"Desert Rats"
By Omri Kedemoth
Sten Diverz- NPC Resistance Fighter

Location: Tae'Sollar Desert
Date: Vadris 21, 5ABY

***

Omri brought the macrobinoculars into focus. He adjusted the receptors to low light, both moons were nearly full and shone brightly in the desert night sky. The blurred image snapped into a clear picture, lacking most colors but in every other way detailing the Jau mining facility.

Omri and a handful of others remained in the desert to monitor the Jau activity after the assault by Resistance forces. So far, their nocturnal surveillance had gone unnoticed by the enemy.

Omri heard the sound of someone scrambling up the sand dune behind him, lowering the macrobinoculars, he saw Sten Diverz crawl up beside him.

"Anything new?" Diverz asked quietly. Their distance from the mines made his whispering unnecessary, but the intimidating stillness of the desert compelled some to speak in hushed tones.

"Looks like they brought more workers in today, they have made impressive progress in rebuilding." Omri replied flatly and handed Diverz the device.

Like most of the small recon team, Diverz was not military. He was a Natural Resources Agent, a ranger who patrolled the wilder regions of Tae'Karada for illegal activity. His skills in wilderness survival, tracking and law enforcement training earned him a place with the group. The remainder of the group consisted of a Rodian big game hunter named Tudo and the "officer", a woman named Shil Ju-Do. Omri had concluded that she was military, or at least para-military, probably Tae'Morad. She did not volunteer any information about herself, and her cold, calculated personality did not invite inquiries of a personal nature.

Taking the macrobinoculars back, Omri began to recite his observations as Diverz entered them into a data pad. "Looks like most work has been on security, rebuilding and reinforcing the towers, replacing heavy weapons and bringing in permacrete or ferrocrete for the walls. Looks like they will be ready for any future assault."

Placing the binocs back on his belt, Omri motioned down. "Lets get this back to Ju-Do so she can transit to command." The two scouts slid silently down the dune and onto waiting speeder bikes. Then they vanished into the desert shadows.

---

"Mentoring Demons"
By: Analesse D'vrishay
Minn Starcrash (Dakara)

Location: Analesse's Office, New Plouton
Date: Vadris 21, 5 ABY

***

Minn Dakara stepped into Analesse's office, past the ever-scowling Nemyos. While he was no longer snarling, he still looked up every time she approached the refrigeration unit to make sure she was not stealing his lunch. She tried to be friendly toward him, but it only made him more suspicious. It made her grin whenever she returned to her office.

"I finished that report," Minn said as Ms. D'vrishay looked up from her desk. "I managed to get the word count down this time, like you asked. But, it still contains all of the pertinent information from that last meeting." She held up the stack of flimsis for Lessa to see.

"Already?" Lessa refrained from expressing further surprise either vocally or by the slightest lift of her eyebrows. Instead, she motioned Minn to set the report down before her. "I hadn't expected you to be finished yet," she mentioned. "I didn't get a chance to prepare another task for you."

Minn smiled with just a hint of sheepishness. "I worked on it while I ate my lunch."

Analesse chuckled. "That's dedication for you. It's really not necessary, Ms. Dakara. Lunchtime is your own time, so feel free to enjoy it."

"I know, but I figured since I had the inspiration I might as well carry through. I'll try not to make a habit of working through my lunches. But, at least I did eat my lunch today."

"You really are new at this," Lessa commented. Sighing deeply, she leaned back in her chair and gestured Minn to take a seat of her own. "Listen," she confided as Minn settled into the chair, "you're going to have to learn that, in this business, it does pay to move fast - it's the only way to secure those juicy deals. But go too fast, and it's easy to make mistakes. More importantly," she added with a nearly wistful smile, "you get so absorbed in your work, it stops being fun - life stops being fun because you're letting everything pass you by while your head is buried in reports. I did that for a long time...but I'm finally learning to slow down just enough to enjoy my success. You'll learn the same, I hope."

"I'll remember that," Minn said with a nod. "If you don't mind me asking, did it stop being fun?"

"Truthfully?" Analesse smiled. "For a time, though I didn't realize it until I met my current partner. It was then I knew I'd been missing everything." Mildly startled by her own candidness, then, Analesse cleared her throat awkwardly and resumed her stiff, upright sitting posture. "At any rate," she continued more guardedly, "you need to live your life, Ms. Dakara. Don't get bogged down by work. You're too young for that."

"I'll just eat my lunch at lunch from now on," Minn said. "Unless I'm up against a deadline. Your partner, I thought I saw him coming in last night. He looks familiar. He's kind of famous isn't he? I know I've seen him somewhere before."

"Probably," Lessa allowed. "He's a performer. You may have seen him performing at the White Noise."

"I've never been there. Though, I've been by there a few times. I think there was a poster. That's probably it. So, that report, if you have any other changes on it, let me know. I made the corrections you suggested on the first draft, but I'm not certain if I cut too much out to bring down the size."

"Relax," Analesse urged. "I'll finish it off. You can leave early if you want...attend a show at the White Noise, even." She smiled reassuringly. "It's no trouble at all."

"Are you sure," Minn said. "I don't feel overworked at all. In fact, I really like it here. Nemyos still is very suspicious of me, but it's still a great working environment."

"He's suspicious of anyone better looking than himself," she dismissed playfully. "Don't mind him. But if it does become a problem, let me know. I would hate for you to leave so soon."

"Oh, it's no problem at all," Minn said, her grin cheerful. "I've made it my mission to make him like me. It may be impossible, but it definitely makes things interesting."

Analesse shrugged. "Well, if it's a source of amusement for you.... At any rate, I should probably start going through this report. I'll need it for a very important meeting in two days."

"Oh, if you want me to compile note cards for the meeting, I can do that," Minn said. "Will you need any presentation? I should be able to get some holographics set up for it as well."

"I'll consider it," Analesse told her noncommittally. "For now, take a break. You've earned it."

"I think I may have to sneak out," Minn said. "Nemyos is likely to get quite jealous of me leaving early."

"I'll take care of him. You just enjoy yourself."

Minn grinned. "I will," she said. "I'll go see my first show at the White Noise."

"If you enjoy Merrick's music," she suggested, "I could perhaps introduce you to him sometime."

"That would be very nice," Minn said. "I'll let you know what I think of his music after tomorrow."

Analesse smiled and watched Minn briefly as she departed before shifting focus to the report. So far, Minn was working out splendidly. If she continued to be as diligent, Analesse very well may have found her very first apprentice.

---

"Homecoming, Part One"
By: Cirran Tyris, PC
Lerrah Breijal, PC

Location: Edge of Tae'Karada system space
Date: Vadris 21, 5ABY

***

With a groaning shudder, the ship emerged from hyperspace. It hadn't been the smoothest ride, but after a couple of grueling weeks and various minor misadventures, at least they'd arrived. Much to Lerrah's chagrin though, the near constant need to watch both the engines and make sure the ship didn't drift off course, she and Cirran had been able to share very little time together. At least in the way of togetherness Lerrah had been hoping.

In the cockpit, she had kissed him at one point and that kiss had begun to lead exactly toward that togetherness, but alarm klaxons loud enough to be heard a couple dozen parsecs away sounded and the moment was gone. They'd managed to get back on course, but all thoughts of any intimacy would have to wait until they were out of their stolen rustbucket.

Lerrah glanced at Cirran with a warm smile. She liked the way he looked back at her, especially the way it set her stomach fluttering. Of course, it hadn't all been rosy and they'd had arguments. But, strangely, the frustration of her earliest arguments with Cirran was missing. It was a very different kind of argument, one charged both with their affection for one another and with the frustration of their predicament.

As her eyes adjusted to the space before them, the familiar scene of arriving in the Tae'Remok system, she muttered a string of obscenities in three languages.

"What the fracking hell is this?"

Stretched out ahead of them, ships were lined up in multiple queues as they appeared to be passing through a picket. The ships in the patrol were unfamiliar, quite alien in appearance.

Momentary fear made her want to turn the ship and flee, but a second look at the instruments told her they'd already been noticed.

"You don't suppose this is for us, do you?" she asked softly as they received an automated message to take a place in the line of ships.

Cirran thought for a moment, then shook his head. "Jax wouldn't be making a show of force this open, and those ships are like nothing I've seen before. My guess is these are those Jau he was telling us about. Either they're blockading the system, or -" Cirran paused as a grim realisation set in. "Or, that bastard was telling the truth for once and they really are running the show in these parts now. Not good, I don't think this tub is up to busting through any more picket lines. One was one too many!"

Lerrah chewed her lip as she watched the small Jau ships, about the size of a shuttle, moving forward to ships in the line. They would connect to the airlock on the waiting ship and both would sit for several long minutes. Then the Jau ship would disengage and the waiting ship would continue on.

Once, the ship did not move forward when the Jau ship disengaged. Instead, a larger ship, something slightly smaller than an Imperial Star Destroyer, lumbered forward with bank upon bank of weapons trained on the ship. Tractor beams caught hold of the ship and drew it from the line.

"We don't have anything in here to hide," Lerrah finally said. Not anymore at least. "We can't get away from this, Cirran. You don't suppose Jax told them about us, do you? I mean, he got what he wanted. There's no need for us now."

Whatever Cirran had been about to say was interrupted by the comm.

"Move forward two thousand meters and hold position," the person on the other end said. "Cycle airlock for docking."

Lerrah closed her eyes. Her hands were steady over the controls, but she felt as if they should be shaking. The message repeated, this time with a hint of impatience in the speaker's voice.

"Damn," she murmured as she finally edged the ship forward. "I hate this."

Cirran bounced impatiently around the cockpit, trying to think of something - anything - to get them out of this, but there was nothing that could be done. The picket ahead was a lot more well organised than the Imperial one they had escaped on Lianna, and their ship was in no state to do any fancy flying. Running would only mean death, or at best capture - no doubt followed by a great many pointed questions. "We're trapped," he said grimly. "We'll just have to hope that Jax was too embarrassed to tell these guys about us. Or that maybe they're not as bad as he makes out. It's about time we caught a break."

Braking thrusters fired, bringing the ship to a stop. Jau grapples clamped on and the ship was held fast. Lerrah slipped from her chair pausing long enough to take a long look at Cirran before slipping out to the main cabin. If she was going to die here, she at least wanted Cirran strong in her memory.

The cycling airlock sounded extremely loud within the old freighter. A moment later, a large Jau with colored crests covering his head strode through the hatch. Behind him came a pair of soldiers lacking the crests of their apparent leader. They carried scanning equipment and set to work immediately.

The leader addressed Cirran, causing Lerrah to bristle slightly. "What is your destination and purpose in this system," he asked. He had the harsh voice of a battle commander, brooking no argument and making his orders heard to the ends of the line. His gaze was hard and reptilian and seemed to be without any humor.

"We live here," Cirran replied, truthfully enough. "We're returning to Drogen Station from an extended business trip. Our arrival was delayed due to a pirate attack," he added, hoping this would go some way to explaining the pummeled condition of the freighter. "What's this all about?"

"This system is under the control of the Jau Empire," said the alien. "This perimeter is searching for unwelcome elements and removing them." The two soldiers returned with their scanning gear, nodding to their superior. "Your ship is clear. We have added a tracking device. Do not attempt to remove it, or you will damage your ship. Proceed to the station. Station Control will direct once you have reached the marker."

"You put a thing in our ship," Lerrah said. "You don't have any--"

The look the Jau gave her froze her words on her lips. He stood taller, stepped closer so he towered over both of them. "We have every right," he said. The words weren't shouted in defiance. They were spoken with quiet certainty, and the fire in the alien eyes held a calm more dangerous than Jax during his hottest rage. "You have the tone of a resistance fighter. Perhaps your ship should be more thoroughly searched."

"I'm sorry," Lerrah said, near frantic, "I didn't mean. It's just...we're not used to this sort of thing. We...we welcome your presence here and hope you contain all of these unwelcome elements."

The expression changed slightly as the Jau regarded her again. Was that smugness? "Very good," he answered in an almost feline purr. "Do not deviate from your course."

With that, he turned and strode from the ship. Once he was gone, Lerrah turned to Cirran. She had gone white and couldn't stop herself from shaking.

"Dear gods," she whispered, "those things...and...and Jax is working with them?"

Cirran released a white-knuckled grip from a chair arm rest. At nearly 2 metres himself, he wasn't used to looking up to people, and yet it seemed to have been going on a bit lately. "Sithspit, they're bloody huge," he muttered, his mind going back to the enormous Barabel that had relieved him of his hand. He collapsed into the chair as the clunking sounds of the Jau ship disembarking came from behind them.

