking a taxi in the hope that we would find a shuttle that we liked and would fly it back to the landing pad. We arrived at the first shipyard but immediately realized that there was nothing we were interested in. The two shuttles that had caught my eye were much older than the images let on, having been sitting in the lot for years. There was significant corrosion in their engines caused by the high PH level storms that occasionally plagued the rainy season on Daalang. The salesperson tried to get us to buy a new model that had just come in, one that more or less matched what we needed but that he was asking way too much for. We left frustrated but hopeful that the next place would have what we were looking for.

When we arrived at the second location, we were immediately more hopeful about the quality of the vehicles, as the salesperson had to actually pull a tarp off them with the help of a hovering droid. We had just stepped into the back end of the second shuttle when my comm suddenly lit up.

"Boss! Come in!" Miru shouted frantically through the device. "C'mon, c'mon!"

"Miru? What is it?" I asked, as I pulled my comm out and brought it up to my mouth. "What-"

"Racer just detected a massive alert over the police frequency," She said, cutting me off. "The entire city quarters security force just got orders to head directly for you, with orders to capture two dangerous criminals matching your descriptions!"

Chapter Text

"What?" I asked, looking around with a confused expression. "Are you sure they are coming for us?"

"Yes! They have rough images of you two and your descriptions!" Miru said, nearly shouting now. "You need to get out of there!"

Tatnia, who had leaned in to listen when I had started looking around, now looked back at me with wide eyes. She turned to the sale’s person, who was waiting close by.

“Are these shuttles fueled?” She asked, pulling out her blaster and repeating her question louder. “Are these shuttles fueled?”

“N-n-no!” They managed to stutter out. “Th-th-they don’t even have power cores! It's to stop them from being stolen!”

"God dammit, we need to move!" She said, grabbing my arm and getting me going, both of us running out of the planetside shipyard.

The shipbroker shouted after us, cursing when we all but kicked out his front door and ran into the streets.

"What about you guys? Any trouble near you?" I asked, quickly matching Tatnia's speed, jogging behind her as she picked a direction and quickly set off.

"We are fine, there's no movement near us," She explained. "Racer is keeping an eye on it, but so far, not a single eye is looking our way."

"That's good, that might mean they haven't connected us to the ship," I said, looking around, expecting cops to pop out from behind every corner and speeder parked around us. "How long do we have?"

"A minute maybe, probably less," She responded. "You really need to get out of there!"

Tatnia, hearing our time limit, gave a quick look over her shoulder and brazenly stepped into the open area in front of the shipyard, a land speeder whining to a stop, its repulsors straining to slow down the vehicle and keep from hitting her.

The speeder, a simple engine in the back, seating area in front design that was common for land speeders, came to a stop just inches from touching her. Without pausing, she pulled her blaster pistol out and aimed it at the person driving, the Gran driver raising his hands up and talking harshly in a language I didn't understand. Tatnia, on the other hand, spoke right back to him, albeit only a few words, as she climbed into the speeder, the driver shifting over to let Tatnia drive while I sat in the back.

"Miru, I'm hanging up so I can focus on what's going on here," I said. "Stay on the ship, Racer can keep track of what's going on. We don't want them connecting us to the ship if we can help it!"

"Alright, Boss… Good luck," The younger Twi'lek responded, sounding anxious and scared.

As Tatnia gunned the speeder forward, the Gran screamed and shouted until Tatnia shot him in the chest, the familiar stunning blast making him slump down in the passenger seat.

"What are we doing, boss?" Tatnia asked, looking over her shoulder at me as she drove at slightly dangerous speeds considering how small the road where we were driving was.

"The fact that nobody is going after the ship means they haven't linked it to us," I pointed out. "Otherwise, they would have gone after that first. I have no idea why they are coming after us now, but the second we make a beeline toward the Chariot, we lose that advantage."

"So… we go to ground?" She suggested, and I nodded in agreement. "We-"

A blaster bolt slapped into the back of the speeder, scoring the plating and making a worrying sound as it whizzed away. I turned back to fire at whoever was shooting at us, only to see someone who very was clearly not a police officer with a blaster rifle pointed at us. I pulled my pistol and took a few snapshots at them, knowing I had no chance of hitting them but hoping to make them duck.

I managed to take a chunk of ferrocrete from the corner of their cover, causing them to sink down behind it. Tatnia took advantage of their distraction to gun it, the speeder picking up more speed as we escaped.

"What in the hell was that? Not even gonna try and ask us to surrender?" Tatnia asked angrily, our speed increasing again. "They are going straight to killing?"

"That wasn't a security officer," I answered, shouting over the wind from the open seat speeder. "Maybe a bounty hunter? Wasn't wearing a uniform, at least."

"Really? Fuck, that means it's probably the Hutts!" Tatnia responded. "We need to get off this planet!"

We continued to move as fast as we could, only slowing for a moment to dump our passenger on the sidewalk. Tatnia had hoped having them on board would give us some cover, but now it was too dangerous. For a few minutes, there was no sign of any more people coming after us, though we could hear the police back the way we came. Speeders flew through the air, scanning the streets, but for a while, we managed to escape notice.

Then another bounty hunter, or whoever was chasing us, tried to disable our ride again, the blaster fire immediately attracting the attention of the police. They zoned in on us in seconds, several speeders dropping in behind us.

"Fuck, we need to move!" I said, turning back and firing my pistol at the chasing police, trying my best to disable their speeders without actually killing anyone.

Tatnia didn't respond, only gripped the steering system harder, the land speeder accelerating again, pulling out from the police, who by now were stacked up a half dozen deep, all with sirens and loudspeakers, shouting at us to stop. In desperation, I charged up a shot, my pistol heating up as I dumped in the remainder of the energy cell into the capacitor, taking aim before firing. My pistol kicked back, and a thick, snarling bolt of red, almost orange energy fired from the muzzle and slapped into the lead security speeder, just below the cockpit. Smoke poured from the hole, and the nose of the speeder dipped, colliding with the ground with enough force to carve a furrow as it dragged along.

Unfortunately for the speeder occupants, momentum is a cold bitch, and the back end of the speeder flipped up and over, the speeder smashing into the ground. If that wasn't bad enough, instead of the slow, gradual decrease of speed I was hoping for, slamming into the ground stopped it almost on the spot. This meant that three of the following speeders smashed into it, piling up in the road and sealing it up as they failed to dodge the wreck.

"Fuck... there goes any hope of negotiating," I said, changing my pistol's energy cell quickly. "Tatnia we-"

I didn't get to finish my sentence as I turned to see something big being pushed into the road, blocking our path. Tatnia swerved as best she could, trying to dodge around it, but it wasn't enough. We slammed into the side of what I think was some sort of dumpster, the impact throwing us around inside the speeder, our inertial dampeners barely holding us inside the vehicle. The speeder itself crushed the dumpster, spinning around a quarter turn before the power cells failed and the repulsors all cut out simultaneously. The speeder dropped to the ground and continued on, bleeding momentum as it skidded along the ground, throwing up sparks. When we finally came to a stop, slamming into the corner of another building, the inertial dampeners were fully off, so both of us were thrown free of the vehicle.

I groaned, looking up at the sky for a long moment, having come to rest on my back. I immediately charged and cast a double-handed fast heal on myself, the healing energy coursing through my body, healing bruises, scrapes, and tears instantly. The second double casting cleared up the concussion, and I climbed to my feet, heading directly to Tatnia, who was slowly standing as well.

"Hey, come on, we need to keep moving," I said, helping her stand and emptying my mana into healing hands as I did.

She groaned and nodded, limping and leaning heavily on me as we made a beeline for a nearby alleyway. I kept healing her when my mana was full, the bruised and battered woman slowly standing up straighter. A walk turned into a jog when we heard people shouting behind us, talking about how we had cut into the alley. Soon that jog turned into a run, my healing hand's spell doing its job.

"Fuck I hope this isn't a dead end," I cursed under my breath, desperately running away from the chasing bounty hunters.

I was half tempted to turn around and fight, but any action would attract the attention of the security forces again. We needed to keep moving and hide, or I would have to kill a lot more people to escape.

After about thirty seconds of running deeper into the alleyway, the voices were getting closer and closer. I had just about resigned myself to a fight when a door opened, and an older, white-haired, hunched-over woman stepped out.

"Over here, quickly!" She said, motioning for us to rush inside the doorway.

I made a snap decision, turning at the last second and running into the room, skidding to a stop in the dark interior. I could hear Tatnia run in after me, and the old woman close the door after her. I turned to the woman, only to watch her cringe and step back, barely visible in the low light.

"I'm sorry! They made me!" she said, cowering back.

I turned back to see two armed men step out of a dark archway that I had assumed led further into the older woman's home. Both of them had their weapons drawn and aimed at Tatnia and me.

Before I could even say anything or start to charge a spell, the blue light of two stun blasts screamed across the room, slamming into us, the dark and shadowed interior disappearing into pure black.

------------------

I could feel the low hum of a hyperdrive, the floor transferring the familiar vibrations to me. I could also feel a deep ache from most of my muscles, as well as a full-brain headache.

"Note to self… being stunned sucks… almost as much as getting shot," I groaned out, slowly putting together what had happened.

As consciousness returned to me, I slowly got a better sense of my surroundings. I was face down on a metal floor, my face pressed against the cold, probably not very clean surface. While my hands were stuck in a familiar pair of cuffs, I could feel something heavy on my neck. With a groan, I rolled over, my shoulder bumping into someone.

"Tatnia?" I asked, looking over at one of my first teammates. "Are you awake yet?"

"Yeah." She responded, clearly dealing with her own pain. "Boss, what's around my neck?"

I looked over at her, studying the tight, metallic collar she had around her neck. There wasn't much to it save a few greebles and red light that slowly blinked. I let out a long sigh.

"It's a collar. My paranoia says a slave collar of some type." I said, laying back on the floor. "Same as mine?"

I could hear her shift before she let out a grunt of confirmation.

We were silent for a few minutes before I rolled over onto my stomach again, using my body as cover to cast a fast heal spell on myself. Feeling much better, the aches and pains gone, I offered my hand to Tatnia, who, after a second, took it, letting me help her stand. When she was up, I stepped closer, like I was giving her an armless hug, hiding a five-second bout of healing hands to help with her aches.

"Thanks," She said simply. "I don't like how familiar this is."

"Yeah… me either,"

A quick session of taking stock found that we were in pretty good condition, though both of us had been stripped down to our basic clothes. I groaned when I realized they had taken all my stuff and that I would likely never see any of it again.

"Dammit, I really liked that one, too," I said, sitting down on the small bench that ran along the back wall.

"What, your blaster?"

"No, my jacket," I said, shaking my head. "I was just starting to lay the foundations for my look."

Tatnia let out a long-suffering sigh while I couldn't help but smirk. Before I could continue my joke, the only door in the solid metal cell opened with the sound of a firing and sealing piston. A worn, scared, beat-up human man stepped in, leaning on the door jam.

"Aww, you're awake already. Wanted to kick you up myself," He said with a cruel smirk. "I'm surprised you're moving around."

"Sorry to disappoint you," I responded. "Would you mind telling me what's going on?"

"What's going on?" He asked, shaking his head with a laugh. "You pissed off Jabba the Hutt, that's what's going on!"

"Wait… Jabba?" I asked, suddenly confused. "How did we piss off Jabba? We were worried about pissing off the Hutts of Nar Shaddaa, not the sandworm."

"You… you don't even know…You attacked his smuggling operation three times, and you have no idea it was his?" He asked, his eyes going wide. "I would suggest you take that to your grave, I can't imagine him learning that he lost so much on chance would go over very well."

It took me a moment to figure out what the human was talking about, but eventually, it clicked. If you counted our original break out, we attacked the slave smuggling operation three times.

"Jabba was the one running that slave smuggling operation?" I asked, genuinely surprised. "Why?"

"He was until your attacks caught the attention of the Enforcers. You cost Jabba an entire operation!" He said, stopping to laugh again, leaning heavily on the cell door frame. "You're lucky his obsession with Solo gets more insane every day, or he would have taken a more personal interest in you."

"So we are on our way to Tatooine then?" I asked. "I sunburn easily, so I would prefer someplace less sunny if you don't mind."

"Well, that's good then, because you two are headed to Magravia. Jabba wants you to waste away in the spice mines," He explained with a shrug, seemingly frustrated that we weren't panicking or groveling. "I would have just killed you, but he is big on ironic punishments. Attack a slave operation, get made into slaves."

When neither of us reacted to his declaration, he sneered, clearly wanting to get a rise out of us and frustrated we weren't reacting how he wanted. Suddenly, Tatnia stood, ready to charge the human, when he moved his hand. Immediately she crumpled to the ground, barely making it a few feet from the bench. The human laughed, pulling his hand from his pocket to reveal that he was holding some sort of device, probably a control unit for our collars.

"Ooo, almost! Anyway, I just came to gloat and thank you for the big stack of credits I'm going to get in my account when I drop you off."

"Wai-"

Before I could say anything, he tapped something on his control unit, and like a light switch, consciousness left me.

Chapter Text

When I next woke up, it was to the unfortunate sensation of someone kicking me in the side. The deep, full-body ache that I felt from being initially stunned in that old woman's house wasn't present, which I idly noted in the back of my mind probably meant that what our jailer used to knock us out again had been something different.

"Looks like I timed it better this time," The familiar, cruel voice of the taunting human said from above me. "Get up, we are here."

As I started to stand, our jailor kicked my hand out from under me, knocking me to the ground again, stepping away quickly with a chuckle. When I finally looked up enough to even think about retaliating, he was already by the door, the control unit in his hand. I bit back a curse, realizing I had just missed a solid opportunity to attack him silently.

"It's time for you to go and time for me to get paid," He said. "And before you start complaining, if I have to knock you out and drag you myself, I will, but you're going to be really sore by the time I'm done."

I gave Tatnia a look, and together we followed the bounty hunter off of his ship, the bounty hunter staying about three or four meters away at all times. As we were led out, we passed by four other bounty hunters, each of them watching us closely and thumbing their own collar control units.

As we stepped down onto the landing pad, we both immediately recoiled at the stench of the planet. It was acrid, the air sharp enough to burn my nose. I resisted the urge to cough because it would only make it worse, but my lungs still burned.

Seeing our reaction, the human bounty hunter laughed, already pulling on a breathing mask. I cursed under my breath, lifting up my shirt to breathe through and mentally chanting that whatever damage the air was doing to our lungs, I could reverse with a healing spell.

As we stood on the landing pad, suffering and waiting, I got a good look at the surroundings. In the distance, I could see massive smoke stacks by the hundreds, pumping out green-brown fumes into the air. Whatever was making that green smoke was making a lot of it because the color hung in the air, tainting it. There was no wildlife that I could see. The grey-scale colored ground was rocky, sandy, and dry. This planet was dead, and we were about to be stranded there.

I turned my head to look behind us, spotting the four other bounty hunters, weapons drawn and ready to stop us if we tried anything. I mentally cursed as our chances to escape before we got stuck here continued to shrink.

As the pain in my lungs started to become unbearable, a speeder pulled up to the landing pad. It was boxy with a rough, heavily salvaged and repaired look and had a clearly after-market box built in the backspace, enough for four or five people. A red-faced humanoid, whose species I didn't recognize, stepped out, already wearing a mask.

"Why aren't they wearing masks?!" He demanded, looking at the bounty hunter harshly. "They are useless if they can't karking breathe! You two, get into the back of the speeder, now!"

Tatnia followed me as I climbed into the speeder, desperate to get out of the hazardous environment. The door sealed shut behind us with a hiss, and I quickly cast fast heal on myself, the burning in my lungs vanishing after the second cast. I cast healing hands on Tatnia, her breathing evening out as I did. She nodded in appreciation, and we both examined the interior of the speeder. The box we were in was clearly designed to hold people who didn't want to be transported, like slaves or prisoners, and was separated from the front by a metal barrier and a small metal grate.

While the barrier between us and the driver was well built, there was hardly any reinforcement built into the exterior walls, which I could only assume was because only an idiot would try and bust out into the surface of a planet that was so clearly deadly. Because of that, we could see the driver yelling at the bounty hunter, who clearly didn't care. He held out the control unit, prompting the driver to pull out his own more intricate-looking model and press them together. After a moment, the driver put away his control unit, pulled out a com, and spent a minute talking to someone before turning away and walking back to the speeder without another word.

He climbed in and slammed the door shut behind him, taking off his mask and putting it down on the seat next to him. Any hope that his earlier anger was out of some kind of empathy for our health was immediately smashed to bits as he finally spoke.

"Alright, listen up! I'm only going to give this explanation once. I'm the foreman in charge of mine 'D,' branch 'U,' where you two will be working from now on. You two are worth nothing but the spice you bring up. If you bring up spice, you eat. If you don't, I kill you and throw you out of the dome myself. Understood?"

"It seems simple enough," I responded. "My name-"

"I don't give a karking firebird shit who you are. Your designation is D-U-4353, and your friend's is D-U-2953," He responded, not even looking back at us. "Whoever you were before this is dead. Welcome to your afterlife."

He refused to say anything after that, ignoring any attempts by myself or Tatnia to engage him. I briefly considered trying to cast calm on him to make him more pliable, but the spell's effects didn't last nearly long enough for me to be useful, and even if it did, I had no idea what we would do next. As horrible as it was, we needed more information.

With negotiation turning out to be a bust, we settled in, watching the barren gray landscape move by. We had only been traveling for a few minutes when we stopped at a small building, a checkpoint. A quick look up, and I could see that it was stuck in the wall of a massive bubble.

"A shield of some kind?" I asked, nudging Tatnia and pointing up. "Probably to keep breathable air in."

"You're smarter than you look." Our driver said. "The air inside is breathable. The air outside isn't. Remember that if those smarts tell you that you could try and escape."

We passed through the checkpoint, crossing a blue mag field to enter. The air here was much cleaner, lacking the green tinge that was poisoning the atmosphere. From there, we only had to wait a minute, the driver pulling up to a massive ferrocrete facility. A garage door along one side opened up, and the self-proclaimed foreman drove us inside. Seconds after we crossed the threshold, both Tatnia's collar and my own let out a beep. When the driver stopped, having parked in the corner of the garage, he turned to look at us for the first time since we first saw him.

"You heard that beep? That is your collars entering the control field of this facility. You leave that field, and you die. You attack me, you die. You attack your fellow workers, and you die. You attempt to sabotage equipment, and you die. The only thing that does not end with your death is mining for mediari, the component of spice we are after. Understood?"

"Understood," I responded.

I knew this game, even if the addition of "you die" was new.

"Good. Now get out."

We turned to the speeder door and saw that an armed and armored Aquilish guard was standing outside the speeder, waiting for us. He already looked annoyed. I stepped out first, and before Tatnia could climb out of the speeder, I got a stomach full of fist for my efforts. The large tusked and hairy guard let out a low, wet rumble that I could only guess was laughter. Tatnia climbed out quickly, starting to step menacingly toward the guard, but I stood quickly and stopped her.

"That's just what he wants," I said.

The guard led us through the building, undoing our wrist restraints and passing us off to dark green-skinned Rodian as we entered the interior open space of the large ferrocrete structure. There, in a massive courtyard, was the mine, a huge hole in the ground, lined with a single metal walkway leading downwards into the poorly lit hole. In the center enormous crane system, built into the ferrocrete structure around the courtyard, slowly lowered a large platform into the hole.

We stopped there for a moment, the guard pulling open a cabinet and passing both of us heavily used filtration masks. They covered our entire faces, and while they were ancient, patched up, and a mismatch of different color parts, they seemed functional. We both quickly put them on, and before we could do anything, the guard shoved me forward after a few seconds. I didn't understand his words, but it wasn't difficult to understand his actions.

The descent into the massive mine was disconcerting. The sky was slowly swallowed up by the slowly shrinking mouth of the mine shaft. It was hard to tell just how deep we went, the carved walls and metal walkway so nondescript that you quickly lost track of any identifying features.

The only real features were the offshoot shafts, marked by a place for the crane platform to connect to and a flat space for people to load crago onto the platform. The first three were empty and devoid of activity, while the fourth one and down had a few people working and two guards standing by. On the fifth offshoot, dozens of people worked to push sealed crates onto the same platform that had passed us going down. I also spotted five more guards, all armed and armored.

At the seventh offshoot, this one marked with a large usk symbol, the Rodian guard stopped, said a few words to a male Twi'lek guard, and immediately headed back upstairs. The Twi'lek turned and shouted at one of the workers, an older human man covered in dirt and scars. He walked toward us and listened to the guard for a few seconds before turning to face us.

"You speak Basic?" He asked.

"Yes, we both do."

"Good. Cisoc wants me to lead you to the end of the tunnel," He said simply, nodding back into the offshoot. "Let's go."

"What's your name?" I asked as he led us into the tunnel, the already low light level dropping even more.

"What's yours?" He asked back, looking over his shoulder.

"Deacon."

"And your friend?"

I turned to look at Tatnia and shrugged, getting an eye roll in response.

"Tatnia."

"Right. You can call me Fareff." He responded, though really clearly not caring.

"Why did Cisoc ask you to lead us down here?" I asked.

"Because he is lazy," He responded. "And as a reward for good behavior. I get a break from lifting, and he doesn't have to walk all the way down here."

Fareff continued to lead us down into the offshoot mine, which had started to dip downward as well. Along the walls of the tunnel, I could see evidence of miners chasing deposits of what I assume was spice, some spots marked with light drilling, others gouged several feet in. After about five minutes, we could hear the sounds of equipment and working ahead. It was also getting dustier, the air getting harder to see through. I tugged at my mask to make sure it was secure.

When we finally reached the end of the mine, Fareff stopped, giving Tatnia and I the chance to look around. The mine was at least ten meters tall and fifteen wide, the same as the poorly lit tunnel leading to it. It was clear they had been mining in this spot for some time, having carved out a wide tunnel with three vague walls, each lined with multiple platforms, scaffolding set up to let the miners dig and carve out the solidified spice, or at least this particular type of spices main component from the walls. The whole room was lined with lights to the point that it was almost too bright.

I could see the foreman nearby, the man who had picked us up, standing near one of the portable light towers that lit everything up. He had a small work area set up, including a stool he was sitting on, watching the three or four dozen miners as they worked. A few feet away was some sort of hover platform with simple controls and a small seat, no doubt what he had used to get her so much faster than us. Fareff headed straight for him, leading us to where he was keeping watch, two guards standing with him. The fact that we were about to be handed off to the same person who had brought us in finally broke my resistance.

"Hey, do you have a twin? Because I swear-"

My mouth was starting to sass before I even realized it, my frustration making my control slip. The foreman must have seen it coming, though, because he reached out to a table at his workspace and tapped something. I didn't even have time to do anything before Tatnia dropped to her knees, her mouth open in a silent scream, her body convulsing. It continued for a full three seconds before the red-skinned humanoid stopped, pulling his finger off the button.

"I've worked in this mine for thirty years, prisoner," He said, spitting something onto the floor between us. "I've seen it all, I know your type. I know you're the type to get over pain quickly. You're not a special prisoner. Get over yourself, or your friend here is going to pay for it."

I wordlessly helped Tatnia to her feet, her legs shaking slightly as she stood. She grabbed my arm tightly and squeezed, shaking her head when I looked at her. The foreman's hand moved over to the table again, finger hovering over the button.

"And now you say 'Yes, Sir,'" He said, staring me down.

"...Yes, sir," I responded, clenching my fist as he smirked.

"Good. Smarter than you look," He responded, moving his hand away from the table.

I could feel Tatnia slowly unclenching.

The foreman spent five minutes explaining how the process worked, leading us to the closest worker, a male Tartuga, who was dressed in a bright orange prison uniform. He was using a large, handheld device to break up the stone, the machine firing waves of some sort of pressure or compressive force. After a moment, cracks and fissures slowly started to form in the rock wherever he focused the grinder. He then gently put down the large piece of equipment, grabbed a hammer and a small pick, and started breaking apart the stone. Occasionally he pulled out a chunk of dark maroon material, which he carefully stored in a satchel on his left hip.

"Use the resonance grinder to soften the stone, then use your tools to break it up further," The foreman explained. "Do not overuse the resonance grinder, it will reduce the mediari stone, the spice component, to powder. Do not aim the grinder at anyone, you'll be forced to clean up the mess, and then I will kill you. You share the resonance grinder with whoever else is on your platform."

Before I could ask any questions, a pair of tools and a satchel were placed in my hands, and a second set handed to Tatnia. Without another word, the foreman turned and walked away, leaving us on our own. Tatnia and I shared a look, silent for a few moments.

"You best get to work," Our platform buddy said, not looking away from his spot. "Your quota might be smaller today, but if you don't hit it, they won't feed you."

I let out a curse and put my tools down, bending over to pick up the resonance grinder, hefting the large machine, and looking at Tatnia. I wasn't exactly happy about it, but for now, it was time to get to work.

Chapter Text

The process of mining out the spice veins was simple but grueling. According to Azyter, the Togruta working on the same platform, this was the process's first step. We would mine into the stone, following the lines of mediari until they ran out. When a layer is clear, they come in with large machines and carve forward, pushing deeper into the spice vein. We would have to load up the crushed rock, as well as any carvings we pull free now. He gestured down to the piles of rock already forming at the bottom of the cave underneath us. We had managed to arrive just after the last major carving, meaning we had a few days of easier work ahead of us.

With a look and a nod, Tatnia and I both agreed that, for now, it was better to play along. The stunning effect, pain inducer, and whatever other surprises these collars had were too big of a problem to attack half-cocked. I wasn't about to try and shock them off me without knowing if they had a bomb in them. The foreman had intimated that leaving the field would kill us, but I needed to confirm how before we did anything risky.

With only a few grumbles of sworn revenge, I started carving into the rock, softening and breaking it up with the resonance grinder, before passing it to Tatnia, who started doing the same. While she worked, I pulled out my hammer and chisel and started to slowly pull out chunks of stone, stopping when I spotted a hunk of dark maroon material. I gingerly reached for it, not wanting to break it if it turned out to be fragile. I managed to get it out, hefting the dense chunk of stone about the size of a deck of cards. After a few seconds of examining it, I put it into my satchel and started hunting for the next piece.

After the first hour passed, and after weighing and dumping our satchels into one of the large mine carts full, I started to notice that my fingers were stinging, slowly becoming too much to ignorable. Seeing me study them, Azyter once again chimed in.

"It's the spice," He explained, looking back to his work, never really stopping. "Its powder is caustic when it mixes with your sweat."

"How badly?" I asked, resisting the urge to wipe my hand off my clothes.

"It's slow, but you'll have blisters tonight," He answered, pulling out a sizable chunk of mediari stone and putting it into his satchel without really even looking at it. "They spray us down with a neutralizing agent when our shift is over."

"Right. Thanks." I responded, shaking my head in frustration, noticing that Tatnia was suffering just as much as I was.

The forced labor continued for another two hours before a guard came into the active mining area, pushing a hovercraft laden with a large liquid-filled tank. One by one, the foreman called us down to the hover cart, where a guard would use a hose to spray water into our mouths. The water had something in it, giving it a light blue tinge that made me very nervous, but I focused on the fact that they wouldn't kill off their workforce while there was still work to be done. I drank my fill, lifting up my mask, which after several hours of hauling, carving, and digging was a lot, before heading back up to the platform.

"That's not just water," I asked Azyter once he returned. "Any idea what it is?"

"Naturalizer." He answered. "It's impossible to keep the mediari from spreading, so the neutralizer keeps it from burning your insides."

My eyes went wide at that statement, and I shivered. Tatnia was next to get a drink, and she returned quickly, and we got back to work.

Eventually, after another four or five hours, they called us down for another drink, this time by the entrance into the mine, our shift apparently over. Tatnia and I stuck close together, both of us dragging the same cart full of mediari stone behind us as we were led back out of the mine, armed guards keeping a close eye on us, most of them thumbing familiar control units. Our carts were dropped off by the flattened loading area, and we were led up the long, slowly circling staircase to the top of the mine.

Once at the top, our masks were gathered, and we were herded into a massive cleaning room, where we were sprayed from head to toe with a blue foamy neutralizing agent. Once we had been thoroughly neutralized, we were forced into another room, where we were sprayed down with blue-tinted water, washing the foam away and down the drain.

I was hoping we would at least get a big fan to dry off in front of, but instead, they simply led us to our "barracks," soaking wet and miserable. As we stepped into what was essentially our prison away from the mine, a guard handed out a thick bar sealed inside some sort of plastic. It took me a bit to realize it was supposed to be food. Once we were inside, they locked the doors behind us, leaving us to our own devices.

"So do we order room service or…" I said, Tatnia giving me a look that told me to shut the hell up. "Right, sorry. Need to keep the sass to a minimum."

"... At least where they can hear," She said, looking around. "I don't want to go through that again unless it's really necessary."

"Yeah, I won't do that again," I assured her, doing my best to study our new temporary home.

The "barracks" were simple, a singular, large open room with a few tables in the center and three floors of cells around the central space. Everything was either metal or duracrete, a pattern that continued into the individual rooms. I peeked around a corner to see a room with four bunks, two on each side, with the far wall just a solid blank wall. All four of the beds had people in them, one of them giving me a nasty look as I peered inside. I stepped away to avoid pissing anyone, turning back to find most people already heading towards their rooms.

"They've pretty much already given up… haven't they?" I asked in a low tone, Tatnia nodding.

"Not a whole lot of options for people without your skills," She said. "Not sure I would be able to hold out hope without them, not even if I knew the rest of the crew was looking for us…. They are looking for us, right?"

"Nal and Miru wouldn't just call us a loss like that," I responded confidently, stepping forward to try and find a room for us. "I don't know the chances of them actually being able to find us… but it's not zero."

"Yeah…" She said, at least partially reassured. "Soo… what's the plan?"

