Chapter Text
Phuwin usually enjoyed spending time in the hangars of the Jedi Temple. These days, they were often mired in the chaos of war preparations: the hum of welding torches, the thud of crates being loaded onto transports, and the high-pitched chatter of astromechs.
He wasn't the most technical person by any stretch, but he did enjoy tinkering with his own ship from time to time. Something about the mechanical precision required of him was soothing even when the Force was at its worst. He was currently focused on the manual intake valve of his Delta-7 Interceptor, hands steady as he tightened a bolt that had been rattling since before he'd left for the Mid Rim.
"I have the official authorization right here!"
The soothing rhythm of mechanical work was shattered by Master Tay Tawan. He marched into the docking bay, flourishing a datapad with enough flair to catch the attention of half the hangar crew. "A routine geological survey of the Pantoran moon system! Vital work!" He grinned. "Very rocky."
Phuwin climbed down from the landing gear and snatched the datapad out of the air before Tay could broadcast their business to the entire hangar. "Master, please," he hissed. Already, he could feel his cheeks warming. "If Master Gun or Master New find out I'm using a geological survey as a cover to chase a smuggler, I'll be assigned to the archives for the next decade."
Tay leaned in. His overly loud voice dropped to a genuine warmth. "I'm just glad you're going after it, Phu." He reached out and squeezed Phuwin's shoulder. "That stone belongs with you. Just make sure you come back in one piece." He smirked. "I'd hate to have to explain to the Council why a very promising young Knight went missing 'studying rocks' on a moon in the Outer Rim."
Phuwin offered his Master a sincere smile. "I'll be back before the report is due, Master." He bowed his head slightly. "Thank you - for everything."
Tay winked. He mimed locking his lips with one hand and waved lazily with the other, then turned on his heel to disappear back into the depths of the Temple… likely to go bother Master New.
Phuwin shook his head and turned back to the ship. A few more checks and the Delta-7 would be ready to blast into hyperspace.
A familiar sensor-unit bounced off the hull and landed at his feet. It sparked and sputtered once before it died with very little fanfare.
Phuwin sighed.
"You're a terrible liar, you know that?"
He didn't even have to look up. "Get off my wing, Fourth," he said, channeling his annoyance into his tone to get the point across. Not that it would help.
The Padawan in question hopped down from the Interceptor's opposite wing. He landed on the durasteel floor with a light thud. He was only a year younger than Phuwin, and though they'd been made Padawans together, Phuwin felt more aware of the gap between them than ever. Phuwin wore the focused browns and tans of a Knight, while Fourth still wore the braid of a Padawan.
"An official mission to survey a moon that's more marsh than rock?" Fourth asked with a playful grin. He twirled a screwdriver between his fingers. "I could imagine better things for a Jedi to be doing right about now than licking rocks on Pantora."
He stepped into Phuwin's space, his grin softening somewhat. He reached out and tapped the empty spot on Phuwin's chest that the focusing stone had previously occupied. "I know you're going after that smuggler, and you're planning on doing it alone." He smirked. "Probably so you don't get anyone else in trouble when you get caught."
Phuwin heard the subtle question hidden within the words. "Fourth, this isn't a game," he hissed. He placed a hand on Fourth's arm. "If we get caught, it's not just me who faces the Council. It's you. Your next round of the Trials could get pushed back again, or worse. Master Gun would kill me if I ruined your chance at being made a Knight."
"Master Gun says I lack 'focus.'" Fourth pulled his arm from Phuwin's grip and leaned back on his heels. "And he's right. I do. I try to meditate, and my mind just jumps from the wires in the walls to the circuit breakers." His playful smirk gave way to a rare vulnerability that always managed to send Phuwin off-kilter.
The Padawan was only an inch shorter than Phuwin, but the height difference felt much larger as Fourth's warm brown eyes met his. "You're one of the most focused Jedi I know. If I stay here doing the same drills that never work, I'm just going to fail a fourth time." He tapped the head of the screwdriver against his thigh - a nervous habit he'd picked up when they were younglings and never seemed to drop. "Let me come with you. Treat it like a training trip. Help me prepare."
Phuwin stared at him. His irritation died a pitiful death in his chest as he looked down at the dead sensor unit by his boot, then back at Fourth's earnest face. Like every Jedi who'd faced them, he knew the crushing weight of the Trials. He'd watched Fourth carry the quiet sting of failing them three times now, while his friends continued to be promoted one by one without him.
He'd masked his frustrations with laughter and a screwdriver, but there was only so far a good attitude could go before something snapped.
Phuwin's hand drifted back to his chest. The lack of his stone was a sharp reminder of how fragile his own balance was right now. Perhaps they both needed to find their focus.
"If we do this," Phuwin said in a tone that brooked no argument, "you do exactly as I say. No running off to tinker with droids. No provoking the locals. We track the JASP.ER, we get the stone, and we practice meditation every standard evening."
The heavy mood in the air evaporated as Fourth's face lit up. He tossed his screwdriver in the air and snatched it out of the air with a flick of his wrist. "Deal!" He grinned. "You won't even know I'm there!"
Phuwin huffed a disbelieving laugh. "I doubt that," he muttered even as a fond smile broke through his defenses. He tossed his wrench into his portable toolkit and sighed. He looked back up at the sleek, single-pilot cockpit of his Interceptor. "Now I have to clear a completely different flight path and find us a new ship. Get your gear. A D-7 can't carry both of us."
"Oh, don't worry about that," Fourth said with an air of nonchalance. He stepped over to a nearby diagnostic terminal and rested his hand against the metal casing. He hummed softly, eyes closing, and then the terminal chirped. Data flickered rapidly across the screen as the fields shifted and re-sorted themselves. "I just… rearranged the schedule. Our scout ship is cleared for launch." He smirked and looked at Phuwin. "I flagged the D-7 as 'undergoing standard maintenance.' No paper trail, no red flags."
Phuwin stared at the terminal screen for a few moments before he turned his stern gaze on Fourth. Fourth's smirk widened into a full-blown grin. Phuwin rubbed the bridge of his nose and let out a long, slow breath. "Fourth," he began with a wry edge to his voice, "that is technically a security violation."
"It's a minor 'adjustment,'" Fourth corrected brightly. Phuwin was entirely unsurprised to see his friend looking completely unbothered as he pocketed his screwdriver. "The computer didn't mind. Besides, you need to follow the cover story, don't you?" He nodded to the D-7. "I don't think anyone would believe you're conducting a geological survey in a starfighter."
Phuwin shook his head. Fourth's casual use of his technopathy (and his flagrant disrespect for anything to do with rules) never ceased to amaze him. He reached out and steered Fourth by the shoulder toward the secondary hangar decks. "Tell me a bit about the ship you assigned us," he ordered.
Fourth grinned. "I got us a Skipray," he said, beaming. His excitement rippled through the Force even as Phuwin's mouth curled into a deep frown. "It's perfect, Phu. It looks like a corporate patrol ship, has a cargo hold big enough to keep our cover, and the hyperdrive has the most beautiful hum when it primes."
"It's a flying brick, Fourth," Phuwin muttered when they finally reached the docking bay. He looked up at the wedge-shaped silhouette of the Skipray. It was bulky, armored, and the complete opposite of his Interceptor.
Fourth draped an arm over Phuwin's shoulders and pulled him into a tight side-hug so that their heads knocked together. "Exactly," he chirped. "A flying brick with massive laser cannons and a very chatty nav-computer." He steered them up the ship's ramp. "Come on, Phu-phu. I'll even let you pilot."
The transition from the void of hyperspace to the overcast orbit of Pantora was seamless. True to Fourth's promise, the GAT-12 Skipray didn't shudder or lurch as it dropped into real-space.
Phuwin exhaled a quiet breath, his fingers relaxing their grip on the flight controls. His stomach remained perfectly still.
"See?" Fourth said from the co-pilot seat. His eyes were bright as he watched the dreary marsh-moon fill the viewport. "Told you. The navigation array didn't even drop - and those sub-light thrusters?" He leaned back in his chair and smiled. "They're humming beautifully."