"Jax works with whatever low-life or tyrant he thinks is going to be of the biggest benefit to him personally. If he's nailed his flag to the mast of the Jau he must think they're on the up. And he plans to hand them the shield tech. That can't be good." A thought occurred to him. "Gods, hope everyone on the station is OK."

Lerrah nodded slowly as she and Cirran returned to the cockpit. "We'll see soon enough," she said. "I worry about Tasia and Walker. I mean, of any, those two are likely to cause the most trouble for the Jau. Ty's sort of quiet and behind the scenes. The Jau would never know he's messing with them until it's too late. Ril...Ril could get herself in trouble too, I think."

Fretting, she hit the thrusters once the Jau ship disengaged. Pushing them forward, they could see the station looming in the distance, getting larger with each moment.

Docking was easier than they expected, and soon they were standing on the deck of one of the bays. Lerrah looked around, then despite the situation, grinned at Cirran. "This is where it all began," she said. "Me, drunk, throwing myself at you."

"That seems like a really long time ago" Cirran smiled. They were in the middle of a system run by hostile invaders, and Jax had no doubt not simply forgotten about them, but after a months-long nightmare for him and Lerrah, the homecoming felt good. Is this what this place is now, a home? Cirran thought. For so long, his only home had been...

"Son of a bitch," Cirran cursed suddenly, remembering. "That bounty hunter that grabbed us probably has my ship." For all the problems the old freighter had caused him, the thought that it was likely gone was surprisingly painful to the pilot. It had seen him through a lot - and he had spent considerable time and money on it. But he put the Fool's Hope out of his mind for now - there were more important things to worry about.

"Let's see who we can find," he suggested to Lerrah.

As the two pilots set out, the physical environment of the station was familiar, but the atmosphere felt very different. The imposing, reptilian Jau prowled the halls and seemed to be on every corner, bristling with weapons and looking or trouble. The denizens of the station still bustled about on their business, but quietly, and with their heads bowed. An air of fear filled the halls.

"I don't like this," muttered Cirran.

"I know what you mean," Lerrah answered. She stopped at a computer panel as they passed. Logging in quickly, she ran a quick docking bay search. "Stiletto's in Four-Four-Three. Looks like your ship is in Four-Four-Seven. Lockdown, it looks like. I think we can get them free if they're letting them free. At least they're still--"

Across the screen, a series of letters seemed to suddenly dance. H-E-L-L-O--L-E-R-R-A-H.

Lerrah grinned.

"Ty's okay," she whispered to Cirran.

G-O--T-O--D-A-N-E-B--W-T.

"Walker and Tasia are currently at Danebra's."

Cirran let out a sigh of relief. His nagging fear since he had arrived was that Walker would not have taken kindly to invaders on his station, and with the Jau having evidently firmly established their control, that things would have gone very badly for his big friend. The fact that Walker was still alive therefore came as something of a welcome surprise. And his ship was still here! The bounty hunter had obviously written it off as a useless hunk of junk, and Cirran wasn't sure whether to be grateful or embarrassed.

"Well, I dunno about you, but I could certainly use a drink," Cirran said, pulling Lerrah gently away from the console as he noticed a pair of Jau scrutinising their use of the terminal. "If we're allowed one. The Jau don't appear to be a fun-loving people."

"I don't see how this could have happened," Lerrah said as they stepped into the lift. "I mean, shouldn't we have fought back against them? We fought off the Empire and all that. This is terrible."

Cirran tried to consider things from a military perspective. "Well, they probably had surprise on their side, and they're obviously formidable warriors. But their weapons seem primitive, and I can't imagine the likes of Kano or your friend Rilanna rolling over and surrender without a hell of a scrap. But there's no sign of serious fighting, and no sign of resistance now. Maybe they have hostages? Or some kind of superweapon at their disposal?"

"I think it's worse than that," Lerrah said as she recalled her time as Jax's captive. She could vividly see the holographic images he'd showed her of the Jau being attacked and the blaster bolts just disappearing against the Jau. "They can't be hurt by blasters. They get shot and the shots either bounce away or are absorbed into their skin. That's how they got in."

Cirran grimaced. "That's a neat trick. Gods, and the tech Jax is gonna give them will do the same thing for their ships! If they've got the numbers, the Empire is going to be the least of the New Republic's problems. We've got to warn someone!"

"We need to talk to Walker and Tase," Lerrah said. "They can give us a rundown on what's going on. Maybe then we can figure out who we need to talk to. I bet Rilanna can help, and as much as I hate to admit it, maybe Administrator Anoran too. That woman gives me chills."

"I hear she's no-nonsense to say the least, but I'll take her over these surly hulking bastards. We've got our quota of them filled on this station already with Walker, and he has the added benefit of looking a lot less likely than the Jau to want to eat you at any given moment."

The lift pinged softly to indicate an arrival at their desired destination. The once colourful lower levels of the station were now almost unrecognisable. Hawkers, pleasure girls and stalls had all vanished from the promenade, the smells of questionable food, stale air and garbage were gone, and the endless din of commerce, chatter and arguments between dozens of different species had been silenced. Instead a few nervous looking souls shuffled around under the watchful eye of a large Jau presence and a few token unarmed guards in the uniform of station security.

"It's so...clean," Cirran remarked distastefully.

"It's so dead," Lerrah echoed. Danebra's had once been filled with yardworkers, freightmovers, and others who wanted a good drink after a long day. Lerrah had spent a considerable amount of her off-work time here. But as they arrived at the door, usually crowded with people coming and going, they found empty. Inside, the subdued lighting usually hid a packed crowd, but now hid a nearly empty cantina. "This is...it's terrible."

"And exposed" Cirran noted, glancing around to note the position of the seemingly ubiquitous Jau guards. Recent events in his life had taught the pilot a hard lesson about paying attention to his surroundings. "I hope Ty's working some kind of magic, or this is conversation is going to be limited to talking about the weather."

A large hand dropped onto Cirran's shoulder.

---

"Homecoming, Part Two"
By: Cirran Tyris, Pilot, PC
Lerrah Breijal, Pilot, PC
Tasia Harough, Tech, NPC+
Sgt. Mathias "Walker" Coin, Security Officer, NPC+
Tyriam Kat'Ritara, Slicer, NPC+

Location:Drogen Shipyards, Lower Levels
Date: Vadris 21, 5ABY

***

The lift pinged softly to indicate an arrival at their desired destination. The once colourful lower levels of the station were now almost unrecognisable. Hawkers, pleasure girls and stalls had all vanished from the promenade, the smells of questionable food and filth were gone, replaced by that of stale filtered air, and the endless din of commerce, chatter and arguments had been silenced. Instead, the scene that greeted them was one of a few nervous looking souls shuffling around under the watchful eye of a large Jau presence and a few token unarmed guards in the uniform of station security.

"It's so...clean," Cirran remarked distastefully.

"It's so dead," Lerrah echoed. Danebra's had once been filled with yardworkers, freightmovers, and others who wanted a good drink after a long day. Lerrah had spent a considerable amount of her off-work time here. But, the door, usually crowded with people coming and going, was empty. Inside, the subdued lighting usually hid a packed crowd, but now hid a nearly empty cantina. "This is...it's terrible."

"And exposed," Cirran noted, glancing around to note the position of the seemingly ubiquitous Jau guards. Recent events in his life had taught the pilot a hard lesson about paying attention to his surroundings. "I hope Ty's working some kind of magic, or this conversation is going to be limited to talking about the weather."

A hand dropped onto Cirran's shoulder.

"There was a brief storm - far too brief for my liking - which has been followed by an extended period of overcast drizzly shite, which I may add has also not been to my particular taste," growled a familiar voice behind him.

Cirran smiled. "Hello, Walker." He turned and was taken aback by the completely unfamiliar sight of his big friend out of his ever-present suit of power armour. He raised an eyebrow. "Do you have a new tailor?"

Walker grimaced. "Don't get me started. Where the fuck have you two been, anyway?"

For the first time in a long while, Cirran laughed, and then stopped himself quickly as the sound boomed inside the eerily quiet bar, and several heads turned in their direction. "It's good to see you, too. It's a long story. Shall we have a seat? Must be your round."

Walker led Lerrah and Cirran into the bar, wending their way toward the table where Tasia sat watching them with a grin. Lerrah's heart leapt to see them both alive and seemingly well. With all the reports, and both Walker and Tasia's headstrong nature, she half expected both to be locked in a cell...or worse.

Lerrah slid into the booth beside Cirran as Walker took his place at Tasia's side. For a moment, Lerrah felt slightly uncomfortable. The relationship she shared -- had shared -- with Tasia wasn't exclusive, but this would be the first time she was in her friend's presence since she had discovered the depths of her feelings for Cirran. She slid her hand into Cirran's and felt more comfortable once their fingers were laced together.

"It's so good to see friendly faces," she said. "We haven't really seen any for quite awhile now."

"I first thought you might have signed Miss Breijal up and gone off chasing after that missing sister o' yours, spacer, but when we found your ship parked where you left it, I suspected something amiss."

Cirran nodded. "New Dawn caught up with me, and Lerrah was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Then they handed us over to Jax. It hasn't been the most fun couple of months. But we managed to get ourselves out of trouble- eventually."

Walker frowned. "I'm sorry, spacer, but I'm glad you're here now." He gave the pilot a big grin. "Pelor's Teeth lad, you're a hard man to kill! We would have come lookin' for you, but of course shortly after your disappearing act went down we had a few other things to worry about," Walker explained, jerking a thumb in the direction of the nearest patrolling Jau.

"Lerrah and I were just agreeing that we don't think much of the new management," Cirran said. "What's the deal?"

"The deal is Walker and I can't do it in the lifts anymore without getting arrested," Tasia answered as eloquently as only she could. "A better question," she drawled, her eyes languidly sizing up both Cirran and Lerrah, "is what's the deal with you? Tell me you haven't really been off on honeymoon."

Cirran raised a hand, or a reasonable facsimile of one anyway. Jax hadn't used the most primitive model available, and the hand looked quite realistic, but the servos faintly clicking in his wrist as he wagged his fingers were still audible to everyone at the table. "It was no honeymoon, believe me," the pilot said.

"We barely even had any time together," Lerrah said.

Walker grimaced. "I'm guessing you weren't in an industrial accident, spacer."

"No. I met a very large Barabel with a very large sword who decided that it was time for an end to the long-running and successful partnership between my hand and the rest of my body. And he ate it afterwards, if you can believe that. Shame, I was hoping to get it bronzed so I could give it to you two as a wedding present."

Tasia smirked. "You two first."

"Yeah, great, we can invite the Jau, although if we didn't they'd probably just go with their tendency to show up uninvited anyway. Do you have any idea what they're up to in the wider scheme of things? Are they in charge planetside now as well?"

Walker harrumphed. "They tend not to fill us in on these details you understand, spacer, but it seems they are, yeah. Word are the lizard bastards have got some big mining op going on out in the desert. From the looks of it, they're not planning on stopping just here, either."

"I took it upon myself recently," Tasia informed them, "to scope out the private bay the Jau have been keeping for themselves. I wasn't in there long enough to plot a timeline of activity, but I did manage to get a look at where all the guards are posted and a count. And we know for sure there's something very important being kept in there. At first we thought it was just foodstuffs, but I don't think it's just that - the guards were far too uptight to just be guarding food."

"I wonder if it's part of the side project Jax was working on," Lerrah said, musing. "You know how the Jau can't be hurt by blasters? Well, apparently Jax found a way of using a certain mineral that will let the Jau's ships do the same thing. We had it, but we lost it trying to escape from Lianna."

Tasia sat bolt upright. "Do the Jau know about this? The worst thing that could happen is if they get their hands on that mineral."

"We can only assume they do," Lerrah said with a look to Cirran. "We had Kemma and the technical data, but when we thought she was unconscious, she took the data and used an escape pod. She has to be back with Jax now, which means he has all he needs to make that tech work on a ship. The Jau will be unbeatable."

Walker's ears had pricked up at the sound of the name 'Kemma'. "You found your sister, spacer?"

Cirran frowned. "She found me, as it turned out. And it was not exactly the happy reunion I was hoping for. Jax has had her most of this time, and he's got her brainwashed - she's convinced I killed our parents, and on top of that he's turned her into some kind of assassin. He reached some sort of deal with the Jau, promised them the technology my parents created to make a rare mineral into a viable shielding technology - and then he used me to get it. He won't hesitate to hand it over to them, providing he thinks there is personal gain in it for him - which he obviously does. He believes the Jau are going to be the new rulers of the galaxy."