"The plan… is we wait," I said, looking into the next room only to find it also full.

Azyter, one of its occupants, shrugged when he noticed us looking in.

"That's it? Boss…"

"Tatnia, relax. We know nothing about this place, how these collars work, the shifts, the guards," I explained, cursing under my breath as I realized the first floor was likely full, turning and heading for the stairs. "Are we being recorded? Are there people listening in…"

Tatnia's eyes went a little wide as she looked around, spotting the same security cameras I had earlier. She cursed under her breath as well, following me up the stairs to the second floor. A quick walk around the rooms' second story showed that they two were taken or had one space free. Clearly, there had been people already here when we arrived, though it took me a while to notice.

When we got to the third floor, half of the rooms were sealed shut, and all the rest were mostly filled. We finally found a room that was empty, the absolute furthest point from the entrance to the "barracks." I claimed one of the bunks, sitting down on the edge and studying the ration the guard had handed us.

"So… the first step is finding out if they are listening in on us?" Tatnia asked softly as she sat next to me. "Or watching."

"Mhmm," I said. "We can ask around tomorrow. Until then… Don't panic, and keep our eyes open."

"And if they are listening right now?"

"Then we are probably up for a beating or another round with that pain inducer," I responded with a wince. "Sorry."

"It's not your fault," She assured me, cracking open her rations and quickly eating whatever nutrient and protein-rich block was sealed inside. I idly noticed mine tasted like slightly off beef but felt a very dense cake in my mouth. It wasn't quite too revolting to eat, but it was very much straddling that line.

We both ate quickly, barely tasting the awful rations. It had been way too long since we ate, and we were both feeling the effects. When we were done, Tatnia stood and stretched before crawling into the bunk across from me. I rolled back onto my bed, closing my eyes and trying to get some sleep.

After the long day we had, it wasn't surprising that it only took a few minutes for us to pass out.

------------------

I was up, standing, tense, and ready for a fight before I was even fully awake. My heart was racing, and while my mind was struggling to catch up, my fight or flight was screaming at me. What my brain did comprehend was the guttural snarl that woke me, sounding like an angry, lashing-out wolf.

When my bleary eyes cleared, I saw a canine-like alien, a female Shistavanen, standing in the room. Surprisingly, she was facing away from us, standing over a grubby-looking human man.

"Alright! I'm sorry, I'm leaving!" He said, sliding further out of the room, looking up at the wolven-like woman in fear.

I looked over at Tatnia, who seemed to be equally as shocked but not nearly as confused. Instead, she looked angry.

"Tatnia?" I asked wordlessly.

"He was sneaking into the room," She said, barely controlling her anger, disgust, and not a small amount of fear hidden below it. "...coming towards my bed when she came in."

"Oh fuck that," I said, following the Shistavanen out of the room.

She had stopped right outside the door, the creep starting to pull himself up with the railing, obviously feeling a bit more confident since she hadn't attacked him yet. I completely ignored what he was saying and wound up punching him directly in the forehead. He cursed and fell back to the ground, holding his head, only to shout when I grabbed his orange jumpsuit, dragging him back to his feet.

"You fucking degenerate piece of shit," I shouted, getting right up in his face. "What the fuck do you think you're doing? Did you think the fresh meat would be an easy target? Tell me why I shouldn't knock out every single last tooth you have and make you eat them?"

"Y-you can't!" He said, eyes wide, trying desperately to pull free of my grip. "The guards-"

"You don't need teeth to mine spice!" I pointed out, shoving him back against the railing, his top half leaning slightly over the edge. "Try again!"

"I-I-I have friends! They will-"

"I don't care if you are butt buddies with the fucking EMPEROR!" I screamed, my voice echoing through the prison, people looking up to see what was happening. "If I catch you sniffing around my crew again, trying to get your rocks off, I will ship your ass to him in a five-gallon bucket!"

I dragged him off the railing and threw him down the walkway, the near sobbing man falling, stumbling before finally half crawling, half running away. I follow behind him, kicking his ass, causing him to fall on his face a few more times. Eventually, when we got close to the stairs, I stopped and watched him flee, casting an angry look around me at our audience, resisting the urge to do anything more long-lasting. Counter to what I said, I was pretty sure the guards would lay into me if I started to brutalize him.

After a long moment, I turned around to go back inside the cell, walking by the Shistavanen female again. When I step inside, Tatnia is sitting up on the edge of her bed, clearly having been listening to me.

"Good job," She said with a nod. "Showing everyone else that we aren't to be messed with."

I stopped and looked at her, her words taking a minute to work through the anger. I snorted when I finally realized what she meant.

"Yeah, sure, let's go with that," I responded. "Definitely what I was doing."

"You…" She said, trailing off before looking down. "... Thanks, Boss."

"It's my job," I responded, sitting down beside her. "You okay?"

"Yeah, this isn't the first close call, I grew up on the streets, remember?" She said, wincing slightly. "Saying it out loud makes me realize that's not actually reassuring…But I am okay."

I patted her shoulder and gave it a squeeze before standing and turning to the Shistavanen, a hand outstretched.

"Thank you. I assume you were walking by and noticed it happening?"

"I…did," She said, looking down at my hand for a moment like she was surprised to see it before reaching out to shake it. "This is my room."

The hair-covered humanoid was clearly much bigger than me, but her natural posture, slightly crouched and hunched, meant the top of her head was only an inch, maybe two, above mine. Her voice was deep, deeper than you would expect from a woman, but it had a warm, rumbling quality that sounded oddly soothing, at least to my ears. She had a thick, light brown, almost blonde coat with faint brown highlights running around her arms and up the side of her head.

"Sorry, it was empty when we got back," I explained, scratching the back of my head. "It's also one of the only rooms with two empty beds… Unless you already have roommates?"

"No… no other prisoners wanted to stay," She admitted, hesitating for a long moment before finally. "My kind is not often trusted due to our isolationist nature."

"Well… if you don't mind the company…"

"...I do not have an issue with roommates," She admitted with a nod. "The vehement defense of your ally speaks to your character."

"The Boss is a good person," Tatnia explained. "Sometimes too good. That's what me and the crew are for."

"Crew?" The Shistavanen. "Do you have more allies here?"

"No, the rest of our team wasn't picked up when we got captured," I explained, giving Tatnia the stink eye for her last comment.

"Captured?" She asked, continuing when I nodded. "Then you are like me. A slave, nor a prisoner."

"There is a difference?" Tatnia asked, slightly confused.

"This is a prison for criminals, not a slave pit," She explained. "We are simply the exception, most likely due to bribery, in which direction I cannot say."

"That explains the trash sneaking in here," I said, shaking my head. "God, I'm glad Miru isn't here."

"She has been through worse," Tatnia said with a frown.

"That doesn't make it better, she might be seventeen-"

"Sixteen," Tatnia corrected. "She was afraid you wouldn't take her seriously."

"Really? Dammit, we really-"

"Are we getting off-topic?" The Shistavanen asked, looking between Tatnia and myself.

"Yeah, sorry, we are," I said with a smirk. "My name is Deacon, this is Tatnia. The circumstances aren't the best, but it's nice to meet you…?"

"Vaz Stross," She answered with a simple nod.

"It's nice to meet you, Vaz," I repeated with a smile. "Would you mind answering some questions about how things work around here?"

"...I suppose, but not for too long." She said after a moment of thought. "I must sleep before I return to work."

Chapter Text

Tatnia and I spent a few minutes asking Vaz questions, which she answered as best she could. She was patient with us for a while but eventually had enough, climbing onto the bunk above Tatnia and almost instantly falling asleep.

During our talk, our first and probably most important questions revolved around how closely we were being watched. According to Vaz, while the guards were constantly on the lookout while we were "on the clock," the four cameras along the ceiling of the prison were the only places we were being monitored from while back at the "barracks."

"I have never heard of the guards knowing something not seen by their own eyes or by those recorders," She explained. "If they are listening to us as well, through hidden microphones, they have allowed several damaging incidents to occur to keep it a secret. If that were true, then what would be the point of listening in the first place?"

We talked a bit more about the cameras and what kind of incidents she was talking about before Tatnia brought up our collars, specifically if the smaller, individual control units could deactivate a collar and if she knew what else the collars contained.

"The units the guards carry with them?" She had asked before shaking her head. "I do not know. I know they can put one or many to sleep or induce pain to the same degree. I have once seen a collar execution."

"How did that work?"

"There is an explosive charge, enough to decapitate, inside the collar," She explained with a shrug. "I have only seen it once, nor have I heard many tales of it used otherwise. The threat is often enough."

I managed to keep myself from cursing, but only barely. Having explosives in the collar was one of the worst situations possible, as I couldn't risk a sparks spell, not when an overload might set them off. With my worst fears confirmed, Tatnia steered the conversation away from the collars, eventually talking about shifts. The lupine humanoid revealed she normally worked with our group, but the guards sometimes pulled her off to hunt for vermin around the facility.

"It would not be the first time my species has been reduced to vermin killers," She admitted with a shrug. "It is better than being stuck in the mines, even if I am only hunting small, weak prey."

Not long after, Vaz finally decided that she had explained enough, stopping Tatnia's next question with a raised hand and a shake of her head.

"I must sleep if I am to keep up with my quota tomorrow," She explained, turning to climb to the top bunk, stopping and turning back to us. "I am aware in which direction you ask your questions. Be warned, you will be punished if your plans are discovered. You risk death if you enact your plans and they fail."

"We know. The guards don't exactly look forgiving," I responded, shrugging. "We will try not to get you involved. Unless you want to be, of course?"

She looked at me for a long moment, her green, gold-flecked eyes locking on to mine, studying me. Eventually, she rolled her shoulders, a dismissal of my offer, but I got the feeling it wasn't a complete one. She climbed into the top bunk without another word, laying down on the thin foam mattress, facing away from us and towards the wall. After a moment, it was clear she was asleep, or at least pretending well enough that I couldn't tell. After a few moments, I looked at Tatnia and gestured out the door with a nod, my crewmate following without a word.

"Better than I feared," I said as softly as possible once we were outside, not facing the cameras. "But not nearly as good as I had hoped."

"Not sure we could have gotten much better," Tatnia said, shaking her head and leaning on the railing across from the cell door. "Having a free run of the cell will make some things easier."

"Yes, but it's only the beginning," I said, shaking my head. "There are a lot of things we need to know before we can start planning."

"Seems like whether the guard's control units can deactivate a collar would be the most important one."

"My assumption is no," I guessed, idly looking down at the bottom floor of the prison, where a few people were sitting around. "It would be a huge risk for no real reason save a minor convenience."

"The unit that the foreman used seemed different," Tatnia said after a moment. "It was bigger. Had more buttons too."

"That feels slightly more likely," I admitted, though I was still frowning. "But it still seems like a big risk for them. Why have the device to free your prisoners somewhere a riot could access them?"

"Someone has to control them, so there has to be a way to turn them off somewhere," She pointed out before looking down. "How's your hand?"

"Pretty sure I cracked something," I responded, wincing as I opened and closed my fist. "Who knew punching someone in the forehead was such a dumb choice."

"Most people who throw punches do," She responded with a snort.

"Yeah… It will be fine, I'll heal it when I'm in bed."

We were silent for a while, looking around the large room before I stood back and yawned deeply.

"We need to get some sleep," I said, shaking my head. "We spend the next day trying to think of something while we work, and tomorrow we start brainstorming."

"Do…Do we trust Vaz?" She asked. "I know she stopped that creep, but…."

"I get a good vibe from her," I said with a shrug, ignoring Tatnia's eye roll. "Let's give her the benefit of the doubt for now but not give everything away just yet. Trust but verify."

Tatnia nodded, both of us heading back into the room, crawling right back into bed. I rolled to face the wall, lifting up the foam mattress and shoving my hand under it. I chain cast fast heal, the glow barely visible against the wall as the healing energy sank back into my hand, fixing whatever damage I managed to do to it.

When I was done, I rolled over and tried to get comfortable, closing my eyes. Sleep didn't come nearly as quickly as before, but eventually, I managed to fade into a dreamless rest.

The following morning, if it was morning since there was no way for us to tell, we were awoken by a harsh, almost painful buzzing from our collars. Vaz almost seemed to anticipate it, already jumping down from the top bunk and leaving through the door. She seemed to remember we were there as she while leaving. She paused to look back at us as Tatnia, and I climbed out of bed, wincing and visibly straining against the headache-inducing vibrations.

"It is our alarm," She explained. "It will not stop until we have prepared to leave the prison barracks."

We quickly followed behind the Shistavanen, struggling to focus through the "alarm." As we walked down the staircases, I could see that there was already a line forming by the entrance, other prisoners from the same group we had worked with before. Not long after we arrived, the intense vibration stopped, and we were handed our morning ration. Judging by how everyone immediately started opening them and eating their contents, we were on some sort of time limit. Sure enough, after a few minutes, the guards started to herd us out of the prison. They followed us, covering us from all sides, armed both with weapons and control units.

We were herded back down into the mine, walking down the spiral stairway. As we slowly made our way down, I couldn't help but remember how much climbing back up them would suck after our shift. I kept an eye open and on our guard, absorbing as much information about their tactics, temperaments, and reactions as possible.

Before long, we had returned to the still active portion of the mine. This time we followed Vaz, all three of us working on the same platform.

"What happened to not getting me involved?" She asked as she picked up the resonance grinder.

"Would you prefer we go elsewhere?" I asked seriously. "We could leave...."

"...No." She said after a moment of consideration. "The company is nice, I am usually alone on my platform."

I nodded and waited for her to finish using the sci-fi mining tool, taking it from her when she was done and quickly getting to work, not wanting to draw more attention. Almost as important as information gathering was staying under the radar, something that I hadn't been doing well so far but would hopefully get easier now that we had "settled in."

I passed the tool to Tatnia when I was done with it and got to work, hammering out stubborn chunks of stone, separating out the pieces of mediari, and storing them in my pouch. Work was constant and painful, the maroon material slowly burning my fingers, turning them red and causing small blisters to form. I could see Tatnia was suffering as well, and I had to fight the urge to reach out and heal her. Not only would the light of the spell be blatantly obvious to everyone around us, but we would also stand out like a sore thumb if we didn't have any sign of handling the caustic spice component. Healing my hand from punching that creepy fuck was the last bit of healing I could probably do for a while.

At first, Tatnia and I chatted to pass the time, making the early hours pass by quicker. By the time we emptied our pouches several times and got our first drink break, we were already too tired to talk. The temptation to cast respite was even greater than the urge to heal Tatnia or myself. Despite the encroaching exhaustion, we kept chipping away at the wall. Somehow Tatnia and I managed to just barely keep up with Vaz, the clearly physically stronger and fitter Shistavanen easily handling the hard work. All throughout the day, we did our bests to watch our guards, as well as the foreman, trying to spot anything that might be useful.

By the end of the day, after nearly twelve hours of difficult and painful work, Tatnia and I were leaning on each other heavily for support, our bodies not accustomed to the harsh conditions. Even our face shield and filtration masks made things more difficult, the old, worn-down equipment much more difficult to breathe through than it must have been when they were new. The fact that they weren't new and that countless people had used them before us was a fact I had to continually repress.

The after-work process was identical to the previous days, an escorted climb to the surface, a foam shower, and then a rinse. Vaz looked miserable walking out of the rinsing room, and I managed to keep from laughing. She looked like a dog coming out of a bath and reminded me of a family pet from when I was much younger.

When we made it back to our room, rations in hand, I stealthily cast respite on myself, then Tatnia, who looked like she was about to hug me when the stamina and energy-restoring spell settled into her body.

"That… I think that might be addicting," She said, sitting straighter and looking much more alert. "I feel like I don't need to sleep."

"That will fade, like drinking a cup of caf," I explained. "We still need to sleep, or we will crash."

When Vaz joined us, she sat down on the floor, leaning against the wall opposite the entrance, clearly not wanting to climb into bed soaking wet. She silently ate her ration, finishing it quickly. Tatnia and I talked for a while, quietly discussing what we had noticed throughout the day.

"They know what they are doing," Tatnia begrudgingly admitted when I brought up the guards. "They made the usual mistakes people make for these types of jobs, but they clearly learned to work around them."

"They are experienced," Vaz explained. "The mine is profitable, they can afford to pay them well and to hire guards who know what they are doing."

"I would be a lot more impressed if they weren't supervising slave labor," I said, shaking my head. "Assuming they know. Did you get a closer look at the foreman's and control unit?"

As we were preparing to leave for the day, grabbing and starting to pull the mine carts full of mediari, I spotted Tatnia trying her best to get closer to the foreman's table without seeming suspicious. I tried to cause a bit of a distraction, but I was only partially successful, a nearby guard shutting me down with a threat almost immediately.

"Not close enough to really see much," She responded. "It's definitely different, but I have no idea if that includes an off switch."

"...I still can't see them having an off switch so close to us," I commented with a frown.

"It would be best to assume competency," Vaz responded.

"I agree," I responded. "Let's assume they aren't dumb enough to actually leave something like that around. Besides, starting an escape down in the mine… Seems like a good way to get shot climbing out."

"How are you planning to fight the guards, even if you manage to free yourselves?" Vaz asked, standing up from her spot on the floor. "Are you capable of fighting armed guards with your fists?"

"We… can handle them," I assured her.

She looked at me for another long moment before shaking her head.

"I do not know why I believe you, but I do," She responded, shaking her head. "I am more than a match in close combat, but not even sharp tooth and claw would help when they have the advantage of range."

"That sounds a bit like you're interested in helping us," I said with a smirk.

"Does it?" She responded, giving me a smirk of her own.

She wordlessly pulled down the mattress of the bunk above mine, using it to dry herself off as best she could. It worked surprisingly well, and I pushed the fact that she had probably used my mattress to do that to the same at some point. When she was done, she put the mattress back to dry before raking her clawed hands through her fur, attempting to comb it straight.

"I will join you," She finally said in her deep rumble. "I have been here, doing nothing for long enough. My father would be disappointed that I have wasted away for so long. Even if we fail, I may die knowing I was not a coward."

Tatnia and I shared a look, stuck between being happy to have another helping hand and concerned about her acceptance that she might die.

"No one's dying," I said, standing up from the side of my bed. "We take this slow, plan out every step, and we will get through this."

"Very well," She responded, though she didn't look like she completely believed me. "What is our first objective?"

"Our first objective is getting these collars off," I explained, Tatnia nodding in agreement. "Any progress we make is meaningless if we don't have a way to get them off."

Chapter Text

Not long after Vaz agreed to join us in trying to break out, and we reaffirmed that finding a solution to the collars was our most important task, we climbed into our bunks and slept. I could have used the respite to let us plan a bit more, but at this point, there wasn't much of a reason to. We woke up, and from there the day was the same as before. We ate, got herded down to the mine, and spent the entire day working before being escorted back up to the prison area.

During our work shift, when Vaz was dropping off a load of stones, Tessa caught my attention.

"Deacon… would that armor spell you mentioned be enough to protect you from…" She started to ask, finishing by miming an explosion from her neck.

"At the stage I'm at now? No, I wouldn't trust it," I responded, shaking my head. "Maybe at the next one? That's a pretty risky maybe, though, so let's call that plan 'We are fucked anyway, might as well try it.' I would have to learn it first, and I don't exactly have the most free time. And the purple armor I make would consider it clothes and form around it, not protect me from it."

She nodded in understanding, the topic dropped for now as Vaz returned. Eventually, we would show her some of my abilities, but for now, we needed to make sure she was actually on board, not just pretending to be so she could eventually sell us out. The shift dragged on and on after that, and I spent most of it mindlessly working, my brain focused on how we could get out, trying to put together a plan from what little we knew.

My first instinct was to just try and cut it off. If we were careful and didn't cut anything important, there was a chance we could remove it without disturbing any sensors inside the device before it could realize it was no longer around someone's neck.

When we finally arrived back at the prison block, and the three of us sequestered ourselves back in our cell, I brought up my idea.

"Do you know what kind of anti-tampering stuff the collars have?" I asked after sitting on the edge of my seat, the still-wet form of Vaz sitting on the floor. "Like if we started messing around with it?"

"I know of several who have attempted to remove their collars, none of whom succeeded," She responded. "One managed to knock himself unconscious trying to smash it open, while the others failed but were quickly taken away and punished for attempting."

"So they knew someone was trying to tamper with it? But then why not just remotely knock them out…?" I asked, mostly just trying to puzzle through the conundrum out loud. "Were they taken away immediately? Or once the guards got a look at them?"

"A mixture of both." She answered after a moment of thinking

"Fuck, that doesn't tell us anything," I said, shaking my head. "We-"

"Wait! The ones that were taken immediately…. were they trying this out in the open?" Tatnia asked. "Like in view of the cameras?"

"I… cannot say for sure," She admitted. "My instincts tell me you are correct, that those taken immediately must have been spotted by the surveillance. However, the memories have blended together. Others might remember better….?"

"Letting people know what we are planning is a bad idea, especially with the vast majority of people here being criminals of some kind," I said, shaking my head. "And there is no way to ask about how tamper-proof the collars without people realizing what's going on."

For a long moment, I thought to myself before eventually letting out a sigh, not liking the conclusion I had reached but realizing that there weren't a lot of options. I needed to go out on a limb.

"We need more information. That is the key. If we don't start canceling out some variables and finding the real information, we are going to be stuck here forever," I explained, reaching up and fiddling with the collar.

"How do you suggest we do that?" Vaz asked, watching me curiously.

"Right now, our biggest variable is whether or not the collars have sensors that tell people when they are being fucked with," I said, standing from the bed and getting down into an awkward position. "The fact that they could do visible damage to it tells me that whatever explosive is inside them is stable enough not to go off when it's hit. So...."

I sat down by the bed, putting my neck and collar against the hard metal edge. With any luck, this would keep me from getting hurt since all of the force would be going through the collar and into the bed rather than through the collar and into my neck.

"Wait, what are- No. No, we are not testing it out on you, Boss," Tatnia said, shaking her head, grabbing my arm, and pulling me back up. "Don't be stupid. What happens if you're incapacitated? We lose our powerplay."

With me standing out of the way, Tatnia started taking my place, putting her collar against the edge of the bed and looking up at me and Vaz.

"But… Fuck, alright," I said, shaking my head. "I'm a lot less confident about me hitting the right spot than I was about you hitting the right spot though."

"Allow me then," Vaz said, putting her hand on my shoulder. "I am confident I can hit the collar without harming her."

I looked at her for a moment before nodding and standing aside, still watching closely, chewing my lip. The canine-esque humanoid stood over Tatnia, lining herself up, settling into some sort of trained stance.

"Not enough to break it," I reminded her. "Just to test if they know when we are fucking with it. I'm worried the bomb will go off if it's actually removed, especially if the lock itself breaks."

Vaz nodded wordlessly before focusing on Tatnia and her target. She seemed to settle even more before bringing her clawed hand down on the collar, slamming the side of her palm into the metal band. She struck it three more times, each time the bed letting out a muffled metal banging, the collar itself letting out a much more dulled metallic clunk. After the fourth blow, she stood back up, coming out of her stance.

"That… wasn't fun, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be," Tatnia admitted, shifting and standing up from the awkward position. "Now what?"

"Now we wait," I said, stepping around Vaz to examine Tatnia and, after that, her collar, inspecting it for visible damage. "It's slightly warped, but nothing else noticeably wrong beyond that. You definitely hit it hard enough to rattle any sensors it might have for being fucked with."

We sat around the cell, waiting nervously for anyone to come and take Tatnia away. After an hour of uninterrupted waiting, we finally called it and climbed into our beds. It appeared that no one had noticed what we had done, but we wanted to play it safe.

The following day, we were all walking on eggshells, mentally, if not physically. We were all hyper-aware of every look the guards sent our way, wondering if somehow they would notice the nearly invisible amount of warping that Vaz had inflicted on Tatnia's collar. As the day went by, our tension slowly receded, replaced by a sliver of hope. If whoever was controlling the collars couldn't tell it was being tampered with, I felt a lot more confident about messing with them to try and get them off. Not that I would risk sparks, not when it could set off whatever explosives were inside them.

When we finally made it back to our cell, all three of us were tired and sore, so we quickly ate in silence. By the time we were done, we had recovered enough to talk about what we had learned.

"They showed no signs of knowing we had tampered with Tatnia's collar," Vaz said, folding her ration bar wrapper up before throwing it out of the cell.

"Yeah… That's a good sign," I said. "That means if we manage to take it off, there is a chance they won't know until we start moving around."

"Unless the bomb goes off," Tatnia pointed out.

"The fact that these other people did visible damage to their collars and it didn't go off, or even tell the people controlling them that something was up, tells me their system isn't as foolproof as they claim," I said, leaning by the entrance to the cell, facing inwards. "It's still a possibility…But I think the explosives are set up to be triggered, not trapped. It's a risk, but.... let's go with it for now."

"The rest of the crew could be coming for us," Tatnia pointed out. "Not saying we shouldn't take the risk, just pointing out it's an option."

"I'm sure they are looking for us, I'm just a lot less sure if they are already coming for us," I responded. "I don't doubt their ability or drive, just how they could possibly know where we are."

"So we risk it?" Tatnia asked, and I nodded in confirmation.

"Yeah, we risk it."

"While I understand your sentiments, you're talking as if you already have a way to remove our collars," Vaz said, her canine features carrying her confusion well. "Do you have a way?"

"Yeah, he has a bit of an advantage," Tatnia said. "A few tricks up his sleeve…."

Tatnia trailed off, the silence hanging in the room for a second before she looked at me with a confused look on her face.

"Aren't you gonna…?"

"I'm waiting for you to spoil it like you did last time,'" I responded, crossing my arms with a raised eyebrow.

"Really, Boss? You're gonna do that now?" She asked, shaking her head. "Fine, I won't say anything."

I stared at my crewmate for a long moment before eventually adding and uncrossing my arms, turning to look at Vaz, who looked bewildered at what we were talking about.

"Right, so-"

"He is a space wizard!" Tatnia said in a stage whisper, cutting me off again, just like before.

Unlike before, though, I immediately got back at her by charging a low-powered spark spell and zapping her leg, like I had before, while still on Nar Shaddaa. She cursed and stumbled onto my bed, her leg giving out for just a split second. She immediately sat back up, giving me an annoyed look. I turned to look at Vaz, who was staring at me and speaking in a language I didn't understand. She had fallen into a combat-ready stance, her claws ready to attack.

"What was that?" She asked tensely, which slowly released as neither Tatnia nor I made any violent moves. "What did you just do?"

"As annoying as she might be, Tatnia was right, I am a wizard. A mage, more specifically," I explained. "I can do magic."

Over the next twenty minutes, I showed off a bit of my abilities, making sure to only use things that were easily hidden and didn't make too much noise. I finished off my little show by healing the blisters and burns on the hands of the humanoid from handling the mediara. Since she was covered in fur, no one would be able to see that she didn't have them.

"You… healed me… Just like that?" She asked, feeling her pain-free hands opening and closing them. "That is incredible. No Jedi could do that, at least not that fast."

"That's cause I'm not a Jedi," I said, tilting my head after a moment. "How do you know about Jedi?"

"My adopted father, before he died, was Mandalorian," She responded.

"Oh, yeah, that explains it," I said with a nod, getting a surprised look from Vaz and Tatnia. "Mandalorians and Jedi aren't exactly sworn enemies, but it was as close as you could get. Their beliefs clash heavily, and they don't have the best history. Neither side is innocent, no offense, but I imagine your father taught you a bit about them in a 'know your enemy' type of way."

"I… yes, how do you know that?" She asked, looking confused. "Not many know that history."

"He does that," Tatnia said, shaking her head. "Knowing things he shouldn't, I mean. You get used to it. That said, Mandalorians have a reputation. Did your father train you?"

"Partially. My father was.… not an exile, but left his covert after a difference in opinion," She explained. "He trained me in what he could but died before he could finish."

"My condolence," I said softly, getting a nod of acknowledgment in return.

"... So you are not a Jedi, but a mage. How will your magic help us?" Vaz asked after a moment of silence.

"Well… I think with the right application of cold…" I said, spraying a frostbite spell across the wall. "And a bit of leverage.…"

I charge up my summon-bound battleaxe spell, a large double-edged axe appearing in my hand. It was just over four feet long, with a simple axehead and very little detailing beyond some simple accents and shaping in the handle. It looked a bit like the Stalhrim battleaxe from Skyrim but without the weird material. As always, it was also translucent and glowing light purple with whisps of the same color flowing off of it.

"You're not thinking of using that to cut it off, are you?" Tatnia asked, suddenly very nervous, her hand going up to her neck. "Cause if you are, I take it back. You can go first."

"No, all healing spells in the world wouldn't make me feel comfortable swinging this thing at any friend's neck," I said, shaking my head. "The weapon end isn't the important part. The handle is. Just a bit of old school magic called simple machines and the humble lever."

While Tatnia looked at me like I was crazy, Vaz reached out and took the axe from me. The glowing bound weapon had plenty of charge to last for a while without me recharging it. Vaz shifted her grip before trying her best to break the glowing weapon. When she failed, she nodded in satisfaction.

"I do not know how cold you're capable of getting the collar, but if it is sufficient… it could work," She said, passing the weapon back to me, starting slightly when I just dismissed it.

"Alright. Then the only thing that's left is to talk about when and where," I responded. "I would just assume we do it here, but I'm open to all arguments."

Chapter Text

A short conversation was all it took to decide that there wasn't much reason to wait at this point. I would have given my left arm to know the guard's schedules, shift changes, or even just how many of the bastards there were in the building at once. Unfortunately, with how strict they were with moving us quickly between the mine and our quarters, there wasn't much of an opportunity to gather that sort of information.

Given enough time, we could probably figure out some of what we wanted to know, but none of us were willing to hang around for a few months while we tried to spot shift changes and count faces while still looking innocent. Our information gathering for the last few days had gotten us little beyond the fact that the collars would not detonate or alert our wardens when we messed with them.