Phuwin brought the Skipray down through the thick mist of Pantora's lower atmosphere, guiding the heavy craft over a vast expanse of wetlands toward the towering cityscape in the distance.
He glanced at the Padawan. Fourth was still lightly running his fingers across the active diagnostic panel, his eyes unfocused and lips twitching as data and code flew across the screen. "You've been talking with that interface for ten minutes," Phuwin noted with a small smirk. Fourth had been messing with him all day. Nothing said he couldn't tease back. "I didn't realize your taste in partners leaned so heavily towards things that are stubborn, heavily armored, and entirely incapable of communicating like a normal person."
Fourth lightly tapped on the console. "The Skipray isn't stubborn," he countered. "Older Sienar systems just have their own character. You can't blame her for having a few-" He froze, his fingers hovering a millimeter above the console as he finally processed Phuwin's true intent. "You aren't talking about the ship."
"I was wondering when you'd catch on," Phuwin replied evenly, making sure that his voice didn't betray his amusement. He knew exactly what kind of messy unacknowledged… whatever Fourth was harboring, though he knew the Padawan would never act upon it so long as the Jedi Order frowned upon that kind of attachment. Still, teasing the two of them about it was practically a brotherly obligation.
"Gemini doesn't even like armor! He'd rather go without it!" Fourth spluttered. His voice actually jumped a whole octave as he scrambled to regain his footing. "And - and-" He pointed at Phuwin. "At least I'm not chasing a smuggler across the galaxy for a rock!"
Phuwin knew he should be offended by the accusation, but it was hard to argue when Fourth was right. He kept his eyes locked on the viewport and masked his silence with a banking maneuver that brought the blastboat into a wide, sweeping arc around the perimeter of the city.
"Just find the ship, Fourth," Phuwin ordered.
Fourth snorted. "Already on it."
He leaned forward and pressed both palms flat against the durasteel casing of the Skipray's primary sensor console. His eyes went completely unfocused as his abilities kicked in. Phuwin knew that Fourth wasn't strong enough of a technopath to sense the JASP.ER through the vast expanse of the vertical city, but that tethering himself to the Skipray's active transponder array would allow him to skim the chaotic flood of data the ship was pulling from Pantora's local traffic grid.
It was a brilliant move - an application of the Force most Jedi could never hope to master. Technopathy itself was rare enough as it was, but Fourth had managed to hone what little ability he had into something uniquely suited to tracking and data manipulation.
"There," Fourth murmured. His index finger tapped against the metal in a sharp staccato. "The port computers aren't logging them because they jammed the automated registry when they broke atmosphere, but a deck terminal three levels down just measured a massive power surge. Looks like a YT-2400 freighter just forced an emergency berth in Hangar 12."
A grin broke out across his face as he pulled his hands away from the console. "Not bad, huh?" he asked.
"Hangar 12," Phuwin repeated under his breath. He guided the Skipray toward a public hangar a few platforms away, careful to broadcast an official Republic signal to the sentries manning the main security lanes. "We'll approach on foot through the lower maintenance corridors," he explained when Fourth shot him a questioning glance. "If the JASP.ER forced an emergency landing, then they aren't going anywhere any time soon - but it also means our smuggler friend might be desperate."
"And desperate smugglers usually travel with heavily armed friends of their own," Fourth finished.
The Skipray settled into a waiting docking cradle with a satisfying thud. Phuwin killed the engines and quickly ran through docking procedures while Fourth stretched beside him. The sudden silence in the cockpit was only broken by the rhythmic drip-drop of the external condensation lines as they cleared the thick Pantoran mist. He stood up and adjusted the heavy folds of his brown tunic to conceal his lightsaber hilt.
"Remember our deal," Phuwin said once he deemed himself ready. He turned to Fourth. "This is a training trip. You stay behind me, you monitor the local security feeds if you can find a terminal, and you let me do all of the talking."
Fourth grinned. "I've got your back, Phu. Let's go get your rock."
The lower maintenance corridors of the city were damp and smelled like stagnant swamp water. The walls were slick with condensation, muffling the sounds of the bustling platforms above their heads.
The quiet vanished entirely the moment they got within eyeshot of the doors labeled Hangar 12. Phuwin felt the unmistakable thud-thud-thud of blaster fire vibrating through the metal floor beneath his boots. He stopped and threw an arm out to catch Fourth across the chest to pin him into the shadows of a storage alcove. He peered around the edge of the threshold and took in the unfolding chaos.
The JASP.ER was pinned down at the center of a massive open-air bay. A dozen Pantoran syndicate mercenaries, recognizable due to the thick, highly illegal, marsh furs draped across their backs, were systematically advancing behind mobile deflector shields. Illegal disruptor fire rained onto the freighter's landing pad.
"I'm going to say this one more time!" a familiar voice bellowed over the roar of blaster fire. "If you backwater bantha-herders open those crates, you're going to get a very expensive, slippery mess! It's not worth the wasted plasma!"
Pond.
Phuwin closed his eyes and reached out with the Force. He'd been right; there were only twelve mercenaries… but Pond's side had just three Force signatures.
"Save it, smuggler!" the syndicate leader yelled from behind a deflector shield. "We'll let the buyer sort it when you're dead!"
Pond's signature, stronger than the others (likely due to the stone's influence), spiked a red-hot frustration. "Joong!"
Phuwin's eyes shot back open just as a well-built man stepped out from the shadows of the JASP.ER's primary boarding ramp. Phuwin had no idea who the man, Joong, was, but he handled a heavily modified, twin-barrel repeating blaster as if it weighed nothing. He didn't even flinch when an enemy bolt landed just a hair too close to his head.
"They're getting too close, Pond!" he grunted. His surprisingly soft voice carried over the chaos of the firefight.
Pond's floppy hair popped up from behind a nearby refueling cart. "Dunk, how's it coming?" he called.
"I'm working on it! I'm working on it!" a voice yelled from beneath the belly of the ship.
A second crewmate - a wild-haired man surrounded by loose tools and dangling wires - was wedged inside the open maintenance hatch of the main thruster assembly. "The thermal regulator is frozen shut. If I force a manual bypass, it's going to vent-"
"Dunk!"
"Fine!" the man shouted. "But don't blame me when it all goes belly-up!" With a manic grin, he slammed a hydrospanner directly into the primary coolant valve.
The deafening shriek of metal grating against metal tore through the hangar. In seconds, a deluge of pressurized, super-frozen liquid nitrogen poured out of the JASP.ER's underbelly. The moment the frozen chemicals hit the humid air of Pantora, they condensed into a completely opaque cloud of white fog that obscured the JASP.ER from view.
The syndicate members were swallowed by the white mist. Phuwin was distracted from the screams of the mercenaries by Fourth's impressed whistle. "That guy is completely out of his mind." He nudged Phuwin. "I love him."
"That's one way to create cover," Phuwin noted with genuine respect. He looked back at Fourth. "We'll use the fog to get through. Stay low, find a terminal to lock down the hangar's automated systems, and do not draw your lightsabers." He grinned wryly. "We are supposed to be surveying rocks."
Fourth sent him a quick, lazy salute. "Copy that, Master Phuwin," he said, drawing out the title with an exaggerated reverence that made Phuwin's eye twitch. He smirked. "Just keep your head on straight. I'd hate to tell Master Gun that you got yourself shot while I was doing the heavy lifting."
Before Phuwin could respond, Fourth vanished into the rolling fog. His soft footsteps were the only hint of his presence, but even those eventually faded.
Phuwin took a deep breath. He kept his lightsaber securely hidden beneath the heavy folds of his tunic. He didn't need a glowing blade to navigate the room; he had the Force.
He slipped into the white cloud and let his senses expand outward. It took more effort than usual to track the frantic footfalls of confused mercenaries due to the anxiety and fear still echoing through the Force, but Phuwin managed once he was able to lock onto Pond's familiar energy. Using that steady signature as a baseline, he was able to map the distance and speed of the faint sensations swirling around it.