"With ships as well as troops that shrug off energy weapons, he might just be right," growled Walker. "There are still ways to hurt 'em, but every significant military force in the whole damned galaxy is based around energy weaponry. You can't just adapt a whole army--"

"What?" Cirran started, wondering why the big sergeant had halted mid-rant. But Walker's eyes were narrowed towards the entrance of the bar behind him and Lerrah.

Cirran began turning to follow Walker's gaze, but the soldier's arm shot out to restrain him. "You might want to get your heads down, you two. The boys that just came in mean trouble if I'm any judge, and from what you just said you two have got info that certain parties are not gonna want to see the light of day."

Standing in the entrance of the bar were four purposeful looking humans, three men and a woman, scanning the interior. Though the booth in which Walker, Tasia, Cirran and Lerrah sat was partially obscured from the door, it would be a matter of moments before they were spotted in the quiet bar.

"They move like soldiers. And they're carrying, or I'm a Jawa," Walker observed. "How'd they get weapons past the Jau?"

"If they're with Jax, they'll probably have the Jau's permission," Cirran muttered, sinking lower in his seat. "I don't suppose this place has a back door?"

"Not one we can get through," Tasia quipped and surreptitiously palmed the comm device tucked away in one of the utility pockets on her pants. Keeping it hidden beneath the table, she whispered quickly, "Ty, not too loud. We have a problem and you've the backdoor we need."

"I'll see what I can arrange," came the quiet voice of the Drogen Shipyards' resident computer expert. "I must warn you, this line may not be secure. There appears to be another ghost wandering in my machine."

Several moments passed as Lerrah and Cirran sat as low as possible in their seats. With Walker and Tasia to shield them and distract any attention that might be directed their way, they hoped to avoid notice. Above, the already subdued lighting dimmed subtly to shroud the area into more darkness.

>From Tasia's comm, Ty whispered again. "I believe now would be a suitable time for yourself and Mr. Coin to engage in one of your frequently-occurring amorous exchanges."

Tasia waggled her eyebrows at the burly man sitting beside her. "So, you want the top or bottom this time?"

Cirran gave Lerrah a glance. "Gods, we really had better get out of here. I'm not sure I could take this at close range."

Walker was keeping his eye on the soldiers now working their way through the bar. "Wait...wait...now." Cirran and Lerrah slid out of their seats and moved smartly away as Walker pulled Tasia over to sit on his lap.

"Now lass, let's try to make this distracting - not that that should be a problem for you," he grinned.

Cirran and Lerrah made their way to the rear of the bar as Walker and Tasia launched into a noisy and rather showy initial bout of tonsil hockey. They lurked in a dark alcove, hoping to sneak by on the left of the room as the soldiers investigated what Walker and Tasia were up to on the right. Cirran glanced around him.

"This place looks nice. Maybe we should come back here some time when people aren't trying to kill us."

"That sounds like a great plan," Lerrah said with a grin. "As long as they're not going to check the kitchen, we might be able to hide there." She glanced back as the soldiers moved around the bar. They hadn't reached the back yet, but would reach the rear of the bar soon.

But it was was not the soldiers but a voice suddenly appearing from beside them that made the two pilots turn, startled.

"Lerrah?"

---

"Road Trip"
By: Cirran Tyris, Pilot, PC
Lerrah Breijal, Pilot, PC
Tasia Harough, Tech, NPC+
Sgt. Mathias "Walker" Coin, Security Officer, NPC+
Tyriam Kat'Ritara, Slicer, NPC+
Rilanna Kir, Head of Station Security, NPC+
Dani, Jedi Knight, PC

Location:Drogen Shipyards, Lower Levels
Date: Vadris 21, 5ABY

***

"Lerrah?"

Turning, Lerrah was surprised to find Rilanna Kir staring out at her from a booth. Seated beside her was the most beautiful woman Lerrah had ever seen. Purple skin, long, dark hair, and an angelic face.

"Ril," Lerrah whispered as she drew closer. Too much talk, and they'd draw attention to themselves "We've got a bit of a problem. Those soldiers, I think they're after us."

Ril scanned the group, glanced at her companion, who nodded.

But before they could take any action, one of the soldiers raised a hand to his earpiece, subvocalized an answer. With a wave, the soldiers turned as one and departed.

"Well, that's strange," Rilanna said. "What have you been up to in your extended absence?"

"Long story," Lerrah answered. "We have to get out of here."

The Zeltron beside Ril leaned toward them, her expression showing concern. "We can help you to safety," she said. "I don't think those were the Hutt's men."

"They weren't," Lerrah said. "They're working for a man named Jax."

Rilanna raised a comlink to her lips. "This is Captain Kir to Raucher. What's the status?"

"Still secure, Captain. No change. No one will get close without starting a war."

"Good," she said. "Keep me apprised." She gave a nod to her companion, then turned back to Lerrah and Cirran. "Come on. While they're gone searching another bar, let's get you out of here. New hand, Cirran?"

"Yes. We've been spending a bit of time in bad company lately, and not by our own choice. As Lerrah said, it's a long story. But there's something you and Kano and anybody not too happy about having the Jau around really needs to know, once we get to some place safe."

"We'll get you somewhere safe," Rilanna said. "Come on."

Rilanna and her companion slid out of the booth. With the soldiers gone, Walker and Tasia hurried over. Ril gave a terse nod to both of them.

"We're getting Cirran and Lerrah out of here. I still have enough clearance to get one of their ships out of the impound. From there, you'll both have to lie low for a bit."

Lerrah nodded. "Cirran's ship," she said. "You should get Cirran's ship out."

Still breathless from engaging in her rather satisfying distraction with Walker, Tasia teased, "Sacrificing your own ship for his?" She chuckled throatily. "I guess my sharing a bunk with you is out of the question from now on, hm?"

Lerrah blushed. "I think so," she said and ran a hand up Cirran's arm. She just hoped she got to share a bunk with him sometime soon. "Cirran and I still have to figure out where all of this is heading. Except for the chopping off hands and monologuing, it's been mostly okay. I think we need a vacation together."

Rilanna gestured toward the door. "Vacation waits that way," she said. "Sergeant, could you take up point?"

"Happy to, ma'am," Walker replied, snapping off a salute for effect. "Can't help but wish I had something that packed a little more punch than this thing, though," he added, eyeing the stun baton the Jau had issued him with contempt.

To Cirran's relief, he saw that the nearest Jau were off down the promenade as Walker led the group out of the bar, but that relief was short-lived. No sooner had the last of them had left the bar entrance than the four soldiers, now joined by two companions, stepped forward from their hiding places to form a semi circle around them, weapons raised. Their leader stepped forward slightly.

"You think you're the only people with a slicer on this station?" he mocked. "Jax asked me to give you thanks for retrieving his tech for him. Oh, and there was something else he wanted us to give you as well," he added, raising his blaster.

Cirran looked around, confirming they were surrounded by armed opponents, and that the only obvious weapon they carried was the stun baton wielded by his friend. "Any bright ideas, Walker?" he asked hopelessly.

"Well, only one really comes to mind," the sergeant muttered, and with a curl of his arm he threw the stun baton with considerable force into the face of the man who had spoken. With a double cracking noise of the electrical charge and the impact on the man's skull, the soldier went down like a tonne of bricks.

As the soldiers moved to react, they weren't fast enough as the purple skinned beauty sprung into action. From beneath her skirt, she pulled what appeared to be the handle of a speeder bike. A pale blue blade snapped from the handle.

Weapons came up to fire, but the blade carved them in two. One of the soldiers, suddenly disarmed, charged, but found Lerrah's foot in his way, sending him straight toward Walker.

Without her blasters and wearing a long skirt, Rilanna wasn't quite the dangerous foe she was in most cases. Even so, she fired an elbow into the female soldier's face and the woman went down in a gout of blood.

The scuffle was no longer contained and the Jau were responding quickly. "They're coming," Lerrah shouted.

>From Tasia's comlink, Ty's voice emerged. "I have their slicer pinned down at the moment," he said. He sounded both exhausted and rushed. "Take the central lift north of you. I will hold off pursuit as best I can."

Cirran steeled himself as one of the soldiers approached him with a vibroblade in hand, and then watched admiringly as Rilanna's purple companion flew in seemingly from the ends of the earth to deliver a highly effective flying kick to the side of the man's head.

"Bloody hells! Seems our new friend has a few handy skills!" he remarked cheerfully to Walker, finding himself well pleased with his unexpectedly continued alive status.

Walker was busy eagerly hurling the soldier Lerrah hand sent his way bodily into and through a large potted plant holder, but that task successfully completed, he too paused at the sight of Dani's flashing lightsaber. "Bugger me! Been a long time since I fought alongside a Jedi" he observed.

"A what, now?" a confused Cirran asked as he and Lerrah led the charge in the direction of the lifts.

If Cirran was confused as to Dani's identity though, others weren't. The Jau had all been briefed on how to spot their most dangerous enemies, and the sights of the whirling saber and soldiers hurled back bodily through the air without a finger laid on them were all the clues they needed. The approaching Jau began to chatter excitedly into their commlinks.

Walker took a rueful look at a discarded blaster lying on the ground, but knew picking it up wouldn't do him any good. Reluctantly he lumbered after the others in a headlong sprint towards the lifts and safety. "So how do you feel about a nice romantic trip planetside somewhere?" he queried Tasia.

"Somewhere you can watch nude younger women frolicking on a beach, no doubt." She smirked. "Have the pickings on this station gotten that slim, big man?" As they rounded the corner, frantically trying to reach the lift, projectile weapon's fire ricocheted off the wall, just barely missing them. Tasia looked askance at Walker, eyes wide with fright.

"You know, that vacation's sounding like a great idea right now."

"Fucking blaster-proof bastards," Walker grumbled, frustrated.

After what seemed an age, the lift arrived and the fugitives breathlessly scrambled inside as the Jau pounded up. But the doors mercifully closed in time, and they were safe for the moment. There was a silence as everyone gathered themselves.

"I can't help but feel they're going to be waiting for us when these doors open," Cirran eventually said. "Do we have a plan?"

Tasia shrugged. "Don't look at me - I'm just the pretty face around here. But Ty, if you can misdirect them in tracking the lift's direction, there might be someplace Down Below we can hide out for a while."

"No good," Ty said. "You need to get out of the station and quickly. These people are patching in to the security systems and coordinating with the Jau. I'll make them think you're going to the Hook. Meanwhile, get yourselves to Bay Forty-Six. I'm quietly pulling Cirran's ship from the impound. I can tie into the automated systems to have it prepped for you. Our window is small, so move quickly and don't stop for anything. The Jau are aware of Captain Kir's participation in your endeavor. They have begun rescinding her security clearances."

The lift sped onwards, having begun moving even before the doors were fully closed. To those inside, it seemed as if the car were moving quite a bit more quickly than usual.

No one spoke as they raced through the arteries of the shipyards. With the rush of adrenaline brought on by the fight, being confined to so small a space made the time stretch out toward infinity.

Finally, the doors whooshed open. The bay stood before them. Red lights flashed all over the bay as klaxons blared. An automated voice added to the din, cautioning all within the bay to evacuate. The klaxon code indicated a containment leak.

Straight out in front of the group, Cirran's ship waited. Pre-launch systems appeared to have been started and it only required its crew to get things started.

Moving with purpose, the Jedi and Rilanna took the lead. The lightsaber didn't seem quite as bright as it had before. Raw emotion was clear on the woman's purple face and the entire group could feel her worry emanating in palpable waves. Rilanna's hand, placed gently on her forearm, though, seemed to bring that worry to a sudden stop. Quiet words were exchanged, ending in both women nodding to one another. In the purple eyes of the Jedi, a steely resolve emerged. In the span of a heartbeat, she seemed to be the epitome of fabled Jedi serenity.

They had reached the ship by then, but as the small, ragtag group began up the ramp, a figure emerged from the far end of the bay. A small man by the look of it, carrying a case on his back. It was Ty.

Joining the others as they climbed into the ship, he was out of breath and ready to collapse.

Walker gave the little slicer a look of respect. "I reckon if the Jau ain't here shooting at us, that's down to you, lad," he acknowledged, gently patting Ty's shoulder in an almost avuncular manner. The tech had obviously been through a torrid time.

Cirran too gave Ty a nod of acknowledgment, then hurried to the cockpit as the others began to strap themselves in. He punched the button for communication with the rear of the freighter. "Walker, you better squeeze into that turret. Somehow I suspect the Jau aren't going to let us waltz out of here unmolested."