We waited another hour, mostly hoping to let everyone around us fall asleep. I would have waited longer, but another shift of prisoners would be returning eventually, and we needed time to work. When the time came, I hit all three of us with a respite spell, wiping away any residual fatigue and tiredness before starting the process.

When I volunteered to go first, Tatnia slapped the back of my head.

"Are you serious?" Tatnia asked as Vaz, and I started getting ready. "We just went over this. You should not be going first."

"Except I can use my oakflesh to protect myself," I explained. "It will give us a better idea if this is possible for you two."

For a moment, Tatnia looked like she was about to argue with me before she cursed and stepped back. Vaz passed me a wad of foam, which I had cut from my bed with a dagger. I took it and, after a moment, let out a big sigh and stuffed it into my mouth before Vaz took another, bigger slice of foam and slid it between me and my collar. Finally, I conjured my bound axe, handing it to her with a grim nod. I dual cast oakflesh, sinking as much magic as I could into it before silently waiting for my magic to refill.

When I was ready, or as ready as I was going to get, I looked at Tatnia before raising my hand and casting frostbite, aiming it for the collar. I held it for a while, draining my mana completely as I poured frigid energy into the collar. As the metal got colder and colder, I idly thought to myself how my magicka capacity had definitely expanded since I first arrived, as I was holding the spell much longer than I could have before.

While the insulating chunk of foam between me and the collar, directly under where I was freezing, did help at first, soon it froze too. As the temperature continued to drop, I could feel the oakflesh spell trying to protect me as well, resisting the temperature drop, and absorbing the damage. Unfortunately, the spell was only at novice level, and I wasn't even that good at it, meaning it failed pretty quickly under the constant pressure of the frostbite spell.

The pain was immediate when my last line of defense snapped. It felt like a hot pan being pressed against my neck, my flesh being seared by the incredible cold. Soon I was biting into the foam in my mouth to hold back screams. When my mana was fully drained, I dropped down to the ground and positioned myself against the bed again, trying to ignore the sickening amount of pain it caused me, failing entirely, screaming and cursing into the foam.

I saw spots, my vision flickering when Vaz pushed the handle of the axe between me and the collar, grinding against the severe frostbite forming on my neck. Knowing that every second counted, she did not take it easy on me and immediately wrenched the ax to the side. Even with me bracing the collar against the bolted-down bed frame, for a moment, I was afraid that my body would be what broke before. The edge of the collar ground into my collarbone, bruising and even cutting into my skin before I finally heard a metallic crack, and the pressure disappeared.

Tatnia practically hoisted me up to the edge of the bed while Vaz pulled and bent the collar of the rest of the way. When she pulled the collar away, it yanked the foam barrier, which pulled free frozen flesh with it, almost making me black out. Thankfully I managed to stay conscious, and as Vaz tossed the collar up into her bed, I dumped fast heal after fast heal into my body, repairing the massive amounts of damage I had just done to my neck.

About five minutes after non-stop healing, my neck was just about fully repaired, though I swore I could feel the cold band of metal still burning into my flesh. Tatnia was sitting next to me, looking pale and anxious but still steady.

"Fuck… that fucking sucked," I said, shaking my head before looking over at Vaz, who was trying to look casual as she kept an eye out. "Anything?"

"No, there has been no movement," She said, turning back toward us.

"Good," I said before looking at Tatnia. "So… think you can take it?"

She let out a long breath before nodding reluctantly. She stood, and we began the process all over again, preparing Tatnia, dumping mana into the axe for Vaz, and eventually getting her into position. With the benefit of having done this already, Tatnia sat down and put herself into position before we started, and Vaz pushed the handle of her battleaxe into the gap around her neck. It was a tight fit, tighter than mine had been, but we got it to work.

With a look and a nod, I bent down and began pouring my frostbite spell into Tatnia's collar. Now that I was looking on, I could see it as frosted over, as my magic chilled the metal collar and the padding below. It didn't take long for Tatnia to tense as she started to feel the freezing energy, and not long past that for her to begin struggling to control herself. To counteract the damage it was doing to her, I cast healing hand with my opposite hand. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to help the pain, but the muffling wad of foam did its job, but only barely, as I emptied my magicka reserves once again. When it was done, I stepped back, chewing my lip as Vaz made sure she was in the right position.

This time it took three tries for Vaz to break the metal collar, splitting it in the same place as mine, just where I had focused my spell. Vaz tore off the collar, and I started healing Tatnia immediately, though I was stuck with the much slower healing hands spell rather than the fast heal I could use on myself. I understood why she had been so pale before, the damage the freezing energy had done to her neck, and what my neck must have looked like as well, was grotesque, like a severe third-degree burn.

After fifteen minutes of healing, Tatnia was finally fully healed. She stood up from the bed, rubbed her neck, and shook her head, her eyes closed. She let out a long breath before turning back to Vaz and me, opening her eyes.

"That was karking terrible," She said, still pale despite my healing. "Easily the worst thing I have ever done."

"Definitely not something I want to repeat either," I agreed before looking to Vaz. "You ready?"

"I am prepared," She said, before reaching out with her hand, taking mine in a warrior's handshake. "Thank you for giving me this opportunity. Even if…"

"You earned it, Vaz, when you did something about that creep," I responded firmly.

"I suppose. Alright, let us get this over with."

We quickly got everything set up again, once again repeating the harrowing and nerve-racking procedure. This time Tatnia was manning the axe, standing above the Shistavanen, who had already closed her eyes, her large, dangerous jaw set around significantly more padding than Tatnia or I had used. With a nod from Vas, I began pouring freezing energy into the thick band of metal. I waited for the freezing cold to reach through the foam before starting my healing spell, only stopping when my Mana was empty. I nodded to her and Tatnia worked the axe handle, pulling and straining against the metal. For a moment, I was worried she wouldn't be able to do it, and I started getting up to add my own strength when suddenly the collar snapped.
Vaz reached up and bent it completely off of herself, a low rumbling growl coming from her chest as she fought through what I knew was an immense level of pain. As she stood, I saw that her eyes were wide, bloodshot, and wild. For a moment, she seemed poised to jump at us before she visibly wrestled herself under control, sitting down on the edge of the bed. I immediately started to heal her, my hands glowing as my magic sank into her horrifying wound.

After another fifteen minutes, the wound was healed, though she now carried an unfortunate bald spot under where I had been freezing the collar, which continued around her neck a good way. My magic healed her flesh, but she would have to regrow her fur the old-fashioned way.

When everyone was finally freed, healed, and ready, I cast respite on us again before standing up and stretching. We were all silent, the past hour having left a mark on all three of us.

"You guys ready?" I asked eventually, getting two nods in response. "Alright, time to get this party on the road."

I took a deep breath, mentally preparing myself for what would probably be a long night of violence. When I was ready, I charged up two separate ice spikes before stepping out of the cell and destroying two security cameras, immediately charging up two more attacks and taking aim again. It took two more volleys, but when I was done, the cameras were sparking scrap. After that, all three of us rushed down to the first floor. I dual cast a lighting rune on the floor in front of the only way in or out of the prison area before joining Tatnia and Vaz behind the cover of the closest stairs.

Between us running down the stairs from the top floor and me destroying the cameras, some of the other prisoners started to peek out from their cells, watching us closely. Before any of them could do anything, though, they all collapsed, like their strings had been cut.

"They knocked them out," Tatnia pointed out. "They must be on their way."

I nodded in agreement before quickly casting my armor, sinking all of my energy into it. My reserves were halfway full when the large doors leading into the prison area slowly opened, revealing three armed and armored guards cautiously stepping inside. Instantly my rune went off, a massive amount of electrical energy discharging at once. Between my talents with lighting and the fact that I had dual cast the rune, all three of the guards dropped dead the second the lighting stopped, their corpses smoking and twitching.

"Time to go to work," I said with a smirk, stepping out of my cover and making a beeline for the door.

I raised my hand and charged a lightning bolt, firing it off at the first guard I saw poking their head into the room to see what had happened. The blast of electric energy caught him in the face, knocking him back around the corner and out of sight. I put on another burst of speed, determined to step through the doorway to prevent them from sealing us inside. Blaster bolts sizzled through the doorway, one catching me in the shoulder as I ran, prompting me to quickly slide behind one of the tables for cover. I turned to check on Tatnia and Vaz, watching them take cover behind another table just a bit further back.

Blaster bolts kept pouring through the doorway, preventing me from standing and charging again. I peeked around my cover, cursing when I spotted the doors starting to slide shut. I leaned further out of cover and quickly dual-cast conjure flame atronach, aiming as close to the door as I could before releasing the spell.

My armored summon appeared about ten feet from the closing doorway, just out of view of the guards. I quickly flexed my control, guiding it to move as fast as it could, staying in cover for as long as it could. At the last second, the blue flame wreathed summon charged through the slowly closing doors. It took a single blaster bolt to the shoulder, but the spell held together, just barely making it through the doorway before it closed, sealing us inside.

I couldn't exactly see through my atronach's eyes, and what feedback I could feel was limited, but with the door now completely closed, I took a chance and ordered to find some sort of method to open the door. I could feel its limited sentience straining to figure out what I said before seeming to do something. Before I could even parse out exactly what it did, I could second, third, and fourth blaster bolt hit it, destabilizing its magic and destroying the summon.

Which, of course, triggered the explosion, a muffled "Whump!" reaching us back inside the prison area.

"Please have found the door controls… please have found the door controls…" I repeated under my breath before jumping up when the doors once again shuddered and began to open. "Yes!"

I charged the doors again, this time staying off to the side before peeking around into the hallway on the other side. The signs of my atronach's explosion marked the left side of the hall, a singed and smoldering circle that covered the floor and went up the wall. Inside the perimeter were two charred corpses, one of which was reaching up toward a soot-covered lever.

I pulled my head back just in time for a quartet of blaster bolts to fire through the fully opened doorway. I let out a quick breath, checked to make sure my armor was intact, and charged before casting and holding an ice spike. I whirled around the door and fired the spell, catching the last standing guard in the leg, knocking him off of his feet, the human man screaming and clutching at the massive spike of ice in his leg.

After a quick double-check to make sure there was no one else, I turned back to wave Tatnia and Vaz over, only to find them already looting the smoking corpses of the guards who died to my lighting rune. Both of them eagerly took their weapons and spare ammo. Tatnia quickly pulled on one of the guard's basic torso armor while Vaz caught up with me.

"Are you two good?" I asked, turning back to watch the hall.

"I believe we are uninjured," Vaz responded, her blaster up and pointed down the hall.

I nodded and quickly made my way to the injured and shouting guard. I covered his mouth with my hand, the older man looking at me with fear in his eyes. He started to flounder through some sort of begging routine, but I just shook my head.

"Here is the deal. You tell me how I get to the collar controls, and I don't make your other leg match this one," I explained, tapping the tip of the ice spike.

"What… why?" He asked, looking confused. "I can't."

I gripped the spike and slowly twisted it with my hand, the guard screaming and clenching his teeth.

"Okay, okay! Just please stop!" He shouted, trying to shove my hands away.

I stopped touching the spike, the man sobbing out a thank you before explaining that the collar control room was an offshoot of the security room, which was a floor up and down several hallways. I promised I would be back if he was wrong, the man staying silent until I reached out for the spike again. He frantically corrected himself, explaining that the security room was a floor down, not up. I patted his shoulder before standing, already walking down the hallway from the prison area.

"Why do we need to go to the security room?" Tatnia asked. "Wouldn't it be better just to leave?"

"If we leave now, we will have the entire facility, maybe more, looking for us," I explained. "But if the entire facility shuts down, and all of the collars turn off at once…?"

"They would have to focus on the resulting riot," Tatnia said, Vaz nodding in approval. "Alright, Boss. Lead the way."

Chapter Text

The three of us slowly made our way down the long halls of the facility, with my armor fully charged. As we walked, I summoned a familiar, letting him run ahead whenever we came to a corner or an intersection. For the first two, nothing happened, but on the third, the "ambush" we were waiting for finally found us.

At an intersection of our hall and another, my familiar turned down the next corridor and was almost instantly destroyed, a half dozen blaster bolts passing through its space in a few seconds, blowing it apart completely. I stopped and put my back against the wall, leaning around the corner for a moment, pulling back to avoid the subsequent barrage.

"Alright, there are six of them," I said, looking back at my companions. "Any ideas?"

"We need to keep moving," Vaz said, turning to watch the corridor behind us. "If we remain in one place, we will be flanked."

"Right, forward and through it is," I said, shaking my head. "Tatnia, follow me in?"

"Right behind you."

I nodded and took a deep breath, mentally double-checking my armor before charging up a dual cast steadfast ward. I stepped out of cover with Tatnia right behind me, holding the shimmering and glowing shield of magic slightly to the side. Tatnia used the extra cover to lean out from behind me and shoot through the ward, something that I admittedly should have tested before I tried. Still, it worked, and the blaster bolts sailed down the hallway to where the guards had set up their ambush.

Her first shot managed to catch one of the guards in the chest before they could even open fire, seemingly stunned by what they were seeing. Unfortunately, one of their companions falling backward with a carbonized hole where his heart once was finally shocked them into reacting. Some of them took cover, disappearing behind the metal barriers that had been set up, while the rest stood up and opened fire, shooting down the hall at us.

Several blaster bolts hit my ward, bouncing off and slamming into the walls, sending white sparks flying. Even as my shield failed from the concentrated fire, Tatnia managed to take down two of the three guards who stood and fired at us. The third got one shot in on my bound armor before Vaz took them down, using our diversion to lean around the corner and fire.

During all of this, Tatnia and I kept moving forward, my unprotected crewmate ducking behind me fully when my ward failed. Together we picked up speed, finally reaching the fortified area. I lashed out with a sparks spell in one hand, washing it over two of the guards, causing them to shout and stumble back. Tatnia turned and fired at the remaining guard, dispatching them easily. While my targets were stunned by the sparks, I charged up a lighting bolt, slamming one into each of their chests, turning them into smoking corpses.

I refilled my armor as we caught our breath for a moment or two, Vaz catching up with us as Tatnia grabbed more ammo from one of the downed guards. She tossed one of the energy cells to the Shistavanen, who caught it and quickly exchanged it, loading her blaster rifle with a practiced hand.

"Time to go down?" Tatnia asked, nodding to the nearby doorway, which was marked as a stairwell.

I nodded, and together we made our way to and down the stairs, a summoned familiar once again taking the lead. When we reached the right level and stepped out into a new floor, we immediately ran into two more guards. My familiar managed to take down one cleanly, and Vaz sprinted to do the same to the second. While my tiger familiar tore the throat from its target, Vaz used her claws to slice through hers, seemingly experienced enough to point the resulting arterial spray away from herself.

"Damn… alright, the security office should be this way," I said, orienting myself according to the guard's directions.

It didn't take long for us to arrive at our destination while somehow avoiding any more encounters with the guards. The security office was well-marked, but the door was locked. I cursed under my breath, looking around before shaking my head.

"Alright, let's try-"

"Boss, let me give it a shot," Tatnia said, stepping around me and pushing me back.

As I stepped out of the way, she slid forward, took a deep breath, and slammed her fist against the door. I watched her in surprise, wondering what the hell she was doing when she called out to whoever was inside.

"Sir! We have a problem!" She shouted, sounding a bit panicked and out of breath. "Hello? Sir, can you hear me?"

Nothing happened for a long, slow few seconds. Suddenly the locked door slid open, revealing a crisply uniformed guard. He looked confused, which quickly shifted into shock and fear when Tatnia jammed her blaster rifle up under his chin. He raised his hands immediately, and I stepped closer to disarm him, pulling a blaster pistol from his hip.

"Nice and easy now," Tatnia said, pushing the guard into the security room, Vaz and myself following behind.

The room was a decent size, with one side nearly covered with computers and view screens showing video footage of several different places. Three of the viewscreens were divided into six camera views, and one of the three showed nothing but static on their divided screens. Along the far wall was a doorway with another on the wall opposite the wall of screens.

"-aren't heading to the exit," One of the guards, a Rodian, said. "They managed to take down the ambush point but didn't make it to the second one… where are they?"

"Doal's squad just reported in, they definitely aren't in the their barracks," Another guard, this one human, said. "Sir, who-"

As Tatnia pushed the guard further in, the three guards sitting in front of the security screens finally noticed us. One of them stood quickly, trying to pull his pistol out. I zapped him with sparks before finishing him off with an ice spike, the large ice projectile slamming into the Rodian's chest, knocking him off his feet and to the ground, where he lay, unmoving.

The other two raised their hands in surrender.

"Vaz, find strip them of weapons," I said, the Mandalorian-trained woman nodding, heading to the surrendered guards while I focused on the one sweating on the end of Tatnia's rifle. "And you can lead us to the collar controls."

"Why?" He asked, pale and fighting what was probably a considerable amount of panic. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to throw a party," I said sarcastically, jamming his own pistol into his ribs. "The collar controls?"

He nodded reluctantly, turning and heading to the far doorway, Tatnia and I following behind. He stopped in front of the door's control panel, looking over his shoulder before slumping in defeat and tapping the panel. After entering a password, it blinked green, and the door opened, revealing another smaller room. There was only one computer system inside, and it was currently unmanned.

"C'mon, we have invitations to send," I said, pushing the man into the chair, leveling his blaster against the back of his neck. "I want you to turn off all of the collars at once. Can you unlock them from here?"

"Ye-yes, b-but-"

"But what?"

"They are all unconscious! They won't wake up for a while!" He responded, shouting to get through his fear.

"... can you activate all of the collar's functions from here?" I asked, the man nodding rapidly. "Good. I want you to activate the pain inducers for a split second, just long enough to wake everyone up. Then unlock their collars. Will that work?"

"I… y-yes, that would probably work," He admitted, leaning away from me but not moving otherwise.

I gestured to the controls, and he jolted, turning to the screen and starting to activate the collar system. After going through two confirmation screens, he stopped, looked at me, and winced, pressing a button for a split second before releasing it. Once he released the pain inducer button, he quickly entered another password… and another before finally gaining control.

"Are you-"

Ignoring him, I reached forward and pressed the activation button, the screen flashing a warning before registering that all collars were unlocked and disengaged. He slumped in his chair, giving up. After confirming everything was in order, Tatnia grabbed the guard's shoulder and dragged him out of the room. Once they were through the door, I washed the console down with a stream of sparks, the system immediately going dark as I fried it. I quickly left, sealing the door and destroying the control panel as well.

"Right. One last thing," I said, walking to Tatnia and grabbing the guard's arm, dragging him to the wall of screens. "I want you to delete everything that the cameras have been recording, and then I want you to turn it all off. Can you do that for me?"

This time guard didn't hesitate, quickly sitting down and doing as I asked. I watched as he worked, confirming that he was at least vaguely doing the right things. After a few minutes of tapping and working, the screens started going dark, and the system completely shut down.

"Good job. Now stand back," I warned, waiting for him to get out of the way before hosing the whole wall down with the lightning, watching the computers and screens spark and smoke as I ruined them completely.

I did this twice, emptying my mana completely each time before I was satisfied. I turned to find Vaz securing the last guard with the others, tying them up with their own jackets.

"Alright, that's done. Time to get going," I said. "We are gonna blitz to the exit now, I want to get out before getting caught up in the riot."

"Agreed. I know the way. These guards have been eager to give directions," Vaz explained, and I nodded, gesturing for her to us out.

We made quick progress through the facility, stopping twice, once to hide at a corner and let a squad of guards run by and again to fight a different squad, easily taking them out after getting the jump on them.

It wasn't until we reached one of the final barriers to our freedom that the guards finally put up another challenging fight, clearly having decided to hold the exit at any cost, having set up a heavy blaster cannon of some sort. Without access to magic, I was pretty sure we wouldn't have stood a chance.

As it was, it took me a minute to charge my armor, step out of cover, fire a dual-cast lightning bolt, retaking cover before my armor failed. I was trying to take out the blaster cannon itself, and after a few tries, I eventually managed to nail it. The weapon shot out sparks, its powerful energy source sending out an explosion of smoke and fire, knocking the two guards manning it to the ground.

With the guards distracted and the heavy weapon destroyed, I conjured a fire atronach, sending the construct to rush the reinforced exit, hands raised and dumping fire into the ranks. It lasted long enough to dive over a piece of cover before I detonated it, a gout of flame coming over the metal barrier. With the guards now dealing with more injuries, fire, and the explosion itself, I sent more and more of the constructs until, eventually, I felt confident in charging the exit myself.

Once again, I led the charge, with Tatnia and Vaz behind me this time. I held out a one-handed steadfast ward, firing out ice spikes at any guard who stuck their head up, managing to make it through one of the gaps my atronach had made. We jumped through and made quick work of the surprised guards, finishing off a few of the burned and injured before rushing to the exit.

We stumbled out of the smoke and fire-filled interior to find ourselves in the same garage area Tatnia and I had been brought in through. After a minute of searching, we found a row of land speeders parked in a neat row.

"Personnel parking lot?" I asked as Tatnai pulled out ahead, looking around before making a beeline for a specific craft. "See something you like?"

"I know this model," She said, walking over and looking into the sealed cockpit. "Plus, there is room for all three. Can I have a dagger?"

I quickly summoned a dagger and passed it to her, watching as she used the bound weapon to expertly pop open a panel under the door. She fiddled for a few seconds, cut a wire and connected it somewhere else, a metallic clunk echoing through the vehicle. With a smirk, she pressed a button, and the hatch pulled back, revealing an interior with four total seats.

"Get in. We need to get gone," She said, slapping the panel closed with her palm.

"Really?" I asked sarcastically, climbing into the passenger seat as Vaz climbed into the back. "I figured we could take the scenic route, maybe stop for some food?"

She laughed, the high of the prison break clearly affecting us all. She sat down in the driver's seat, using the dagger to pop open another panel. This one took even less time, the speeder starting up in a few seconds. She made to pass me the dagger, but I dismissed it instead, the blade disappearing in a puff and spark.

Shaking her head, she focused on driving, swinging the speeder out of its parking spot, and making a beeline for the exit. I had to step out and activate the garage bay door, but once it was open, we were free and clear.

Tatnia drove out of the garage, keeping it steady and at a reasonable pace, not wanting to attract any attention if someone happened to be looking. For a while, we were silent, our focus on looking around, trying to spot if anyone was following us or tracking us down. After about five minutes of driving, I let out a long sigh.

"Thank you, my friends," Vaz said, sitting up and focusing on me. "You have given me my freedom."

"We aren't in the clear yet," I reminded her. "We still need to get off the planet."

"It does not matter," she assured me, shaking her head. "I am free when I thought I would never be again. I owe you both my life."

"You were just as important to getting out as we were," I assured her. "For now, let's focus on getting off this rock. We can talk about who owes who what later."

Vaz looked at Tatnia, who laughed and shrugged.

"It's just how he is, you get used to it," She explained. "Or you will if you stick around."

"I would like that."

"Welcome aboard then," I said with a smile and a nod, turning back to watch the road and our destination.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

The drive to the checkpoint, as well as the stop-and-start traffic before it, was nerve-wracking, tense, and aggravating. For a few a while we were even partially convinced we were going in the wrong direction, probably because we were stuck in the dark trying to guess where the driver was turning. Thankfully, a quick casting of clairvoyance, focused on the prison, showed that we were heading in the right direction when we finally stopped.

When we did eventually stop at the checkpoint, we could hear the officials in charge as they talked to the driver. It was muffled, but I could make out that they were concerned about the recent breakout.

“-workers and guards dead…. checking all… no leads… you for your cooperation...."

As they talked, we could hear another person walking around the hauler. I bit back a curse and gestured to Tatnia and Vaz, all of us shifting around as quietly as possible. I managed to slip up and over a cargo crate, hiding completely, while Tatnai pushed back out of view from the back. Unfortunately, Vaz was struggling, trying to find a place to disappear and failing. She crawled as far back into the central walk space as she could, looking for a place to slide into. Unfortunately, she reached the end without finding any. Before she could come back, the tarp at the far end ruffled and was lifted up, light pouring into the back, casting harsh shadows.

Vaz had just enough time to pull herself together and hide behind her dark cloak. The shadows cast into the hauler shifted and moved as whoever was checking the cargo looked around.

Somehow, she managed to stay in the shadows through sheer luck, her dark cloak blending and hiding her.

After what felt like ages, the checkpoint guard finally closed up the tarp, even went the extra mile and made sure it was secured. We collectively held our breaths as he walked around the side of the truck and shouted to his partner that the hauler was good to go. We started to move a minute later, pulling through the checkpoint and out into the harsh, unprotected expanse of the planet. We each pulled on our masks, the green, poisonous air already starting to seep under the truck's tarp. After a few minutes of driving past the checkpoint, the tension finally started to leave us.

"That… that was way too close," I whispered, crawling back to Tatnia so we could talk without shouting.

Tatnia nodded, slumping back against one of the crates, shifting to get a bit more comfortable. Vaz joined us, crawling back and sitting down, looking for a spot that had a bit more space for her longer legs. We had a few hours before we would arrive at the second domed city, so I volunteered to stay up, letting the other two get a bit more rest. Despite how loud it was riding in the back of the hauler, they both fell asleep pretty quickly, leaving me alone with my thoughts. Rather than drive up my own anxiety about whether this would work or not, I passed the time practicing clairvoyance, casting it over and over again on the Talos Chariot, the arrow pointing down through the planet, hopefully, off-world. It wasn't a lot of time to practice, but every bit helped.

The checkpoint to get into the next dome was surprisingly lax. After once again being stuck in stop-and-go traffic for ten minutes, the driver had a two-minute conversation as someone just walked around the outside of the vehicle, making no attempt to look inside. All three of us were shocked, but none of us were going to complain. My only guess was that they weren't worried about people making it this far.

We waited silently for an opportunity to jump out of the hauler, peeking out the back, lifting the tarp slightly to check if the coast was clear. After a few minutes, the hauler pulled down a less populated road and slowed down, letting us jump clear of the back. I botched the landing and rolled a bit, but Tatnia helped me up and we quickly made our way into a nearby alleyway.

“Well… that went well…” I said, frankly a little shocked that the plan had gone off without a hitch. "I guess we head to the next checkpoint?"

"No, first we need food, then we can head to the next checkpoint," Tatnia corrected, Vaz nodding along enthusiastically.

"How? We don't have money."

"Just leave that to me," Tatnia said with a smirk before taking the lead.

It didn't take long for us to find someplace to eat, Vaz quickly picked up the scent of a shop selling food that was nearby. Once inside, Tatnia pretended to be someone down on their luck, which wasn't much of a stretch. She asked if she could borrow a single credit chip and a computer, so she could access her account. She promised to spend a significant amount of money on food, assuring the older man behind the counter that all three of us were very hungry.

Five minutes later, a quick check of Tatnia's account attached to our crew, a transfer of funds, and a credit chip update later, and we were eating a feast of food. It tasted amazing, probably because we had spent the last few days eating nothing but crappy rations.

Once we had eaten our fill, we made our way across the city. This dome was smaller but much more densely populated than the one we had started in, which was suitable for blending in. Still, it was a big area to cover, and we spent most of the day walking across the city. Tatnia floated the idea of stealing a speeder, but we eventually decided that staying as under the radar as much as possible was our best bet.

By the time we made it to the general area of the correct checkpoint, it was getting dark, so we found an empty, relatively dry alleyway to sleep in. It was far from pleasant, but a quick check showed that our current dome was primarily residential and business, with no temporary sleeping locations to keep from leaving a trail.

When we woke up the following day, we repeated the same general tactic we had before, selecting a proper ambush point before targeting a suitable ride. This time, however, it almost failed miserably. When we attempted to stop the driver, using a similar method of blocking the road as we had before, he only slowed down a bit, using his truck like a ram to shove the dumpster out of his way. I had to run and jump, both Vaz and Tatnia reaching out to grab my arms and pull me into the smaller trailer.

In the second bubble, not including the one that held the prison, we managed to find a cheap hotel room, paid for with credits that Tatnia withdrew from her account. I made a note to pay her back when we got out of this hell hole.

We would have slept on the streets again, as none of us had any qualms about it in particular, but that bubble seemed to be the cleanest so far and had an actual active security presence. I didn't think we would get recognized now that we were so many domes away from the prison, but if we got busted for sleeping somewhere we shouldn't, that would probably change in a hurry.

We made the rest of the journey with very few issues, all the way until the last leg of the last trip. We had just passed into the final dome, the one that contained the spaceport, and were waiting for an opportunity to jump off of the flatbed hauler we had stowed away on. We waited and waited, keeping an eye out all the way until they pulled into their destination with no luck. They parked their truck and climbed out, forcing us to climb out in the middle of an active industrial zone.

It took us fifteen minutes to sneak back out, by some miracle, making it past the walls unseen. I couldn't believe how lucky we were getting, and Tatnia was on the same page. Every time something seamlessly went our way, I got more and more nervous about how it would all go wrong. We were both anxiously waiting for the other shoe to drop. Vaz, on the other hand, seemed perfectly at ease, accepting each lucky break as they came.

"Your thinking is flawed," She explained as we stopped to eat, the city quickly getting dark around us. "These are ‘kih shukur’, small breaks. Sometimes they go in your favor, and sometimes they go against you. They are not accumulative."

"I… guess that's true?" I said reluctantly. "Kinda hard to just let go of the instinct."

"There is always something," Tatnia said, shaking her head in disagreement. "Just because it missed you doesn't mean there wasn't something waiting to go wrong. Better to be tense, waiting for it to happen, then relax and get blindsided by it."

We continued to chat about the nature of luck, eventually transitioning to some of what Vaz had learned under her father. Besides broad strokes, Vaz was clearly reluctant to pass on anything concrete. Words of wisdom were one thing, but the teachings of Mando were obviously another. I wasn't about to push her into passing on anything against her will, especially not when learning through observation and osmosis would happen naturally over time once we got back with the rest of the crew.