From there, navigating the haze required very little effort. He slipped past the scattered mercenaries without making a sound, ducking behind the refueling cart once he was close enough.
Now that he was up close, Pond's features were exactly as frustratingly dashing as Phuwin remembered. Despite being pinned down by the syndicate goon squad, the smuggler was lounging against the fueling cart like the firefight around him was nothing but a light breeze. He was smeared with a fresh layer of grease that somehow looked entirely too intentional, his hair perfectly windswept as if he were posing for a holo-ad rather than fighting for his life.
He wasn't going to think about it. He wasn't going to think about it.
Phuwin cleared his throat.
"Your right flank is entirely exposed. If I were one of those 'backwater bantha-herders,' you would be a smoking crater by now."
Pond's head snapped around, his blaster raising instinctively before he froze. His eyes widened as he took in the image of Phuwin crouching there in the swirling fog.
A massive, delighted grin slowly spread across the smuggler's face. He lowered the blaster and leaned back against the fueling cart as if they'd met at a casual social gathering.
"Princess," he said as he looked Phuwin up and down with a critical eye. "I thought you'd given up on little ol' me, but here you are - and all the way in the Outer Rim, too." He chuckled. "I can't believe you flew all the way out here just for a fancy rock."
Phuwin frowned. "It's Master Phuwin, or Master Jedi," he corrected, no longer bothered by the absurdity of the situation. It was Pond; absurdity seemed to follow him like a magnet. "And you're currently surrounded."
Pond looked around with mock surprise and gasped dramatically. "So I am!" He grinned once more. "But you're going to help me with that, aren't you?"
Before Phuwin could offer a stern, Jedi-like refusal, the low whine of a heavy weapon heating up cut through the mist.
"Pond. Friend of yours? Or do I need to put a hole through him?"
The well-built crewmate, Joong, stepped out of the fog to Pond's left. He aimed the business end of his heavy blaster right at Phuwin's chest.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you. This one's a Master Jedi," Pond smirked as he waved a hand dismissively. "You'd probably end up with a bolt in your chest instead." He turned back to Phuwin with a proud smile. "Princess, meet Joong. My second-in-command. My muscle. The only reason we haven't been spaced by pirates yet."
Joong eyed Phuwin warily. "He looks small, Pond." He didn't lower the blaster. "And he's not wearing any armor." The man's carbon-streaked armor glinted menacingly beneath the bright lights above their heads.
"Got it!" With a loud metallic clatter, the second crewmate shot out from beneath the ship on a wheeled maintenance sled. He stopped his momentum with a sharp kick to the fueling cart. Now that Phuwin could see him clearly, he noticed that the man - Dunk? - was distinctly leaner than Joong. His hair was a wild, static-charged, gravity-defying halo of dark strands. Black carbon grease was smeared across his cheeks and nose, and he was clutching a soldering iron like it was a weapon.
Dunk blinked up at Phuwin, completely ignoring the blaster bolts still echoing across the hangar. Then, he pointed his smoking iron directly at the Jedi's boots. "Hey, move three inches to the left. You're standing right on top of the primary hydraulic seal. If I force this bypass and the valve pops, you're going to get sprayed with pressurized marsh-coolant." His nose wrinkled. "It'll completely stain the bathrobe you're wearing."
He knew that look. That was the look of a mechanic in the process of doing something stupid. Or deadly. Or both.
Phuwin took a step to the left.
His mind wandered to Fourth. Hopefully, the Padawan was staying out of trouble.
He didn't count on it.
"That's Dunk, our engineer." Pond's mouth curled into a sharp, toothy smile. "Don't let the sharp jawline fool you. The man is a total menace in the engine bay."
Dunk, already back beneath the ship, yelled, "I didn't hear you complaining when I fixed the life-support systems a few nights ago!"
"The fog is lifting," Joong interrupted. "We need to clear the loading ramp now if we want to get off this planet."
"Moon," both Pond and Phuwin corrected simultaneously. Pond blinked, startled, but then smirked as Phuwin's cheeks heated.
Joong looked first at Phuwin, then at Pond, his expression unreadable. "Right," he said, drawing out the word. "Loading ramp?"
Pond's demeanor shifted to sharp focus in an instant. "He's right, Princess. We're very good, but we're a little stuck." He gestured to the ship with his blaster. "If you want that stone of yours, you're going to have to help us get out of here."
Phuwin sighed. There wasn't much of a choice, was there? He sat cross-legged on the floor, tucked his hands into the wide sleeves of his Jedi robes, and closed his eyes. With a slow exhale, he pushed his Force awareness outward. Despite his lack of vision, he could still feel everything just as well as if he were using his eyes, if not better.
"Cover the ramp," he murmured. He felt the Force signatures of the mercenaries move into a coordinated line. "I'll make sure they can't break through the perimeter."
Behind him, Joong's presence spiked with disbelief. "Bold words for a guy without a weapon," he grunted. "Shouldn't you be using that fancy sword of yours?" He stepped up to the edge of the boarding ramp and let loose a barrage of blaster bolts that slammed into the reactivated mobile deflector shields. The front line of the syndicate squad ground to a halt.
"Leave it!" Pond ordered. "The Jedi knows what he's doing." He popped up from behind the cart and fired three precise shots over the top. "Just don't let them get a thermal detonator near the ship."
"Whatever you do, hurry it up, will you?" Dunk called, his voice muffled by the durasteel plating above him. "If anyone shoots the starboard manifold in the next thirty seconds, we're all going to become a permanent crater in this hangar!"
Phuwin heard the high-pitched whine of Joong's blaster preparing to fire, but then the sound cut off with a crrk and the reek of metal grinding against itself. Joong swore under his breath. Something must have happened to the blaster.
Unfortunately, the syndicate leader had already noticed. "Advance! Push the ramp!" he bellowed. Three Force signatures broke from the line of shields and sprinted forward toward the JASP.ER.
Phuwin shifted his weight slightly, narrowing his focus onto the durasteel deck plates in front of the men. All it took was a tiny flick of his fingers hidden beneath the heavy synth-cotton of his robe for a discarded hydrospanner on the floor to twitch. It rolled exactly two inches to the left… right into the path of the lead mercenary's boot. The man's foot landed on the metal tool, and he flew forward, his face planting hard into the deck. His attempt at slowing his fall caused him to spin, which slid him right into his own squadmate's legs.
Pond's surprise filtered through Phuwin's focus. "What the-"
The third mercenary, who'd just barely managed to escape the carnage, took advantage of the moment and aimed his blaster directly at Dunk's exposed legs beneath the ship's underbelly. The Force thrummed a sharp warning of the danger. Phuwin's jaw tensed.
He trained his senses on the man's trigger finger. Just as he fired, Phuwin nudged the barrel up by a fraction of a degree. The scatter-shot went wide, striking an overhead steam pipe instead. The pipe ruptured; a torrent of scalding vapor blew right on top of the mercenary, who screamed in agony.
Pond snorted. "The local gravity must be in flux. They look like they're on a spacewalk out there." His amusement flared brightly against the nervous energy creeping through the mercenaries' shields. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you, Princess?"
Phuwin's lips twitched. "The Force moves in mysterious ways."
The Force screamed danger! once more as the syndicate leader screamed, "Form up! Fire on the Jedi!"
The mobile deflector shields snapped together. Simultaneous whines of blasters heating reached Phuwin's ears, and Phuwin's hand instinctively tightened around the hilt of his lightsaber hidden in his tunic. Tricks won't be enough, he realized with growing frustration. How did he keep getting into these situations?
It has to be Pond's fault, he silently despaired. The crystal in his lightsaber pulsed in commiseration.
Then, a light chime echoed over the hangar's public address system.
"Attention all backwater bog rats," Fourth's voice chirped from the speakers embedded in the high ceilings. "I've just overridden the local mainframe. Remind me later to rewrite these firewalls. They're woefully outdated."
