I do not own Star Wars or any of the characters.


Failed Heist

Lasers as big around as the fighter shot past the window, the pilot swearing and swerving upward, out of the way of the oncoming stream of them.

"Dammit! It was just one fighter! Let it go! Assholes!"

He yanked the controls to the side, barrel rolling as he pulled a right angle, a laser blast skimming past, just barely missing him. He sped up, pushing the throttle all the way before shoving the controls, flipping and heading back toward the ship.

"Alright, let's see what's so special about it."

He opened fire, his lasers slamming into the hull of the ship with a deafening boom and a very colorful explosion, leaving absolutely no damage.

"Oh for crying out loud! You would think I stole something at least useful from the way they carry on!"

He shoved the controls, one of the cruiser's laser flashing past before he yanked to the side, cutting to his right and avoiding a pair of lasers, streaking toward a swarm of similar fighters instead.

"At least these will be effected," he grumbled.

He opened fire, the initial shot catching the fighters off guard and punching clean through two, which then tore themselves apart from depressurization.

"Jesus," he grumbled, rolling out of the way of fighter and cruiser shots. "The hell good is that in a dog fight?"

He shoved the controls, rising over the fighters before yanking them and flipping, firing at them again, hitting two of the fighters' propulsion systems and one's life support.

"At least I know where to shoot. Now, let's see about getting the fuck out of here."

He turned away from the fighters, back toward the cruiser just as it began to fire at him again. He groaned, avoiding the stream of massive lasers several times before several began to fly past him from behind as well.

"Oh for the love of God! Just get lost!"

He swerved into the stream of lasers, getting brushed by one on his wing but escaping serious damage. The fighters following him, were not so lucky. Two of the remaining six were hit directly, the lasers blasting them into pieces, and two lost a wing, crashing into each other. The last two continued to shoot at him, however. He growled in annoyance, flying as best he could while avoiding two streams of lasers. Finally, one of the fighters was able to his his engines and he swore, steering back toward the same hangar he had just left. He grumbled, yanking the throttle back then readying the hatch release. Just as he passed through the shield, he yanked it and leapt out, the fighter slamming into the wall of the hangar and exploding, the pilot crashing to the ground and rolling to a stop, groaning and pushing himself to his feet, sighing as the troops around him leveled their rifles at him.

"Oh come on, it was just one fighter!" he complained.

"A lot more than that now," one of the troops said, indicating the crashed fighter, which had taken out a dozen more. "And besides, that's not the point."

"Oh come on," he complained. "That's not even my fault! Your guy shot me!"

"And I was damn close to shooting your fuel pod too," the pilot that had shot him said, climbing out of his fighter. "Now, by the authority of the Galactic Republic, you are under arrest."

"But I didn't even get away with it!" he complained. "Can't you at least let me finish the job first?"

"No," the clone trooper said.

"Fine," the failed thief, Damian Shan, said putting a hand to hie ear. "Plan B."

The clone troopers all raised their rifles just as the ship shook with explosions, everything vibrating. The ship lurched and the clones all fell to the ground, Damian doing the same before scrambling to his feet and sprinting to one of the two working fighters that had been chasing him. Then, as he was steering it back toward the opening, he shot the other one.

"Gentlemen, I thank you for your help," he called. "And now, I'll be on my way!"

With that, he punched the throttle, shooting out of the cruiser. He grinned, sitting back and relaxing. As he flew, a shuttle pulled up beside him.

"Well done," the shuttle's pilot said over their comm link. "You handled yourself quite well."

"Thanks," Damian responded, putting his hands behind his head, the autopilot engaged. "Now we just take a nice smooth flight back to our generous employer and we're set for life."

"Yes, about that," his partner said. "You see, getting the fighter was all well and good, but our employer offered me triple to come back alone, with or without the fighter."

"Wait, what?" Damian gaped as the shuttle's gun swiveled around, firing and destroying his fighter's engines and life support systems, controls going with them. "Damn you Bane!"

"See you around kid. Good luck with the Mandalorians."

Damian swore, struggling to do anything but none of the controls worked. Even worse, with the life support out, he couldn't breathe. He watched as Mandalore grew larger before him. Then, he reached the atmosphere and began to tumble. He groaned, holding a hand to his mouth and squeezing his eyes shut. Then, explosions began to go off around him. AA guns, at a guess. He grit his teeth, looking up through the window, watching the ground and sky fight for attention, the bright red flashes of anti-air fire appearing every couple of seconds.

"Fuck this."