The night was a bit on the cold side, but we weathered it with the knowledge that, with any luck, this would be our last day in this fucking mess of a world. The sooner we left this hellscape behind, the better.

The next morning we made our way through the domed city, eventually arriving at the outskirts of the spaceport. It was hard to make out any details from the ground, so we stealthily made our way to the top of a nearby building, climbing a ladder to the roof. We knelt behind the lip that ran around the roof's edge and watched the distant structure, trying to figure out our next move.

From what we could tell, the spaceport was comprised of three different areas. The most prominent and only part entirely inside the dome was the intake area. This was split into civilian processing and cargo transport. The former took place inside a large building not unlike an airport, while the cargo shipping took place in a yard with an access point built into the energy dome.

Along the back of that civilian processing building were four covered walkways that led through the dome and out onto the landing pad, where a large passenger transporter waited. A boarding ramp equivalent was attached to the covered walkway's exit and the passenger ship's entrance, creating a sealed system.

The second area was a large cargo delivery space. This was nearly double the size of the civilian landing pad, and was a constant flurry of activity. Large cargo vessels would land, drop off or pick up their goods, before taking off again. I suggested we sneak in on the trucks like we had been for the past few days, but Tatnia pointed out that the checkpoint for the cargo was likely where they were charging people taxes or cargo fees. Those transports would be inspected and weighed, and their contents carefully recorded.

The third spot, off to the side, seemed to be a private or civilian landing pad. How it was different from the one we were dropped off at, I didn't know. What I did know was that there were several ships there now, small freighters or transports, coming and going at a much slower pace than the cargo ships. Most of the ships in the private area were clearly civilian vessels, all in various states of quality.

"So, I think the processing center will probably have some decent security, which makes getting inside to use any holonet connection they might have very difficult," I said, watching another vessel take off. "My guess is that we would be better off just going for a ship and getting in contact with the Chariot later. Question is, how do we get to the ships?"

"Why do we not just go around?" Vaz suggested. "There is a checkpoint in that direction. We could get on another hauler and travel through the checkpoint before getting off. Then we make our way around the outer rim of the environmental dome to the starport."

"That would make it much easier to get access to one of the civilian vessels…" I admitted. "Would our masks last that long?"

"... No, we should probably find new ones," Tatnia responded, pulling out her mask and checking it with a bit of alarm. "We cut the last trip a little close. Dammit, we didn't even think of that."

"We would have made it," I assured her. "It would have sucked, but I could have healed all the damage as it came in. I would rather not have to do that, obviously, so let's find some new ones before we go for a walk."

“I would rather not test that theory,” Vaz said, Tatnia snorting at her stoic delivery.

"Yeah, me either. Alright, we need to find or buy replacement masks,” I said, nodding my head. "Anything else?"

When we couldn't think of anything, we climbed down off of the roof. It took a little bit for us to find a way to look up the directions, but we eventually arrived at a pawn shop of sorts, where Tatnia bought new masks for all three of us. Again I made a note to make sure she was compensated, as she had spent a good chunk of her personal money.

Not long after that, we made our way to the exterior checkpoint nearest the starport. We managed to hop aboard another hauler, this one mostly empty, and once again crossed through the shield dome and out into the harsh landscape. Once we were far enough from the actual checkpoint, I stuck my hand out of the tarp and conjured my familiar, making it appear under the hauler. It disappeared almost immediately, but before it did, it made a huge racket as it was essentially conjured already being run over.

The hauler slowed down drastically and pulled to the side of the road, the driver clearly having slammed the brakes aggressively. He got out and inspected the underside of his speeder for a few minutes before cursing and climbing back inside the cab, which was when we jumped out of the side facing the road, jumping over and hiding behind the barrier.

When the hauler pulled away, we turned and returned to the dome, walking at an angle to avoid the checkpoint.

Chapter Text

It took us about twenty minutes to cover the distance back to the dome, primarily because as we got closer, we started being extra careful about not being seen. Luckily, the edge of the dome had a deceptively large ferrocrete lip that ran around the entire circumference. It was easily three times as tall as me and, from what we had seen on the inside, had a six or seven-foot-tall wall around the interior perimeter as well. Once we crossed the rough terrain to the side of the dome, we were hidden by the foundation, which meant all that was left was a simple hike to the landing platforms.

Of course, smooth didn't mean short, and we spent the better part of three hours walking around the foundation for the energy shield-protected city. The masks, while keeping us alive and healthy, made everything even more difficult. Thankfully, between our desire to finally get off the planet, and judicious use of the respite spell, we did eventually make it. When we arrived, we took cover in a low berm that was about fifty meters from the closest landing pad, which was empty.

"Okay, so I'm not exactly happy about stealing a random person's livelihood, so if anyone spots an alternative, call it out," I said, looking across the civilian section, watching ships take off and land.

"Then it might be better to take the pilot with us," Tatnia said. "It will make things much more complicated, but when we are done, we can just… let them go?"

"Alright, I like that plan. Let's hope whoever is flying the ship we pick doesn't fuck it up," I said with a nod.

After a few minutes of ship watching, Vaz spotted a YT-2400 coming for a landing at one of the pads closer to us. It landed smoothly, its cockpit coming around to face away from us, its landing gear extending down as it landed. After a few minutes, its cargo elevator and its entry ramp dropped down, a speeder truck coming out to greet it. Over the next fifteen minutes, the ship quickly offloaded its cargo before the elevator started to close, and the truck, now piled with crates and packaged, pulled away. The man stood around for a while before climbing up the entry ramp, which stayed down.

"Alright, guys, let's make it happen," I said, standing up from cover and rushing towards the ship.

We started off at a fast jog, picking up speed as we got closer and closer until we were about fifty meters away.

Which was when a barrage of scarlet laser fire punched through the ship, which detonated into a massive fireball, flinging debris in every direction. As small chunks of the ship landed around us, I whirled around, searching the sky for where the attack had come from.

It wasn't difficult to spot.

A Lambda-class shuttle had come in from behind us, the sound of its repulsorlifts hidden behind the other ships moving around the spaceport. It was painted black, with a symbol I didn't recognize painted along each of its large wings. For a moment, I froze, unable to do anything. There was nothing we could do, with the weapons of the shuttle aimed at us, we didn't have a chance. My magic couldn't help, and there was no way we could outrun it. If I ran one way while Vaz and Tatnia ran the other…

Despite having us dead to rights, the ship slowly landed, its weapons still tracking us as it settled down, clearly not caring about the designated landing zones. After a moment, the entry ramp extended from just behind the cockpit, a dozen stormtroopers pouring out. They made a beeline towards us, their weapons drawn.

"Run for cover," I said, quickly casting my armor on myself, fully encapsulating myself in its protection.

"What?" Tatnia asked.

"When you get the chance, run for cover. And do not shoot at whatever comes out next," I said, tensely waiting as the stormtroopers stopped about thirty feet in front of us, guns raised and focused on us. "Focus on the stormtroopers, do not shoot at anyone with a lightsaber."

"Lightsaber!?" She asked, a hint of hysterics leaking into her voice. "What about you?"

"Just do it, Nia. Vaz… drag her away if you have to."

Before Tatnia could respond, another person slowly stepped down the ramp. An armored figure, with plates and pauldrons highlighted with red, with a black-gray helmet that didn't have any obvious space for eye holes, just a smooth black finish. I was torn between relief that it wasn't Darth Vader and very worried when I recognized the general similarities to the Inquisitors. The discus-like lightsaber on their hip was also a dead giveaway.

They silently made their way closer, stopping just slightly ahead of the stormtroopers. For a moment, everyone was silent, the sound of the spaceport seeming to fall away as we stared each other down.

"Greetings, Deacon, it's nice to finally meet you." A fluttery male voice said from behind the helmet. "I've been tracking you for quite some time now."

"Spotted us on Nar Shaddaa?" I guessed, getting a chuckle in response

"Indeed, though at that point it was merely rumor chasing, a few poor quality videos from distant security cameras," He responded, his hands held behind him, seemingly completely at ease. "Intelligence wrote it off entirely as an interesting use of technology, but nothing special."

"Until the prison break?"

"Precisely," He confirmed. "I spotted the reports of a prisoner throwing around impossible powers and connected it immediately. Not that it particularly mattered. We would have investigated the prison break regardless..."

"Yeah... I figured someone would come looking eventually," I admitted with a shrug. "Didn't think it would be so soon."

"The Imperial Intelligence network is vast and deep," He responded with a subtle shrug. "You managed to catch quite a bit of attention, throwing around abilities and power like you have. Watching your prison escape was very interesting."

"Let me guess, they uploaded the footage off-site as well?"

"Correct! Watching you throw around lighting, summon shades as you did… and all with such control," He said, seemingly genuinely impressed. "Even now, with that interesting full-body shield… I can hardly detect your presence. If I wasn't watching you with my own eyes, I wouldn't have been able to pick you out of a crowd… fascinating. Oh, but let me introduce myself. I am Jago, Fourth Brother of the Inquisitorius."

"... I wish I could say it was good to meet you," I responded.

"Oh, don't be like that, I'm sure there is much we could learn from each other," He said, stepping forward again. "Imagine if we combined our knowledge of the Force. With what I have learned from my training..."

"Was that... are you trying to recruit me? There is no way you were given the go-ahead for that. The Emperor would never willingly let you guys learn what I can hypothetically do," I responded, continuing when the dark Jedi tensed in reaction to my words. "If the Emperor really wanted me captured, he would have sent more of you to make it easy, not risk it with just one of you... "

Despite his face being covered, the dark Jedi, or wannabe Sith, was still plainly upset by my guess. Still, to his credit, he recovered almost instantly.

"I came after you alone because I wanted to offer you training. While your skills are impressive, you clearly lack finesse. Become my apprentice, and together we could become powerful enough to kill the Emperor..."

As the dark Jedi talked, the pressure emanating from him continued to rise. It felt dark, twisted and seemed to pulse with anger, which was disturbing and unsettling considering coming from an outside source. It took me a moment to swallow the rising urge to run and respond.

"Really? I mean, how powerful could you really be, you're not even the Grand Inquisitor. " I asked, working hard not to flinch when an incredible pressure seemed to double, weighing down on me. "I just want to make sure that you have the proper levels of training to teach me."

"You are mocking me?" He asked, taking one stomping step forward. "Choose your next words carefully, I can just as easily torture your secrets from you as learn them from you willingly."

"So quick to shift from being my teacher to being my torturer," I said, shaking my head. "Your not-"

A blast of formless and invisible force slammed into my chest, driving me back, my feet sliding skidding across the ground. Somehow I managed to stay standing, shocking myself more than anyone else.

"I tire of your insolence. Troopers... kill the other two. I will handle the upstart force user," He Ordered, clearly not having a high tolerance for mocking. "Prying his secrets from him will be a fun challenge."

I could hear Vaz and Tatnia turning and running, so I stepped to the side, keeping myself between them and the Stormtroopers. The white armored soldiers got a few shots off but, after a moment, ran off to chase my two companions, leaving me and the Inquisitor alone. I could see his head turning to watch them run before looking back at me.

"One last chance. If you beg for forgiveness, I will order them to kill your companions quickly."

I raised my hand and rushed at him, my hands glowing as I did, conjuring a sword to my right hand as I cast sparks with my left. I aimed the spell at his chest, the lighting reaching out, only to be blocked by his saber, only one blade out so far. As his red saber caught the spell, I swung my sword down, trying to catch him off guard, only for him to pivot his block and extend the second blade, the saber catching my conjured blade, which shockingly did not disappear when it hit his saber.

The two very different weapons clashed, sending out a noise any Star Wars fan was familiar with, sounding like a hot iron bar on ice, spitting and crackling. There was also a low creaking sound that I hadn't expected, like the sound of rending, tearing metal. I stopped my sparks spell, my hand glowing again before I cast flames, a burst of fire spraying from my hands. The armored Force user attempted to block it as they had the sparks, but as it was just fire, it did nothing to slow the spray. The dark Sith wannabe shouted and pushed me back with a Force-enhanced shove, forcing me to stumble backward.

They quickly stifled the flames that licked up their chest, their armor now stained with scorch around the edges. As they did that, I took a moment to examine my sword. Hitting the lightsaber had drained a slightly larger amount of mana than just keeping it activated, but I could easily keep it going for a while.

My mana slowly started to tick up, and I used it to conjure up a dagger for my offhand before once again charging the Inquisitor. It was subtle, but they were clearly hesitating when I charged them. The fact that it was because they were used to chasing their prey, not defending against it, wasn't hard to figure out.

The armor-clad Force user had just enough time to get into a prepared stance before I was on them again, striking downwards with my sword, following up with a thrust from my dagger. They blocked and struck back, the pressure of their anger palpable. As they lashed out at me, I brought my sword up to block, then my dagger to keep him from pivoting the second blade into my leg.

We fought in a blur, cutting and slashing, blocking and stabbing. It quickly became apparent that while he was a better swordsman, potentially because of the Force given danger sense, I had more flexibility. It became especially apparent when he first managed to hit me, slashing his lightsaber against my arm, only for it to deflect off of my armor, draining its reserve but ultimately doing nothing. I quickly refilled the drain and pressed the attack, trying to take advantage of his shock.

While he might have been better, my conjured armor and my gifted skill with the blade meant I was holding my own and then some.

As we fought, my mana slowly refilled, taking its sweet time as I constantly recharged my bound items. I whirled around, jumped back, and threw my dagger at him, only to dismiss it when he tried to swipe it out of the air with his saber. As he did that, I charged and conjured a flame atronach, holding it back for a second to shoot the spell behind him. He spun around to see the suit of flaming armor, cursing.

"How? What Force magic are you using?" He shouted, seething in rage as he pulled down the dark side. "Wh-"

I directed my atronach to charge him, bum-rushing him as it raised its hand and cast flames at him, forcing him to raise his hand in return and block it with a force barrier. At the same time, I threw an ice spike at him, only for it to shatter when he blocked it with his saber. Despite that, shards of ice still hit him, breaking his focus as the atronach continued to charge him, blasting him with fire before finally slamming into him.

The ominously red lightsaber blade stuck out of the atronach's torso, the Fourth Brother managing to bring his lightsaber around at the last second, plunging it into its stomach. The atronach hung off of the blade, lifeless, prompting the Inquisitor to laugh.

"It seems your constructs are still susceptible to-"

The atronach, destroyed by the lightsaber blade, detonated in a ball of explosive fire while making physical contact with the Inquisitor. The resulting force tossed him back, tumbling and sliding along the ground. His pained scream cut out when he smacked his head on the ground.

I slowly stood up straight, walking over to the Inquisitor's smoking form, kicking him over. A good third of his outfit was burnt off, revealing a light green skin tone underneath. His helmet was a mess as well, cracked and chipped, his armor plates melted. He groaned, trying to find his saber, only to see it several feet away. Reaching out, he tried to pull it closer, using the Force to and dragging it to him. Just before it reached him, I drove an ice spike through his arm, then another through his left leg.

He screamed, his free hand gripping and pulling at the spike of ice in his arm, his lightsaber flying past us and bouncing along the ground. I kicked his free hand away, charging another spell, my hand glowing.

"Hey! Hey! Shut up!" I shouted, kicking his side. "Call off your troopers! Call them off, or I will drive another one through your chest! And order your pilots out here!"

He activated some sort of communicator in his helmet, calling his troopers. He repeated himself a few times, but there was no response.

"T-they aren't responding!" He practically shouted. "And I flew myself. I tried, I-"

"It's fine, Deacon, we are fine."

I whirled around to see Tatnia, supported by Vaz, slowly making their way to us. They were both limping, with Tatnia holding her side, a blaster wound under her hand. On top of that, Vaz wasn't wearing her mask and was clearly suffering for it. Still, they were both alive.

"Thank god," I said, sighing in relief. "Go on, you two get on the ship. I'll be in to fix you up in a second."

They both nodded, making their way to and then up the entry ramp of the Imperial ship. When they were gone, I turned back to the Inquisitor, who was trying to escape, whimpering as he pulled at the still creaking ice spikes. I kicked away his hand again, putting my foot on his chest. I charged up a calming spell and cast it on him.

"Who knows I was here?" I asked. "You were looking to become more powerful. If you tell me the truth, I will help you be one with the Force, more powerful than you could possibly imagine."

"I told the Grand Inquisitor I was investigating rumors that didn't sit well with me!" He said fervently. "I didn't want them to know about you, I wanted your secrets for myself."

"But there are records of me, of the prison break?"

"I hid them," he explained. "They might be found eventually, but not for some time…Wait… what mind tricks are you playing on me!? I-"

My hand glowed, and I drove a final spike of ice into his head, the icy spear punching through the already cracked and damaged helmet, killing him instantly. After a long moment, I stood back and conjured another flame atronach. Mentally I ordered it to burn the dark force users body until it ran out of power or I left its range. When it aimed its hands downward, and flames spewed over the corpse, I turned and headed to the ship, only to stop and turn around, quickly grabbing the double-bladed lightsaber that sat nearby. With my prize in hand, I turned and jogged back to the Lambda shuttle. My crew needed healing, and I wanted off this fucking planet.

Chapter Text

Ahsoka could literally feel people watching her as she made her way out of the hangar and deeper into the tunnels of Thila command. The Force sang with curiosity as she walked, the people around her wondering just who she was and why she had been given such quick access to the high-level hangar bay. She wasn't surprised, and it didn't slow her down in the slightest. She was used to being stared at. She was even used to the curl of suspicion that ran under all of that curiosity.

She made her way down a few floors, confident in her steps, despite never having been to this base before. Eventually, she arrived at her destination and stopped in front of a thick metal door, armed guards on either side. Rather than admit who she was, she reached through to the other side, where she felt the familiar presence of an old friend.

"Let her in," General Syndulla called from inside her office, surprising the two guards, as they had yet to announce her.

"Yes, General," The taller of the two guards said, reaching behind himself, the door opening a moment after.

Ahsoka nodded and stepped into the room, casting her eyes around as she subconsciously looked for any hidden threats. Finding none, she focused on the green-skinned Twi'lek sitting at her desk, looking down at a large datapad. The Togruta sat down across from the rebel general, wordlessly waiting for the general to finish what she was working on. After about a minute, she tapped a final time, the datapad going dark as she looked up at her guest.

"Sorry, just working through the first stages of our plan for the final exodus from Yavin IV," She admitted. "The ground forces that are still stuck behind the blockade are getting desperate, so we are working around the clock to get everyone out. It's going to be close… We could use your help."

"...Will he be there?"

"Luke?" Hera asked, the red-skinned Force user nodding in confirmation. "Most likely, he has been working hard to put the move together.

"... I will think about it," She responded after a long moment. "I am worried that once he learns about me, he will assume that I am there to guide him. Or worse, train him. That cannot happen. I am not a Jedi, I will not train one."

Hera nodded, leaning back in her chair, grabbing a glass of some sort of liquid as she went. Silently she took a sip, gesturing if Ahsoka wanted anything. When the once Jedi shook her head, the rebel general continued.

"How is he?" She finally asked, her voice soft, showing just how worried she was about the answer.

"He… will survive," Ahsoka responded, a frown on her face. "He spent nearly a year submerged completely in the Force, resisting Thrawn's… interrogations. When Thrawn couldn't break him, he locked him in a cell and threw away the key. Probably meant to use him as bait, or as a hostage."

"Where? On the Chimaera?" Hera asked. "How did he keep it functioning? How did he escape? The Purrgil…?"

"Thrawn… he had resources out there. I don't know where from or how, but when we reached the end of Ezra's Force trail, Thrawn had managed to build a base of power, something like a governor of a planet," She explained, shaking her head. "He is dangerous, brilliant, and cunning, but even that doesn't explain how fast he managed to build a power block, even out in the unknown regions, and even with a fully functional Star Destroyer, never mind the wreck that his flagship was when it disappeared."

"You think there was something else at play?"

"I know there was something else at play, I could feel it," She responded. "He had to have been getting help from somewhere, whether it was money, materials, or other resources, I don't know. I'm reasonably sure it wasn't the Empire, simply because of how lax security was, but that's all I can really say."

"That is worrying," Hera said, chewing her lip. "We will keep an eye out to the Unknown Regions, but there isn't much we can do right now. We barely have enough resources as is, and we don't have the manpower to send out on exploration missions."

"I know, but we need to be careful."

"What kind of shape was he in when you found him?" Hera asked, bringing the conversation back to Ezra, the whole point for Ahsoka's mission into the unknown regions.

"He spent so much time open to the Force it took us a while to get through to him," Ahsoka admitted. "It was slow going, but he is recovering. Sabine is staying with him, she brought him somewhere he could connect with to help ground him to the present."

"The Comm Tower?"

"The Comm Tower," she confirmed with a small smile before frowning. "Mentally, he should recover. Physically… he will need a few prosthetics and…. And cosmetic surgery."

Hera was silent for a long moment before letting out a series of curses, some of which Ahsoka understood, but many she didn't. Her R'yloth accent came through as she let her frustration and anger loose. When Hera was done, she all but slammed her drink down on her desk.

"Thrawn has a lot to answer for," She said, a dark look on her face. "When Yavin IV is finally evacuated…"

"As much as I would like to join you, we can't," Ahsoka said, shaking her head. "We couldn't spare the ships or the manpower. At least, not enough to take down what he managed to build up."

Hera took another deep breath, grasping at her frustration and slowly getting it under control. After about thirty seconds of failing, she settled for distracting herself, leaning down and opening a drawer in her desk, pulling out a normal-sized datapad. She put it on her desk and slid it across to Ahsoka, who caught it as it fell off the side, using the Force just enough to keep the Datapad from falling.

"What's this?" She asked, activating the device and scrolling through a series of videos.

"That is a recording that one of our newer commanders gathered for us. He went missing for a few months, long enough that we pronounced him dead, before he showed up here, very much alive. He was captured and sold into slavery on Nar Shaddaa, stuck there for close to six months," She explained. "He was rescued by a team of escaped slaves, who were harassing the slave traders to gather credits in preparation to leave the planet and start a mercenary company. The leader was a man named Deacon Roy, who Commander Loc reported to have strange abilities."

When she was done, she gestured to the tablet. Ahsoka activated the handheld computer and watched the video feed displayed. After a few seconds of watching, her eyes went wide, darting up to look at General Syndulla.

"Is this real?" She asked, eyes dipping back down to the handheld computer screen.

"Commander Loc swears it is, and the trusted data analysis expert I had verify it seems to agree."

Before Ahsoka could comment, the video continued, this time with the voice of the camera's focus coming through, explaining that they weren't a Jedi and that they were not using the Force.

She looked down, focusing back on the video, her jaw dropping as she watched Deacon Roy summon something from nowhere, heal with a glowing outstretched hand and cover himself with some sort of energy barrier armor.

"I… I don't know what to say… I have never seen anything like that," She finally admitted, shaking her head as she scrolled back through the footage, letting it play through again. "The closest I could say I've seen is the magic of the Nightsisters… but even that is something very different."

"How so?"

"Their magic was a Force ability similar to Sith alchemy. They used chants and mantras instead of rage, will and an iron grip on the Force to change the physical world around them," She explained, eyes glued to the screen. "It requires a tight grip on the dark side, at a level that is… It's not something you can have without signs. You can feel it in the air, feel it pressing down on you."

"Even if you aren't force-sensitive?" Hera asked, leaning forward and putting her elbows on her desk.

"When it's used so obviously? Absolutely," She answered confidently. "Drops in temperature, bouts of anger, disgust, fear… Do you consider this Loc to be a good person?"

"As much as I can anyone under my command," She answered, looking curious. "Why?"

"If this Deacon was tapping into the dark side of the Force deep enough to perform that level of physical manipulation, a good person would feel the rage and would probably feel revolted. It would be like standing next to a rampaging, dangerous animal," She explained. "To just stand there like that? I can't imagine anyone being able to do that, at least not someone with any decency at all."

"And the light side of the Force?" She asked. "It couldn't do something like this?"

"I… General Syndulla, you know my past. You know why and when I left the Order behind. Maybe if I had become a Master, I would have a better answer for you, or at least speak with a little more confidence…" She trailed off, taking a deep breath, visibly trying to rack her brain for answers. "I know there are many abilities the Order did not teach to Padawans or Knights. I don't know why, though if I had to guess, it was because they saw such direct manipulations of the Force, taking it and forcing it to do exactly what you wanted, as leaning towards the dark. The Sith saw the Force as a tool, a hammer, to use it as such was beneath, or even dangerous for a Jedi."

Despite all her training and experience at keeping her emotions calm, it wasn't hard to see the conflicted thoughts that ran through Ahsoka's mind as she looked back on her time as a student in the Jedi Order. Eventually, after a long time sorting through the thoughts bouncing through her head, she spoke again.

"I don't know what to make of it. The Force… it's telling me he isn't to be feared," She admitted, leaning back in the chair, looking up at General Syndulla. "Beyond that… I don't know. Where is he now?"

"After rescuing Commander Loc, he came here, dropping him off in a ship they stole to escape Nar Shaddaa. We offered our connection with a shipbroker as a thank you, both for rescuing the Commander and for selling the ship and its cargo to us for cheap," She explained. "Commander Loc left with them to the shipbroker since he was familiar with them. He then got roped into a material gathering mission, which Deacon Roy suggested as a way to earn the credits required to buy him and his group's new ship."

"Oh really?" She asked, raising an eyebrow. "How did he manage that?"

General Syndulla spent the next fifteen minutes describing the mission outline that Commander Loc and his subordinates had joined Deacon and his crew on, including the resulting resources and credits they saw as a result. Ahsoka listened silently before eventually speaking when she was done.

"Have you made any progress in decoding the computer core?"

"We have. There are two locations so far that we are investigating, one of them is even an option for a temporary base if it turns out like the records described. Once we get some general scans to confirm anything useful, we plan on contacting Deacon's group."

"I want to be a part of that," The orange-skinned Togruta said. "I want to meet him."

"Do you think you will be able to figure out the truth of his abilities?"

"In the same room as him? Absolutely," She answered confidently. "Especially if I am on the ground with him, watching him use his abilities."

"Alright, the investigations should be done in the next few days, you are welcome to stick around and rest… In exchange, I want you to help plan the exodus of Yavin IV."

"... Are you extorting my curiosity to get my help with Yavin IV?" Ahsoka asked, her eyes wide in surprise. "Why? You want to know the truth as much as I do."

"Not really," The Twi'lek rebel corrected, smirking as she crossed her arms, her eyebrow raised in a challenge. "All I care about is if he is a threat to the Rebellion, if he can actually do what Commander Loc claims, and if he is willing to help us. I don't need you there to answer any of those questions."

For a long moment, Ahsoka was silent, studying the woman across the desk from her. Despite her challenging expression, Ahsoka could feel through the Force that she wasn't really drawing a line in the sand. If she pushed, she would most likely give in, and given who she used to work with, the General probably knew she could feel that. Still, she could tell she wanted her input badly enough to at least attempt to steer her, even half-heartedly.

"Fine, I will help plan, but that does not mean I will be participating," The ex-Jedi Knight said.

She was lying, of course, there was no way she could take part in planning a skirmish like that and then not be on the ground, not when she could be. She was not the type to make plans and let others fight her battles. And General Syndulla knew that.

"Thank you," She said with a smile. "There is a meeting tonight where we will discuss the recent troop movement and resource additions we have access to."

"... Luke is going to be there, isn't he?"

"Assuming he returns from his duties on time, yes," She responded with a victorious smirk.

"... Dammit."

"Ahsoka, he is a kid. Would it really be so bad if you-"

"Yes. It would." She responded harshly, cutting her off. "I can't be a mentor to him."

"Very well. But you will have to tell him that yourself."

Ahsoka nodded before casting a look back down at the tablet, which was paused with an image of Deacon spraying fire along a duracrete wall. After a few seconds, she placed the compact computer on Hera's desk before standing.

"Thank you for sharing this with me," She said with a slight nod, turning to head for the door, stopping when Hera called out to her.

"Ahsoka…" She said, the Force-sensitive woman turning to face the rebel General. "Thank you for bringing him back. Sabine was desperate but had no idea where to start. Without you…"

"I was keeping a promise," She said, her expressionless face cracking with a small smile. "I couldn't leave him to the mercies of Thrawn."

"Still… Thank you."

Ahsoka nodded again, this time with a much less stoic expression, before leaving back through the door, her mind spinning both with old memories, new mysteries, and coming confrontations.

Chapter Text

I quickly climbed the entry ramp into the shuttle, picking up speed as I did. As I stepped into the ship, the ramp started sliding up, the internal systems already working overtime to clean out the horrible poison in the air. I looked around and immediately rushed through the interior, making a beeline for the cockpit, where Tatnia and -Vaz were already waiting. They were sitting in what I assumed were the pilot and copilot seats, Tatnia already tapping on the controls. I stepped in behind them, dropped the lightsaber into one of the other seats, and put my hands on their shoulders, casting healing hands on them both.

Tatnia let out a sigh of relief as the healing energy fed into her, stopping for a moment before continuing to familiarize herself with the ship, Vaz doing the same beside her. When my well of Magicka was empty, I sat down in one of the chairs to wait for it to regenerate.

"Can you guys fly it?" I asked, watching them work. "Because if you can't…"

"I can fly it," Tatnia assured me, Vaz nodding in agreement. "Just don't expect anything special."

"I am not overly familiar with Sienar Fleet Systems ships, but we will manage," Vaz added, her screens flashing a few times.

I nodded, reaching forward and starting the healing hands spell again, once again emptying my mana into them both. Not long after I was empty again, Tatnia looked back at me.

"Stay sitting for a bit. It might get a bit bumpy," She said before turning to focus on her controls.