"Already there, spacer," a gruff voice acknowledged.

Strapping herself into a seat next to Ty's, Tasia asked jocularly, "You think you can steer us in the direction of the nearest pleasure planet? Adner maybe? I hear they have nude beaches." Silence. "Anyone?"

"We need to get to someone important," Lerrah said as she rushed toward the cockpit to follow Cirran. "We have to tell them what the Jau are planning. If a fleet comes up against the Jau once they put that technology on their ships, there won't be a way to stop them."

In the pilot's chair, Cirran's hands flew over the controls, firing up important secondary systems and bouncing the ship off the deck on its repulsorlifts. The hand still felt strange, but it still did the job, and mercifully the Fool's Hope seemed to be in good working order for once - to a degree. He impatiently hit the controls top retract the exit ramp 3 or 4 times before the ship finally decided it was OK to acquiesce to his request.

He looked across to Lerrah who gave him a nod - they were as ready as they were going to get. Reaching out with his new hand again he hit the intercom button again.

"Hold on to something, people - I suspect this could get bumpy."

Cirran opened the throttle and the Fool's Hope shot into space.

Lerrah had slid into the co-pilot's seat. Rilanna had taken the navigator's chair just behind them both. Lerrah pointed at Jau ships coming in on an attack vector, someone in the hierarchy having obviously connected the recent disturbance on the station with the freighter, which was now moving hell-for-leather away from the station and steadfastly ignoring calls for its departure clearance.

"If we get down to the planet, we might have a better chance of disappearing," Lerrah said.

Rilanna tried to pull attack vectors from the navicomp. Beside her, the locker used to store spacesuits rattled and the door popped open. A tootling beep echoed from the closet and a purple and white R2 unit rolled out.

"Elf!"

Ril glanced between droid and Lerrah and shook her head. She moved out of the way as the droid edged over to take her place at the navicomp.

"So, do you have an idea on how to get us down?" she asked as she moved to the remaining seat.

"Dead Drop." She and Cirran exchanged a quick look as he threw the ship into a series of evasive maneuvers.

Rilanna raised an eyebrow. "Dead Drop?"

"Smuggler's trick," Lerrah answered. "We use one of the planet's poles to disappear off their sensors. Our trajectory will need to be perfect, but we kill power just at the right point and we drop. Nine times out of ten, we'll disappear from their sensors. The planet's electromagnetic field will shield us briefly. By the time they pick us up again, we'll be too far into the planet for them to pick us up."

"And that tenth time?" Rilanna sounded skeptical. In answer, Elf gave a rather haughty boop.

Lerrah grinned despite the butterflies partying in her stomach. She ran her hand over Cirran's real hand. "Ready for some fancy flying?"

Cirran grinned back. No matter what else happened, for the moment he was at the controls of his own ship, faced with a challenge, and happy. "A dead drop's going to be interesting in this old bird. But if we can bust a cordon in that wreck we pinched on Lianna, I reckon the two of us put together can fly rings around Soontir Fel himself. Was about time I checked out this dirt ball, anyway. Here we go!"

With the Jau still trying to organise their pursuit, the YT-2000 spiralled down towards the planet.

---

"Dropping In Uninvited"
By: Johan Eddis
Master Laedra Vorrel
Nieme Yaresh
Master Koran Darr
Master Liam Zaneth
Padawan Talara Sorenne

Location: Jedi Hide-Out, Vendra
Date: Vadris 21, 5 ABY

***

"Funny how I always seem to go out at night," Johan thought to himself. Of course, it was necessity which led him to pursue his missions at night, where the darkness would hide his team's movements, but still Johan often wondered if all of the time in the darkness would turn him into one of the monsters of legend.

Perhaps it already had.

Sitting in an abandoned warehouse across the street, Johan watched the front entrance to the warehouse with sharp eyes. Three days had passed since the satellite images had led them to Vendra in search of a Jedi hideout.

Johan had immediately ruled out residential areas. While it was possible that the Jedi could be hiding inside one of the houses or apartments, Johan had ruled that most of those areas were to small for a group of Jedi to operate and train.

A few bribes and long nights later, Johan thought he might have found the place. As secretive as the Jedi were, even they had to leave sometime. Silas had found a homeless wanderer on the streets, eking out a rather pathetic existence wandering the Vendra warehouse district. The poor fellow, with a little urging and a few credit chips had revealed that he had noticed some strange activities going on around one of the warehouses in particular.

Actually, it was more the lack of activities that were going on. The warehouses were busy around the clock, the homeless man explained, but this one had none of the industry that the others had. No droids laboring around the premises, no hovercraft coming to load or offload supplies. Nothing.

Johan stared hard at the warehouse with his macrobinoculars. It was as good a lead as any, and if it turned out bogus, they could always seek their prey elsewhere.

The stormtrooper sergeant had originally thought to just fly over the warehouse with the Authority and launch a string of concussion missiles into the place. The potential prize of so many dead Jedi was worth any collateral damage if he was wrong. The Jau would never catch him, the Authority's stealth abilities would make the ship a phantom long before the Jau arrived to investigate.

But Johan's new unnamed ally had believed that the Jedi could be an effective tool against the Jau, if manipulated properly.

Johan strapped a vest around him. It held a series of blocks of detonite, moldable high explosive. Johan had attached it to a sensitive firing system, and keyed the firing system in with a tiny remote detonator. Opening his mouth he slipped the detonator between his back teeth.

If the Jedi would listen to his proposal, then so be it. If they didn't, they certainly weren't going to take him prisoner.

The members of Johan's team had protested when he told them he was going in alone. But he was in charge, and no one was going to walk into this pit of vipers except for him. Johan slipped his fatigues over the detonite, and the web vest containing his ammunition and supplies over that.

Finally, he donned a black mask. The only uncovered part was a small oval slit that allowed Johan to see. The trooper adjusted his headset, making sure flip down visor was good over the mask.

Johan stepped outside onto the dark street, checking the charge on his rifle.

"Got you in my sights, boss."

It was Silas, perched on a rooftop down the street, scanning the area with his sniper rifle. Johan knew that the other members of his team were placed in similar positions around the warehouse.

"Gives us the word if you want need us."

Johan double clicked his comm, signalling a acknowledgement. His steps brought him to the suspected warehouse, He ducked into the alley, looking for any kind of side entrance that would he preferable to knocking on the front door.

There was movement on the wall. Johan realised it was a security hammer, slowly turning to scan both sides of the alley. Johan waited until the right moment, ducking out of the camera's field of view as it turned and hugged the wall underneath it. He silently avoided it's vision with years of honed special forces training.

On the far side of the camera, Johan's gloves gripped a ladder than ran up onto the warehouses ceiling. He ascended, taking care to give a quick scan of the rooftop for sentries before he climbed silently onto the roof.

For a moment, Johan wondered if he had been mistaken all along. Surely the Jedi would be more cautious than this. But he banished the thought instantly. Wait and see, Johan thought, then make the decisions.

A small series of vents dotted the warehouse roof, but Johan ruled out trying to scamper through whatever air system this building had. He was coming to the Jedi to talk. They just didn't know he hoped to talk them into their own destruction.

The only other point of interest was a small hatch. Johan crouch-walked over to it, tugging gently on the handle. It didn't give. At least the Jedi weren't leaving their doors unlocked if this was indeed their hideout.

Running a small scanner over the hatch, Johan checked the thing for booby traps or alarms. He also tried inserting a fiber optic cable inside to view the space beyond, but all he got was darkness.

Finally, Johan went to work on the hatch lock with his lockpick. After a minute or so, there was a click that told Johan he had unlocked the hatch. He pulled open the hatch, lowering himself through, blaster carbine ready. From what he had heard of the Jedi's supposed pacifistic nature, they wouldn't attack and intruder on sight, but Johan was sure that the two Jedi he had encountered at Zenarr Inc. had told any others about how his team killed one of their own. Therefore, he took no chances.

He found himself on a metal catwalk, suspended high above a dark warehouse room. Johan slid a rappel cable out of his belt. He secured it to the catwalk, swinging out over the darkness and flipping on his night vision as he hit the deck below.

The space had been repurposed as a dining hall, and judging from the number of chairs, Johan reckoned there were at least fifty on the premises though it was impossible to discern the composition of the group - were they merely Jedi in training, or were all full-fledged Masters? In either case, Johan was confident he and his team could manage. Presently, the hall was deserted and not a single sound issued from the surrounding rooms; were all asleep already? Would they make Johan's task so easy to complete? There was no margin for error, not with Jedi involved, for he knew well enough that even a moment of complacency could ruin all chance of success. On high-alert, Johan sensed fleeting movement within the room, though his eyes weren't quick enough to spot the source. In his periphery there was another flash of motion with no indication of what or where it was, for not a sound had been made; there was still only deafening silence and darkness. But Johan definitely had a guest or two.

He turned slowly around in a circle, rifle panning the darkness, his breathing quiet. Johan had been told once or twice that Jedi were able to peer into minds and sense one's thoughts or intentions.

The stormtrooper didn't know how accurate this information was, but Johan had also been told that cluttering ones mind with useless facts was a good way to guard against it. So Johan filled his thoughts with random weapons facts, star charts he had read long ago, or the insignificant facts he had heard on the holonet that morning.

Slowly, Johan unslung the weapon, pulling it away from his body. It pained him to do so, and went against every facet of his training, but he did so anyway. He set the E-11 down at his feet, taking a step away and opening his hands, palms outward.

He made no move to remove the blaster pistol at his hip, or remove the serrated vibroknife on his belt. Though they would do little good if the room was full of hidden Jedi, Johan was comforted by their presence.

"If I had come here to kill you, I wouldn't be standing here, and neither would this building."

A disembodied voice, as if carried by a breeze of no discernable origin, whispered into his ear, "Then why the weapons? Why are you here?"

"I've heard the stories of the Jedi. Vaunted powers and superstitious beliefs," Johan said, spinning around. Despite his ability to pierce the darkness, Johan could find no source for the voice.

"You can't really expect me to walk into a gundark's nest unarmed. I know this is a Jedi safehouse. I know this is where the Jedi fled after they attacked the Jau Mining Camp in the Tae'Sollar desert."

"No one forced you to come here," he was reminded, the voice now mischievously chiding. "So what is it you want?"

"I want to kill all of you and end your terrorist activities," Johan said with all honesty. "You seek to use your powers to assert your influence on legitimate governments. But lately it seems I've run into a bigger hurdle than you. I know the Jedi want the Jau gone. I find myself seeking a similar outcome.

"I have....unique resources available that you might find useful in your quest to get these aliens off this planet," Johan told the room. "Likewise, I believe that the talents of the Jedi would be useful, at least until the Jau are gone and we find ourselves enemies again."

Talking to disembodied voices was beginning to aggravate Johan. "Show yourself. This charade is becoming old."

There was a faint rustle behind Johan that brought him about. Then, darkness as his nightvision visor went dead. Even without the aid of his equipment, Johan's trained ear could detect the minute change in air pressure indicative of a solid object shifting into position before him. Flanking him, another unseen body moved in behind him. Now, there was no mistaking where the woman's voice came from. "This is no charade, strange man." There was a smile in her tone. "You entered our home without permission. We have no obligation to be hospitable. But that we have not yet harmed you should be indication enough that we have no violent intentions. Please speak your mind, if talk is all you have come here to do."

"I have a plan that could deliver a serious blow to the Jau occupation," Johan told the woman. "However it would be much easier if I could tell you about this plan in some place other than a dark mess hall."

Johan fished a datapad out of his vest. "I don't suppose you have a dataport I can plug this thing into?"

"We may," another female voice replied, this one more-mature sounding, "once you are divested of all weapons. You will not be harmed unless we are provoked."

With more than a second's hesitation, Johan drew the sidearm from his holster and set it on the deck. With a soft kick, he sent the blaster skittering off into the darkness. He also pulled his vibroknife out of his belt sheath, tossing the blade onto the ground, and it bounced across the floor, the sharp blade pinging until it came to rest. He did the same with a smaller blade concealed inside the boot.

Finally he unclipped a trio of Merr-Sonn Fragmentation grenades from his vest, setting them gently down by his feet.

Johan spread his arms apart. "Satisfied?"

A male voice answered this time. "Not really, but it'll do for now."

All lights in the room sparked to life. A figure moved into view. Younger, smaller than the others, but one that the Imperial recognized. The Padawan watched warily, lightsaber hilt ready in hand. She glanced across to where the male Jedi's voice had been heard, and nodded.