Above the landing pad, two massive, ceiling-mounted laser cannons whirred to life. The heavy turrets pivoted a full ninety degrees downward to aim directly at the backs of the mercenaries. "I hope you like my new friends," Fourth said, letting out a smug chuckle. "I decided to give them an interesting new set of targets. Have fun!"
Before anyone had the chance to look up, the turrets opened fire. Armor-piercing plasma bolts rained down from above. The mobile deflector shields didn't stand a chance against the onslaught. Most of the guards went down in explosions of sparks and shrapnel. The survivors scattered.
Joong hummed appreciatively. "Okay, I like the guy on the radio."
Phuwin opened his eyes and looked up. Above him, on the upper catwalk, Fourth leaned over the railing. He waved his screwdriver down at the motley crew with a massive grin. "Ramp's clear, Phu! Let's get out of here before the real cops show up!" He leapt from the catwalk with no hesitation, using the Force to soften his landing.
There was no time for introductions. No time to celebrate.
"You heard him," Pond snapped. He slapped the side of the refueling cart. "Joong, get the Jedi aboard. Dunk, get into the cockpit and make sure those thrusters don't melt on takeoff!"
"Already on it!" Dunk replied. He rolled off of the maintenance sled and scrambled up the boarding ramp, tools clutched tightly in his hands. Joong didn't say a word. He hefted his blaster over his shoulder, reached down, and pulled Phuwin up by the shoulder with one hand. Fourth needed no encouragement to sprint up the ramp and into the depths of the ship.
Phuwin pushed his hesitation aside (he'd be explaining the loss of the Skipray to the council later, and wasn't that a cheery thought?) and raced up the ramp just as it began to hiss shut. He lunged through the narrow gap and tumbled onto the deck right alongside Fourth. The blast doors sealed shut behind them. The humid air of Pantora vanished.
Beneath their feet, the ship violently shuddered. The engines let out a deafening screech as Dunk forced the main power grid to engage. Phuwin felt a brief sense of weightlessness - the artificial gravity must have wavered - just as the freighter lurched skyward. It shot into the air too quickly, too recklessly, and Phuwin had half a mind to smack Pond.
The feeling was getting far too familiar for his comfort.
Beside him, Fourth stumbled. His hand braced against the maroon durasteel bulkhead of the main corridor to steady himself. Almost immediately, his eyes went completely unfocused. His pupils dilated, a telltale sign of Fourth's focus shifting to the technology around him.
Phuwin waited for the scathing remark about faulty wires or bypassed systems, but the harsh words never came. Instead, Fourth's tense expression melted into one of awe. A soft smile crossed his face as he leaned his forehead against the hull.
"Wow," he murmured. His voice was barely audible over the roar of the engines, but the admiration was unmistakable. "She's incredible."
"She's a death trap," Phuwin corrected dryly. His stomach dropped as the ship tilted into a hard bank. He was definitely smacking Pond later.
Fourth huffed. "No, you don't understand." He pushed off the hull, his pupils snapping back to their original size. "She's a mess beneath her plating. The hyperdrive is overclocked. Half the safety protocols are actively being bypassed." He ran a hand through his short dark hair and shook his head. "Half the wiring is held together by literal scrap copper."
He patted the hull gently. "Her boys put her through absolute hell, but she loves it. She loves them." He grins. "Do you know how rare that is?"
Over the cockpit comms, Pond's muffled laughter rang out as the ship dodged the first wave of port authority ships.
Phuwin let out a long, drawn-out sigh. "Are you alright?"
Fourth pocketed his screwdriver. "Better than alright, Phu. Your smuggler friend might be a little insane, but his ship has personality."
Before Phuwin could process that headache-inducing sentence, the heavy door to the main lounge hissed open. Pond peered out from the corridor leading to the cockpit, a cocky grin firmly on his face.
"Clear skies and open space from here on out!" he called. He wiped the sweat and grease from his forehead with the back of his hand. Unfortunately, the move only added to the mess.
It wasn't attractive. It wasn't.
"We're holding steady just outside the atmosphere." Pond's eyes trailed to Fourth. He paused, taking in the near identical Jedi tunics (Fourth's was only a little darker than Phuwin's) and the thin braid hanging over the Padawan's shoulder. He leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms.
"Now," he said, his grin thinning ever so slightly. "Who's the kid who just hacked a planetary defense grid with a pocket tool?"
Before Phuwin or Fourth had the chance to respond, a wild-haired head shoved its way directly beneath Pond's arm. "Hey! Hands off!" Dunk yelled, shoving his way into the lounge doorway. "He's mine!" His face was still completely covered in soot, but his eyes practically sparkled with manic energy. "You saw what he did back there." He pointed his soldering iron at Fourth. "I'm claiming him. You're not allowed to let him leave this ship, Pond. I'm keeping him."
Pond had the gall to look completely unconcerned by the outburst. He just sighed, reached down, and pressed his palm against Dunk's forehead. The movement shoved the engineer back an inch or two into the corridor. "Dunk, he's a Jedi, not a stray tooka kit you found in an alley." He offered Phuwin a lopsided grin. "Besides, I think he's already spoken for."
He turned his attention to Fourth. "So, you've got a name, Jedi?"
Fourth sent Pond a lazy two-finger salute from his brow. "Fourth," he said, returning Pond's grin. "Padawan learner, not Jedi. And for the record, I hacked the planetary defense grid with a modified Class-Three hydrospanner." He produced the mentioned tool from the folds of his tunic and waved it in the air. "Not a pocket tool."
Fourth then shot a conspiratorial wink past Pond toward Dunk. "And I'd love to take a look at that hyperdrive matrix of yours if you've got the time."
Phuwin closed his eyes, barely able to hold in his despairing groan in time. He pinched the bridge of his nose.
Wonderful, he thought. There are two of them.
The lounge of the JASP.ER was exactly how Phuwin remembered it: lived-in, slightly messy, and smelling faintly of stale caf. Dunk and Fourth immediately took over the main holotable to pull up the ship's schematics. In seconds, they were absorbed in a frantic conversation that bounced between binary and engineering jargon that Phuwin had no hope of parsing.
He watched them for a moment, tracking the rapid movement of Fourth's hands, before he felt a shift in the air. Pond stepped into his space behind him far closer than was necessary.
"Well, since the kids are busy playing," Pond said, close enough that Phuwin could feel his breath against the side of his neck, "I think it's time I fulfill my end of the deal." His voice dropped to a smooth register that flowed over Phuwin's hyper-aware senses like water. "Follow me, Princess."
Phuwin raised an eyebrow. Up close, the humming resonance of the focusing stone was almost a beacon in the Force. "You have it on you," he noted quietly. "I see no reason to leave."
"Easy there, Jedi," Pond said. He threw his hands up in mock surrender. "You really want to pull out your little Force stone right in front of those two?" He gestured to the holotable where Dunk and Fourth had moved on to arguing over power couplings. "If Dunk sees it, he might try wiring the thing into the sublight engines."
Phuwin followed his gaze. He wasn't wrong, per se. Considering the chaos the JASP.ER's engineer had caused in the firefight earlier, he wouldn't put it past him to do something equally reckless with the focusing stone.
"Fine," he conceded. "Where?"
"My quarters," Pond replied. He nodded toward a narrow, dimly lit corridor that branched off from the main hub. "It's the only room on this ship with a lock Dunk hasn't figured out how to splice." He made a show of examining the backs of his hands. "Plus, I need to get this carbon scoring off me before we talk business. Follow me."
Phuwin hesitated for just a few moments. His Jedi training warned him about entering unfamiliar spaces with unpredictable smugglers, but the steady warmth of the stone in the Force pulled at his awareness.
Look deeper, the Force seemed to whisper. Phuwin frowned at the familiar sensation. He'd felt it before on their first misadventure together.
He followed the feeling.