The shuttle slowly lifted off from the ground, wobbling just a bit before Tatnia regained control. Once she was confident, she aimed upwards, and we were off, heading for space at a pretty fast pace. Once we broke the atmosphere, I could see plenty of ships in orbit, most of them cargo vessels of some kind, before we flew past even them.

"Free and clear?" I asked, Tatnia nodding without turning away from the viewport, which showed nothing but stars.

"Looks like it, Boss… Now we just need to use the Hyperwave to contact the others. Set up a meeting place somewhere."

"Yeah, about that... How difficult would it be to listen in on a Hyperwave?" I asked. "Specifically from the sender's perspective, like if you had access to their ship?"

"You think someone was listening in on whatever that guy was?"

"I think that the Empire is a hive of scheming, betrayal, and power plays, and the Emperor is the worst out of everyone. The Inquisitors, as far as I know, are his own personal Jedi hunters," I explained. "The likelihood that he bugged their ships to better manipulate them is very much not zero percent."

"God's dammit… okay, we plot a course to deep space, make the jump, and I will take a look at the Hyperwave unit. If it's standard… I might be able to spot anything weird attached to it," She admitted, not sounding very confident. "But that's about all I can do, and it's a stretch. We could fly this somewhere and abandon it if you're that worried about it?"

"No… we just can't take it anywhere important or say anything critical until it's been gone over with a fine tooth comb."

The computer set to work, quickly spitting out a short jump to the middle of nowhere while I continued to heal my two crewmates. By the time they were both feeling completely healthy, we were secluded in deep space. Tatnia and Vaz, the latter of which had some training in spotting plants, trackers, and bugs, checked out the Hyperwave transmission unit, which was set down inside a maintenance space. At the same time, I started going through the cargo, looking for anything suspicious.

Most of the cargo space was empty, save a few crates of what looked like standard survival gear, an emergency kit and some basic rations. There were also five spare sets of stormtrooper armor, including the body suits that went underneath. There was another crate of standard E-11 blasters and other standard gear. The rest of the cargo space was empty.

By the time I was done going through everything, relatively confident there wasn't anything secret in the cargo crates, Tatnia and Vaz had just about finished inspecting the Hyperwave unit. I leaned over the maintenance hatch, extending a hand down to help Tatnia climb out, and was about to do the same for Vaz when she simply jumped up and out in one impressive leap.

"So, we couldn't see anything," Tatnia said, rolling down her sleeves and wiping a spot of grease off her cheek. "Doesn't mean there isn't something internal... but it's the best I can we can do for now."

"Alright, well, let's put together a message, tell them to meet us somewhere," I said. "Somewhere random."

All three of us headed back to the cockpit and put together a message, sending it out through the Hyperwave transceiver. Depending on where they were, it could take hours or minutes for them to get it. We settled in to wait for a response, all three of us closing our eyes to nap. About an hour and a half later, we got a response, a message that agreed to meet us but changed where we had suggested meeting, instead telling us to go to where "Boss had his first space walk."

"The moon?" I asked, furrowing my brow as I tried to recall where the moon had been. "What did he call it?"

"Point Thirteen. They are lucky I remember where it was," Tatnia said, shaking her head as she started working on the hyperdrive controls.

"Is going there a good idea? It was... already in use as a hand-off point, right?"

"Our friend said it was dead, they stopped using it after his original team was hit since there was a chance they could interrogate the information out of any survivors," Tatnia explained. "It's just an empty system now."

The astronavigation system started the process of calculating the hyperspace jumps while I walked back into the passenger area, grabbing the double-bladed lightsaber as I went. I dropped down into one of the less comfortable passenger seats, examining the weapon in my hands. As far as I could tell, it carried none of the dark twistedness that had come off of the Inquisitor, hopefully meaning that it wasn't infected by the dark side. The weapon was sturdy and well-built, feeling solid in my hands. It was obviously well-maintained, and carried the feel of a weapon, the same as when you pick up a blaster or a gun.

Which did nothing to change the fact that it looked fucking ridiculous.

"Really scraping the barrel for new lightsaber ideas," I muttered to myself, shaking my head as I studied the buttons on the interior hilt. "Solid big scary bad guys, relying on a gimmick to take down anyone."

For a long moment I debated activating the weapon, wondering what the chances were that it was trapped. The lore around lightsabers varied from case to case, but there were stories and instances that clearly communicated that a lightsaber could do significant damage if it was broken and activated anyway. Turning on one that was deliberately booby-trapped while I was holding it sounded incredibly stupid.

"Fuck it, not worth the risk," I said, shaking my head as I put the weapon down on the seat next to me, leaning back and closing my eyes.

I drifted off almost immediately, completely missing the eventual jump to hyperspace. I slept for almost five hours before finally coming back to consciousness. I sat back up, my back aching from the bare bones and rather uncomfortable seat. As I stood and stretched, I quickly healed away the ache before making my way back up to the cockpit.

"Are we there yet?" I asked, Tatnia turning her head to look at me.

"No, not for another six or seven hours," She said.

"Right. Well, are you two hungry?" I asked, gesturing vaguely to the back of the ship. "There are some shelf-stable food packets tucked back in the cargo area."

I ended up going back into the cargo space and returning with an armful of food, the three of us cracking a few open and digging in. I was impressed by how good the shelf-stable, sealed and self-heating food was, even if it was noticeably not fresh.

They even came with a little candy bar at the end, some sort of sweet nut bar that vaguely tasted like hazelnuts and cherries. I knew stormtroopers lived off some sort of horrible nutrient paste, so they must have been added by the Inquisitor.

When we were done eating, we settled in for a long flight, Vaz and Tatnia taking turns napping as we cruised through hyperspace. When we finally arrived at our destination, all three of us were on high alert. We were pretty sure that whoever had messaged us was, in fact, the rest of the crew, but it was hard not to be nervous. After the gauntlet the three of us had just gone through, I couldn't exactly condemn my rising paranoia.

After dropping out of hyperspace, Tatnia oriented the ship toward the vaguely familiar moon, setting a decent pace. When we were about three-quarters of the way there, the Talos Chariot emerged from behind the moon's curvature, burning rubber to get to us. Both of raindrops dropped from their connections and zipped across the distance, encircling us.

"Dark Blade, this is the Talos Chariot," Calima's voice said, coming through the comms system. "Power down weapons and engines, then prepare to be boarded."

"Wait, this ship is called the Dark Blade?" I asked in surprise. "What a bunch of edge lords. We are definitely changing that if we decide to keep it."

"Talos Chariot, this is Dark Blade, powering down now," Tatnia responded, tapping her screen, whole sections going dark as she did. "It's good to hear your voice, Calima. How is everyone?"

The comms were silent for a long time before it finally crackled back on, another familiar voice coming through.

"Tatnia! It's you! Are you okay!? What happened?! Is Deacon there? Is he okay!?" Miru asked at a breakneck pace. "Where have you guys been? How did you escape!? Where- Oh… Nal says to put your wings up so we can dock!"

"It's good to hear from you too, Miru, Deacon and I are both fine," Tatnia explained with a smile. "We can tell you what happened when we dock. Oh, and we have a plus one, a new crew member."

We could hear Miru taking a breath to start talking again, only for Calima to cut her off.

"Miru, go help Nal set up the docking connection, you can talk to them when they come through," She said, the young mechanical genius whining but leaving with a happy goodbye. "Okay, Tatnia, since I assume you're the one piloting. Go ahead… and turn your engines back on, you're going to have a much easier time maneuvering into place than me. Leave your weapons off for now, though, in case someone is holding a gun to your head."

Tatnia agreed, and slowly, we began to move again, orienting to the bottom of the Chariot, moving until we were essentially belly-to-belly with the much larger ship. After a few minutes of careful maneuvering and assistance from secondary cameras and auto-guidance systems, the extended docking systems connected, and the magnetic clamps on the Blade's landing struts locked onto the bottom of the Chariot.

All three of us stood from the cockpit and made our way to the interior of the passenger hold. It took us a few minutes to remove the floor panel that covered the emergency docking system on the bottom of the ship, but once we did, we opened the circular entrance, revealing Nal, Miru, and Julus, all looking down at us…

While we looked down at them.

"Woah… that's trippy," I said, shaking my head. "How do we cross over?"

"Kneel down and give us your hands," Nal said, leaning over and offering his own. "We will guide you through."

One by one, we kneeled down, letting the others pull us through, shifting from one plane of artificial gravity to the other. To say it was disorienting would be an understatement, but we recovered pretty quickly. Nal slapped me on the shoulder with a smile, showing off his sharp teeth.

"Welcome back, Boss," He said while I shook Julus's hand.

"It's good to be-" I started to respond, only for Miru to switch from giving Tatnia a hug to giving me one, not holding back in the slightest. "Miru, it's good to see you. I'm sorry we worried you."

"Wasn't worried," She said, keeping her head buried in my chest. "I knew you would come back eventually."

"Well, I appreciate the vote of confidence," I said, returning her hug, before giving Nal a look. "How has it been on this side? Everything going alright?"

"We were trying to find you," He explained. "But had no leads beyond knowing you were taken by bounty hunters, not the security force."

"Probably because it was a bounty put out by Jabba the Hutt," I explained, chuckling when Nal's eyes widened. "Yeah, it's been a trip, my friend. Unfortunately, we have some business to take care of before we can sit down. The Dark Blade is an Imperial ship, the property of one very dead Inquisitor, the Emperor's Jedi hunters. I don't know if we are keeping it or not, but it needs to be cleared of booby traps, bugs, taps, and everything in between."

"Emperor's… Well, you did warn us the Empire would come looking eventually," Julus said. "So, what, are you guys wanted now?"

"I don't know. The Inquisitor claimed he kept my existence under wraps," I explained, shaking my head. "He was hoping that I would join him, teach him my methods."

"He hid your existence?" Nal asked.

"He tried to. I'de say we are on a time limit now, we-"

"Boss?" Tatnia said, nodding towards Vaz, who was looking around the interior of the ship.

"Right, sorry, Vaz. Guys, this is Vaz Stross. She helped us escape, and stuck with us along the way," I explained. "I offered her a spot on the crew, and she accepted."

"Oh, well…welcome to the show," Julus said with a smile, reaching out and shaking the Shistavanen's hand.

"Thank you. I look forward to working with everyone."

"Lots of fun things to look forward to," I agreed with a smirk. "But first… we need to know if anyone is listening. Miru? Are you up for it?"

"Yeah, just let me get Racer and Leddy," She said, finally pulling away from our hug, heading down to her workshop. "But you are telling us everything while we work!"

"Alright, alright. Let me take a sonic shower and get Vaz situated first, okay?" I said before looking at Nal. "Leddy?"

"Prime repair droid, the one we aren't wiping," He explained. "Just starting to show the first signs of divergence. Not much, asked for a different paint job."

"Gotcha. Well… C'mon Vaz, let's go get you a room, introduce you to Calima, our pilot, and see about finding you some more comfortable clothes," I said, getting a serious nod from our newest crewmate. "Nal, any chance you could…"

"Got a small pile of extra clothes in cargo hold… might have something she can wear," He responded, walking the same way Miru had left. "Good to have you back, Boss, Tatnia."

"It's good to be back!" I called after him before turning back to Vaz. "C'mon, rooms are this way. I'll give you a bit of a tour."

Chapter Text

As much as I wanted to spend some time sitting in the lounge area of the Talos Chariot, I ended up back in the Dark Blade’s passenger bay almost immediately after showing Vaz around the ship, including the large empty room at the back of the top deck, which I definitely hadn't forgotten about. There were some backup control systems along the wall, but everything else had been cleared out while Nova and her team were fixing the ship up, so now it was mostly empty.

After introducing Vaz to Calima, Miru came up and dragged me back down to the Blade, wanting me to tell the story of what had happened when we were gone while she was going over the ship. This led to me, Tatnia, and Vaz sitting in the passenger chairs in the Blade, watching the young Twi’lek work. She started by hooking Racer up to the ship's main computer core, letting him roll through the ship's systems while she and Leddy, who was now on their third color scheme, a deep forest green, scanned the ship with handheld equipment, looking for anomalous devices and emissions. Nal, Calima, and Julus were also present, with the former two hanging their feet over the edge of the docking portal and the latter sitting in the cockpit.

I started the story off with Tatnia and I being chased through the streets of Daalang, the planetary security forces forcing us into a bounty hunter trap. I guessed that they had done that on purpose, but Nal chimed in and assured me they hadn’t.

“Stayed on Daalang for days, looking for you. Trying to find your trail,” He explained. “Security forces were only told you were wanted. Couldn’t trace where that information came from.”

“So the bounty hunters tricked the police into herding us around?” I asked with a raised eyebrow. “That's… a lot of work, kind of impressive for how long we had been on the planet. How much was our bounty?”

“Thirty-five thousand for you, Boss, twenty for Tatnia,” Julus said from the cockpit. “Nal and Miru still have twenty.”

“What the hell… Are we going to have to kill Jabba?” I asked before looking at Nal. “Would that stop the bounties?”

“If he already gave the money to the guild, no,” He answered. “But Jabba is notoriously cheap…”

“So he probably hasn’t,” I finished, shaking my head. “Alright, that's an option then. Either way, we need to be more careful, especially around Hutt space. It's also just a matter of time before I get noticed for my abilities again.”

“We knew this would happen, Boss,” Julus reminded me. “Especially with you wanting to join the rebellion.”

“Yeah… I just wanted a bit more time to build things up first,” I explained. “I was hoping to have another ship the same scale as the Chariot, a few starfighters, and maybe a few support craft.”

“You realize how many credits it would take to keep a fleet, even as small as that, going, right?” Calima asked. “Fuel alone is going to be difficult…”

“Which is why one of the stipulations for joining up would be that the fleet sticks together and that they help keep it supplied,” I explained, getting an appreciative nod from Calima.

“So... what do we do?” Miru asked, still holding her scanning device, having stopped once I stopped talking about what we had gone through.

“We get to work. I think we start looking for more targets, maybe put mercenary and bounty hunting to the side and start making a list,” I explained. “Anything connected to Jabba the Hutt just became a preferred target, for example. But that's for tomorrow. For now, I need to take a break and sleep in my own bed.”

“After you finish the story,” Miru said, threateningly pointing her scanner at me.

“Yeah yeah, after we finish the story.”

It took a few more hours for us to make our way through our story, ending with my fight with the Inquisitor. Miru was enthralled by that part, even more than the rest, but I was much more interested to hear how Tatnia and Vaz handled a dozen stormtroopers on their own.

According to Vaz, when they ran back around the wreckage of the exploded YT, they immediately split up. Vaz kept running, sprinting across the landing pad to the next ship, while Tatnia hid behind some rubble. The stormtroopers took the bait and followed after Vaz, allowing Tatnia to pop up out of cover and attack them from behind. Once Tatnia started hitting them from behind, Vaz attacked from the cover of the nearest ship. Their trap evened the odds, but the stormtroopers were still able to injure them due to their superior numbers.

When we were done recounting our missing time, we left Miru, Leddy and Racer to finish their scanning, Nal keeping them company while the rest of us went back into the Chariot. I headed up to the lounge and dropped onto the couch-like seat that took up a corner of the space, letting out a long sigh. Calima, who was walking back to check the cockpit, chuckled as she walked by.

“It is good to have you back, Boss,” She said, crossing into the cockpit, keeping the door open. “Nal did his best… to keep the situation calm, but it felt… directionless.”

“I’m glad to be back, Calima, it was not fun being gone,” I said, sitting up on the couch. “You guys would have been okay though.”

For a while, I just sat on the couch, soaking in the lounge and the feeling of returning home. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for me to get antsy. I wasn’t about to jump up and get back to the grind, I had been serious about wanting to take it easy for a day or so. Unfortunately, my inability to do nothing for very long soon forced me off of the couch. I stretched and made my way through the ship, heading to the bottom deck, and making my way to the docking portal, only to find it sealed up, a red light blinking along the side.

“Uhh… Miru?” I called out, looking down the ship's centerline and into the cargo area. "What's the red light mean?"

“I’m over here,” She said, calling from her workshop, prompting me to leave the portal and head to her. “Leddy and Racer are handling the exterior scans of the Black Blade. They had to depressurize the ship to do it.”

“Right, I… Miru, what are you doing with that?” I asked, doing my best to channel my dad's disappointed voice as I spotted the lightsaber on Miru’s bench.

“Just running some scans, I promise!” She said defensively. “I was gonna ask before doing anything else, I swear!”

“You need to learn a bit about boundaries, Miru,” I said, leaning against one of the tool cabinets lining the back wall of her workshop.

“Sorry… I just can't help myself! I’ve always wanted to know how a lightsaber works!” She admitted, looking suitably ashamed. “And it was just sitting there…”

I let out a sigh and pushed off the table and looked over her shoulder, the young engineer returning to her scans. Most of the information went over my head, but I could see she had identified the power source and started a scan of the two kyber crystals it contained.

“Be careful, I do not want to have to wipe you off the floor because the edge lord who made this trapped his weapon,” I explained, her eyes going wide as she turned to look at me. “And you would have known about that possibility if you had asked first.”

“Right… sorry.”

“Just learn your lesson before it gets you hurt, alright?” I said, the pink-skinned Twi’lek nodding rapidly.

“Is there anything else I should know about it?” She asked, and I chuckled, glad she had at least learned that much.

“Yes, kyber crystals have a presence in the Force, and lightsabers themselves require the Force to be put together, something about everything needing to be perfect,” I explained. “Or at least, that's what I’ve been told. Either way, if it breaks, do not reassemble it. We can't take the risk of it exploding or something because it's not precisely put back together.”

“I can be precise.” She said with a slight pout.

“I know, I don’t doubt that, but you have no idea what to adjust it to,” I explained, getting a confused look in return. “Look at the crystals, see how they aren’t a uniform shape? How do you know which precise orientation to put them in to get the perfect energy… Transference? Pass through? Whatever, you get what I’m saying, right?”

“Yeah, I get it... But how would a Jedi know?”

“Their connection to the Force lets them feel the answer to some things,” I explained. “Basically, they would listen to the Force, and it would tell them when it was perfectly in place.”

“That's… disappointing,” She said with a frown. “Are you sure that's how it works?”

“To be honest? No, I’m not sure,” I admitted with a shrug, knowing that between Legends, Disney and everything in between, lightsaber lore was incredibly jumbled. “But I don’t want to find out here, on a ship surrounded by vacuum. Besides, this lightsaber could come in handy. It’s an impressive tool, and it would be a shame to break it. So, for now, just scans. I’ll work on finding you some stuff to mess around with, promise. ”

She nodded with a smile before turning to focus on her scan, tapping the screen occasionally as she guided whatever tool she was using to get a look inside the internals of the weapon. As usual, I couldn’t make heads or tales of what I was looking at, but she seemed to understand at least the gist of it.

“It's a simple design, but you're right, the level of precision needed… I could maybe do it if I had a few years to make specially designed and zeroed machines, but we are talking lab settings, with no room for error systems, and hundreds of thousands of credits. And even then, I wouldn't be certain. The level of precision it would require is mind-boggling, and that's if you know the precise angle the crystal needs to be in, which I don’t know the first thing about, ” She admitted, shaking her head. “With this equipment, all I can't tell you is that it's not trapped. But the only evidence I have that it’s properly calibrated at all is that you claim it worked not too long ago.”

I nodded and reached around her, grabbing the lightsaber from her workstation. I carried it out of her workshop and to a slightly more open area in the cargo hold. I lifted the dangerous weapon up in front of myself, double-checking to make sure neither end was pointing at me. I spent about three seconds holding it out before cursing and looking back at Miru.

“The top button inlaid with a goldish-colored metal is the activation, the one inlaid with a silver metal activates the spinning,” She explained with a smirk. “Double tap the saber button to activate the second blade.”

I nodded and turned back to the lightsaber, my thumb hovering over the activation button before I realized I was being stupid and quickly conjuring my bound armor.

Then I hit the button.

The lightsaber extended with the classic snap-hiss, the thrum of the deep red energy blade filling the cargo hold. It cast an eerie red light across everything, which in turn created long, harsh shadows. I swung the blade around for a moment before activating the second blade, which snapped out with a similar sound, the red glow now twice as intense.

After a moment of hesitation, I held out the lightsaber and tapped the second button. Immediately the blades began to spin, picking up speed ridiculously fast. I had no idea how it worked, but it was fast enough that it made me very, very nervous. I quickly shut it down, deactivating the spinning and turning off the blades.

“Wait, that's it?” Miru asked. “You're not gonna swing it around or try to cut anything?”

“No, this thing is a hull breach waiting to happen,” I said, shaking my head. “When I said it would be useful, I really meant it as a tool, like carving through doors and stuff. Chances are I will not be using this as a weapon, especially now that I know my conjured swords work against lightsabers.”

“That's… kinda boring,” She said, and I shrugged.

“Probably. I might consider using one that doesn't have all these extra bits,” I admitted gesturing to the main gimmick of the spinning blade. “But that would require modifying it, and I’m not willing to sacrifice its utility for a chance to get a weapon that I already have a suitable replacement for anyway.”

The younger Twi’lek pouted for a moment before eventually letting out a groan of disappointment and turning back to her workshop.

“How about you take a break?” I asked, Miru turning back to look at me. “Why don’t you show me what you were working on while I was away?

“How do you know I’ve been working on something specific?” She asked, squinting at me suspiciously.

“Because I know you,” I responded with a smirk. “You were stressed and had a lot of downtime. I’m surprised you didn’t build a whole new ship.”

She slapped my stomach but didn’t deny that she kept herself busy. After a few seconds, the urge to share what she had done beat out the urge to prove me wrong, and she smiled.

“Well… you remember that idea I mentioned for the sensor suite from the ‘raiders’?” She said, getting excited. “Well, I finished it! Come on!”

She excitedly led me through the first level of the ship, making a beeline for the Arrow, which was parked in the starboard hangar. The speeder was resting on its landing struts, the side door open. She stood by the door and gestured inside.

With a curious look, I leaned into the speeder, looking around for a moment before noticing the difference. Along the back of the interior, what was once a small storage space for gear, guns, or whatever we wanted was now filled with the scanner system. It was locked into a roller cage of some kind, cleanly welded and finished, though unpainted. It was all well done and clean but still had the custom “done in a workshop” look.

“I hooked it up with the systems and the exterior of the speeder. You still have to run it from the actual equipment, but the data it gathers can be read from any screen connected to the main system,” The excited mechanic explained. “Then, because I took up all of the cargo space, I added this!”

She walked around the back of the speeder, where there were two new mounting points.

“These are mag-locks, like the ones we used to attach the raindrops to the ship hull, but smaller. It will let the Arrow haul a small cargo crate. It won't be able to go nearly as fast when it's loaded down, but Nal pointed out that carrying cargo is important, so I added it on.”

“Nice work Miru, that's going to come in handy,” I said honestly. “Have you had a chance to test the scanner yet?”

“No, we’ve been busy looking for you,” She responded with a shrug. “I mean, we scanned the ship pretty well, but that's about it.”

We spent a few more minutes going over what she had made before eventually going up to the lounge to have dinner. I almost had to drag Miru back with me, but ultimately, she did agree to take a longer break. The whole crew spent a while together, reconnecting and talking, enjoying an extended dinner break before we went our separate ways across the ship.

Chapter Text

We spent most of the next day relaxing, which Tatnia, Vaz, and I desperately needed. I woke up in the morning in a cold sweat, most of the night plagued by unpleasant dreams I hardly remembered. What little I could recall involved what could have happened and what would have happened if our escape attempt hadn't worked. I ended up giving up on sleep a bit early, walking out into the lounge to find Tatnia already having breakfast.

I joined her, of course, both of us thoroughly enjoying the simple prepackaged food, which despite how basic it was, blew anything we had in the prison and even most of what we ate as we escaped out of the water. I could only imagine how Vaz felt, having spent so much longer inside that hellhole.

Once breakfast was over, I spent the day walking around the ship, helping out where I could, but mostly just trying to settle into being back. It was surprising how much being away affected me, and I mentally promised to be more careful in the future. I wasn't exactly sure how I could have done better given what I knew and didn't know at the time, but I did know that I needed to do better now that I knew how everything could go wrong so quickly.

Eventually, with most of the day gone by, I called everyone up to the lounge. We ate dinner as a crew again, but this time stayed sitting once we were done, as I wanted to have another meeting about what was next.

"Alright," I said once the table was clear. "We have a lot to go over, so let's start with something we can definitively decide on and then move on. The Dark Blade, are we keeping it?"

"They are… impressive ships," Calima said, leaning back in her seat. "Strong shields, lots of weapons, decent cargo space if… you include the passengers."

"I know, it's a tempting ship to keep," I agreed, shaking my head. "It has a lot of potential. The only negative I could think of at the moment is how heavily it's tied to the Imperials."

"It does stand out. As far as I know, they do not sell it commercially," Tatnia added. "So anyone using it either stole it or is an Imperial. And with how expensive they are, everyone is going to be paying attention."

"So, keep it and handle the upkeep despite not being able to use it sometimes," I said. "Or sell it to the Rebels, who I know would be very eager to get their hands on it and use the money to buy another ship. Something that might not be as well armed but might be more useful in the long run."

The group was silent for a while as we all thought through our options. When nobody said anything for a minute, I snorted and shook my head.

"So much for this being the easy topic," I said before making a decision. "I'm going to say that for now, we keep it. We can always sell it off later, and eventually, showing off an obviously wanted ship isn't going to be as big of a deal, at least not when we are around rebels. Unfortunately, for now, it's probably better to keep it off the board, at least until our cover is blown again."

"So what, we keep it but don't use it?" Miru asked. "Or do we just leave it in deep space when we go to any populated planets?"

"I'd say, for now, let's just leave it parked here," I said with a shrug. "The moon is most likely safe, it's got a spot for us to land it on already. We can park it on the surface, shut it all down, and then come back for it when we need it."

Everyone nodded in agreement, and Calima headed to the cockpit to set a very slow course for the moon, dragging the Blade with us. She returned after a few minutes so we could continue our meeting.

"So, we talked a bit about it already, but essentially we are on a time limit with the Imperials," I said as our pilot sat back down. "According to the Inquisitor that I killed, he hid the records of the prison break. Unfortunately, I don't exactly trust his competency. Eventually, someone is going to find them. When they do, they are going to come looking for me. Which means worlds with a solid Imperial presence won't be open to us. We kind of knew this would happen, but I was hoping to have a bit more time. Either way, I would rather them be after me for something we did rather than for escaping from that prison."

"What do you mean?" Julus said, leaning his elbows on the table.

"What I mean is, as of right now, we are not wanted by the Imperials, but that is going to change eventually. We may as well do something to earn it rather than just wait down the clock. I'll admit, there is a chance they haven't connected me to the Chariot, but that likely hood is vanishingly small. Tatnia and Vaz are definitely connected to me, and Nal and Miru aren't far behind," I explained, Julus nodding in understanding. "I think it might be time to abandon pretenses and go for it. We should find something to steal from the Imperials, preferably a ship. Landing on an Imperial planet will be as easy as paying for space right now, so we still have an opportunity. Maybe even one big enough to snag multiple things."

"That… okay, it would definitely make a statement," Tatnia admitted. "Are you sure?"

"Unless anyone can think of a reason not to, other than just enjoying the time it takes for them to figure it all out?" I asked, waiting for someone to speak up. "Then I say we push for one big heist and take advantage of the fact that they don't know who we are yet."

"What kind of target are we looking for?" Nal asked. "Is there something specific?"

"We are looking for a ship to increase our effectiveness, something that we can use to create a proper fleet," I explained. "Something that isn't too expensive to keep operational, and that staffing will be easy as well. That said, if we get handed the opportunity to steal something big, we should take it. As long as we can get away with it."

Tatnia shook her head, rubbing her face as Nal smiled. Vaz was as calm as ever, though I could see a smile coming through.

"Why do you make it like we are window shopping for a speeder?" Tatnia asked, looking back up at me. "So we just show up and steal something, easy as that?"

"No, of course not," I said, shaking my head. "We start by finding something out of the way, where the local Imperial presence is light but still present. Then we land under the guise of looking for a shuttle ship, something that will fit in our hangar, as well as supplies. We go about our business while Racer finds out what he can about the local fleet, how often they land for downtime, and everything like that. Then when we have a better idea of their schedule, we wait patiently for our time to strike."

"I… I hate how much that makes sense," Tatnia responded, looking upset at my plan. "It can't be that easy, right?"

She looked at Nal, who simply shrugged.

"Plan depends on certain parameters being true," he pointed out. "But if we find somewhere they are… why could it not be that simple?"

"I think you're confusing easy with simple," I added. "The plan might be simple, but it's gonna put us up against a crew, whatever stormtroopers they are carrying, and probably some sort of base security. It's gonna be dangerous, but I think we can handle it, especially if we pick our target well."

"What would be our next step after we take this Imperial ship?" Vaz asked. "This crew is too small to keep two ships active and in good shape."

"We could probably do it," Miru disagreed before continuing with a wince. "It would suck, and we wouldn't have much free time… and we would be working the droids really hard… But we could do it… maybe."

"We won't be pushing that hard," I explained, shaking my head. "Once we pull whatever asset we manage to get our hands on, we will work on finding some people to staff it, though I am hoping we could minimize some of the new crew requirements by using droids."

"And then?" Tatnia asked.

"Then I want to check in with General Syndulla," I responded. "I'm hoping they have made some progress on locating more CIS bases. I desperately want more raindrops and repair droids for the new ship."

"They might have crew droids as well," Miru pointed out. "We could buy some crew droids, but the CIS had some actually good pilot, crew, and gunner droids we could use for the new ship. There wasn't any in the last batch, but there might be in the next."

"Right. Once we have our new ship equipped, I want to test our crew a bit on some easier targets, maybe by hitting a small Imperial target, or even raiding some of Jabba the Hutt's resources."