"I do not believe our resident chef would appreciate us causing trouble in his domain, so we will remove ourselves to one of the Council chambers." He stepped forward, and gestured toward one of the doors. "This way."

From behind his black baclava, Johan knew the Jedi couldn't see his surprise, but he felt it nonetheless. He still didn't know her name, the dark haired female that had injured Corporal Logan at Zenarr Inc, but her face was burned into his brain. Especially since the mysterious figure in Kaidaga had a perfect replica of her.

Johan didn't hate her, no more than he hated any of the targets he had killed in his military career. But then, none of his targets had ever succeeded in harming any of his men. She wouldn't even be considered a real adult by most societies. But Johan knew, and she was a powerful threat, and if he had to kill someone like her, still partly a child, then so be it.

He fell into step behind the unnamed male Jedi.

The Jedi led Johan down a long hallway that eventually opened into a circular room with twelve chairs situated around it. Taking the seat across from the door, the Jedi regarded the Imperial. "I am Jedi Master Koran Darr," he said. "This is Master Laedra Vorrel. Nieme. And I believe you are already familiar with Padawan Talara Sorenne."

The girl moved to stand before one of the chairs near the door, but did not sit. Her expression was unreadable, but her eyes held a clear dislike for Johan.

"Yes, we've met," Johan moved to remove his mask, his dark hair a bit unruly as it emerged from his baclava. Talara had already seen his face, and Johan's picture wouldn't show up on any analysis, so secret did the Imperial authorities keep the identities of its operatives.

"She's got a bit skill with those fancy swords you carry," Johan remarked.

"I do," Talara answered. There was a distinct chill in her tone as she added, "Agnar Tan, the Jedi Knight your sniper murdered, was also quite accomplished with his lightsaber."

The stormtrooper turned to regard the other younger, short haired woman. "Nieme Yaresh? I've read your file. Former dictator of this world?"

She tipped her head at Johan. "That path was followed during a moment of darkness, but I have been led to the correct path, now, as you too may be if you are receptive to enlightenment." Nieme smiled serenely at Johan, her eyes projecting an ancient wisdom one so young should not naturally possess.

Johan looked towards Laedra. "Rebellious terrorists and former dictators. Odd company you keep."

"You cannot think so little of my company if you have made such an effort to locate us and request a parley," Laedra pointed out.

"Yes...Yes...unlikely bedfellows and all that," Johan said dryly. He drew a pair of objects from a pouch. One was a datapad, and the other was an unopened pack of cigarras. "Hope no one minds..."

He pulled one of the white sticks from the pack, lighting the end and putting it between his lips. Smoke curled lazily off the end, rising to the ceiling.

After taking the first puff, Johan connected his datapad to the port, thumbing the activation stud. A blueprint image materialized on the screen. At first glance it looked like a long pipe, but after a second of looking, once could tell that it was a skyhook.

"Since all of you have no doubt spent more time on this backwater rock than I have, I'm sure you can tell that this is the orbital skyhook that connects New Pluton to the Drogen shipyards," Johan said.

"Drogen houses the largest shipyards across several sectors, and is the prime tactical advantage that anyone has who controls the planet. The Jau knew this and thus took over the shipyards when they overran the planet."

Johan took another long puff before continuing. "The skyhook allows the Jau to transport men and supplies from the planet to the shipyards with ease. Take away that advantage, and you force them to use their own ships to supply their men on Drogen, thus straining their supply lines since I doubt they will find many collaborators to help them among the populace.

"So we disable it. The skyhook is a kilometer thick, so conventional weapons won't work. A skyhook requires a lot of power to move the multiple lifts up into orbit, and is supplied by a series of power amplification modules that run up the entire shaft."

The image zoomed in to show a series of blinking dots, indicating the location of the modules.

"The primary module is located here, located in the mid atmosphere." Johan pointed to one of the blinking modules. "I can get my team up there, overload the module, and the feedback will knock out almost every submodule along the entire shaft.

"The solution isn't permanent, and all of the modules could be replaced. However, replacing every single module along the shaft would taking a mind numbing amount of manpower and time, and the everyone in New Pluton would see that the Jau can't protect their own assets.

"Of course the Jau know the importance of the skyhook, and do guard the shaft with men at the terminal at the bottom, and ships make checks on the shaft regularly," Johan told them grimly. "So we need to provide them with bait, something that would attract the attention of every Jau and ship buzzing around New Pluton. And what would put the Jau into a frenzy than a mass of Jedi making trouble in New Pluton?"

"It's a trap," Padawan Sorenne stated flatly. "He's--" Koran Darr shot her a look that stalled her outburst.

With that, the Master turned his attention to the Imperial. "A mass of anyone making trouble will rouse the attention of the Jau. But, if you feel your plan may work better with Jedi involvement, we can make sure there are some Jedi on hand to attract the Jau's ire and draw them away from the skyhook.

"That is, of course, dependent on whether we choose to work with you." The Grand Master of the Tae'Karada Jedi Order watched Eddis with a look that seemed to delve into the soul of the Imperial sergeant. "We have allied with some whose causes we do not agree with. However, none of those we have chosen to stand beside have acted against the Jedi with deadly intent. You have. You openly call us terrorists and have slain one of our Order. We have plenty of allies in our fight against the Jau. Why should I trust you with the lives of the Jedi when you took the life of one of us and came into this place with weapons and threats?"

"Don't make the mistake that I harbor any hatred toward you, Jedi," Johan told the grand master. "I don't want to rule your little planet, I'm not some sicko who's on a personal vendetta against your order.

"You're a threat to the galactic order," Johan said. "My orders are to eliminate those kinds of threats. But right now we both face a bigger threat than each other. You can't trust me any more than I can trust you. But we can both trust that neither of us want the Jau infesting this planet."

"He is quite contradictory," Nieme mused to Laedra, "is he not, Master?"

Laedra sighed, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. "I still do not understand why it is imperative we are involved in your plan. You are suggesting we expose ourselves and jeopardize the safety of those younglings who haven't the ability to defend themselves yet. Why are we the only beings on this planet capable of providing this diversion you require? And what sort of diversion are you expecting from us?"

"Because you are the only ones the Jau are going to drop everything and come after. A regular rebellion might be put down harshly, but I don't doubt that the Jau would scramble every damn warrior in the city if they thought they could take enough of you out at once," Johan said.

"You won't even have to be anywhere near the skyhook. In fact, as much distance as you can give me from the skyhook would be preferable, perhaps one of the Jau occupied Tae'Morad stations, as long as you can make enough of a racket that the Jau divert their patrols to your location, giving me enough breathing space to sabotage the skyhook."

Johan looked back briefly at the screen. "The operation shouldn't take half an hour from start to finish."

"And then," Nieme offered with a knowing smile, "while the Jedi are vulnerable, you will turn your efforts to eliminating us. A very efficient method of disposing of two enemies in one day."

Shaking his head, Johan blew a puff of smoke from his mouth and shook off the burning end of the cigarra.

"If I was so intent on destroying you in a battle with the Jau, would I not have tried to convince you that it was essential to attack a heavily fortified Jau position. The Jedi's only task is to draw the Jau away from their other positions around the city, if you think your up to it. After they give chase, feel free to melt back into the shadows. It matters little to me.

"You can jump at shadows if you want," Johan snapped. "I've got a job to do, and it's going to be accomplished with or without your help."

"Then why come to us in the first place," Talara asked. Despite the fire in her eyes, she maintained a sense of serenity as she spoke. "You're so keen on doing it without us, why don't you? You attacked me without provocation and killed a Jedi. You entered our home tonight, probably even with the same weapon with which you tried to kill me. Your team is waiting outside, watching, and probably just listening for your word to kill us all. From the beginning, you have shown nothing but hostile intent toward the Jedi. I have no doubt you are waiting to double-cross us, to kill us the first chance you can. You call us terrorists. If you want to see a true terrorist, start with a mirror. You're the one who started this against us. Agnar Tan is the last Jedi you'll kill."

Koran Darr almost smiled. "The Padawan speaks the truth," he said. "You've shown us nothing but hostility. Even the lowest scum around, criminal mastermind Rylaa Lyssander, is willing to work with us peacefully to rid this planet of the Jau. Aside from your attack on a pair of children and the Jedi Knight who died defending them, you have thrown your scorn and contempt at us. You have tried to draw us into this gambit, but then tell us you don't even need our help." The Jedi Master stood and took several steps toward the Imperial. "What you did tonight, walking into this place amongst those you claim as enemies and laying down your weapons, took great courage. To set aside one's prejudices is never an easy task. It is my hope that you can see us as we are, not as the terrorists your superiors have branded us. We are guardians of peace, whatever you may have been instructed. Now, the next move is yours."

Johan matched eyes with the Jedi Grand Master, a hard brown pair opposing a set of calm green. "I won't stop until your brought to justice, Master Darr. But you have my word as a soldier that this isn't a trap set for you. We both want this planet rid of the Jau, albeit it for different reasons. We'll have our war soon enough, after we deal with these alien vermin."

The stormtrooper glanced at Laedra and Nieme, but settled his gaze on Talara. "That is, unless you want to decapitate me right here?"

"Raise a hand against me, and I'll end it," Talara said. "But, you're unarmed and so I will not strike you down. Perhaps that's a concept too difficult for you to understand as you launch your attacks against a man's back with snipers. I do not believe the Jedi should ally with you until you can at least show some semblance of honor. Thus far, you have displayed none."

"I suppose," Johan chucked,"that you would have had me walk out and challenge your dead Knight to a duel? I imagine that would have gone very badly for me.

"Perhaps we simply follow different codes of honor. I don't doubt that we could sit here until the end of time and never find a way to understand each other. So we can continue to argue and revile the other or we can decide to work together on a plan that will benefit us all."

"Or you can take your leave," Master Darr said. "You have made your intentions toward us very clear. You have killed one of our number and would gladly do the same to every one of us. When I consider the others we have allied with, I am not inclined to enter into any agreements with a man whom I know will try to kill me once these aliens have been defeated. You have failed to convince me of the need for the Jedi to assist you when you have already stated you do not need us to achieve your goals in this plan. Unless you have any convincing arguments on why allying with you is not a foolish and dangerous venture, I believe it is time you rejoined your companions and left this area."

"I've never killed anyone gladly!" Johan was furious at an insurrectionist would accuse him of killing for enjoyment. "Everything I've done has been in defense of justice and galactic order!"

There was a moment of silence after the outburst. Johan calmed himself, furious at allowing the Jedi to goad him so.

"Send one of your own with me, if it gives you a sense of security," Johan told them. "An observer along on the mission. That way you have one of your own on hand if I decide to stab you in the back."

"And what guarantees will we have that our comrade will not be harmed, all alone with you and your men?" Laedra inquired.

"My word," Johan said simply. "Send one of your best Knights if you are so scared that they would be blindsided and killed by a couple regular soldiers."

Talara rolled her eyes. "Because it's not like you haven't already set up an ambush that killed one Jedi or entered our home while your team waited in ambush outside. Perhaps you aren't quite aware of how little your word is actually worth."

"Once again, she has the right of it," Koran Darr said. "Your word is worth nothing here. You've showed no sign of honor and you've given us nothing to indicate we should put any sort of trust in you. But, I will hold a meeting and see if any Jedi wish to volunteer for this mission. But, I will only allow one of the Jedi to go with you under the following condition. It will be a test of your word and your honor. Whatever Jedi goes will be your responsibility. If something happens, we will hold you personally responsible. And so, we ensure that you look out for whomever goes along with you as if he or she is a member of your own team. Will you agree to that condition, with your word and your honor on the line?"

"Agreed," Johan told the man. The cigarra finally burnt out, Johan flicked it onto the stone floor and crushed it beneath the heel of his boot. "I hope we wont have to wait long for this meeting to reach its verdict. I've found that decision by committee is usually very inefficient."

"It is our way," Laedra informed him, "and we find it an effective means of resolving issues. If you're to work with us, you could, at the least, try to accept our beliefs."

"One of our ways is not flinging our cigarra butts to the floor and crushing them there," Talara said.

At the front of the room, the door pushed open and a small white form sauntered in. Large blue eyes scanned the room lazily looking for something interesting, and then sat down and let out a plaintive request for food.

Koran laughed softly to himself and nodded to Talara, who quickly hurried to scoop up the reisakat and return her where she belonged. "Hope, you know you're not supposed to leave the room," she could be heard scolding the little furball as she exited.

Johan watched them go, then pressed his com transmitter, speaking quietly in the corner for the better part of a minute. Once done, the stormtrooper deactivated the comlink. The conversation had been in hushed tones, but certain phrases like "hold position" and "not sure how long" could be overheard.