Pond's quarters were surprisingly compact. A built-in bunk dominated most of the space. The other wall had a desk covered in old datapad components and blaster parts. There was a small fresher unit in the corner. The room smelled of old synth-leather, grease, and the faint tang of Corellian spice.
It was distinctly, overwhelmingly Pond.
Phuwin stood near the threshold. He kept his spine perfectly straight, face placid as he tried his best to maintain an aura of professional detachment despite the suddenly intimate setting. He watched as the smuggler walked over to the small basin and grabbed a utility cloth to wipe away the thick streaks of carbon and grease from his face and hands.
Once that was done, he tossed the cloth aside. Phuwin expected him to reach into his jacket for the stone, but instead he watched with a growing sense of dread as Pond slowly leaned his hips back against the edge of the desk. He crossed his arms, then looked up.
The intense focus in his dark eyes nearly stole the breath right out of Phuwin's lungs.
"You know, Princess," Pond purred, a slow, wicked smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. "For someone who claims to only care about his master's gift, you were quick to follow a lonely smuggler into his bedroom."
Phuwin's heart stuttered in his chest. His mind completely blanked for a second, maybe longer, as his Jedi stoicism shattered into a thousand utterly useless pieces. A terrifying wave of heat rushed straight up his neck to the very tips of his ears.
He's doing it on purpose, Phuwin's mind supplied. He's absolutely doing this on purpose.
"I'm here for the stone. Nothing more," Phuwin managed to bite out through gritted teeth. To his horror, his voice sounded noticeably higher (and tighter) than he had intended. He desperately held onto his composure, but it was difficult when the man in front of him was radiating smug amusement, looking entirely too clean and put-together now that the soot and grime were gone.
Pond's grin widened. His eyes crinkled with what looked like pure delight as he watched the pink flush spread across Phuwin's cheeks. His amusement radiated off him in waves within the Force. Phuwin clenched his hands into fists within the sleeves of his robes. Pond clearly knew exactly what he was doing and enjoyed how easily he could throw a Jedi Knight off balance.
It was… infuriating.
Pond stood up and approached Phuwin so that there were only a few inches between them. He leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper that brushed against Phuwin's ears. "Relax, Princess. The bulkheads are soundproofed. Your Jedi Order back on Coruscant won't hear a thing."
Don't look at his mouth. Phuwin's hands shook. Do not look at his mouth.
Phuwin forced rigid discipline through his racing pulse and clamped tightly on his wandering focus. He couldn't let his mind betray him. Not with Pond there, practically counting the seconds it took for his stoicism to crumble.
He swallowed around the dry knot in his throat and met Pond's dark eyes with as much defiance as he could muster. "If you spent half as much time calibrating your ship's deflector shields as you do practicing your ridiculous holo-drama routines, you wouldn't need a Jedi to save you."
Pond blinked. For a fraction of a second, the smugness on his face wavered into genuine surprise. Then, he huffed a quiet laugh that shattered the tension in the room. "Ouch," he said, finally stepping back to give Phuwin some space to breathe. He grinned. "You've got a real bite to you today, Princess. I like it."
Phuwin didn't have time for this. "Give me the stone, Pond," he ordered with all the authority he could muster.
"Alright, alright," Pond said. "A deal's a deal." He slid his hand into the inner pocket of his leather jacket. When he pulled it back out, the air in the room shifted. Nestled in the palm of his hand was a small, smooth shard of deep cerulean crystal. The faint hum Phuwin had been tracking since Pantora flared into bright light within the Force that pushed away the last of the anxious residue from the firefight.
Phuwin's breath hitched. He extended a hand, fingers trembling as he reached for the stolen gift. Pond didn't pull it away. He let Phuwin take the stone, his gaze softening as he watched a wave of relief wash over the Jedi.
"I knew it meant something to you," Pond murmured, his voice surprisingly gentle, "but I hadn't thought it would mean this much."
Phuwin cradled the stone in his palm. Its resonance snapped into place with his own Force signature, and the sheer weight of responsibility he felt he'd been carrying since that fateful Holocron mission lessened considerably. He looked up at Pond with reluctant sincerity.
"Thank you, Pond," he said softly. "For keeping it safe."
Pond flashed him a lopsided smile. "Don't mention it." He paused, then tapped a finger on his forehead. "Seriously, don't mention it. I've got a reputation to maintain."
Phuwin opened his mouth to retort, but the ship's intercom chirped loudly.
"Hey, Phu? Smuggler guy?" Fourth's voice boomed directly into the quarters. "If you two are done with whatever you're doing in there, Dunk just intercepted an encrypted Separatist transmission. You might want to come look at this."
Phuwin tucked the stone back into the folds of his tunic so that it sat against his chest once more, right where it belonged, before he stepped through the threshold into the lounge. He could still feel the faint warmth from his and Pond's earlier conversation, but at the very least the rest of his face had finally cooled.
Beside him, Pond slipped into the room with his usual unbothered swagger. It was almost as if they hadn't just been standing inches apart in the man's quarters.
Phuwin tamped down on his irritation. It would do him no good now.
The glowing blue light of the holotable filled the room. Joong was leaning against the bulkhead with his arms crossed. His sharp eyes stared at the flickering projection of the Pantoran system.
"War's back on, folks," Fourth announced when he finally noticed Phuwin's presence. His fingers danced across a datapad. Dunk leaned over his shoulder, occasionally pointing something out that caused Fourth to nod.
"What do you have?" Phuwin asked, stepping up to the edge of the table to eye the map for himself.
Dunk slapped a heavy palm against the console. The flickering image stabilized as the projection of Pantora's marshy surface shrank down to reveal the massive sphere of the ice planet it orbited.
"A CIS shadow-frequency ping," Dunk explained. All of his manic enthusiasm from before was gone. In its place was a grim focus that made Phuwin's stomach wrench with worry. "A Seppie reconnaissance vessel slipped into the blind spot on the far side of the planet. They aren't targeting our little marsh moon, they're mapping the surface of Orto Plutonia."
Pond's eyes narrowed at the image of the frozen world. "Orto Plutonia is completely uninhabited. It's a wasteland. Why would the Separatists care about a dead planet?"
"It's the ultimate blind spot," Phuwin murmured. He leaned forward over the table and stared at the technical readouts. The proximity vectors were close. Too close. His mind filtered through all of the possible scenarios until it finally settled on one that made too much sense. "If the Separatists set up a cloaked listening post or hidden base on the surface, they could monitor every single Republic supply line moving through this sector. They could drop an invasion fleet right on Pantora's head before the moon's defense grid even picked up a hyperdrive signature."
Fourth snorted. "If it could even do that," he muttered. "It's hopelessly out of date."
Phuwin shot him a withering look, and Fourth grinned apologetically for a brief moment before he turned back to the holotable. He tapped something on the screen of his datapad. A series of encrypted code blocks replaced the planet's image. "Dunk and I managed to slice the transmission log. A droid scout unit has already landed in the ice canyons to scout coordinates for a listening post. They're setting up the telemetry towers right under the Pantoran Assembly's nose."
The Force went cold around them. This was no longer a recovery mission - or a 'geological survey.' The Clone Wars had finally reached a (mostly) peaceful, sovereign system that prided itself on staying out of the line of fire.
How far will it go before this ends? the smallest, darkest corner of his mind whispered in his ears.
"The Pantoran Assembly needs to see this," Phuwin said. He refused to acknowledge the voice, not now. Not with the war on an innocent system's doorstep. "Chairman Cho is protective of Pantoran sovereignty, but he's blind to how vulnerable the system is. If I present this data to the Assembly and Senator Chuchi, they'll have no choice but to officially request Republic intervention."
He could already hear Master Windu's reprimand in his ears. Oh, he was going to hear about all of this when he made his report to the Council.
…he was going to end up on Archive duty for a month by the end of this. If not longer.
"Which means a permanent military outpost on that ice block," Pond noted with a hint of derision. He looked at Phuwin with an unhappy expression. "And a whole lot of clone troopers crawling all over my favorite refueling stop."