"What's our plan to deal with him and our bounties?" Miru asked. "I don't mind having money on my head… well, I do, but I don't plan on leaving the ship anywhere that could be a problem."

"Killing him would probably work," I admitted but shook my head. "But he isn't exactly an easy target. We can spitball some ideas, but we might just have to ignore it for a while until we are ready to deal with it, which would hopefully be after we raid another CIS spot."

We continued to discuss our options before we started looking through a few datapads, looking for a fringe Imperial world. We whittled the list down to a few options and let Racer do his thing, digging just a hair deeper than surface level to see what he could learn.

With the meeting over, Calima returned to the cockpit, Nal and Tatnia went to deal with the Dark Blade now that we were orbiting the moon. The plan was for Nal and Tatnia to pilot the Blade while Calima landed the Chariot on the moon. Nal and Tatnia would then land the Blade on the cargo pad left behind by the rebels before donning their EVA suits and walking back to the Chariot. Miru wanted to join them, but since we didn't have an EVA suit her size, she was going to teach the other two how to shut down the ship entirely so it didn't waste fuel.

Meanwhile, I was going to head to my room and work on my magic. It had been a long while since I had any free time to learn a spell, and while I didn't have enough time now, I wanted to look through what I could learn and plan my next spell.

I sat down in the chair that was technically for the computer in my room and summoned my grimoire, cracking it open and almost immediately dropping it when I realized there was a lot of new stuff inside. I couldn't resist the urge to jump out of my chair and shout out in excitement. Not only did the section on Adept spells unlock, but there were several additions for other bits for me to learn.

That included an "upgraded" form of the Clairvoyance spell.

I quickly started reading through the new additions, pulling out my datapad so I could make a list of everything. I immediately realized that the Adept class of spells was the largest of the three levels I had access to by far. I didn't exactly count, but at a glance, it looked to be almost as many spells as the novice and apprentice levels had, combined. This was massively exciting, especially considering how interesting the spells looked, but I tempered myself when I remembered that an Apprentice-level spell took around seven hours to learn, give or take an hour. That meant that I could expect the Adept spells, which had three matrices in each one, were going to take around eleven to thirteen hours.

I would have to dedicate an entire day to nonstop matrix tuning if I wanted to learn a spell with any sort of consistency. I might be able to stumble through taking a break, but judging from past experiences, trying to break the spell up into multiple sessions would be near impossible.

Promising myself to go through the spells in more detail when I was done, I started going through the smaller additions, the real-life equivalencies of perks from the game. The first I read through was the clairvoyance upgrade, something I had been attempting to brute force for a while. I skimmed through it for now, but from what I could tell, it was a way to focus the spell to make up for being less familiar with whatever you were searching for, which was exactly what I wanted. When I got around to learning it, a whole new world of options would open up for me and the crew.

Dismissing the daydreams about some of the treasures that awaited us, I focused on the rest of the additions, skimming through the grimoire, making notes as I went. Almost all branches had additional tips for making my spell casting more efficient or more impactful, similar to what I had previously done for my shock spells. By the looks of things, almost my entire arsenal was covered in some way.

At the end of the Restoration section was some sort of skill called Recovery, which was basically a method of circulating your magic to temper your magic core, making your mana regenerate faster. It would create a significant boost, so understandably it went to the top of my list of things I wanted to learn. Right above that on my list was a method of making my conjured weapons a lot more dangerous, and make everything I conjure easier to maintain.

I kept reading and adding to my list, eventually starting to go through the new spells, getting more and more excited about my options. The transmutation spell was interesting, but the description made it clear that there was no way for me to take advantage of the game-breaking money trick from the games. While turning the pages away from the spell, I idly wondered if that was something that the entities had modified to keep me from basically printing credits. I decided it didn't matter because with the upgraded clairvoyant spell, money was going to quickly become a much smaller issue.

As I skimmed through the book, new healing spells, more conjured weapons, more conjured constructs, and more destruction spells, all got added to the list. When I was finally done going through every new entry into my grimoire, I realized that time had just become my new enemy. I now had an incredible amount of stuff that I wanted to learn on top of the missions and projects that the crew would be attempting.

On top of all that, I could now finally learn the spell that had prevented me from starting to enchant things, namely the Create Soul Gem spell. So far, I had ignored the Soul Trap spell because I didn't have any soul gems, but with this new spell that could finally change. Unfortunately, instead of being a way to just conjure a soul gem from nowhere, it was the spell you cast on a crystal or gem to turn it into a soul gem. It was also how I would know if a material could be a soul gem in the first place, as the casting would fail if the crystal wasn't compatible.

"Guess I need to add "various gems" to the next shopping list," I mumbled to myself, shaking my head before diving back into my grimoire.

I had a lot to do and not so much time to do it in.

Chapter Text

After a short break from my magic stuff to stand by in case something went wrong during the process of landing the Dark Blade on the moon, I settled back down to learn the first thing on my list, Recovery. Basically, what it boiled down to was a long process of meditating and training your core with the intent of getting your magic to replenish faster. Supposedly I would immediately be able to tell the difference, as there was a significant amount of initial improvement, which would slow down significantly. The text in my Grimoire mentioned a second level to the process, but that required having more natural magic, which the large, ornate book assured the reader would happen naturally to long-time mages.

I settled down on the end of my bed and started to meditate, focusing down inside myself, not unlike I did oh so long ago during the beginning of this adventure. By now, I was an expert at drawing out my magic, so grabbing hold of a wisp and drawing it out was easy. The next step was less instinctual, pushing the tendril back into my core and keeping it there before repeating the process with a second strand on the opposite side.

It was an odd sensation, a sort of metaphysical movement happening inside me as I formed something like a double matrix inside my core. After I was sure I had everything set, I slowly started rotating one side and then the other, spinning them both inside my core, each in opposite directions. During all this, I continually pulled magic out through each tendril, which of course, fed right back into my core through the internal matrix. If the previous sensations was simply strange, this was utterly bizarre, as I could feel the draw on my magic even as my core was continuously full.

I spent three hours meditating, cycling my magic slowly inside myself, letting the process do its job. When the boredom and exhaustion finally got to me, I stopped. I was sweaty and a bit shaky, like I had just completed an extreme workout. Still, I needed to know just what kind of progress I had made, so I slid to the edge of the bed and cast Steadfast Ward, my hand glowing as the oval barrier appeared in front of me. Sure enough, the regeneration kept up a bit better with the magicka draw. It wasn't close to breaking even, of course, but it was a noticeable increase.

Mentally noting to try and meditate that way for a few hours every night, I barely had enough energy to undress before collapsing into bed, falling asleep almost immediately.

The following morning I ended up casting Fast Heal and Respite on myself to recover the soreness and slight tiredness I still felt from my meditation session. I climbed out of my bed and pulled myself into the sonic shower, letting the vibrations clean me. When I was done, I quickly got ready for the day before stepping out of my room and into the main hall of the second deck, heading right for the lounge.

Tatnia, Nal, Julus, and Vaz were already sitting at the table, with Racer next to them, while Miru and Calima sat at the bar top, facing towards the table.

"Hey, uh, Morning Boss," Julus said, spotting me first. "Slept pretty late."

"I was up late working on my magic," I explained, dropping down at the table. "I unlocked a lot of new things to learn. What's the news?"

"Racer finished digging through the outskirt worlds we came up with and found a few that would work for what we are looking for," Tatnia explained, sliding a Datapad across the table to me. "We've been looking at them and think this is our best option."

The datapad showed a planet labeled a Tacruna, tagged with a simple description. It was a tropical planet, populated by a few small cities and one massive one, all built around the edges of an ocean that took up overy ninety percent of the surface. Apparently, the planet's main export was four different varieties of fish, all of which were bigger than the average human and one of which would dwarf a C-PH. The world was wet, with near-constant downpours and wild monsoons that would last for days, if not weeks, which completely removed any interest in tourism.

Luckily for us, the fish they exported was known as being delicious, with the largest being a particular delicacy. This meant that the Empire, probably at the behest of a corrupt general or senator, had a small defensive "fleet" stationed around the planet to protect the luxury product and the industry that harvested it.

The "Fleet" consisted of three ships. The heavy hitter of the fleet was a retrofitted Consular-class cruiser, a design I recognized from the Clone Wars shows and the prequels. It didn't surprise me that some of them were still hanging around in some of the backward worlds around the Rim, especially since the only reason the Empire had to protect this planet was some tasty fish. Nal commented about being surprised to see one, assuming the older ships had long since all been mothballed, but didn't say much else.

The Consular-class was backed up by two Guardian-Class light cruisers. Tatnia pointed out that they were probably part of the Imperial Custom's presence on the planet, as they frequently used those ships.

"So, unsurprisingly, fleet specifics and schedules are supposed to be classified," Tatnia explained. "Despite the fact that the first one is ruined by just stepping outside and looking up with a decent telescope. The schedule, however, is legitimately protected and out of reach from Racer, at least as long as he needs to stay undetected. Luckily for him, he found a workaround with some help from Calima."

Tatnia nodded to the astromech, who warbled and beeped before activating his holoprojector, displaying a map.

"This is the Imperial base of operations for the planet, notice the large landing pad here," Tatnia said, pointing to an area before nodding to Racer again, three dots appearing on the map, all around the base. "And these are all the bars and clubs around the base."

"Racer checked out all three of these locations, and all of them had pitiful security. He pulled the footage from the last six months and quickly scrubbed through it," Miru explained excitedly, gesturing to an image of five men sitting on a wide, semi-circle couch-like seat, a blue-skinned Twi'lek dancing in front of them. "So, twice every month, the number of Imperial officers at these bars spikes for three days before returning to normal."

"Shore leave?" I asked, getting a nod from Nal. "How accurately can you predict them?"

"We can pick out when one of the ships will be down pretty well," Miru responded, seemingly speaking for Racer, who beeped and whistled in agreement. "But we haven't found any way to confirm which ship belongs to each group."

"So we know when a ship will be on leave, but we don't know which ship…" I asked, continuing when Miru nodded in agreement. "What's the time frame then?"

"The next scheduled shore leave should be in four days," Tatnia answered. "It will take us a little over a day to get there, which gives us around three days to prepare."

"That sounds perfect, we can do some shopping when we get there," I said with a nod. "We still need a landing craft of some sort. Something that we can easily land and take off from one of the hangar bays. We also need to pick up a few other bits and things."

We discussed a basic plan outline, and Vaz spoke up a few times to give her expertise on assaulting a position. She recommended a fast strike, getting in, boarding the ship, and taking off as quickly as possible. Depending on the patrol pattern of the other two ships, we might even be able to time it so they are on the other side of the planet. How exactly we would assault the Imperial base depended on what the base looked like.

Personally, I didn't anticipate a fortress, and the few pictures Racer managed to scrounge up through other tangential sources seemed to agree. There was a single large turret, not quite a heavy turbo laser but certainly a powerful weapon, taking up the top of the tallest structure on the base. In all likelihood, we would need to take that down before starting any of our plans. From what we were able to piece together, there were only a few smaller, starfighter-scale cannons placed around the two structures that made up most of the base's infrastructure, and they wouldn't even strain the shields of the larger ship.

Racer managed to get his actuators on a pretty recent deck plan for the Consular-Class refit. Unfortunately, the Guardian-Class light cruisers were a more recent creation, and the Empire wasn't keen on giving up information on an active war vessel. It did hammer home the fact that the Consular-class was only twelve meters short of being twice the size of the Talos Chariot. The Guardians were about thirty meters shorter than our current ship.

Once we started to get to the real meat of the planning phase, Calima stood up to head to the cockpit, starting the nav computer up to compute the jumps required to get to Tacruna. About an hour later, we had as solid a plan as possible, given how many variables there were, so we went our separate ways to prepare.

Knowing I had enough time for one spell, I warned everyone not to interrupt me unless something serious happened, before secluding myself in my room again. I pulled out my datapad and summoned my Grimoire, flipping through my must-learn spell list and reviewing everything added by the inclusion of Adept level spells.

All in all, Destruction, Alteration, and Illusion were more or less what I expected, though I was a bit sad to learn that the Invisibility spell wasn't Adept. As usual, Restoration lacked any spells that had to do with the undead. It did, however, offer three fortification spells that would increase my dexterity, strength, and stamina. It also had a spell called "Heal Middling Trauma." A quick skim revealed it was a healing spell that was specifically designed to fix a single injury rather than a general healing spell. It could handle much more missing mass than any of my other healing magic but wasn't quite at the level of restoring limbs.

Similar to Restoration, Conjuration continued to not mention the summoning of Deadra from the planes of oblivion. Instead, it offered several new construct options, allowing me to conjure things similar to the Flame Atronach construct but for different roles or elements. I was looking forward to summoning a construct with a sword, if for no other reason than to have someone to spar with. There was also the Conjure Bound Bow and Conjure Bound Quiver, two spells that I had been impatiently waiting for.

Well, technically, I had been waiting for the Conjure Bound Bow spell because I forgot the quiver spell existed, predominantly because casting Conjured Bound Bow also conjured a quiver full of arrows. However, it seemed that whatever version of Skyrim this Grimoire came from, it encouraged the stealth sniper player even more than the game did. Not only did Conjure Bound Quiver create one hundred extremely high-quality arrows, but it also allowed you to imbue your arrows with shock, flame, or ice. It wasn't a ton of energy, the shock arrow seemed to be the equivalent of a half second or so of the Sparks spell, but it added an incredible level of potential.

Logically, I knew I should probably focus on something like healing or being more durable, especially because we had two crates full of ranged options in the cargo hold. But I had asked the entities for archery knowledge for a reason, and now I was being encouraged even more by the Bound Quiver spell.

A few minutes of mentally debating and option-weighing later, and I was sitting in my chair, the Grimoire opened on the desk to the Conjure Bound Bow section. I eagerly started the process of learning the spell, noting the first spell matrix's similarities to other weapon conjuration spells. After four hours, my ass was hurting, and I was forced to cast Respite and Fast Healing on myself, all while maintaining concentration on what I was working on.

Another three hours passed, and I was miserable but determined. I was just starting the third and last matrix, seven hours of work behind me and another three or four ahead of me. I was hungry, sore, and I could feel the oncoming head.

It took me ten and a half hours to finally complete the matrix tuning process and finally cast Conjure Bound Bow for the first time. I sat forward in my seat to give the quiver room to appear, letting the magic flow as the weapon appeared in my hand. The bow itself looked very similar to the Nordic bow from the game but also included a thematically designed three-pin sight, which I knew how to use despite not knowing it existed a few seconds ago. The quiver, which appeared on my back, looked like the steel arrow quiver from the game, and the arrows seemed to match. Of course, all of this was glowing, faintly see-through, and leaking a wispy purple energy.

Instead of celebrating, I immediately started casting it again, doing it nearly thirty times until I was absolutely, one hundred percent certain it had worked and that the final form of all matrices was sufficiently ingrained in my magic. When I was finally certain, I sagged in my chair, letting out a long groan.

After a few minutes of just basking in an utter lack of thinking, I raised my hand and cast Fast Heal and Respite, slowly climbing out of my chair. I made my way out of my room and into the lounge, grabbing two meals from a cabinet and sitting down on the couch, slowly and methodically eating the contents of both.

"How did it go?" Nal asked as he sat down on the other end of the couch, stepping out from the hallway.

"Pretty well," I responded, conjuring a bow and tossing it to him. "See for yourself."
The blue-skinned, red-eyed humanoid caught the bow easily, looking down at it in confusion before looking back up at me.

"You learned how to… conjure this?" He asked, understandably confused. "Why?"

"...you know, it might be better to show you," I said, standing from my seat and releasing my mental grip on the bow, the construct bursting into harmless energy in Nal's hands. "C'mon, time to test this thing out."

We headed down to the first deck, to the main cargo hold. I noticed that the emergency docking system we had used to connect to the Dark Blade was once again closed, but the panel it was under now had a hinge welded along one seam, with a simple latching and locking system added to the other. As we entered the cargo bay, I spotted Miru connecting Racer up to his charging bay, the young Twi'lek looking over at me with a smile.

"Hey Boss, everything should be ready to go… How did your magic stuff go?" She asked, picking up a piece of cloth and wiping a grease spot off of her nose.

"It went well… you wouldn't happen to have a plate of metal I could test it on, would you?"

"Uh… yeah, I do, gimme a second…" She responded, turning back to her workshop.

After about five minutes, Miru had taken a two-foot by two-foot square and welded two metal pipes to one side, perpendicular, so they could function as a stand. We quickly ran it down the main line of the first deck, setting it up on top of the cargo elevator.

With a mental flex, I conjured the bow, rolling my shoulder before steadying myself. Holding the bow felt natural, as did every other step as I reached over my shoulder, pulled out a single arrow, nocked it, drew back and let it fly. The slightly translucent arrow streaked across the mainline before slamming into the metal plate and embedding itself into it, punching a hole completely through the metal plating before deconstructing and turning into a puff of purple magic on the other side.

In the world of Skyrim, with magic and mythical elements, the Armorsmiths forged armor with some incredible materials. Metals like Orichalcum, Ebony, Malachite, Moonstone, and even dragon bones and scales. Despite those fantastical materials, high-quality arrows fired from a high-quality bow were still lethal, punching through all that armor to hit the target inside. I knew that, in game, Conjured Bow was a weapon on tier with the highest quality, non-unique equivalent, its arrows matching that.

Sure, there was a chance that it wouldn't translate the same, and to be honest, I wasn't convinced there wasn't some limitation I hadn't run into yet. But for now, I was happy to have a summonable anti-armor, limitless ammo cannon with which I also just happened to be highly skilled.

"That's why," I said, unable to stop from smirking as I turned back to my stunned audience. "You guys want to give it a shot?"

Chapter Text

We stayed up for another hour, testing out my bow and figuring out what it was capable of. Miru and Nal were both fascinated with it but refused to take it and try it out for themselves, which I didn't blame them for considering how much damage I was doing with it. We ended up testing it out on some spare armor pieces we had, the arrow easily punching through the armor and severely denting, sometimes even piercing the metal underneath, before dissipating into ambient magic.

When I finally put an end to the testing, the three of us went to bed. Physically I was brimming with energy, but after the long process of tuning and learning to conjure my bow, I was mentally exhausted. I'm pretty sure I was asleep before I even reached my room.

The next day we had finally arrived at Tacruna. We spent a while hovering over the planet, waiting for permission to land, which Tatnia blamed on the Imperials.

"When the Empire locks down a world, everyone coming in and out has to go through their services," She explained. "On Terr'skiar, the merchant leaders handled it, and they wanted everything to work as smoothly as possible, while the Imperials only care about security and intimidation. I've seen more heavily populated planets reduced down to one-at-a-time checks by a single Imperial officer."

True to her word, the Imperial fleet did their best to intimidate us, stopping just short of getting dangerously close to us, all of their weapons tracking us as they processed our request to land. The Consular class, in particular, cut an impressive shadow over us as it passed between us and the distant sun. Unfortunately for Imperials, we were here to steal one of those ships, meaning that they were basically just showing off the goods.

"They all seem to be in good shape," Vaz said, sitting in one of the gunner seats, watching as one of the Guardian-class ships flew by. "Well maintained and cared for."

"The Consular looks good as well," Nal commented, sitting next to the Shistavanen. "Appears to be the heavier-armed version."

All three ships were painted Imperial gray, with black highlights and the Empires symbol painted in various places. They did all look like they were in good condition, but I noticed something attached to the two Guardian-class light cruisers.

"Those might be a problem, though," I said, pointing out the four TIE fighters attached to the hull of larger vessels, two for each ship. "Will we be able to tank those as we escape?"

"Absolutely," Calima responded, primarily focused on her flying, tapping her controls as we waited for permission to land. "Especially if we have a jump already worked out and ready."

When the Imperials finally permitted us to land, we made a beeline for the planet's largest city, easily finding a landing pad big enough for the Chariot. Calima landed us safely, and we all breathed a sigh of relief. Step one of our plan was complete.

"Alright… well, now we wait," I said, leaning back in my seat. "Vaz, we need to go shopping in a few hours, do me a favor and go through the weapons like we talked about. Tatnia, we can start looking for a shuttle tomorrow, so see if you can't find somewhere to shop. Racer, keep watch on those security feeds for when our target lands."

With us landing on the planet safely and Racer keeping an eye out for our target, I finally settled down with my grimoire. I didn't have nearly enough time to learn a spell, but as we were testing my conjured bow out the previous night, I had a rather big realization. In the game, in order for magic to be effective at higher levels, you needed to focus on it pretty heavily. Any melee user could whip out Sparks or Frostbite, but in order to use higher-level spells like Chain Lightning more than once in a fight, certain magic-focused perks were all but required.

While I didn't have to worry about stormtroopers out leveling the effectiveness of a basic Sparks spell because they were growing to match my level, spells from higher levels, like Adept, did take considerably more mana. Just maintaining the conjured bow had taken more magicka than maintaining my conjured sword. Suddenly the multitude of new tricks that filled my grimoire made a lot more sense. If I didn't learn them, I wouldn't be able to keep up with the higher-class spells.

Thankfully, learning these tricks, modifications to my spells, casting techniques, and methods did not take nearly as much time as learning a spell, even at a novice level. It was so short, in fact, that by the time I left my room a few hours later to go shopping with Vaz, I had already improved my conjuration spells in effectiveness and efficiency to a noticeable degree. I would need to spend a lot of time working on these real-life perk equivalents to stay ahead of the curve, but it was definitely worth it.

I found Vaz having a conversation with Nal, standing by a crate of weapons. The two of them had gone over our supply of backup and spare weapons, separating what we should keep and what wasn't worth lugging around. Besides Tatnia, Vaz, and myself, everyone had a high-quality side arm and primary. Nal even had a third weapon, the Proton Rifle, though really that was situational.

"These are the ones we are getting rid of?" I asked, Nal nodding in response.

"No point in keeping lower-powered and cheaper weapons," He said. "Need to keep track of gear, or we will accumulate junk."

"I believe I will serve as a quartermaster in the future," Vaz added. "I need a secondary role, and while my repair skills are amateurish at best, I do know how to inspect most types of equipment, and I am familiar with many types of weapons."

"That's good, Vaz, thanks for volunteering," I said with a smile. "Are you all set to head out?"

"Yes, this crate just needs to be attached to the Arrow."

After spending a few minutes finagling the crate to the back of the Arrow, Vaz climbed into the driver's seat, and we were off.

"What kind of weapon are you looking for?" I asked the lupine humanoid.

"Something to match what I used previously," She responded. "In truth, I do not know if I will be able to find what I am looking for, this is an Imperial planet with very little heavy trade."

Vaz, before she was captured and sent to the mines, had made a living as a minor bounty hunter. I had seen firsthand that she was pretty good with a normal blaster and blaster pistol, but apparently, she preferred a heavier weapon. Considering we didn't have that type of heavy firepower outside of our vehicles, I happily agreed to cover the costs of a new weapon. I was also looking to replace my lost pistol, as well as some armor for myself and Vaz. Tatnia might be okay with wearing whatever, but I wanted to pick out my look.

We arrived at our first stop but immediately realized that this wasn't going to have what we were looking for. The shop was too clean, and everything they offered were civilian models, low-powered trash that was worse than the backup equipment we had back on the Chariot. We did spend a few minutes walking around the equipment section, going through body armor and other stuff. Unfortunately, after an hour, we came to the conclusion that our initial assumption was correct, so we left for our next destination.

Our first steps into the building filled me with a lot more optimism about finding what we wanted. While the interior was much darker and a lot less clean, the pure variety of weapons on display was much more encouraging. There was a lot of stuff I didn't recognize, which was expected. The Twi'lek man behind the counter watched us closely as we made our way to a large blaster pistol display.

"What are you looking for?" The male asked as he followed us around, still behind the counter.

"We need three solid sidearms," I explained, looking up at the display. "Some armor as well."

"We have plenty of pistols," He responded, gesturing haphazardly to the wall display. "As for armor… I might actually have something that your friend fits into…"

The older Twi'lek clerk disappeared around back, leaving Vaz and I to share a look. A few minutes later, he returned with a small crate about two feet wide. He put it down on his counter, cracked it open, and turned it around to face us.

"This came in on a shipment of parts for a speeder shop a few years back. Don't quite know what species it was intended for, but they were digitigrade like your friend here, so it might fit," He explained. "I don't normally deal in stuff like this, not a lot of people looking for such high-grade armor, but the shop owner just wanted it gone."

I gestured for Vaz to try it on, and the skilled warrior quickly started inspecting the crate's contents. When she was done, she started pulling on the armor, despite never having used it before. She pulled on an armored body suit first, which pulled tight around her body when it was on, which was cool and made me think this was an expensive piece of gear. Plates of actual armor slid and locked into place easily, though the back plate required my help. When it was on, she cut an impressive image, armored up like how Mandalorians designed their armor, with plates protecting vital and fragile spots. However, that was where the similarities ended. There were two mounts for what were probably cape anchors, but no cape or cloak was included.

"What is it rated for?" Vaz asked as she tested her range of motion, even jumping in place a few times.

"From what I've read, it should redirect most of the energy from a normal blaster rifle and stop pistol bolts easily."

"How much?" I asked, the clerk looking back at me.

"Three thousand," He responded easily. "My research says that it's worth nearly twice that."

"Yeah, but who is gonna buy it here?" I pointed out. "Plus, you got it cheap. Two thousand."

"Are you kidding me? I'm not doing anything less than two and a half."

We bartered a bit more, going back and forth. I brought up everything we had to trade and added a few more items, including two DC-17 blaster pistols, one for me and one for Tatnia, as well as a heavier-looking pistol called an RKF-44 for Vaz. In the end, we shook on a payment of five hundred credits and everything we had brought with us to sell. I was pretty sure he was making out like a bandit, but we didn't really pay for anything we were trading, so it was hard to get upset about it.

"Is that all?" He asked as Vaz was pulling off her armor and putting it back into its crate.

"No. My friend is also looking for something a bit heavier. A lot heavier," I said. "You got anything like that?"

"That depends. Anything specific?" He asked, looking at us both much closer. "I do like to keep an eye out for interesting things …"

"I am accustomed to heavy weapons, preferably something with a sustained rate of fire," Vaz explained, the man nodding along.

"I'm not sure I have what you're looking for then. I have some high-powered heavy rifles, but it sounds like you're looking for something even heavier than those," He guessed, Vaz nodding in confirmation. "Sorry to say you're not gonna find something like that around here. I could sell you a heavy repeater, but that's about it."

"I was aware it was a stretch, thank you for your time," She responded before looking at me and then back to the clerk. "I believe we have a list of energy cells of various makes that we are looking for as well."

I handed the clerk a list of the several different varieties of power cells my crew needed, and after a moment, he nodded, confirming he had most of what we were looking for, though unsurprisingly, he did not have any proton rifle ammo.

Once we had a pile of cells packed away in our crate, as well as a patching kit for Vaz's new armor, we started bartering, settling on eight hundred credits for the second lot. About an hour after arriving, we left the shop with most of what we needed, though the lack of a heavy weapon for Vaz was unfortunate. We guided our storage crate, which now contained spare power packs, and hooked it back up to the Arrow, while Vaz put her armor in one of the seats. When we were ready, Vaz climbed into the driver seat and took off, leaving me in the far back seat, right in front of the powerful sensor systems that Miru installed.

Wordlessly, Vaz kept us low to the ground, flying as if we were a land speeder, heading across the city towards the Imperial compound. After a few minutes, she gave me the signal, and I turned on the scanner, focusing it to the left, letting it scan a series of buildings.

"Passing the compound…. Now."

I could see the readout change as we passed the military base, the powerful sensors picking up the drastic change in materials as it transitioned from scanning civilian structures to military ones. Still, it had no problem picking up a huge amount of information as we passed by, even with how far we were away. Eventually, when we had passed by, we pulled away down another road, not wanting to arouse suspicion. As we pulled away, I shut down the scan. I could see the sensor computer already compiling the data into a rough map of the base.

"Looks like we got it," I said, spinning my chair around to face forward, leaving the computer to do its thing. "How about we pick up some take-out for dinner? The shelf-stable meals are decent, but I'm feeling something freshly made."

"This world is known for its fish..." Vaz mentioned, trailing off when I snorted.

"Yeah, sure, super expensive fish sounds pretty good," I responded. "Just don't hurt my bank account too much, yeah?"

Vaz snorted but nodded in agreement as I climbed forward inside the speeder, my job in the back complete. I squeezed into the passenger seat, tapping at the air speeder's computer to try and find a good place to eat nearby. Something affordable too.

Chapter Text

We ended up going to a smaller restaurant serving one of the three fish the planet was known for, ordering enough for everyone before heading back to the Chariot. The fish was interesting, similar to salmon in some ways, but with a more substantial chew and a deeper creaminess that was pretty good. Everyone but Calima enjoyed it, the Tholothian explaining that she wasn't a big fan of fish in the first place, so she wasn't surprised. When the food was done and the table was cleaned up, we discussed how our multi-purpose trip went.

"I am truly shocked we stumbled onto that armor," Vaz admitted. "I did not expect to find anything like that on such a limited planet."

"There's always those hidden gems somewhere," I said with a shrug. "You just need to know where and how to look."

"Racer could have probably found something if he looked on the net," Miru pointed out. "All sorts of black market, off-the-record stuff on local networks."

"Either way, I'm hoping to find more substantial armor for everyone soon," I said, shaking my head. "The plate inserts we use now work, but we need something more substantial, something like what we got for Vaz, with full body protection. That's a priority after we are done here."

"You didn't find a jacket?" Tatnia asked, and I shook my head.

"Nothing that I liked," I responded. "I'll find something eventually. For now, I'll just wear the plate carrier stuff."

Before anyone could comment, Racer rolled into the lounge, beeping, warbling, and whistling. Miru's face lit up, and she turned towards me.

"The data from the scan is done, you want to see it?" She asked, Racer activated his holoprojector after I nodded.