With a exasperated sigh, Johan sat down into one of the chairs, this one at the very end.

From the center of the room, the cigarra butt lifted into the air and floated until it dropped into the stormtrooper's lap. Following it to stand several meters from him was Jedi Master Koran Darr. The Jedi turned to Nieme. "Please escort our guest back to the cafeteria while we deliberate. We will send for him once we've made our decision. If Orn is awake, perhaps he can prepare something to eat."

Turning back to the center of the circle, the Jedi Master pushed a ripple through the Force to the other Jedi Masters within the safe house, summoning them to an emergency meeting.

"Please, follow me." Nieme extended her arm to the doorway, watching Johan unblinkingly.

Johan rose and followed the short haired Jedi out and back into the cafeteria. He took a seat at the near the entrance, rummaging through his gear until he found a ration bar to nibble on while the Jedi deliberated.

Roughly an hour later, Master Darr entered the cafeteria, with Laedra Vorrel and another Jedi to whom Eddis had not been introduced. Though, that seemed about to change.

"Master Bennis has elected to join you," the Jedi Master said. "We will need details of when and where you wish the Jedi to cause this diversion for you."

"Perhaps I might be able to coordinate actions," Bennis stated. "As I will be with the Imperial soldiers, I should be able to communicate where and when to the Temple."

"You will be able to communicate with the Jedi through my ships communications suite," Johan told Bennis. "But make no mistake, this is my mission, and I'm in charge of the skyhook side of the operation."

He turned back to the others. "I will need a comm code so I can provide the Jedi with the time and place of the operation."

Laedra told him the requested code, adding, "That belongs to a friend of the Order. He will get in contact with us when you have the information."

"I will contact him soon," Johan said. "I'll show myself out." He spun on his heel, intent on retrieving his weapons before he left. The stormtrooper made a double click on his comm to let his team know he was on his way out.

From within his robes, Koran pulled out a comlink once the Imperial was gone. "Liam?"

Several moments later, the Jedi Master responded. "They are leaving," was his reply. "Kaylee will continue to watch to make certain. The plan?"

Koran Darr exchanged a look with Laedra. "It is time to move," he said. "As much as he seems to want us to trust him, I do not believe it is safe. I will make arrangements with Zale Tregat."

"Is that wise," Liam asked.

"I believe it is our safest option at this time," Koran said. "We will reassess it once we are secure."

"I will be in soon," Liam answered.

"We will need to wake everyone," Koran then said to Laedra. "We will coordinate departures like last time. Talara and her 'family' can assist us with organizing, I think. Do you agree?"

"We have no other choice," she answered. "I believe we can trust Zale Tregat, and with the many resources at his disposal, I'm sure he can help us."

"I will go contact Tregat," Koran said. "Get Talara working on organizing the Younglings. We will begin departing as soon as Kaylee Soras ensures us the Imperials left none of their number behind to watch after us."

With that, he departed to use the Jedi communications equipment. That the unnamed soldier had found them concerned him greatly, especially since it appeared that the man would not be reasoned with. The brainwashing had been as complete as the Emperor would make it and now the man had made it his sworn duty to eradicate the Jedi.

That was something Koran Darr, Grand Master of the Jedi Order on Tae'Karada would not let happen.

---

"Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Freezer"
By: Cirran Tyris, Pilot
Lerrah Breijal, Pilot
Tasia Harough, Tech
Sgt. Mathias "Walker" Coin, Security Officer
Tyriam Kat'Ritara, Slicer
Rilanna Kir, Head of Station Security
Dani, Jedi Knight

Location: Tae'Karada, Northern Polar Region
Date: Vadris 21, 5ABY

***

There was no better description for Tasia Harough's slow-blinking gaze and pouting lips than bewilderment mingled with disappointment. "Hey," she complained, "I suggested a beach somewhere, not this. Didn't anyone hear me?"

Having landed the Fool's Hope safely, without the Jau on their tails for now, the group of fugitives were taking stock of their current situation from within the vessel. Clustered within the central cockpit bubble of the YT-2000, they gazed at the landscape outside - a desolate, snow-blanketed plain that surrounded them, with no sign of civilization anywhere within the horizon.

Tasia sulked audibly. "So...should we try another locale, maybe? Someplace I can walk around topless without freezing off any of my perfectly supple body parts?"

Tasia was answered by a distant noise from just outside the ship that sounded like a wookiee gargling. This had come not from some terrible snow beast however, but from Walker, who was conspicuously absent from the sightseeing party in the cockpit, and had in fact quickly staggered outside and behind the ship as soon as the ramp had hit snow in response to his urgent command.

Curious, Cirran and Lerrah led the rest of the group out into the snow, their breath clouding in the crisp air of the bitterly cold surroundings. A pasty-faced Walker tottered back around to the ramp, wiping his mouth.

"Oh dear. One little manoeuvre and the big man goes to pieces," Cirran noted.

Walker bent over, his hand on his still roiling stomach. "Pelor's Teeth, I hate rocket jockeys. You're all fucking crazy."

Cirran laughed. "Hey, we put you down on this rock, didn't we? You should be thankful you're here in one piece." He took a look around the barren white landscape. "So this is Tae'Karada, then! Scenic."

Walker straightened up and sucked in some freighter-bay sized lungfuls of cold air, which seemed to have a beneficial effect. "Yeah, well odds are there'll be plenty of Jau around for us to look at shortly, unless anyone has some bright ideas."

"We won't find any Jau here," the purple Jedi said. "They will be in the cities, not at the Northern Pole." Dressed as she was, the frigid temperatures should have been causing her trouble, but she had a very focused look to her.

Rilanna, who was dressed similarly, was not faring quite as well. With her teeth chattering, she moved forward from the landing ramp. "We should get out of this place and into somewhere a little more hospitable. Perhaps no beaches for Tasia, but at least somewhere we don't have to wear six layers of clothing to feel warm." She gestured toward the Jedi. "This is Dani. As I'm sure you can tell, she's a Jedi. She ran into a bit of trouble on the planet, fled to the station, ran into trouble there. Went on a date with me--"

Lerrah whistled to make any backwater starport worker proud "--and got caught up with us."

Dani smiled. "Best date I've been on in a long time," she said. She slipped her arms around Rilanna, though the gesture actually seemed more to help keep her friend warm than as an expression of affection. "We should try to get to the Jedi. They're in Vendra." She shot a smile in Tasia's direction. "If it weren't winter here, you'd like Vendra, I think. Lots of topless people on the beaches."

"Finding the Jedi sounds good," Lerrah said. "We need to get the information we have to people who can use it. I hate to suggest it, but do you think we'd have better chances for survival if we split up? Maybe try to find the Jedi, and maybe another of the people in charge. What do you think?"

Cirran did a double take. "Jedi, as in *the* Jedi? She's an actual *Jedi*? This planet has *Jedi*? Nobody tells me anything." Like a lot of galactic citizens who had grown up after the Clone Wars, Cirran knew the Jedi only as stories. People in the Rebellion had told what Cirran had regarded as tall tales and exaggerated stories about Luke Skywalker, of course, but Cirran had never actually spoken to the man in person, and now he was more than a little awed to actually be in the actual presence of one of these legendary figures.

"Well then, splitting up is probably a good idea," he concluded, as adult thinking finally booted his inner 12-year-old back into dormancy. "As a group, between Walker and our Jedi friend here, we'd probably stand out like sore thumbs."

"Or cold nipples," Walker muttered under his breath. Nearly in unison, Lerrah, Rilanna and Dani crossed their arms over their chests. Tasia, on the other hand, seemed to subtly pushed her own chest forward.

"What was that, Walker?" the pilot queried.

"Nothing, Tyris, nothing," the big soldier blustered. "Just appreciating the lovely sights of this planet to date. I'm all for splitting up and going to ground, but I don't recall seeing a garage full of swoop bikes in the hold of that crate of yours. Which begs the question: how do we get out of here? I'm betting it's a long, cold walk to civilisation."

Cirran frowned. "I don't know what Jau sensor tech is capable of. They can't have any equipment set up around here though I suspect, or they'd be on top of us already. I could hug the ground for a while in the ship, and in this weather they might struggle to find us, but they might luck out on picking us up from space, and we won't be able to get close to any kind of major settlement without the ship being detected." He shrugged. "Anyone know a good taxi company?"

"Can't we just send a coded message to Dani's Jedi friends?" Tasia suggested, closing her jacket more tightly around herself. "I'm sure Ty can fix it so the Jau won't track it back to our location. Besides," she added with a forlorn look towards the endless snow awaiting them, "if we go out there, Mr. Weak Constitution back here won't make it five seconds without asking to be carried." Tasia smiled prettily at Walker.

Walker harrumphed while Cirran nodded his agreement. "Sounds good me. The sooner we get out of here, the better. The Jau will work out our little trick eventually." *And this place is bringing back some bad memories,* he added silently to himself, pulling Lerrah a bit closer.

"I know the codes," Dani said. "We should be able to contact them. The Jedi are being hunted again, this time by the Jau, so we've had to be very careful. If your ship can send encrypted transmissions, I can try to contact them."

"I can set it up," Ty said. "We'll just have to make sure the Jau can't pick it up. I think I should be able to piggyback the signal through satellite relays. Even on a ship like this, it shouldn't be so difficult to manage."

Cirran bridled. "'A ship like this', indeed," he protested, more defensive of his ship than usual after their recent unexpected reunion. "She'll be up to it. And I like it as a plan if for no other reason than it gets us out of the snow and back in the ship. Coming, Walker, or you wanna stay out here and throw up some more?"

"Hey, no-one said you all had to follow me out here," Walker grumbled, feeling somewhat set-upon.

Cirran smiled and led the way back into the ship, pausing in the cargo bay to adjust the ship's climate controls upwards. As Ty and Dani headed for the comms console in the cockpit, he gave Lerrah a smile.

"Kidnapped, mutilated, beaten, threatened, blown up, shot at, and now freezing our arses off. Fun times for us lately. You know, I certainly wouldn't mind putting all that on pause for a while and taking a trip with you to one of those beaches the chief seems so keen on. Saving the galaxy as an occupation has always been a pain in the neck....not to mention everywhere else," he added, holding up a mechanical hand by way of illustration.

Lerrah leaned into Cirran, grateful for his presence. "That sounds very nice," she said. "I wish we could. Maybe when this is over, we can. All of us, just go and spend a month there."

Cirran gave Lerrah a squeeze and then the two headed to the cockpit, where Cirran grimaced slightly at the sight of Ty holding a handful of innards from of the comms console. The tech looked up at him with a look of pure disbelief.

"Please tell me you're not actually running a fluidic system on comms. Seriously, *fluidics*?"

Cirran looked abashed. "Uh, yeah. I sort of forgot about that. The comms always sunk to the bottom on a constantly added-to list of things to replace. Armour plating, engine parts, shield upgrades – I never had the time and money to get everything done. And the comms did the basic job OK – well, you know, most of the time - so they never got an upgrade. Is that, er, especially bad?"

Ty's look said it all. "Your comms software belongs in a museum. I could never bounce an even slightly modern satellite system with this stuff, even if I had a month. And we're in the middle of nowhere, with no other signal traffic around. We can encode the signal to the right channel, but there's no way to disguise its point of origin."

"So..." Walker queried.

The tech sighed. "So the best we can manage with this junk is basically an encoded message that nevertheless screams "hey, we're over here" to anyone listening on or near this planetary hemisphere."

All heads turned to Cirran, who had been talking up his ship a mere two minutes earlier. He decided it was an opportune time for a close inspection of the upper bulkhead. After a moment or two of close study he turned casually to Dani.

"Soooooooo... exactly how far away are these friends of yours likely to be?" he asked the purple-skinned Jedi.

"They're in Vendra," Dani said. She glanced over at one of the instrument panels depicting a map of the northern hemisphere of Tae'Karada. "We're here," she said, indicating a blip nearly in the center of the map. "Arcadia, the capital, is here." She pointed to a spot around halfway to the edge of the map. "And that's Vendra just next to it. So it's a few thousand kilometers. Walking to them will be a trick. If we're going to fly down, I suspect we could come down about here." She pointed to the other side of the map, away from Arcadia. "We can stow your ship outside of the city limits, try to get an airspeeder or three inside the city, and then we can get back to Vendra in relative anonymity. They're looking for your ship, and won't likely look for airspeeders."

"Yeah, but the moment we hit the skies, they'll be on to us," Tasia pointed out. "We've got to stick to the ground and unless we can manage to fly low enough to the ground to avoid detection...I think we're stuck wading through all this snow."