"It's better than a Separatist droid army crawling all over your corpse," Phuwin countered dryly. His gaze left the holotable and lingered on Pond for just a fraction of a second too long.
Fourth cleared his throat loudly. "So," he said, drawing the word out to break the eye lock between the smuggler and the Jedi, "Phu." He smirked and leaned back in the holotable booth with his arms crossed. Next to him, Dunk silently mouthed the nickname as if testing it out for himself. "Are we going to transmit this to Coruscant, or are we going to check this out for ourselves?"
"We're transmitting the data," Phuwin said, voice firm and uncompromising. "Protocol dictates that we notify Chairman Cho and Senator Chuchi immediately. Jedi cannot act as an independent military force within a sovereign system without local authorization."
Pond snorted. "For once, I'm actually with the Princess. Why should I go sticking my neck out for the Republic?" He crossed his arms over his chest. "I'm a smuggler. I'm not hunting droids for free."
Fourth groaned and threw his hands into the air. "By the time the Pantoran Assembly finishes debating about it, the Separatists will have a full garrison down there! It's a clanker scout unit. We drop in, smash the telemetry towers, and give the Republic a clear window to set up an outpost."
"He's right," Joong muttered from the corner.
All eyes in the room turned to him with a mixture of either surprise or gratitude. Joong didn't look up from the holotable. "If the Seps fortify the ice giant, this entire sector gets locked down. No trade. No civilian traffic. No refueling - not without getting hit with their sky-high taxes." He shook his head. "We'll lose our best hub in the Outer Rim. Better to break a few scouts now than fly a blockade run later."
Dunk popped his head up from behind Fourth's shoulder. His bright grin had returned. "Plus, think of the salvage! Droid processors and comm-scramblers are big on the black market right now. I vote we go smash some tin cans."
Phuwin looked from Fourth's eager expression to Dunk's manic glee, then finally settled on Pond, who was watching him with a calculating look. The moment their eyes met, Pond ducked his head almost imperceptibly - just enough for Phuwin to get the meaning behind the gesture.
It's your call, Pond seemed to say in the silence.
Phuwin sighed, his shoulders slumping as the air left his lungs. "Fine. We'll go, but the moment we disable those towers, we notify the Assembly."
Dunk and Fourth erupted into twin cheers of excitement before they rushed off to… Phuwin didn't really want to know what they were doing, actually. Joong, his jaw set, immediately disappeared into the crew quarters.
Pond stood staring at the flickering image on the holotable. After a beat, he looked at Phuwin, shook his head, and then walked toward the heavy storage lockers bolted to the far bulkhead.
As if on cue, the JASP.ER completed its orbital adjustment and tilted its nose down toward the frozen atmosphere below. A sharp, icy chill began to bleed through the lounge's maintenance vents beneath Phuwin's feet. He immediately drew upon the Force to cloak him from the sudden cold, but it wasn't enough to stop the shiver that ran down his spine.
"You know, Princess," Pond called over his shoulder. His voice was tinny, almost muted by the metal of the locker as he rummaged through its contents. "You're dressed for the swamp, not a frozen wasteland. Orto Plutonia will freeze your tail off before you even step off the ramp." He paused, then pulled out to look at Phuwin with a critical eye. "You and your Padawan are human, right?"
"He's not mine," Phuwin corrected. "We're just traveling together. And yes, we're both human." He glanced at the entrance to the cockpit and tried not to think too much about the cold waiting for them. "We will manage the cold," he said after a beat. "Jedi are trained to control their internal body temperature through meditation."
"Yeah? I'd like to see you meditate in the middle of a blizzard with your nose and fingers halfway dead from frostbite," Pond scoffed. He turned around, a large bundle of fabric clutched loosely in his arms. He stepped forward and gently shook out the item so that he could drape it over Phuwin's shoulders.
It was a coat: a massive, heavily insulated spacer's jacket made of thick dark synth-leather and lined with far too much gray marsh-fur to be legally sourced. It was entirely too big. The coat swallowed Phuwin's lean frame, the hem falling past his knees, and oversized sleeves burying his hands. Worse, the jacket smelled distinctly of Pond. One whiff of old leather and Corellian spice sent him right back to the smuggler's quarters.
There was only one person to whom this coat belonged.
Phuwin's face flushed despite the drop in the room's temperature. "Pond," he said, fidgeting with the massive sleeves, "this is yours."
"Keep it on, Princess," Pond murmured, leaning into Phuwin's space. His eyes dropped to his neck and traced the line of fur framing Phuwin's jawline. A slow, deeply satisfied grin spread across his face. "It looks a lot better on you than it ever did on me anyway."
Phuwin swallowed around the lump that had suddenly grown in his throat. His fingers dug into the thick lining inside the oversized sleeves. It's not attractive, he told himself. No. He wasn't frantic. His pulse was racing… thinking about the mission. Right. The mission. And the heat that was rising to his cheeks… I'm warming up. That's all.
Pond turned back to the locker and pulled another bundle from within its depths. "I'll go give this to your Padawan," he said. He looked over his shoulder, that same grin still on his face. "Give you a little time to practice meditating or whatever you Jedi do before a fight."
He disappeared down the hall whistling some cantina song slightly off-key, leaving Phuwin to bury his face in the fur lining and wonder what the kriff just happened.
Orto Plutonia had never been on the list of planets Phuwin ever wanted to visit.
Not that he had a thing against giant, uninhabited ice planets; it was honestly just that he hated the cold. The view isn't great either, he thought as he stared out the cockpit's viewport at a sheet of swirling white.
The moment the freighter had dipped below the upper cloud layer, it had been overtaken by a massive blizzard that had managed to bypass all of the Pantoran sensors on the surface that were supposed to warn people about this exact problem.
The JASP.ER's durasteel framework shrieked under the immense atmospheric pressure generated by the storm, and without warning, the ship dropped into a massive ice canyon.
"We've got crosswinds hitting eighty knots!" Dunk yelled over the deafening roar of the thrusters. He'd thrown himself across the cockpit console, his fingers flying over a sparking diagnostic array. "The starboard stabilizer is losing pressure. If that intake freezes over, we're going to crash straight into a glacier!"
"She won't freeze," Pond called back. His voice was steady despite the violent bucking of the ship. His grip on the steering yoke tightened until his knuckles were white. "Just keep her nose warm. I'll handle the wind." He grinned and nudged the bulkhead next to him with one elbow. "She's been through worse than a little frostbite."
"Override the primary safety breaker!" Fourth shouted. He was jammed into the navigator's alcove, his hands pressed flat against the sub-space scanner housing. "Dunk, feed me more power from the auxiliary matrix. I can manually balance the outputs from here if you can keep the lines clear."
"You heard him," Pond barked. He threw his weight into the steering yoke and sent the ship into a sharp bank that had them skimming barely a meter away from a jagged canyon wall. "Do it!"
Standing at the rear of the cockpit walkway, Phuwin gripped one of the handrails bolted to the hull. The massive coat Pond had given him felt heavy on his shoulders. It was getting more difficult to breathe by the second - the turbulence alone was enough to almost send him sprawling, and the chaotic energy outside bled through the Force into his awareness.
They were flying blind. If they didn't find a landing zone quickly, even Pond's crack piloting skills would run out in this weather.
Phuwin stepped out into the center of the walkway and took a deep breath as he let his eyes slip closed. He held out his arms slightly in front of him, as if reaching out to search for something in the dark. In the next breath, he cast his senses out, pushing his sight beyond the ship and into the heart of the storm.
The icy fury that battered against his consciousness almost sent him reeling. He pushed back, carefully building layer after layer of concentration and will to defend himself from the onslaught as he pushed forward. It was slow going. With every step forward, the wind attempted to shove him back within the confines of the ship. Only the stone warming gently against his chest kept him from entirely losing the fight.
The ship violently lurched to the left when a brutal canyon updraft snuck past his senses and caught the hull in its icy grasp, nearly tearing Phuwin's feet right out from beneath him. He stumbled. His concentration began to fray at the edges, and the storm, as if sensing the lapse in his defenses, pressed in around him.