A projected image of the military base appeared above the table, slowly spinning so we could see it from every angle. There were three main buildings on the surface, an office building of some kind, a large storage warehouse and garage combo, and the structure built under the large double laser cannon. The powerful laser cannon looked a lot like the boxy, green laser-firing turret that was in some of the movies, but I had no idea if it was the same model or not.

Under the buildings were a series of tunnels and rooms. Unfortunately, the information the scan picked up on them was limited. The sensor clearly struggled to get through the ground on top of the tougher, reinforced military buildings.

"Anyone seeing anything that would ruin the plan as it is?" I asked, studying the scans of our target.

"The power generator is even more heavily protected than we thought, but that shouldn't cause any problems," Julus said.

The younger crew member pointed out the dome-shaped building in one corner of the base. The scans confirmed that it was the main power reactor for the base, which we had already guessed. The reactor dome wasn't far from the large, heavy turbolaser turret.

"The whole base is bigger than we anticipated," Admitted Vaz. "We should expect more resistance."

"With any luck we won't have to deal with it until it's too late for them to do anything," I pointed out. "Unless you think there will be too much for our plan to work?"

"... no, there's not enough space to have that many people, especially not if we execute the plan when we know most of the ship's crew are off base."

"Good. Alright, guys, this scan brings us one step closer to the heist, now it's just a waiting game," I said, getting a few nods in return. "Tomorrow, we can go shopping for a shuttle, and wait for one of the ships to land. Everyone good?"

I paused for a second, waiting for anyone to speak up before nodding and standing.

"Alright, then that's it for today," I said before turning to our ever-useful astromech. "Racer, keep tabs on the bars and the skies. Let us know if we get any sudden arrivals."

The short and stout droid gave a warble of confirmation, wheeling to the cockpit with Calima right behind him. Nal and Julus stayed in the lounge while Tatnia, Vaz and Miru headed downstairs to the first deck. I, however, made a beeline for my room. I had a lot of magical learning to do, and there were a handful of things I wanted to get down before we attempted to steal the ship, whichever one ended up landing for shore leave.

I spent two hours improving the efficiency and power of my Destruction spells, increasing their effectiveness slightly and cutting their mana cost a not insignificant amount, before taking a break and walking around the ship. After chatting with Miru, who was also taking a break from her own preparations, I headed right back up to my room and got to work on my Restoration magic, working hard to get the slight bump in effectiveness and the more significant increase in efficiency. By the time I finished that, it was almost time to sleep, so I spent an hour meditating and internally circulating my mana, heading right to bed when I was done.

The following day was much of the same until Tatnia and I left the Chariot shopping for a shuttle. I had to admit it was a bit surreal to be doing the same thing we were doing before we got snagged. I was a bit on edge, as was Tatnia, but neither of us was anywhere as concerned as Miru was. The young Twi'lek had stopped just short of asking us not to go, but instead insisted that we keep in near constant contact, even though she and Nal would be just as busy.

It took a few stops to find the kind of shuttle we were looking for, mostly because the selection was so much smaller than before. Most of the places we visited were selling land and air speeders and just happened to have a shuttle or two. The first five didn't have anything worth buying. It wasn't until the sixth stop that we finally found what we were looking for.

The shuttle had enough room for a pilot, a bit of cargo, and eight people to ride comfortably. It could fit about twice that many if people were willing to stand and use the hand grips attached to the ceiling. It was armed with a central dorsal medium laser cannon, which should just barely be capable of taking down starfighters. There were also two slightly heavier cannons under the cockpit. There was no hyperdrive, but the ship could maneuver and hit descent speeds for its size. The double-sided airlock entryway on both sides of the ship meant it could dock with most ships. It wasn't nearly as capable of a shuttle as the Dark Blade, but the fact that it could land in the Chariots hangar bay made it infinitely more flexible and useful.

It was also a CEC design, meaning there were a thousand and one upgrades available to us if we wanted to improve it. Tatnia was already looking at ways to make it harder to pick up on scanners.

"I hate to say it, but I really think we might end up selling the Blade," I said as we walked around and kicked the metaphorical tires on the shuttle. "We would need to hire a dedicated crew for it, which wouldn't be able to live on it. Plus, while it outclasses just about any shuttle its size, it's not fast enough to act as a starfighter or heavy classed enough to act as a full member of the fleet."

"It is a bit pointless to have a ship dedicated to being a shuttle… but not use it as a shuttle," Tatnia said, agreeing reluctantly. "If it was smaller, we could keep it locked to the bottom of the Chariot for easy access, but emergency docking ports aren't rated for frequent use. It sucks to give away such a well-made ship, but we would get a chunk of credits for it. Probably around a hundred and fifty thousand, and that's with a friendly discount."

"Damn, that's a whole 'nother ship, one that could actually function as part of the fleet…" I said with a whistle, leaning my head from side to side, weighing my options. "It would also pay for some major upgrades to the Chariot."

After a few minutes inspecting the shuttle, we decided to buy it, even though its CEC label meant we would most likely be paying an extra two, maybe three thousand credits. It fit what we were looking for way too well to pass up, plus I liked the appeal of being able to upgrade it later down the line.

A quick transfer of twenty thousand credits and a less quick refuel and installation of the shuttles power core, and we had ourselves a functioning shuttle. Tatnia climbed into the pilot's seat and started going over everything, eventually starting her up and lifting away from the sales yard.

We headed straight for the landing pad, the shuttle making quick work of the distance. As we approached, I commed Nal to open up the port hangar bay, as I knew the starboard would now be full, even with the Arrow stored along the mainline cargo space. It was a bit tight, but eventually, Tatnia guided the ship into open space, landing on the deck with a subtle thud. I stood up from my seat and made my way to the docking airlock, opening them both and stepping out onto the hangar bay deck.

"What do you think?" I asked Nal and Miru, who were waiting by the large cargo bay doors that entered into the hangar. "It was a bit more than I wanted to spend, but it's hard to beat CEC upgradability."

"A tight fit," Nal commented as Miru blew past me to see the interior.

"Should be enough room to work on it… Right Miru?" I said, calling out to our mechanic at the end.

"Yeah, it's at least a meter on top, that's more than enough room," She commented, peeking out the airlock. "It looks good, how much was it?"

"Twenty thousand," I said, getting an appreciative nod from Nal and Miru, the latter disappearing back inside. "Tatnia did most of the negotiating."

Nal chuckled and followed Miru inside, stepping to the side to let Tatnia step out. After ten minutes or so, Miru came walking back out and shrugged.

"The usual problems look okay, but I'm gonna assign Leddy and another repair droid to do a deep inspection," She explained, turning back to the ship. "I want it fully tested before anyone takes it out of the atmosphere."

"And the Head Engineer has spoken," I said, Miru blushing slightly, opening her mouth to apologize, but I beat her to it. "I'm not teasing you, Miru, you do get the final say on stuff like this."

The young mechanic nodded in agreement but turned away to hide her smile. She promptly left, headed to the cargo hold. The rest of us followed her out, but headed up to the second deck instead. After a quick snack, I made my way to my room, once again putting my nose to the grindstone. I had one more set of improvements I wanted to get through before our mission started, and I had no idea how much time I had. I did my best to push through a few more improvements as quickly as possible, working hard to work them into my spell casting so they would be ready.

Two and a half hours later, I left my room, finished learning for the day, and headed to the lounge. Vaz and Julus were there already, eating and talking. I grabbed my own meal and sat down with them.

"I'm just surprised you recognized them on sight," Julus was saying, accepting one of his blaster pistols back from Vaz, who was handing it to him, butt first. "I know they are pretty rare."

"They are much more common among the Mandalorians," She explained, Julus's jaw dropping as she explained. "My father carried a single Westar-35 pistol. They were made by a Mandalorian company."

"I… Really?" He asked, looking down at the pistol as if seeing it for the first time. "I… didn't know that."

"I thought that Mandalorians used a different weapon, the cylindrical one with a slightly wider tip and the skeletonized grip."

"...You may be referring to the Westar-34, the predecessor to the 35," Vaz said after thinking for a moment. "I preferred the 35, as it has a larger power cell."

"Wait, wait, back up!" Julus said. "Can we get back to the part about my dad using weapons that Mandalorians use?"

"They are rare outside of Mandalorian circles, but not unheard of," Vaz explained. "It is not like beskar, which would have meant he was a Mandalorian, or killed a Mandalorian and took it. While I may have missed the sense of ownership over such a metal, many did not."

"So you wouldn't care if I managed to get us some beskar armor?" I said, catching Vaz's full attention. "Probably won't be until after we have the new ship set up and manned…"

"How would you manage to achieve that?" She asked, looking skeptical. "After the Great Purge of Mandalore it became nearly impossible to find."

"I have access to a spell that lets me turn one metal into another," I explained, ignoring Julus's wide eyes and hanging jaw. "It functions in a way that making money from it is nearly impossible, essentially burning off mass when converting cheap, easily accessed metal, resulting in a comparably small amount of the metal you're creating. It also only works with one type of metal at a time, so using scrap would also be difficult. But if I wanted beskar plating for protection, I would happily buy ten thousand credits worth of metal and convert it into armor plating for everyone… or just chest plates if it's more expensive than that."

Vaz was silent for a long moment, digesting what I had said. After a while, she leaned forward, a frown on her face.

"I do not know enough about Mandalorian history and culture to consider myself one," She admitted, still frowning. "I would not even be able to find any of the coverts that are hidden around the Galaxy. I know that most Mandalorians would fervently demand that any beskar be returned to them, as they consider it theirs. As most of it was stolen from them by the Empire… I find myself agreeing. On the other hand… any that you... create would not be the beskar that was stolen from them, you would be creating it from other metals… I would have no issue with it besides the attention it might bring. I doubt a Mandalorian would believe you if you explained you created the beskar with magic."

"Well… it's a bridge we won't have to cross for a while," I explained. "I would need a sample of the metal first, and I would have to learn the spell. I have a lead on where we might be able to find some beskar samples, but it's going to be a minute before we can go there."

"Something for the future, then," She responded, and I nodded in agreement.

"Something for the future."

I was about to take another bite of my food when a long series of whistles, warbles, and intense beeps echoed from the cockpit. All three of us turned to look as Racer quickly rolled out into the lounge, still beeping and whistling. I shared a look with Vaz before turning back to Racer.

"I'm guessing the ship is landing?" I asked, getting a long excited whistle in return. "Which one is it?"

Instead of whistling, he activated his holoprojector, showing off a diagram of the Retrofitted Consular-class. It rotated a bit before winking out, Racers' holoprojector going dark.

"Alright, looks like we have a target," I said with a nod. "Even better, it's the one we have a map for. With any luck, we will be gone before the sun rises tomorrow with the beginnings of a fleet."

I could see that Vaz was excited, ready for the challenge that lay ahead, and I found myself just as excited. Racer let out another series of whistles before rolling back into the cockpit.

".... Could we please get back to the part where my dad might have been a Mandalorian?" Julus asked again after a long pause.

Chapter Text

It took four hours for Racer to spot the frequent fliers settling into the bars around the Imperial base, all of them almost immediately imbibing in alcohol. I couldn't help but smirk as they all showed every sign of being out for a long night.

The Chariot was a whirlwind of activity as everyone got prepared. Even Calima, the only one who was staying behind, had plenty to get ready. As quickly as possible, we got dressed and piled into the new shuttle, Miru hopping into the pilot's seat.

With everyone seated and our cargo locked in, Miru pulled the shuttle out of the hangar and flew away from the Chariot, heading for a location we had picked out earlier in the day. After about ten minutes of flying, we landed in a mostly empty lot, one that was hidden from view by multiple abandoned buildings.

"Alright, everyone, this is it. Our plan is flexible, but that doesn't mean it's perfect. Let's keep it simple, and if anything goes wrong, make sure you stick together," I said, everyone nodding in agreement as I looked at the cockpit. "Miru, let us know when you're back at the Chariot and ready for your part."

"Alright, Boss, good luck!"

I nodded and leaned down, grabbing the shiny stormtrooper helmet beside my feet, quickly pulling it down over my head, and twisting it on securely. The armor wasn't exactly the most comfortable thing to wear, but I wasn't about to let the chance to use the suits we found in the Dark Blade go to waste. Once my disguise was complete, I looked around. Julus and Tatnia were also pulling on their helmets while Nal and Vaz offloaded the now hovering cargo container we had brought with us. Vaz was dressed in her new armor, looking very impressive.

Once everything and everyone was offloaded, I waved to Miru from outside the shuttle. The young mechanic quickly lifted the shuttle off of the ground and flew away, heading back to the Chariot. We waited for several minutes until my comm unit buzzed in the utility belt around my hips.

"I'm ready, boss! Dummy is in position and waiting for my command!" She said excitedly. "It's your turn."

"Alright, Miru, hold tight. It's going to be about ten minutes," I responded before tucking my com back into my belt. "Okay, everyone, we are all set. Nal, Vaz, put on your restraints and let's go."

Nal and Vaz nodded, pulling out their purposely broken restraints and fixing them around their wrist. The cut and modified cuffs wouldn't pass a close inspection, but if it got to that point, it was already too late to play pretend anyway. When Nal and Vaz signaled that they were ready, Julus, Tatnia, and I hefted our standard stormtrooper E-11 blasters and took up position around them, with Tatnia and I on either side of the two "prisoners" and Julus guiding the crate of "contraband" from behind us.

We exited the secluded and abandoned area, making our way through back alleys and mostly empty streets. It was clear that even with this planet's tiny Imperial presence, people were at least passingly familiar with good old-fashioned Empire justice because anyone we came across immediately looked away from us or turned around and ran away.

It took us just over ten minutes to reach the base, having been dropped off a reasonable distance away, primarily so that we wouldn't immediately be connected to the landing shuttle. The security checkpoint at the front entrance of the base immediately came to attention as we got closer.

"Trooper! What is going on?" Asked a uniformed man as we got within speaking distance. "Who are they, and what is your designation?"

"Trooper TK-421 reporting, sir," I said, standing up at attention, surreptitiously tapping my comm three times to signal Miru. "We apprehended this scum attempting to smuggle weapons aboard a commercial vessel, sir."

"Really? And what were you doing off base, unaccompanied by an Officer?" The man asked. "And where is the rest of your squad? Standard Protocol dictates no less than five Troopers for missions outside control sections of an Imperial planet, who…"

The man trailed off, eyes focused slightly above me. After a moment, his eyes went wide, and he scrambled to reach for a comm unit of his own, pulling it up to his mouth.

"Emergency, emergency! Incoming unknown vehicle, due north! Repeat-"

The air speeder the man had spotted, moving at a pace that was definitely in danger of burning out its repulsorlifts, whipped by the checkpoint building and disappeared over the exterior wall of the military base. While they had no way of knowing, the recently stolen vehicle had spent quite a bit of time inside the Chariots hangar bay. The unassuming civilian air speeder was being piloted by a B1 battle droid, nicknamed Dummy, whose processors had been cored out by Miru, leaving it with one final suicide mission. All four back seats, as well as the passenger seat, had been torn out and replaced with five barrels of ship fuel, and the extracted explosive components of the tri-fighter missiles Miru scavenged from the raindrops.

Blasts of laser fire flew out over the city as the base's defenses tried to take the speeder down, each shot going wide. Barely a moment passed after the air speeder disappeared over the wall from our perspective when a massive explosion resonated over us. It was followed by a fireball so massive that we could see the light it cast on the buildings behind us, despite being on the other side of a three or four-meter tall wall.

The lighting inside the checkpoint security room flickered and dimmed before returning to normal, while the officer who had been questioning us looked pale. For a moment he froze, before looking back at us.

"Get inside!" He barked, all of us quickly stepping inside before he slapped his hand on something. The doors behind us slammed shut, sealing us in the military base. "Stow your charge in the cells, then report to your commanding officer!"

He turned back to the few soldiers and staff inside his space, barking orders and seemingly already putting us out of his mind. We left quickly, making our way deeper into the base. Already the compound was buzzing, with dozens and dozens of people rushing back and forth, most of the attention focused on the turbolaser building, which now billowed smoke from a large crater. The B1 had done its job, taking the large, powerful turret out of commission.

We moved as quickly as possible, the chaos giving us ample reason to move fast and not arouse suspicion, though the presence of Nal and Vaz did draw a few eyes. For some distance, we took at least partial cover behind the large garage and warehouse building that ran along one edge of the base. Once the cover of the garage fell behind us, we angled directly towards the ship.

As we got closer to our target, I could see that the boarding ramp was down. With a burst of speed, we quickly closed the final distance, heading under the front of the ship and looking up into it from the base of the main walkway inside. Standing there was a single person, dressed in the basic Imperial navy garb, holding his hat in his hand.

"What's going on out there?" He called. "I was just finishing fixing the commander's climate controls when-"

"The base is under attack," I said, cutting him off and climbing up the bridge to the first deck. "We are commandeering the ship to hold these prisoners until everything is cleared up. What's your name, soldier?"

"Umm I'm T- oh, Uh Ensign Tarsi, Sir," He said, nervously twisting his cap as he looked back down the ramp.

"Right, well sorry about this Ensign Tarsi," I said, before raising my blaster and pulling the trigger, a blue wave of a stun bolt washing over him. "I know how much those things hurt."

Even as the nervous ensign collapsed backward, slumping down to the ground, I turned back to the rest of the crew, pulling out my comm and connected to Miru.

"We are on board, Miru. Your B1 bomb worked perfectly," I said, smiling as I could hear the young genius cheering. "We will start clearing decks soon. I'll get back in contact when we are done."

Another confirmation from the young Twi'lek and I stowed my comm unit, giving the rest of the crew a once over. Vas and Nal were already out of their fake restraints and were in the process of arming up, while Julus and Tatnia tipped over the cargo crate, letting Racer wheel out of it with a soft whistle.

"Alright, guys, we need a room-by-room sweep. Tatnia, Julus, and Nal, you get the first and second decks. Vaz and Racer, you're with me. We are bum-rushing the third and fourth decks," I said, mostly rehashing the already discussed plan. "Give us a thirty-second head start."

When I was done, everyone nodded while I turned to the turbolift, with Racer wheeling in first, Vaz and I stepping in after him. As the doors closed, I summoned my armor around me, marveling at how little energy it took to fully charge it. We stepped out of the turbolift on the third deck and immediately moved forward, Racer following behind and taking cover by a corner while Vaz and I went door to door, checking every single one, clearing a series of six bedrooms, a refresher room, and a lounge, before turning around and rushing back to the turbolift, since the one at the far end of the third floor only went down.

Racer was waiting for us in the turbolift, Vaz and I quickly climbed in as well, tapping the controls and ascending to the fourth deck.

When the turbolift opened, we were immediately greeted by a barrage of blaster fire, three bolts pinging off my armor before I could raise a Steadfast Ward up to start blocking them. Several more bolts ricochet off my projected shield before both Vaz and I opened fire. The small space was lit up by back-and-forth laser fire, before we finally managed to take down the three imperial soldiers who had taken cover inside the bridge lounge. The second the last one went down, I rushed forward, jumping over a corpse and blasting a fifth soldier hidden behind a control system in the next room.

I kept moving, finally opening the door to the main cockpit and stepping in, lining up a shot on whatever commanding officer had been on board. Seeing me line up my shot he reached down to his hip for his blaster, but he was dead long before he could reach it. Unfortunately, as I stepped further into the cockpit, I could see he had accomplished his mission, at least partially, the ship's systems locked down. Thankfully, we had someone who could fix that.

"Racer! It's all clear!" I called back down the hallway, watching as Vaz pushed a body out of the way for the upgraded astromech.

Racer joined me in the cockpit and immediately headed for a scomp link near where the officer had been standing. He linked in quickly, his access plug spinning as he did his own magic. After a few seconds, he turned and used his holoprojector to display a timer, with eight minutes and thirty-five seconds remaining.

"Fuck, longer than I was hoping…. Okay, We will buy you some time," I said before turning to Vaz and nodding back down the hall. "C'mon, we need to get ready in case someone comes poking around."

We quickly made our way back through the ship, double-checking everything was clear as we went, eventually arriving back at the boarding ramp, the other three already there and waiting for us. Julus was nursing a mark on his torso, with melted armor and a burn mark peeking out from behind his hand.

"How did it go?" I asked, walking to my injured crew member and dumping a Healing Hands into him, the younger man sighing in relief.

"Only resistance was in the barracks," Nal explained. "Stormtrooper armor bought us enough time to get in before they opened fire."

"They didn't last long, though. They weren't exactly expecting anything," Tatnia pointed out. "Julus just got unlucky."

"That's why I want some good armor for everyone," I said, finishing off my magicka on the healing. "We weren't fast enough. They managed to lock it down before we arrived. Racer has another seven minutes or so before he can crack the lockdown."

"Interesting, goes against protocol," Nal said. "Officers are supposed to scuttle ships before rebels get their hands on them."

"Let's not look a gift horse in the mouth," I said, rolling my eyes when everyone gave me a weird look for the idiom. "Don't question good fortune. Nal, go up to the top deck and see if you can't get an external view of what's going on, and get ready to fly us out of here. I want to leave the second we can."

The Duros nodded and stepped into the nearby turbolift, disappearing as its doors closed. It took them about a minute to report back that, as far as they could tell, no one was looking our way. We settled in to wait, seconds ticking by extraordinarily slowly. Unfortunately, it wasn't two minutes later that he commed back again.

"A squad of troopers is heading our way," Nal warned, all of us jumping up to our feet. "Thirty seconds!"

All of us moved around, finding cover that gave us a vantage point down the boarding ramp. I motioned for everyone to duck down, just before the six troopers came into view. They paused at the base of the ramp, the first few tilting their heads to see further inside. When they saw nothing suspicious, one of the leading troopers made a gesture and the squad stepped up to come inside. The second I heard their boots hit the ramp, I popped out of my cover, taking aim with my blaster.

"Fire!"

A torrent of blaster bolts fired down the ramp and slapped into troopers. Some of them skimmed off their polished armor, but even more of them drilled in and pierced through. In one short barrage the six troopers were taken down, most of them sliding to the base of the ramp. Just after the last trooper dropped, my comm went off again.

"They heard that, Boss. Most of the smaller turrets swiveled to focus on us," Nal said. Racer needs two more minutes. More troops incoming."

"Alright, get ready, everyone," I said, looking around. "We have two minutes! I-"

Before I could even finish, a troop transport swerved around into view about ten meters from the ship, too fast for Nal to warn us about. More stormtroopers poured out of the vehicle, taking cover behind the armored speeder. We opened fire immediately, but our blaster bolts only bounced off harmlessly.

"Dammit, we need to hit that thing before they open up with their cannons!" I said, pointing out the transporter's heavier armaments, only to watch as the dorsal turret swiveled to focus on us.

"EVERYONE GET-"

My orders were cut off by a barrage of laser fire, a volley that hammered into the transport speeder. For a second it did nothing, splashing over the armor and leaving small black indents. Then the spray tightened and focused on the domed turret on the top of the speeder, dialing in and hammering the same spot, unloading a barrage that dug into the armor. It glowed, sagged and failed, the blue laser fire punching through the turret, which exploded with enough force to cave in the vehicle's roof.

I turned to see Vaz, hefting a familiar-looking minigun-esque weapon, a dangerous smile on her lips, and the barrels of her weapon smoking from use. Behind her, I could see Ensign Tarsi, looking extremely conflicted, with his fingers in his ears, holding a spare power pack for the large weapon Vaz was firing.

"Huh… looks like we managed to find you your heavy weapon after all," I said, getting a snort from the armored humanoid.

Chapter Text

Before any of us could really do anything, Nal buzzed me through my comm unit.

"Boss, Racer has completed his slice," He said quickly. "I am taking off immediately. Please send Tatnia up to assist!"

I looked over at Tatnia, who nodded and rushed to the turbo lift without a word. As she disappeared behind the closing doors, I turned to everyone else.

"Get to a turret control room," I said. "It's only a matter of time before-"

The ship rocked, and the sound of a blaster cannon being fired echoed up and in through the now-closing ramp.

"That happens! Go, we need to take those turrets down!"

Vaz and Julus nodded and ran to the closest turret station, which were down the hall from the main cargo hold. I turned to Tarsi and pointed to the turbolift.

"You're with me," I said, getting a nervous nod in response. "Let's go."

We rode the turbo lift I commed Calima, telling her we would be pulling off from the Imperial base shortly. She confirmed she would be ready to follow us up and that the Chariot was in the clear as far as she could see. As I hung up the comm and stepped out of the turbolift, our ship rocked again, this time followed by Julus and Vaz returning fire.

"So… why did you help?" I asked as I ran towards the turret control room, passing by the barracks and the small meeting room before finally dropping down into the turret control seat.

The gunner station looked plenty different from what was on the Chariot, but CES’s obsession with keeping their systems similar and accessible meant I recognized enough to activate the station, swivel the turret I was controlling, and fire a burst of lasers at a turret.

"I… don't know," He admitted. "I… It just felt right."

I fired another blast, even as the ship slowly lifted off the ground, Nal and Tatnia getting us going. The turret I was aiming for exploded, leaving a crater in the roof it had been mounted to. A readout along my left informed me we were down to thirty-five percent shields.

"I'm gonna need a little more than that," I said, looking at him from the corner of my eye. "What kind of feeling?"

"I just… I'm… The thing is… It's a long story," He tried to explain, nervously gripping his cap again. "I didn't join the Empire because I believed in the holovids, you know?"

As I listened, I could see us getting further and further off the ground through my screen, the turrets still firing on us, blasts of energy slamming into our shield and whipping by us. The shields dropped a bit more, but the ineffectual laser fire stopped after about twenty seconds of flying. We kept on putting more distance between us and the base.

"So why did you join then?" I asked as I swiveled the cannon around, now focusing forward.

"I… I like fixing stuff. And my planet sucked. My family sucked," He said, adding the last bit quietly. "I thought I could do my service, learn a bit more about ships, maybe leave and get dropped off somewhere like Coruscant and get a job as a mechanic or something…"

As I listened, the curvature of the watery, ocean-logged planet started to appear. I couldn't resist the urge to shift the view of the turret so I could watch. Eventually, I spotted the Talos Chariot cutting out from the atmosphere to meet us. Before they could get close, Nal messaged me again.

"Sensors are picking up the Guardian-class ships, Boss, but they are too far away to do any damage before we can jump…" He trailed off, pausing for a moment. "They just deployed their TIE fighters. They will intercept in thirty seconds."

I swiveled my turret view, scanning around momentarily before a ping went off, and the incoming starfighters suddenly lit up on my screen. They read as friendlies to the computer, which was good news for us because they were feeding us telemetry. Vaz, Julus, and I fired at the incoming starfighters, forcing them to juke and dodge, which slowed them down considerably. Vaz even managed to take one out, the shieldless starfighter exploding in a ball of fire.

As the last three remaining TIE fighters got closer, the aft quad laser cannon, which was smaller but much better equipped to handle starfighters, opened fire, slicing into and destroying a second TIE fighter. Then, before anyone else could even react, the Chariots raindrops came in screaming around our starboard, catching the last two TIE fighters off guard and completely annihilating them in short order.

The droid starfighters made a lazy loop around us before meeting back up to the Chariot, the smaller ship slowing down slightly to let the starfighter connect to their undercarriage. Nal and Tatnia used that to catch up as we put even more distance between us and the planet.

A few moments later, we jumped to lightspeed, leaving the planet behind.

I slumped back in my seat as the targeting screen went blank, the jump to lightspeed automatically locking down the weapon systems. I took a long breath, letting it out after a small pause.

We had done it. We had managed to pull off a pretty impressive heist with minimal issues. There were a few tense moments and some... interesting developments, but that was to be expected. In fact, if I hadn;t called the Chariot up to leave with us, I doubt it would have been connected to the heist. I didn't regret playing it safe, not when the two Guardians could have shown up anywhere. Besides, we were on a timer, so doing anything else would be dangerously overreaching, especially after snagging such an impressive addition to the fleet.

And wasn't that an interesting feeling, knowing that we were now a fleet. Sure, we were a severely understaffed fleet, but we were a fleet nonetheless. Our next task would be finding more crew to staff this ship. I also wanted soldiers, boots-on-the-ground types who could fight with us. I knew the rebellion would provide as many soldiers as we needed, but I wanted at least some working directly for me. I needed to know I had at least some backup if we went our separate ways.

"Umm… you're not going to kill me… are you?" Tarsi asked as I stood from my chair and stretched. "You're rebels, right? Part of the Rebellion? The holovids say you're all savages, but-"

"We aren't part of the rebellion quite yet, but that's a bit complicated," I said, shaking my head. "But no, I'm not going to kill you. Not after you helped us out. You haven't told me why you helped us."

"You stunned me," He responded. "You didn't have to, you could have shot me. And you apologized for it."

"Yeah, I know it sucks."

"So… What's going to happen then?" He asked, waiting nervously for me to respond.

"What's going to happen is you're going to behave yourself," I said, pinning him with a stare. "We are on our way somewhere to settle down, go over the ship, and discuss our next step. When we do, we will discuss what happens to you. Most likely, you're gonna get dropped off somewhere in the Rim. Until then, you're going to sit in a room and wait. Understood?"

He nodded near frantically before wordlessly following me back down to the first deck, to one of the larger bedrooms. He stepped inside and sat down on the edge of the bed, before I closed the door with a tap on the control panel. I pulled out my com and connected to Nal.

"Nal, can you look over your shoulder and ask Racer if he could seal the first big bedroom on the first deck? I asked. "Or at least keep track if the door is opened?"

"Sure, Boss."

A few seconds later, the light next to the door went yellow, and blinked twice before going red. I thanked Nal before returning to the main cargo hold, where Vaz and Julus were waiting.

"So, what's his deal?" Julus asked.