Dani nodded reluctantly. "The nearest town is here."

Cirran looked at the map display. "That's 80 kilometres away! 80 kilometres through that?" He gestured to the canopy, against which falling snow was now being driven hard by the icy winds.

Dani looked grim. "The risk of them detecting us in flight is too high. Do you have any blankets, or even space suits? That might help keep away some effects of exposure. If we can make it to the town, we can access better comm equipment and call for help, or maybe find transport."

Walker grunted from the rear of the cockpit. "Better we walk in the cold anyway than entrust ourselves to more of that lunatic flying of the spacer here."

"Easy for you to say, Coin, you've got a lot more body fat than anyone else here," Cirran retorted. It was his turn to feel put upon.

"This is all muscle!" the soldier protested.

"Well, I back Lerrah and I to keep this crate low. Very low," Cirran boasted. "There's a minimal risk they'll ping us..."

"Minimal? I hope you're not counting on me to pull any jamming tricks with this heap of bantha dung you call a comms system," Ty interjected.

"OK, OK..." Cirran conceded. "There's a fair chance they'll ping us. But that's still got to be a better chance than strolling out there and freezing to death, right? I mean, right?"

Silence ensued as all mentally considered their very few options. Tasia studied the forbidding land outside and cringed. As daunting as it looked, and as impressive as Lerrah and Cirran were at piloting, Tasia knew their chances of evading detection while in flight were slim. That left only one option. She settled her gaze on Walker and shrugged negligently. "Not the vacation we were hoping for...but you can still look down my shirt if you want." She grinned. "I'm up for braving the fierce wilderness if you are."

"Always been an infantryman, me," Walker replied. "And that means I stick to the damned ground." He reached into the spacesuit locker where Elf had been hiding himself and tossed a suit at Cirran. "Sorry spacer, you're outvoted."

---

"Local Colour"
By: Cirran Tyris, Pilot
Lerrah Breijal, Pilot
Tasia Harough, Tech
Sgt. Mathias "Walker" Coin, Security Officer
Tyriam Kat'Ritara, Slicer
Rilanna Kir, Head of Station Security
Dani, Jedi Knight

Location: Tae'Karada, Northern Polar Region
Date: Vadris 21, 5ABY

***

The fugitives managed to gather what they needed from the Fool's Hope, including a datapad with a map of the area. Bundling up as much as possible, they ventured out into the frigid Tae'Karada north. The going was slow, with Walker in front, followed by Rilanna and Dani. Tasia, Lerrah and Elf, Ty, and Cirran brought up the rear. There was little hope in obscuring their tracks, but none suspected they'd have to worry about anyone following from the ship. It would be Jau coming from the cities, and they would have little trouble picking up their life signs.

The hours stretched on and inadequately equipped as they were, they were all, except for Dani who had the Force to call on, nearing exhaustion. But, just before they could drop in the snow, a twinkling light could be seen in the fading dusk. A cluster of rough buildings, covered in snow, and built to resist the elements, were silhouetted on the horizon. Walker looked at the datapad and frowned.

"This isn't on the map," he yelled back to the others over the blizzard. He received a kick in the backside for his troubles.

"Oh, it isn't?" Tasia snapped, her powers of sarcasm undiminished by exposure to cold. "Well let's just pass by and carry on to the village that is, then. I'm sure someone will find our frozen corpses come the spring thaw." She strode past Walker towards the settlement.

"Just sayin'," Walker grumbled, chastised.

With renewed vigor, the small rag-tag group trudged forward, hoping to find both warmth and a way to get their urgent news to the Resistance leaders.

As the group moved into the windswept little village, there was no sign of any Jau, but no sign of anyone else either. A handful of lights blazing from the tiny windows of the rough-and-ready prefabbed buildings was the only sign of life in the gathering gloom.

"Well this place isn't Tae'Karada's greatest tourist advertisement," Walker concluded, "but if they've got a bar somewhere, it'll do me."

Cirran looked around the windswept street. "What exactly do these people do up here, anyway? Looks suspiciously like some kind of smuggler set up."

"Oh, then I'm sure they'll welcome us with open arms," Tasia quipped. "Do I need to remind you again that at this point, we hardly have a choice?"

"Maybe not open arms," Lerrah said, "but at least they won't be asking a bunch of nosy questions." She pointed across the way. "That looks like it'd be the bar." The building was completely non-Karadan.

"Well I for one don't really fancy walking back to the ship," Cirran acknowledged. "Lerrah speaks smuggler, anyway. Lead on, Walker - your round."

Walker led the bedraggled group down the street to the building Lerrah had indicated, which appeared to be the largest visible. They struggled up to the door and stumbled inside. A hubbub of low conversation amongst what looked like a smallish but rough-and-ready crowd of some 20 to 30 mostly humans inside died instantly as all eyes inside the room turned to look over the curious collection of newcomers. The only sound to be heard was the howling wind from outside until, after what seemed like an eternity, Walker thumbed the door closed.

"Evenin'," he announced to the assembled crowd.

Suspicious, menacing stares were their only response. Shaking icicles and melted snow droplets out of her hair with one hand, Tasia observed of their silence, "Maybe they're shy, poor things."

"In general, smugglers aren't known for their overly friendly manner," Lerrah explained. "Let's just get over to the bar and see what information we can get from the guy there."

Dani glanced around the room. "We don't need to descend on the man en masse. You guys go over, we'll wait here." Rilanna nodded her agreement.

Lerrah led the way over to the bar.

The greasy bartender's look of suspicion flicked from her, then up to Cirran, and then further up to Walker. He scowled. "You lot lost?"

"Not lost so much," Lerrah said."We saw this place along our way, and thought we might be able to find...some..." She suddenly cast a nervous look at Cirran, eyebrow raised pointedly. "Well, we've got trouble with our ship, and...and we're wondering if you might have transport we might acquire. We weren't really ready for the snow, and we'd like to get back to the city." She gave him her best smile.

The bartender gave her a disbelieving look. "Trouble with your ship, eh? Well, there's a supply ship comin' in at the end of the week. There are a couple of speeders in town in private ownership. Course, if you're in a hurry we could contact the authorities, see if they'd wanna help out."

"You're in contact with the Jau?" Cirran asked incredulously, looking around at the seedy characters in the room.

"Not much of a choice. The lizards like to keep an eye on everything, even a frozen hellhole like this place. They drop by now and again. They think up here at the arse-end o' nowhere might be a good place to hide rebels. They don't think much of rebels or other troublemakers," he finished, his tone giving the impression that he personally didn't care too much for them either.

"Well, we certainly don't want to be troublemakers," Lerrah said. "We just want to go somewhere warm. Do you happen to have a comm station where we might be able to get a hold of friends, so they can pick us up?"

"Oh yeah," he replied mockingly, "anything for complete strangers who just stumbled outta the snow onto my doorstep, no ship, no nothing. Nah, the Jau would never think to send spies up here to catch me in a trap and have me hauled to one of them mines of theirs." The grizzled man emitted a gruff, derisive chuckle. "There ain't no comm device 'round here and no illegal transmissions going out neither, but nice try. You tell your lizard friends that, got it? We're behaving all civil like we promised." He turned his back on the trio to pick up another in the row of used glasses and proceeded to polish it with his filthy rag. "Now, if it's a drink you want and it's creds you got, you can stay. Otherwise...get out."

"Look, you karking nerf-herder," Lerrah snarled. "We've been walking through the snow all day! We nearly got blasted to space dust by the Jau getting out of the Shipyards, and we have to warn someone about the invulnerable super-weapon the Jau are building to annihilate all life in the galaxy!" Behind him, the glasses rattled ominously as Lerrah berated him, the sound increasing right along with her anger. "Now get me a comm!"

A calming hand came down on Lerrah's shoulder, purple skin and elegant. "Lerrah, I thought I would mention that, you might not be aware of it, but you are Force Sensitive."

Lerrah gaped. While the timing was not good, she couldn't help it. "I'm...I'm what?" She looked at the glasses rattling behind the bar along with her simmering anger. "You mean...I'm--?"

"Actually, no," Dani said. "Sadly, those are the ships landing outside. I didn't get a good look, but I suspect the Jau are landing. Now would be a good time for us to leave."

Lerrah's eyes got round as saucers. "Oh."

"Your friend's onto something." The 'tender eyed them menacingly as he leaned forward over the bar. "Get out. We don't need trouble here."

Walker gave Lerrah a friendly smile. "Let me see if I can get through to him, lass." He loomed forward, blotting out the light somewhat, and comfortably beating the bartender in any potential menacing competition. "It's funny that you should say that, because trouble is exactly what I will make it my business to stay here and produce for you, sonny, unless you point us with alacrity in the direction of a rear entrance to these premises," he growled.

The bartender looked Walker over, seemed to think better of it, lifted a fold-down section of the bar top and gestured with a jerk of his thumb to a doorway behind him. "Back of the generator room," he reluctantly conceded.

"I don't care much for the ambiance here, anyway," Cirran informed the man as he hastily led the way past him. "You can expect your manager to receive a sternly-worded letter."

The bartender offered no reply to this but to charmingly spit on the floor as the fugitives hurried past into a dimly-lit room with a steady hum.

"Screw the Jau - if it comes to a fight, I'm going for him first," Walker muttered. "Which it probably will, because he'll sell us out faster than a Class 3 hyperdrive."

"Yeah, let's hope there actually is a back door," Cirran agreed, forging towards the back of the building.

Elf emitted a whirring series of toots as the droid sped ahead of the group. When they caught up with the purple and white astromech, it had parked itself before what appeared to be a refrigeration unit to keep the engines from overheating. With the current freeze outside, the unit was powered down.

"I think the door is behind that," Ty said. He put his shoulder to the edge of the large metal object. "Someone, help me."

"Please, Ty," Lerrah said, "you're going to hurt yourself."

Walker started to muscle forward, but Dani laid a hand on his arm before he could pass her. She stepped closer to the piece of machinery and closed her eyes. Nothing happened for several seconds, but then a low rumbling started in the unit. Slowly, it slid away from the wall and drifted to the side. Elf rolled out of the way and Ty blinked in astonishment. Cirran also stood with his mouth open - at least until Walker clapped him heartily on the back, grinning like a schoolboy.

"Yeah, it's a neat trick, innit?" he beamed.

The unit settled to the ground with a thrum and a thump. In the space where it stood, a door was set into the wall.

"Show off," Rilanna said, nudging Dani in the ribs. "Come on, let's see if we can find those speeders and get out of here before those Jau see us."

The door opened to a flurry of snow and ice. In the distance, the Jau ships and soldiers could be seen searching the buildings on the far side of the encampment. Undoubtedly, there were others searching the near side as well. This would be tricky, to be sure.

Lerrah pointed at a pair of speeders parked nearby. "There!"

"I wish I had a blaster," Rilanna said. "I feel naked out here without one."

Dani flashed her a wink. "Under that blanket you stole from the ship, you nearly are."

"We'll have to move fast," Ty said. "Those ships look like they shouldn't have much problem catching a speeder."

"Cross your fingers," Lerrah said. "Everyone ready?"

Cirran looked up at Walker, who was staring angrily at the distant Jau with a look that the pilot recognised from his own experiences in the ongoing Galactic Civil War. "Rather stay here and scrap it out, wouldn't you?"

"Blaster-proof bastards," Walker muttered resentfully and not for the first time, clearly miffed at a universe that would create such enemies. "Well if we're running away,let's not bloody well stand around with our hands in our pockets." He loped out into the snow.

A quick cold sprint through the blizzard and the fugitives stood clustered beside the two enclosed speeders, so far unnoticed. Walker regarded the blinking light of the electronic lock in front of him with a blank stare for a second or so. "I've got nothing," he eventually concluded. "Lucky I brought all these criminals with me," he added, stepping aside.

Elf rolled up to the speeder, his rollers crushing in the snow. He trilled a series of whistles. A manipulator arm extended and began working at the lock.

Ty moved to the other speeder and began working at the second speeder's locks and security system.

"What are you doing," Lerrah whispered at him.

Ty didn't stop working while he answered, "We're not all going to fit in one." He worked for a moment longer. "Got it."

Elf let out a startled burst of static and gave Ty the closest an astromech droid could get to a glare. Several seconds later, he rolled back from the speeder and the hatch popped open.

Lerrah laughed softly and kissed Ty on the cheek. "I think you hurt his feelings, show-off," she said.

Ty was on the verge of answering when a shout went up from the middle of the encampment. Across the way, two Jau were running in their direction, a third was calling something to his companions.