Before he could fall, a massive hand clamped onto his shoulder. Joong's presence in the Force flared, and Phuwin felt something solid and immovable against his back. Joong must have figured out what he was attempting and was helping how he could. The thought was strangely comforting. He didn't say a word as his grip shifted to rest his hand at the small of Phuwin's back.
Pond's relief flitted across Phuwin's senses just long enough for the Jedi to pick up on it, but not examine the emotion any further. "Hold him steady, Joong," he ordered through gritted teeth. "Princess! Tell me you see something down there!"
Pond's desperate plea brought sudden clarity. He was doing this wrong. Phuwin gritted his teeth. He'd been so focused on seeing everything when really, all he'd needed to see was the ground.
Phuwin narrowed his focus from a wide net to a narrow spear that cut through the biting cold and raging winds rather than attempting to strangle them into submission. His awareness slipped between the static until he finally felt what he was looking for: a sudden pocket of stillness nestled deep within a subterranean ice cavern just three hundred meters ahead. A natural hangar shielded from the jet stream, perfect for landing.
…if they could make it.
Phuwin's eyes snapped open. "Forty degrees starboard, Pond!" He reached up to grab hold of a nearby handrail. "Drop thirty meters into the canyon. There's an overhang that should be safe from the storm."
Pond grinned, though it looked more like a grimace than a true grin. "Hang onto something!"
With a sharp twist of his wrists, Pond threw the JASP.ER into a steep dive that sent Phuwin's stomach for a loop. The ship sliced through the wall of snow, thrusters screaming in protest as Pond executed a flawless (if absolutely terrifying - ships were not meant to move that way) slide beneath a massive canopy of ice.
The landing gear groaned when they finally made contact with the solid ice of the cavern floor. The thrusters took their time to wind down, and in the sudden silence of the cockpit, Dunk let out a loud groan and slumped boneless across the console.
Beside him, Fourth pulled his hand away from the scanner housing. A triumphant grin broke out across his face as he brushed his hand through his short dark hair. "Told you we'd make it," he gasped through the laugh threatening to bubble from his chest.
Joong's hand left Phuwin's back. Phuwin glanced behind him and caught the other man sending him a short, respectful nod. "Good eyes, Jedi," he said softly. He stepped back to give Phuwin more space, giving Dunk the chance to pull him into an animated conversation regarding… something to do with cooling valves?
A gentle hand on his elbow pulled his attention forward. Pond's windswept, floppy hair hung in front of his eyes, but Phuwin could still see the genuine gratitude flickering in them. A broad smile stretched across his face as he leaned into Phuwin's space. "Not bad, Princess," he murmured. He shook his head to get his hair under control before he let his gaze trail down the oversized jacket still hanging from Phuwin's frame. "Saving us and looking good while doing it. Must be a Jedi thing."
Phuwin dutifully ignored the warm rush through his body from Pond's proximity, which did more to combat the chill than Jedi meditation ever could. He looked down at the hand resting on his elbow, then up at the smuggler's gleaming eyes.
He managed a cool tilt of his head and was infinitely grateful for the oversized fur cuffs that hid the way his nails dug into his palms. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were trying to distract me from the fact that you almost took off our starboard wing."
Pond finally released his elbow with a soft huff of amusement. He stepped backward, saluting lazily with two fingers. "Guilty as charged, Princess. Let's see if the rest of the crew survived my flying."
The primary loading ramp of the JASP.ER hit the ice floor of the cavern with a dull thud that bounced off the walls. The air that rushed into the cargo bay wasn't nearly as violent in its chill as the blizzard outside, but it was still dense with a cold that settled deeply into Phuwin's bones even through the thick jacket. He took a minute to breathe deeply. In. Out. With each breath, he encouraged the blood in his veins to move steadily, wrapping each section of his body in the energy of the Force to keep his temperature from dropping further.
Beside him, he heard Fourth doing the same. Their breathing synced as they forced their bodies to regulate properly despite the freezing temperature. It was a stopgap at best, but it would hopefully last them long enough to survive this mission.
Phuwin opened his eyes and took in the space around them. The cavern was massive. Translucent blue ice arched hundreds of meters above their heads. The violent roar of the storm on the planet's surface had been reduced to a distant hum that drifted through the frozen tunnels leading deeper into the ice shelf.
"Alright, what are we looking at?" Pond asked as he stepped off the ramp ahead of him. He'd traded his leather flight jacket for a heavier coat, almost identical to Phuwin's, except for its deep black color. Beneath that, Phuwin caught a flash of metal - a blaster pistol.
Joong and Dunk had already stepped onto the ice, their coats wrapped tightly around them. The repeating barrel blaster was back (and hopefully operational this time), and Dunk had a blaster rifle of his own: a long, thin-barreled sniper rifle. He was adjusting a pair of heavy goggles strapped over his wild hair.
Fourth led Phuwin down the ramp, his eyes already fixed on a modified datapad Dunk had loaned him. His fingers flew across the screen. "Regular signal tracking is useless in this storm," he explained darkly. "The storm is bouncing standard radio signals all over the atmosphere." He pointed his glowing datapad deeper into the cavern where one of the tunnels seemed to wind upward. "But we won't need standard signals. We've got something better."
"Heat signatures!" Dunk tapped the side of his goggles and grinned broadly. "Orto Plutonia's average temperature is well below zero. Everything here is frozen solid." He crossed his arms over his chest. "But Seppie tin cans? Their internal power cores have to constantly generate passive heat just to keep their servos from freezing over in this climate. To my thermal scanners, a squad of droids looks like glow rods in a dark room."
He flipped the goggles down over his eyes, pausing to take a long glance around the cavern before he pointed in the direction of the tunnel Fourth had gestured to earlier. "And we've got too much heat to be a coincidence coming from that direction."
"Then that's where we go," Pond said. He gestured to the ascending tunnel. "Stay close. These ice tunnels can play tricks on your eyes." He glanced back at Phuwin and smirked. "Not all of us have fancy Jedi powers."
The trek through the cavern was slow and cautious. The walls of solid ice were almost like natural mirrors, distorting their shadows and images in their reflections. The further they pushed, the narrower the tunnels became until they finally gave way to what Phuwin could only describe as a geographic anomaly: a massive subterranean caldera.
The cavern's ceiling had collapsed long ago, creating a bowl-shaped crater completely shielded from the canyon winds by the towering ice walls surrounding it. Above them, the sky was a rushing ceiling of white mist, but the floor of the caldera was a picture of perfect stillness…
…other than the Separatist vanguard at the center of the clearing.
"No one would have found this place in time," Fourth breathed beside Phuwin as the crew ducked behind a massive ridge of fallen ice at the edge of the clearing, his voice laced with horror. "Who'd think to look for them here?"
Joong grunted. "It's the perfect hiding spot," he said. "Isolated enough to keep most people out, easily defensible, and still enough clear air to send signals back and forth when the storms pass."
Three tall, skeletal telemetry towers rose from the ice. Their metallic dishes rotated slowly in a sweeping motion as they beamed their encrypted messages toward the upper atmosphere. A perimeter of standard B1 battle droids stood around the towers, their bronze plating heavily dulled with frost as they marched in rigid patrols.
Phuwin reached into the folds of his jacket and grabbed the hilt of his lightsaber. "I count twelve battle droids, two supers near the primary dish, and one tactical droid coordinating the stream." He gestured with his head toward a platform next to the central tower, where said droid was leaning over the console. "Am I missing anything?"
"Nope," Pond replied, popping the p while he readied his blaster. Joong nodded and spooled up the primary rotating barrels of his blaster. Dunk had already pulled the sniper rifle over his shoulder.
Fourth hummed. "Twelve?" he asked with a wry smirk. He produced his lightsabers from beneath his coat. "That's a walk in the park compared to those Pantoran smugglers."
"Take out the tactical droid first," Phuwin murmured. "If it manages to transmit a warning before we smash the dishes, this entire mission is for nothing."