"Signed up for the benefits, said it felt like the right thing to do," I answered, shaking my head. "I'm giving him some slack since he helped, but stay on your toes if he decides to try and strangle us with it."

"I do not believe he will," Vaz said, sounding confident. "I believe he wanted to help."

"Random people stealing a ship?" I asked with a raised eyebrow before waving my hand. "It doesn't matter. We can have this conversation later. For now, I want to start cleaning up. I want the bodies in the airlock so we can dump them when we drop out of hyperspace."

Together, the three of us and a Flame Atronach I conjured started cleaning up the bodies. The magick construct was obviously confused at first, but I managed to finagle some directions to get it to carry a body we handed to it, the mostly brainless construct following behind us. Once we had the barracks cleared, we cleared the fourth deck, pausing to talk to Nal and Tatnia.

"Any issues?" I asked as I patted down the officer I had killed earlier, pulling out a small datapad, a comm unit, and a side arm.

"None so far, Boss. The ship is in good condition," Nal responded. "The engineer station down the hall was clean last time we checked."

"Alright, good," I commented with a nod before looking around. "There's a lot more crew stations than the Chariot. Way more than I would have expected."

"Imperials like to spread out responsibility," Nal explained. "This ship is also old. Effective, but old."

"Fair enough, I guess," I said with a frown, grabbing the dead Imperial officer and lifting them over my shoulder. "Comm me if anything changes."

With the bodies taken care of, all that was left to do was wait. Rather than just sit around, we passed the time by exploring the ship in a bit more detail, going room by room to check everything out. We had plenty of time, so we started at the first deck, which included the main cargo hold as well as several sleeping quarters. We skipped the one that Tarsi was in.

The cargo hold didn't have any surprises, filled with mostly food and some repair materials, though there wasn't much. I assumed that the close proximity to the planet meant they weren't particularly worried about making major repairs while on patrol.

It was also apparent that most of the non-crew beds were not being used. The forward escape pod, the massive one that made up the cone shape of the fore, was almost entirely unused, as were three of the larger midline rooms. As we searched, we piled up quite a bit of junk, which was carried to the main cargo bay for easy disposal.

The second deck was much more populated and heavily used, revealing quite a few more useful things. There were three more storage rooms, one of which was filled entirely with shelf-stable food rations, another with a few more parts for the ships and misc materials. The workshop was well equipped, with plenty of tools, all in good shape. I was pleasantly surprised to find a protocol droid and two repair droids tucked into a room that looked to be specifically for droid storage. All three of them had restraining bolts on them, but I left them depowered anyway.

The finds kept coming as we made our way through the ship, eventually stopping at the barracks. Only four troopers were on board when we attacked, but it looked like six were usually on board when the ship was on patrol. There were six standard sets of stormtrooper armor, as well as their weapons, equipment, and side arms. Between the armor from the Blade and what we had just found, we now had eleven sets of stormtrooper armor, though the one Julus used was damaged.

We continued going through the ship, eventually finishing our search by sitting in the bridge lounge, just down the hall from where Nal and Tatnia were keeping an eye on the ship's systems. There, we went over everything we had found, including the total of five hundred credit ingots.

Eventually, we made our way back down to the barracks, mostly because there were empty containers for stormtrooper gear, and I wanted out of the set I was wearing. I had ditched the helmet a while ago, but the rest of the outfit was just as bad. Once I was back down to my civies we decided to crack into the food stores and try the Imperial rations. Vaz had no issue, easily eating hers without complaint, while Julus and I struggled.

"This… they make their own people eat this?" I asked, lifting up a green glob of food with a fork before letting it plop back down. "We are going to have to throw all of the food away. I won't force anyone to have to eat this."

"There may be some specifically for the officers," Vaz pointed out. "We did grab the first ones we could see."

"Idiots," I said, shaking my head. "I would have mutineed if I was forced to eat this while the officer was eating good food."

"It's how the world works," Julus said, pausing for a moment before correcting himself. "Well, it's how most of the world works."

I managed to finish about half of the ration, throwing the rest away, Julus quickly following suit. Vaz volunteered to bring food up to Nal and Tatnia, stepping into the aft turbolift and disappearing behind the closed doors. Julus and I continued to familiarize ourselves with the ship before settling back into the lounge. I almost immediately shut down, my body realizing all at once that I had been up for way too long, working way too hard. I barely had enough energy to make my way to one of the empty rooms before I passed out.

Eventually, about seven hours after I had passed out in the comfortable luxury bed, Vaz woke me up and said we were about to drop out of lightspeed. I nodded and quickly headed to the cockpit, arriving just in time to see the light show end and a familiar planet appear before us.

When the decision to steal a ship had been reached, Miru had been very emphatic that she wanted to go over every inch of it herself before we started hiring people to crew it. So, rather than try and do that in space, we agreed that finding someplace to land would be our best bet. After a bit of debating, we settled on the small, unnamed planet with a now empty, stripped-bare, and abandoned CIS base.

"Anything showing up on the scanners?" I asked Tatnia as I leaned on her seat.

"No, the planet is empty," She responded. "Atmosphere still sucks, though, so back to wearing masks outside."

I couldn't help but groan as we watched the Talos chariot pull ahead and head down into the planet's atmosphere.

Chapter Text

It took us about fifteen minutes to locate the abandoned and stripped-clean CIS base again, then another five to land both ships down onto it. We emptied out our airlock, letting the Imperial corpses burn up in the atmosphere as we made our way around the planet. The landing pad outside the hangars was big enough for both of our ships, but we parked close together so equipment could be more easily transferred between the two. Upon touching down, we exited the new ship, meeting Miru as she lowered the repair droid crew down on the cargo lift of the Chariot. She waved as the Leddy led the repair droids to the Consular-class ship.

“Nice job, Boss!” She called out as she got closer, her voice partially muffled by her mask. “That went a lot better than expected.”

“It was a little close at the end, but we made it through,” I agreed with a nod. “Not gonna feel completely satisfied until we can confirm that there aren't any trackers on it, though.”

“That's our first task, Boss,” The young Twi’lek agreed. “How does it look on the inside?”

“In good condition as far as I can tell,” I responded. “There are three droids in their droid bay: two repair droids and a protocol droid. I want Racer to go over them byte by byte before we even think about turning them on.”

“I agree, the Empire does all sorts of messy things to their droids,” Miru added, nodding in agreement. “Anything else?”

“Yeah, get the droids going and then head to the second deck lounge. I want to have a meeting and discuss the heist and what we do next.”

“Sure thing, Boss!”

As Miru jogged back to her repair droid team, I made my way into the Chariot, finding Calima and informing her of the meeting as well. About ten minutes later, I had Racer unseal Tarsi’s room. The door opened to reveal the young Ensign lying on the bed. He quickly sat up and stood, almost standing at attention before visibly restraining himself.

“C’mon, that meeting I talked about is starting,” I said, the nervous ex-imperial nodding and following behind me as I led him to the second deck lounge.

As I walked into the relatively open space, most of the crew simply nodded at the additional person. Calima was the only one completely caught off guard, as no one had told her what was happening.

“Alright, everyone, this is Tarsi. He was on board when we first took the ship, and later, instead of leaving or attacking us, he helped us fight off the rest of the Imperials,” I explained. “Because of that, and I’m not about to start killing off unarmed and non-hostile people because it would be a bit easier, we need to figure out what we are going to do with him.”

“Umm… could I…?” The nervous engineer started to say, looking at me and stepping closer when I gestured him forward. “So my name is Pola Tarsi. I grew up on Ruan, an Agriworld. I joined the Imperial Navy because… well, I was hoping to gain some experience fixing things other than labor droids and harvesters. I… I wish I had never left, but… when you join, you join for life…”

The young naval engineer seemed to grow distant for a moment before shaking his head and focusing on the moment.

“Before you discuss what happens next… I need to get something off my chest. I… I was using you to fake my own death,” He admitted, sounding apologetic. “If the Empire thinks I’m dead, my family back home will get a small payout, but more importantly, they won't be punished for me… for me going AWOL.”

From where I was standing, I could see Nal and Tatnia nodding in understanding, the former leaning back, a barely noticeable tension seeming to fade away. I had to admit, it was a much more believable reason for sticking with us than “it felt like the right thing to do.”

“I hated working for the Empire. They lied every step of the way during training, but all that stops when you leave the academy. The Empire is bad. You can see it in everything they do. The rules are cruel, and the standard procedures are mean. Even the things we were shown as positives, like seeing the galaxy and protecting people, it exists on a layer of cruelty and… twisted corruption that-”

He suddenly stopped and took a deep breath, letting it out after a moment, a bit more calm.

“Well… If playing alibi for someone looking to escape the Empire is the cost of you getting that gun for Vaz, I’d say it was money well spent,” I said, putting my hand on his shoulder. “I think once we are done here, we could spare a trip to an Outer Rim world for you to hide out at.”

“Thank you… I can pull my weight in the meantime… I’m not sure how…”

Pola sat down on a couch by himself, still clutching at his hat, which was now a wrinkled and twisted mess. When Pola sat down, I turned to face the rest of the crew, smiling big.

“Alright everyone, that was fantastically done. I’m not sure how that could have gone any better, if I’m honest,” I admitted. “You should all be thrilled with your performances. In one day, we more than doubled the strength of our fleet.”

“Assuming we can staff it,” Nal pointed out, and I nodded.

“That is definitely on the list of things to get done after we are done here,” I admitted, pointing to the Duros. “I think that we focus on hiring enough people to fill the crew, which is what, ten people? Then, when we join up, we can ask the rebels to provide the strike team. Basically, if we have to go our separate ways for any unforeseen reason, I don't want there to be any issues with us packing up and leaving."

“How will… we pay for these new crew members?” Calima asked. “And how will we continue to make money once we join the Rebellion? While I will enjoy… fighting the Empire, I would still like to make some money.”

“At first, I think we will sell the Dark Blade since it really doesn't have a place in our fleet quite yet, and having a big chunk of credits on hand will be very useful,” I explained, getting a few nods of understanding in return. “I want to invest a significant portion of that money upgrading the Chariot and this ship, up to two-thirds of it. Past that, I think we can negotiate a way to keep ourselves funded, even if it's claiming a portion of the equipment salvaged from our missions."

"Are you sure they will let us do that?" Miru asked.

"No, but I think there is a significant chance that when they see this ship, their first question will be if we can get them more," I pointed out. "They desperately need ships, and if we can prove that we are a steady source of them, I don’t think they will argue if we add the caveat that they slip us some extra funding. I also… have a few ideas on how to make some more money, one of which I want to investigate after we finish here.”

The crew nodded along, accepting the circumspect talk because of Pola, who looked interested but understanding of the secrecy.

We continued to discuss our options and eventually settled on a general schedule. We would spend around two days at the CIS base, letting the repair droids and Miru go over every inch of the ship. We would then head for Point Thirteen to drop off the yet-to-be-renamed Consular-class. On the way, we would contact Nevue to see if he would be interested in buying the Blade.

Assuming he was, we would make a trade before heading off to do some shopping, which was also when we would drop Pola off somewhere. Nal and Tatnia assured me that if we were willing to pay out a couple extra thousand credits and wait an extra few days, we could get whatever we needed delivered to whatever Outer Rim world we wanted. That meant we could pick up our upgrades and drop off Pola at the same place.

We might even be able to do a little recruiting while we are there, depending on where we landed.

Once we had everything we needed, I planned on returning to Point Thirteen, grabbing the Consular-class, and returning to the abandoned CIS base, or maybe some other empty planet, since wearing masks would get annoying. We would then split the crew, leaving most of the people with the Consular-class to help Miru work on the upgrades while we go off to check out if one of my “hunches” would turn out to be profitable.

It was a whole lot of traveling back and forth across the galaxy, but making sure our ships were the best they could be and then some was important enough that I was willing to add quite a few extra steps to the next few weeks. A quick vote showed that the crew agreed on the schedule, so I closed the meeting.

Over the next two days, the crew kept themselves as busy as they could. Miru and repair droids did end up going over the ship from aft to fore, looking under hundreds of panels, peeking inside hatches, and scanning every inch of the ship. Racer spent almost forty-eight hours in a row slicing and analyzing the code for the Clone Wars era ship, looking for anything left behind by Imperial security. He stumbled on a few things, including an automatic hailing program that would connect the ship to Imperial IFF if we got close to any Imperial systems. He also informed us that her ship's name was the Harsh Penance, which Pola apologized for not telling us already. It wasn’t nearly as bad as "Dark Blade," but we would definitely be renaming it when we were done upgrading everything.

While Miru and the droids worked on the Penance, most of the remaining crew did light maintenance on whatever other equipment required it. Tatnia did some work on the Arrow, mostly cleaning, while Julus and Vaz cleaned and maintained everyone's weapons and most of the backup weapons. Pola volunteered to do maintenance on the labor droids, which Miru admitted was probably a good idea since she had just given them a basic once-over when we first got them. Pola was very familiar with the droids, having grown up on a farm that employed hundreds of them. Nal agreed to help him, though everyone involved knew it was mostly to keep an eye on the ex-Imperial.

While everyone was working hard, I was sitting in my room for twelve hours straight, two days in a row, working on my magic. My first priority was the process of learning the advanced version of Clairvoyance. It wasn’t exactly a new spell. Instead, it was the first spell with a half dozen small additions. It wasn’t technically a secondary matrix, but it did help the spell be more open to my inputs and what it was capable of searching for. According to the grimoire, it was only taught after a user was very familiar with the base spell because, without that base mastery, it wouldn’t be precise enough to work through the more broad allowances.

That only took a few hours to learn, and I immediately tested it, unable to resist cheering when the illusory arrow snapped to a seemingly random direction as it latched on to what I was imagining in my head. I then spent about half an hour focusing on a few dozen random things, from Luke and Leia to Yoda and Ahsoka. Each time, the arrow pointed off the planet. I did notice that Luke, Leia and Ahsoka seemed to be vaguely in the same part of the galaxy, though honestly, even a minute shift in the arrow could mean entirely different systems.

When I was done learning the next level of Clairvoyance, I spent the rest of the day on Heal Other, which was an equivalent and then upgrade of the Fast Heal spell, but specifically for other people. This would let me heal people in tense situations without having to sit down and hold Healing Hands on them. Because I had already burnt a few hours learning the Clairvoyance upgrade, I resigned myself to a very long and late night, even with my inherent Restoration affinity.

The next day, I tackled another spell, once again secluding myself in my room. I still felt bad that I was essentially sitting on my ass while everyone was outside working, but I did my best to focus on the good what I was learning would do for everyone later.

With another healing spell under my belt, my next priority was defense, meaning Greater Ward was next on my list. I sat down after breakfast with everyone, and everyone was already sleeping when I was finally done. Still, having a more powerful way to protect myself and my crew was worth the all-day, brain-melting process.

I was both excited and terrified of what the expert and master process would be like.
The following day, Miru sat down with me at breakfast and went over everything that she and her droid team had found.

“It's in pretty good shape, especially for its age,” She commented, tapping through a hologram that Racer was projecting. “It’s relatively new, meaning it was made at the tail end of the Clone Wars, and was retrofitted with more modern systems about three years ago, meaning it's surprisingly up to date. That said, it is still an older ship. The power systems are a little under what they would be optimally for a modern ship this size, though the shield system wouldn't be able to handle much more power regardless. My suggestion is that any upgrades we get focus on those two things first.”

“What about the engines?”

“They aren't the fastest, but it's pretty maneuverable for its size. Its hyperdrive is also twice as fast as the Chariots.”

“Sounds like we should remember that when upgrading the Chariot,” I said, Miru nodding in agreement. “And no signs of a tracker?”

“None,” She said confidently. "Racer didn’t find anything in the computers, and I didn’t find anything inside the ship's guts. Scans came up empty as well. This ship is clean.”

“Alright, good enough for me,” I said with a smile. “Let's get everything packed away then. The quicker we can get the next few weeks started, the quicker we can get back to it.”

We spent the next hour or so getting everyone back together and packing all of Miru’s equipment away. Miru also spent a few minutes reviewing Pola’s work, which she seemed satisfied with.

“I’m glad you approve,” The ex-imperial said, helping a repair droid into its charging station. “Because I’d like to join your crew.”

Miru stopped and looked over her shoulder, first at the ex-Imperial, then at me. She shrugged and returned to the labor droid she was checking over, snapping the central chest plate back into place.

“If he works on ships like he does these droids, he is passable, Boss,” She said, turning back to me, dusting off her hands. “It's up to you.”

“You realize that we are going to fight the Empire directly soon,” I explained, turning to face the young man. “This is all in preparation for joining the Rebellion. What happened to wanting to leave so your parents would be safe?”

“Well… I could change my face?” He offered with a shrug. “And I don’t have much combat training beyond light gunner experience. I wouldn’t be showing my face all that much, to begin with… right?”

For a moment, I studied him, meeting his gaze and holding it. I was surprised when he didn’t look away since so far, he had been quite nervous and timid.

“Turn around and close your eyes,” I instructed, getting a strange look before he slowly turned to face the repair droid he had just been working with.

I charged up a Calm spell and hit him square in the back, the energy swirling around him for a moment.

“Pola, can you turn around for me?” I asked, the now slightly dazed engineer turning to look at me with a big grin. “Why do you really want to join us?”

“Well… you guys seem nice, and working with people who actually like each other could be fun,” He admitted with a shrug. “Also… Starting over on a small, backward rim planet doesn't sound very fun. I also want to make up for all the time I spent helping the Empire. I might not stick around forever, but I could help for a while…”

He blinked for a moment, his dopey grin fading as he shook himself, suddenly aware that he had been acting strange.

“What… what was that?” He asked, looking from me to Miru. “Did… did you guys just drug me?”

“Nope, maybe you’re overheating,” I suggested, looking concerned. “Why don't you go sit down for a while, drink some water, and rest. We can talk about you wanting to join before we leave.”

For a moment, he looked confused before he eventually nodded and turned around, leaving the Chariot cargo hold behind. Miru looked at me with a raised eyebrow.

“You’ve never done that to me, have you?”

“Of course not!” I assured her, her face softening a bit before I added. “I didn’t know how to when you joined after all.”

She picked up a stray screw and threw it at me, the small chip of metal bouncing off my back as I left the cargo bay, laughing as I went.

Chapter Text

We lifted off of the CIS base within the hour, with Nal, Tatnia, Julus, Pola, and Vaz on the Penance since it required more crew to function, and Calima, Miru, and myself on the Chariot. We lifted off without any trouble, jumping to hyperspace as we left the planet's gravity field.

Before we split up into two different ships, I went around and discussed the idea of Pola joining us with everyone individually. The general consensus seemed to be to give him a chance but to keep a close eye on him. The issue with that was his primary role would obviously be working on the ships, which meant Miru would be the one more or less in charge of him, even if he stayed on the Penance as one of its crew, and I hated the idea of having someone we didn't trust one hundred percent spending any alone time with her.

So, for the short term, instead of having him on the Chariot, I set him on the Penance, where Tatnia could keep a vague eye on him. Racer was also onboard the Penance as well, tapped into the systems to monitor them directly. The idea was to give the ex-imperial enough freedom to show his true colors but have Racer on standby to stop him from doing anything particularly dangerous.

Of course, this was a temporary solution, one I would openly admit was probably overkill. Between his general demeanor, my own gut feeling, and the Calm spell test, I personally believed he was genuine about his desire to stay on board and help out.

Once we jumped into hyperspace, we had just under a full day before we would arrive at our destination. We sent a message to Nevue before we left, including a few images of the Dark Blade and where he could meet us.

Unfortunately, despite the long trip, I didn't actually have a solid twelve for thirteen hours to sit down and learn a spell, as we were already half a dozen hours into our day, and skipping sleep seemed like a bad idea when we would be meeting Nevue and negotiating a trade. I would have to get used to skipping sleep to learn spells when I got to Expert level magic, but I was more concerned about being fully awake now.

Still, I did have a bunch of free time, and while a complete spell was too much, picking up a better casting technique for my fire spells that increased their heat and decreased their mana was much more reasonable.

When we arrived at Point Thirteen, we slowly approached from the usual angle, touching down on the moon gently, the Penance right behind us. Tatnia and Nal started the process of shutting down the Consular-class ship since we would be leaving it behind for a while, before Miru took our new shuttle, which we had named Brick, over to pick up our crewmates.

About two hours after we had shut down the Penance, which we still had to rename, a new ship jumped out of hyperspace a fair distance from the moon. Before we could even start to panic, it reached out over the comm.


"Talos Chariot, this is Free Spirit, come in Talos Chariot. Are you there, Deacon?" A familiar voice asked through the speaker.

"It's us, Nevue. Come on down, and we can pick you up with our shuttle, assuming that ship has an airlock?"

"Shuttle? Dammit, Deacon, stop making us look so bad. Alright, coming in for a touchdown. See you in a bit."

About ten minutes later, Nevue, Ayme, and Lario all stepped off the Brick's ramp and into the Chariot's port hangar.

"It's good to see you again, Nevue," I said, reaching out and shaking his hand before shaking Ayme and Lario's hands as well. "It's good to see all of you. How has rebel life been treating you?"

"Until we saw you guys, I thought pretty well!" Nevue said, shaking his head. "How in the hells did you manage to get your hands on a Lambda, a C70 refit, and a CEC shuttle?"
"It's a bit of a long story," I said with a smirk. "How about we head up to the lounge, and I introduce you to our new crewmembers and fill you in?"

Together, we left the port hangar and made our way to the lounge. I briefly introduced Calima, Vaz, Julus, and Pola. I also explained who Pola was, which caught Nevue by surprise, but he seemed to accept his story.

"The Rebellion's policy is no questions asked acceptance of all defectors," He assured the nervous engineer with a shrug. "As long as you keep it straight, we won't have any issues."

Once introductions were done, we went over what we had been up to since we had gone our separate ways after the CIS raid. Nevue was stunned to hear that our adventures on Nar Shaddaa caught up with us in such a spectacular fashion, cursing loudly when we got to the part where we were ambushed by an Inquisitor.

When we were done, Nevue skimmed past what he was up to, explaining how they had secured their current ship and its cargo about two weeks after we separated and performed a large raid a few weeks ago on an Imperial shipping company. When we were both done sharing our stories, Nevue brought up the Lambda shuttle.

"I can understand why you would want to pass it on, it's not much use if you don't have a place to land frequently," He agreed, with a nod, spinning the holo-projected image we provided. "They are great troop transports and support craft, lots of firepower… And considering who the owner was, it would be in top condition… Have you gone over its Navicomputer log?"


"Racer went over it with a fine tooth comb," I said, turning to look at the droid. "Did you?"

The droid whistled, bleeped, and warbled before going silent. I looked at Miru for a translation.

"He said its records are intact, but he never reviewed any of them."

"Rebel Intelligence would want me to buy it for that alone," Nevue said with a nod. "How much?"

"Not gonna drag you guys through the coals on it. I was thinking maybe a hundred and seventy thousand?"

"I might be able to swing that…" Nevue said, sounding unsure as he reached up to touch one of his horns. "Could you go a bit lower?"

"Really? It might as well be brand new, Nevue, and it's worth at least two hundred," I pointed out. "I know the Rebellion's issue isn't money, it's ships. I could ask for more than it's worth, and you would still probably cave. I'll go a hundred and sixty-five, but that's as good as you're gonna get."

"Alright, alright, you've got a good point. That's a good deal, and I shouldn't ask for gilding when you've already offered a trim for free," He said, reaching over the table to shake my hand, sealing the deal. "Now, to complete my secondary mission. Our slicers have finally broken through the first few layers of the encryption on the CIS computer core. We have a new target to raid, and they want you at Thila Command to go over a plan."

"Dammit, really?" I asked, hypothetical, leaning back in my seat. "And right after we spent a whole meeting working out our schedule…"

"Well… we could spare a few days if it's something important," The Zabrak admitted. "Is it important?"

"I wanted to visit a planet for a day, investigate it for a potential scavenging operation of sorts," I explained. "And I wanted to use a large portion of the profits from the Lambda to buy upgrades for the Penance, the Chariot, and the Brick."

For a moment, Nevue was quiet, chewing on his lip before leaning in.

"I'll need to confirm it, but what if you brought the ships to Thila Command? We have enough room for both of your ships easily. You could leave them behind with Miru, and our technicians could help her upgrade your ship. We can even pick up the parts. We have plenty of ships waiting for the eventual Yavin IV rescue mission."

"That… would work, I suppose…"

I looked around at the rest of my crew, gauging their reactions. When no one showed any signs of major disagreement, I looked back at Nevue.

"Alright, we will accept your hospitality."

With our negotiation over Nevue, Ayme, Lario, Tatnia, Nal, Pola, and Vaz piled into the Brick again. Once Nevue was back on his ship, my crew went back to the Penance to start her back up, undoing the process they had gone through just a few hours ago.

After a while, Nevue contacted us on the comms and informed us we were welcome to use Thila Command as a temporary port, and that they would even pick up our supplies for cheap. Given how many black market pies the rebels had their fingers in, I was hopeful we could get our hands on everything we needed.

Soon we were ready to leave, with two of Nevue's crew piloting and preparing the Dark Blade for travel. Once they were ready, they gave us the coordinates for the rebel base and we set out, jumping into hyperspace. The trip was predicted to be surprisingly short, even shorter than the last time we made the trip, since the ancient B-7 we had been traveling on had a class four hyperdrive, while we were currently limited to the class three that the Chariot had.

Once we were on our way, I sat down with Miru and Calima to discuss what kind of upgrades we should be looking out for. Miru had a holoprojector displaying the structure of both of our ships so we could plan our modifications.

"I already recommended some extra power and shields for the Consular-class," Miru said, bringing the deck plan for that ship up. "I say we replace the shield generator with a bigger, more powerful version, and add a secondary reactor. We could even probably sell the original shield generator to make up some of the difference."

"Where would we put it?" I asked

"The more powerful shield might need some more room, but it's along the hull, so we don't need to worry about things getting in the way. We can just expand the hull," Miru explained. "We would have to do some restructuring, but we should have some replacement hull parts on hand anyway. The second power generator, on the other hand, is going to need its own space."

"How about the conference room on the second deck?" I suggested, pointing it out on the plans. "The primary lounge is just as good of a meeting place, if not better because it has the holoprojector in the middle."

"Hmm… I would like a little more space… what if we pushed the secondary storage bay back just a bit? That's another meter of space… we could fit a sizable generator there. Maybe increase available power by two-thirds."

"And you can connect it properly there?"

"Yeah, CEC ships are made for this kind of thing, Boss. You could tap into the main power almost anywhere in the ship."

"Good. How much will that cost?"

"If we can convince the rebels to buy our old shield system, which considering it will work with a lot of their older CEC ships, then… forty thousand credits."

"How much would adding two more quad turrets cost?" I asked. "Like we have in the back?"

“Uh…. another fifteen probably…”

We continued to discuss the upgrades for a few hours, Calima chiming in occasionally to put her own two cents in. Eventually, we settled on a general plan. On top of the reactor and shield upgrades, we would be adding two more quad turrets. One would be on the underside of the large, cone-shaped escape pod under the bridge, and the other on the underside of the aft end of the ship, near its engines, where it would have a clear view for targeting starfighters.

We would also be moving the quad laser that sat in the back to on top of the central tall block along the fore of the ship, drastically increasing its firing arc. It would require the removal of a single crew quarters to do it, but there were plenty of beds all over the ship, so that wasn't particularly important. In fact, the other two gunner controls would also be sacrificing quarters, both a stateroom on the first deck and two quarters in the forward pod, and the ship still had plenty of beds.

The Talos Chariot was also getting a significant upgrade to its shields and power generation. The hull would most likely need to be expanded for the shield upgrade, according to Miru, but once again she wasn't concerned. Instead of getting one additional medium-sized reactor, the Chariot would be getting two smaller ones, each tucked into the corner of the up-to-now unused back room of the ship's top deck. They would stay opposite the stairs and take up a significant amount of the room. Together, they would provide just about the same amount of power as the additional reactor being added to the Penance would provide.

I was tempted to add more weapons to the ship, but in all honesty it was already surprisingly well armed. It lacked the turbolasers that the retrofitted and upgraded Consular, but considering we were going for more of a small-scale carrier than a heavy hitter, that was fine.

Once we were done with the general plans, Miru headed down to her workshop, Racer following right behind her, planning on spending the rest of the trip working up some official plans to work off of. She was clearly excited about the upgrades, especially when I made it clear that she would be leading the process, as I trusted her to keep the rebel mechanics from fucking shit up or taking shortcuts.

When we finally arrived at the Rebellion's temporary command base, we were immediately given guidance to land, heading to the same spot we had before. Once again, Thila's massive mountains and valleys passed under us before we reached the rebel base. This time, we were directed to a larger hangar bay with room for the Penance and Chariot with room to spare.

As we exited the Chariot, the other half of my crew walking down the front ramp of the Penance, I spotted our welcoming committee. General Syndulla stood by the entrance, flanked by two guards. Beside her, however, was a Togruta woman, probably just around my age. Standing just behind her was a young, blonde-haired human male. The lightsaber at his hip and the dual lightsabers clipped to the Togruta's belt meant they could only really be two people.

I was honestly surprised how easy it was to control my fanboying. Maybe it was because they both looked so... normal, standing there, just waiting. Luke's behavior was so familiar it hurt, trying his best not to look nervous as he was introduced to new people. I could see my younger self in him like I was looking in a mirror, though I had considerably less riding on my shoulders. Ahsoka, on the other hand, carried her confidence much more securely, tempting me to try and rattle her a bit.

"General Syndulla, it's good to see you again," I said, reaching out to shake her hand. "I appreciate that you're letting us use your space."

"Just remember that when it's time to talk about who gets what after this raid," She responded with a smile. "This is-

"Ahsoka Tano." I finished for her with a smile, holding my hand out to the once-Jedi Padawan. "It's good to finally meet you."