"Time to go," Rilanna said as she pushed Dani toward the speeder Elf was at.

Cirran was closest to that speeder as well, so Lerrah wasted no time in rushing to his side while Elf ambled in.

"Go," she cried to Tasia and Walker, who were throwing open the speeder Ty had cracked. "We'll get the information to someone. Stay safe!"

"I hope this thing is fast, or this might be a short trip," Walker muttered, squeezing his giant frame into the speeder as Tasia jumped lithely in beside him.

"We might not even have a chance to outrun them before they blow us to bits," Tasia so optimistically noted. "Time to impress me with your fanciest maneuvering, Mathias, dear."

A couple of Jau projectiles sizzled into the snow around them, and another clacked off a speeder tail fin. "I think it's time we left," Cirran noted. "Who's driving?" Beside him Walker gunned the other speeder's engine to life.

"I'm on it," Dani said as she slid behind the controls. "I know where the Jedi are too."

Elf had wiggled his way in and Rilanna leaned across to help settle him in place. Cirran and Lerrah took the back of the speeder with Ril and Dani in the front.

An explosion threw up snow and ice as the Jau continued their advance. One tried to grab the door before Dani could get it closed. She lifted a hand and made a flicking motion. The Jau was flung back in response to the gesture.

While Dani took care of the other Jau charging forward, Rilanna leaned across to hit the speeder's activator and it purred to life.

She threw the vehicle into gear and they rushed back. A quick reversal and the door slammed shut, narrowly avoiding catching Dani's hand. With all of her inside the speeder, she took over the piloting from Rilanna.

"Sometimes," Lerrah said as she clung to Cirran while the speeder lurched over the snow, "I hate knowing too much."

"Look on the bright side," Cirran replied, as a projectile or two fizzed past the speeder. "At least we get to travel."

He glanced out of the canopy to the right, where the speeder piloted by Walker was disappearing into the white-out of the blizzard, leaving a number of frustrated Jau blasting away uselessly at its vanishing tail. A second or two later a Jau patrol ship roared low overhead in the same direction and vanished into the storm, heading in the direction of the departing speeder. "Looks like the ship's going after Walker and Tasia," he informed Dani and Rilanna. Cirran scanned the landscape for further signs of the pursuit, but could see absolutely nothing through in the driving snow. "Good luck, sergeant," the pilot murmured.

Lerrah watched after them cursing herself mentally for bringing her friends into this mess. Sure they'd have volunteered willingly for it, but she didn't like the thought of bringing them into danger. Rilanna turned back to her and offered a solemn smile. "They'll be fine. Walker knows what he's doing. He'll get them to safety."

With a nod, Lerrah squeezed Cirran's hand. "And we have to find the Jedi. Maybe they can figure out something that can be done about the Jau. Save the planet, kick Jax in the nuts, and drive the Jau back to wherever they came from. That sounds like a good plan."

Their speeder raced off into the white distance, Jau pursuing though falling behind. They couldn't relax yet, but as long as their Jedi pilot kept them ahead of the Jau, they just might make it.

---

"Hounds and Hares"
By: Tasia Harough, Tech
Sgt. Mathias "Walker" Coin, Security Officer
Tyriam Kat'Ritara, Slicer
Cirran Tyris, Pilot
Lerrah Breijal, Pilot
Rilanna Kir, Head of Station Security
Dani, Jedi Knight

Location: Tae'Karada, Northern Polar Region
Date: Vadris 21, 5ABY

***

"Pelor's Teeth, where's a rocket-jockey when you need one?"

Walker cursed again as another close blast rocked the speeder. Ahead of them Walker could see only flurries of white in the foreground of the grey dusk, but behind them and to the side was a red-orange glow as the closely pursuing Jau fighter spewed energy wildly out at their speeding craft. The blizzard and low light had saved them so far, making spotting them - let alone targeting them - difficult, but Walker still wasn't too happy about blatting along at full speed without being able to see anything much beyond the front bumper of the speeder. He threw them sideways again and fervently hoped his latest manoeuvre had not put them on a collision course with something solid.

The speeder given temporary respite again, hidden by the swirling snow, he shot a glance at the woman strapped in next to him and the little slicer bumping and sliding around helplessly in the restraint-free back seat.

"Anyone got any bright ideas, here?" he queried his passengers.

"Don't crash?" Tasia offered in a tone lacking her customary sarcasm as she hung on white-knuckled to the edge of her seat. As if unappreciative of Tasia's ill-timed humour, Walker banked the speeder hard to the left, jerking her head sharply to the right. She glowered at Walker while massaging her neck. "Just drive less erratically, how 'bout that for a suggestion? You're gonna snap my spine!"

Walker grunted. "Tell you what darlin', we get out of this un-vaped, I'll book you in to see the first chiropractor we find on this rock." The beam of a searchlight cut down through the gloom to the right of the speeder and Walker jinked again to avoid being impaled on its beam.

"I'd try doubling back and throwin' 'em off that way, but I'm not sure which way back is," the soldier muttered.

"We'd likely only run into a blockade of Jau waiting to kill us." Tasia shook her head. "We keep going." From the rear compartment, a faint groaning issued. "Ty...you okay back there?"

"It's a fortunate thing I haven't eaten recently," Ty said. "Sergeant, if you crash this thing and we're stuck out in the ice and snow, and I lose fingers and toes to frostbite, I will find a way to kill you."

Tasia smiled faintly, but her expression changed dramatically to one of surprised distress as two Jau vessels burst through the heavy wall of snow directly in front of them. They were preceded by bright orange spears of energy, piercing the air and hurtling towards them. "Walker, watch out!"

Reacting on some kind of survival instinct, Walker kept their course steady, but cut power to the throttle by half. It was just enough to throw off the leading aim of the Jau pilots, and instead of obliterating the unarmoured vehicle, the blasts of energy detonated into the ground just in front of them. Buffeted, the speeder shot through a cloud of snow and earth, one or two of the heavier bits of debris raining down on the canopy hard enough to cause visible dents. Walker floored it again and swerved wildly away from the new arrivals.

"Terrific! They called back-up" Walker muttered, but there was something of a grin on his face. "This reminds me of the time when the Drennan airforce was after me and ol' Sergeant Morag on Ord Delan...'course, there were a few of us in the convoy then. And we had a concussion missile launcher on the back of the speeder." He peered into the storm and frowned. "And I could see where the fuck I was going." With another violent motion he swerved the speeder away from two criss-crossing searchlights. "We can't keep this up forever" he concluded grimly.

Ty glanced up from the palm-top computer he'd been working with, the high speeds and focus on the small screen had played a big part in the current queasiness that had settled in his stomach. He told himself that the feeling was not, in fact, out of fear that Walker would crash the speeder and leave the three of them stranded in the middle of nowhere with Jau patrols swarming all about.

"Veer northeast if you could, sergeant," Ty said. "You may be able to buy us a little time in the terrain up there. Map indicates it's broken, so watch out for crevasses and other such arctic phenomena."

"I'd settle for a cave," Walker replied, swinging the speeder onto Ty's suggested heading by reading the primitive compass on the dash. He floored the accelerator again and grunted in an unsatisfied fashion. "Wish we'd stolen something faster."

"We didn't really have the luxury of choice considering we were being shot at." A blinding flash whizzed past Tasia's window, scouring the durasteel plating and sending forth sparks. The speeder rocked and was thrown off course...or what was a semblance of a course.

Walker swore and started to launch into a few of his choicer curses, as the speeder lurched to the right with a jolt, but a glimpse of something ahead stopped him mid-sentence. He hauled desperately on the steering controls, but only succeeded in throwing up a great deal of snow, and after pumping desperately on the brakes and finding them unresponsive, he filled the only time remaining to him by opening his mouth and muttering "Arctic phenomena. Oh sh-"

***

Above,Taka'eth Gal'ateq, leader of the 9th Fighter Wing, growled deep in his throat in frustration and displeasure as he watched his near miss through the front canopy of his craft. These humans had not only the weather on the on their side, but the luck of devils as well. Gal'ateq brought his nose around after the fleeing craft, determined to put an end to their good fortune, knowing full well exactly how his superiors would reward failure. He managed to fix the speeder in his spotlight and wrestled with his controls desperately, trying to fix his aim long enough to make a telling shot.

As he watched, however, he saw the landspeeder shoot straight towards a massive fissure in the snowy surface. He felt sure that his target would turn to avoid it, but the landspeeder was listing to one side, ploughing through the snow with its starboard repulsorlifts gone, and the Jau gave a predatory smile as he realised his shot must have done more damage than he had first thought.

At full speed, the stricken speeder plunged into the crevasse, disappearing from sight into its icy depths before he even heard or saw it strike the opposite wall. Gal'ateq brought his fighter into a hover above the gaping maw in the snow.The only sign of the speeder was a trail of leaked fluids leading to its edge. Gal'ateq played his searchlight down into the crevice and saw only the blackness of its untold depths. He gave a smile of satisfaction and opened a channel to his wingmen.

"We're done here" he barked. "Let's find the other one."

The three Jau ships headed up into the storm, and within moments there was no sight or sound but the wind and the swirling snow.

***

Racing across the snow-covered lands far to the north of Vendra, the secret base where the Jedi hid from those who would hunt them, the speeder appeared to have lost any sign of pursuit.

In the rear seat, peering out the side and back of the speeder, Lerrah Breijal sought to confirm whether they had indeed lost the Jau who had been pursuing them.

"I don't see them," she said. She turned to Cirran, seated beside her. "I think they're gone. Do you think they'd give up like that? Just fall off like that and let us go? Do you suppose Walker, Tasia and Ty are okay?"

"I hope so. I think we're the lucky ones - by splitting up we got away into this storm before they could bring in enough back up to pursue both of us. They'll have trouble tracking anything in this storm - we might be in the clear." Cirran left unvoiced his thought that those facts meant that probably all the Jau's energies were bent on stopping their friends, by any means necessary.

"How far to these other Jedi, then?" he asked their driver as a way of breaking the silence.

Dani kept her attention focused on getting them out of the storm and down into the civilized areas of the peninsula. "They are in Vendra," she said. "As long as our map is accurate, that puts it at about one hundred fifty kilometers. So, as long as I can maintain this speed, we should be there in around an hour."

Cirran lapsed back into science. He still couldn't quite believe he was in a speeder with a Jedi, and furthermore on the way to meet a lot more of them. Still, although he knew the Jedi would be capable - legendarily capable, presumably - the situation still seemed fairly hopeless. Cirran knew from bitter experience that reputations could count for very little when the fighting started, and the Jau were a formidable foe, and firmly in control of the planet. With the tech that Jax had obtained for them, they would have every chance of massively extending their empire. A cold resolve rose in Cirran - he wasn't going to fight one Empire to its knees to have another one rise up in its place, not if he could help it. If that took going back to being a soldier again, so be it. That thought raised a question in his mind and he voiced it to the others in the speeder.

"What do the New Republic think about all this? Surely they're not too happy about the Jau muscling in out here and staging a military build-up? Can we count on them for some help?"

"Last I heard," Rilanna said, "the New Republic is embroiled in a few problems of its own. I'm sure they'll help if they can, especially with a threat like the Jau, but they may not have much help to throw our direction."

"If we can get the information you've got to people who can use it," Dani said, "we stand a very good chance of finding a way to gain the upper hand. Their mining operation was crippled once. I'm sure we can hurt them again when it comes down to it. It's largely a matter of getting forces together and launching an attack."

"If they get that tech on their fighters and other ships," Lerrah said, "there's no way we can stop them. We have to hurry and stop them before their ships become invincible."

"We should know more in an hour," Dani said.

Rilanna turned back to Cirran and Lerrah. "Don't worry about the others. Walker's too ornery to die, and he won't let anything happen to Tasia or Ty."

Cirran nodded in agreement. "Fingers crossed. Can't help but wish the Jau weren't the only ones that were blaster proof, though."

Lerrah smiled, then let herself lean against Cirran. His presence was comforting, and she could feel the exhaustion reaching up to pull her into its black embrace. "Wake me when we get there," she said, "or if we're about to die."

Rilanna chuckled softly, then glanced over at Dani. A lot had happened quickly, and it didn't look like it was about to ease up. She hoped the others were alright, and on the station, she hoped that Dresh and, most importantly, Reza would be okay. When they could, she'd have to try to get a message through to them. For now, with the land a uniform white spreading out in all directions, and the danger of the Jau distant behind them, she couldn't allow the illusion of tranquility to dull her senses. They would reach the Jedi soon, and then things would really start happening.

---