Pond shot him a sideways glance. "You give the word, Princess. We'll handle the loud part."
Phuwin closed his eyes and took in a deep, steadying breath. The Force hummed around him. Constant. Sure. Whatever choice he made, it was there, waiting.
He opened his eyes, the colors around him sharpening into focus. "Take it out, Dunk," he whispered.
Dunk didn't say a word. He adjusted his goggles, braced the long barrel of his rifle against the ridge, and took a slow breath of his own. The silence of the canyon stretched on and on until -
Crack!
The high-velocity slug tore through the air and buried itself deep in the primary processor dome of the tactical droid. The droid crashed face-first into the central console with a cascade of blue sparks.
All movement in the clearing stopped as the droids turned to look up at their fallen commander.
And then the edge of the clearing exploded.
Phuwin erupted from behind the ridge in a blur of brown leather and green light. Beside him, Fourth shot forward like an energy mine, the twin snap-hiss of his lightsabers the only hint at his true intentions as two vibrant blue blades flared to life in his hands.
"It's the Jedi!" a battle droid shrieked, firing wildly into the air above their heads.
"They've found us! Everyone fire!" another droid shouted. It waved its arms in the air above its head to signal the rest of its crew - unfortunately (for it, anyway) dropping its blaster in the process. Phuwin took advantage of the lapse in judgment and severed the droid's head from its body.
The rest of the droids quickly figured out what was happening, and Phuwin was forced to fall into a defensive stance as a barrage of blaster fire went flying in his direction. He kept both hands firmly gripped around the hilt of his lightsaber and held the blade close to his torso. He made sure to spin his blade in tight, almost imperceptible arcs so that the bolts ricocheted back toward their source rather than the ice shelf behind him.
Three battle droids collapsed one after the other, their own blaster bolts leaving nothing but smoking craters where their heads should have been.
To his left, Fourth was a whirlwind of aggressive energy. He used his two full-size blue sabers in a reverse grip to launch a multi-angled attack on one of the approaching super battle droids. The droid went down quickly, too overwhelmed by the onslaught of strikes to do more than fire a few haphazard shots in Fourth's general direction.
A heavy dual-blaster bolt fired from the other super droid's cannon went flying toward him, and Fourth leaned into a quick deflection, catching the bolt on his left blade and snapping his wrist to hurl it straight back into the droid's chest plating. Without missing a beat, he thrust his right hand forward to unleash a wave of Force energy that caught a cluster of four standard droids in its path and sent them slamming hard against the skeletal base of the nearest telemetry tower.
From the ice ridge at their backs, Phuwin could hear Pond's blaster barking a steady rhythm. Blue bolts slammed into the droids Phuwin had forced into the open. Joong's heavy repeating blaster occasionally interrupted the lethal rhythm with a deafening roar that ripped through the air.
"Dunk, get down there and start slicing those towers!" Pond shouted over the noise. "We'll keep them off your back!"
Dunk slung his rifle over his shoulder without hesitation and threw himself over the edge of the ice ridge. He landed on his backside and half slid, half skidded down the snowy embankment straight toward the central console.
"I'm on it!" he yelled as he hit the flat ice at the bottom and scrambled to his feet. He pulled a portable data-slicer from his belt. "Keep 'em busy!"
Phuwin rotated his blade to deflect two stray bolts from the last collapsing B1 before he turned to track Dunk's safe arrival at the terminal. The worst of the danger seemed to have passed. Pond and Joong were busy cleaning up the stragglers, and Fourth was still locked in combat with the other super droid (though he didn't seem to be struggling all that much).
Then, he felt it.
A pulse of malice tore through his awareness. Cold. Calculating. Droid. His eyes snapped to the tower at Dunk's back. There.
A third super battle droid that had been completely hidden in the blind spot behind the primary telemetry dish marched out from the shadows. Its heavy dual-laser cannon arm was already raised and locked directly onto Dunk's unprotected head.
Phuwin's teeth ground together. Dunk was too absorbed in his slicing to notice the very real danger behind him. Fourth was halfway across the clearing, and the others weren't focused on Dunk at all.
He had no time to think. Before he knew what he was doing, Phuwin was sprinting across the ice. He threw his body into a desperate slide, slamming hard into Dunk's ribs and sending the startled engineer tumbling across the snow. Dunk yelped in alarm, but he was clear of the droid's line of fire, which was what mattered.
Unfortunately, that left Phuwin in his place. Defenseless.
Before he had the chance to bring his lightsaber back around to his chest, the super battle droid fired. The red blaster bolt struck Phuwin in the right shoulder, lifting him off the ice and throwing him backward. He hit the ground hard, and his lightsaber slipped out of his grip due to the force of the impact. The glowing green blade, sensing the loss of its master, cut off with a hiss as it skidded across the crater.
Phuwin's collarbone erupted in fiery pain. The scent of burnt synth-leather and flesh curled together to fill his nostrils. His vision swam with white spots. He looked down at the scorched black spot marring the material of his jacket. The synth-leather and fur lining had absorbed the worst of the plasma, so the bolt hadn't managed to burn cleanly through his chest, but his right arm wouldn't respond to his commands. Any time he tried to move it, the limb exploded with phantom heat.
The super battle droid whirred, its mechanical torso pivoting to lock onto the fallen Jedi to finish the job. Phuwin's jaw set. He reached out into the Force, ready to push with the last of his energy -
Neither combatant ever got the chance to do much of anything.
"Phuwin!"
A blinding stream of blue plasma erupted from the ridge. Pond sprinted down the crater, his face a mask of fury as he unloaded his weapon directly into the droid's faceplate. Joong's blaster followed suit, and the resulting barrage of heavy bolts tore the droid apart limb from limb until it collapsed in a heap of smoking metal and sparking circuitry.
Pond didn't spare the droid a second glance. He threw his blaster aside and slid on his knees into the snow beside Phuwin. His hands trembled slightly as he reached out; they hovered over Phuwin's body as if their owner were unsure of where to touch.
"Princess." Pond's voice carried an unfamiliar edge of terror with it, one that felt out of place to Phuwin's ears. "Hey, look at me." He gently took Phuwin's face in his hands and angled it toward him. His eyes searched Phuwin for any sign of injury. "Are you with me? Talk to me."
Phuwin forced himself to breathe through the agony radiating from his shoulder. He looked up into the smuggler's worried expression and offered him a thin smile. "You don't," he gasped out, his fingers tightening weakly against the smoldering synth-leather, "have to look so smug. You were right about the frostbite."
Pond let out a low disbelieving noise that was part-laugh, part-sob. "Kriff, Princess," he muttered, his forehead dropping to Phuwin's uninjured shoulder. "Don't ever do that again."
"On the contrary," Dunk interjected, his grinning face appearing at the edge of Phuwin's vision. "If it saves my butt, he's free to do it whenever he wants." He dropped the hilt of Phuwin's lightsaber onto the ground beside him.
Pond's sharp growl was the last thing Phuwin distinctly heard before his body began to give out on him.
Now that the battle was over, the sheer toll of everything he had done so far came crashing down on him. He'd channeled the Force to guide a ship through a blizzard, used it to strengthen his body for the fight, and then pushed himself further to reach Dunk in time. He'd drained whatever reserves he'd been running on since the hangar fight, and combined with the white-hot fire radiating from his collarbone, it was no surprise his consciousness was beginning to waver.
"Princess?" Pond's anxious face began to blur. His voice suddenly sounded distant, as if he were shouting from the far end of an echoey canyon. "Hey, Phuwin, stay with me. Phuwin."
Phuwin tried to focus on the frantic spike in Fourth's Force signature as the Padawan stumbled into the snow beside him. He tried to grasp at Pond's solid hands beneath his head.
He tried… He tried, but the darkness was faster. His fingers slipped from the smoldering synth-leather of Pond's jacket. His eyes fluttered closed, and the cold, unforgiving surface of Orto Plutonia vanished entirely.