He gripped the ejection lever and tensed but waited. Then, he counted to three and yanked it. Less than a second after he ejected, the fighter was hit directly and exploded into a ball of fire. The explosion hurled Damian through the air, out of the way of the rest of the AA rounds, but also ruined his parachute.

"Dammit! Fuck! This just isn't my day!"

He unstrapped himself, rolling out of the chair and spreading his arms and legs, the chair shooting past him.

"Great. Now what?"

He looked below himself, seeing numerous battles raging between what looked like Mandalorians against Clones. He looked straight down, seeing a half dozen radio antennas ready to impale him. However, before they could, he suddenly stopped. He looked around before seeing a tractor beam generator aimed at him with several Mandalorians wearing red armor at the controls.

"Oh great," he groaned. "Now what?"

The tractor beam pulled him over to the platform where the mandalorians swiftly tied him up and sat him down against the wall with several civilians.

"What do we do with this one?" a Mandalorian asked a second, the second having numerous spikes on top of his helmet. "He was lying that damaged republic fighter but he's clearly not a clone."

"Shoot him with the others," the second said.

This, of course, caused a panic. The civilians began to try to flee, since they were going to die anyway, and the Mandalorians began to shoot them. Seeing an opportunity, Damian stood and sprinted forward, ramming his shoulder into one of them, grabbing the key off his belt and freeing his hands then grabbing the Mandalorian's blaster and sprinting to the railing, grabbing the handle and flipping over it, dropping to the level below then running to the stairs. Once he was on the ground floor, he looked around, seeing a hangar in the distance and sprinted toward it.

Blast began to hit around him and he spun, firing at the one Mandalorian chasing him, managing to clip his thruster and sending him out of control and crashing to the ground. Then, he turned to run again. As he ran, however, he found his way blocked by clone troopers who began to fire. He cut left, ducking into a bombed-out building and ducking into cover, blaster bolts hitting around him. He fired back twice, dropping a pair of clones, then had to hunker down as blasts began to concentrate.

"Shit! Three hundred thousand credits for a single republic fighter. I should have known it was too good to be true."

The firing stopped and he dove through an open doorway, sprinting down the hallway. After a moment, he passed a door and skidded to a stop, instinct telling him to go through. He yanked on the door only to find it locked. He shot out the latch, yanking the door open and sprinting down the steps beyond it. As he skidded around a corner at the bottom of the stairs, he skidded to a stop, finding himself in a room with a round, recently dug tunnel.

"I'm going to die," he sighed, holding his blaster out and creeping forward. As he passed along the tunnel, it quickly became too dark to see. He reached up to his night vision goggles, pulling them down and activating the IR light, allowing himself to see. He crept forward, moving as quietly as he could as the tunnel wound and curved through the ground. It went up and down seemingly at random, and every once in a while would shake when there was an explosion, but for the most part it was silent. Finally, he came around a corner and stopped at the mouth of a cavern that had been dug wherever they were and where numerous Weequay were digging at various points around the room.

"I quit!" one shouted. "They're not here!"

"I'm telling you, it's here!" another shouted back. "Just keep digging! Those lightsaber crystals will have us rolling in credits and will make this all worth it!"

Damian looked around the cavern, spotting a path out off to the side. He silently crept along the wall toward it, only to stop as the ground shook and several rocks fell from the ceiling near him. The Weequay all looked over and then drew rifles.

"Oh come on!" Damian complained before diving out of the way of their blasts.

As he rolled to a kneeling position, he opened fire, dropping three then stopping as the wall where the blasts had hit began to crack. The Weequay stared at it too just as a coffin broke out of it with a wave of loose sand.

"We found it!" the Weequay in charge shouted. "Get out of here kid. For helping us we'll let you live. And now we all get a bigger cut."

There were four left and Damian was perfectly happy to let them have the coffin. But just as he turned to leave, an explosion directly over the cavern knocked them all to the ground, the roof of the cavern beginning to crack.

"Oh shit!" a Weequay shouted.

Damian scrambled backward as the roof began to collapse, instantly crushing the Weequay. Then another chunk fell off to the side, crushing the coffin and sending a pair of metal cylinders rolling toward him from inside. He grabbed them, for lack of a better idea, and stood, sprinting toward the tunnel out, escaping just as the last of the ceiling fell, blocking the entrance.

"These better be worth something," he grumbled, inspecting one of them.

He saw a button of some kind and pressed it, a yellow plasma blade shooting out of one end and stabbing into the side of the tunnel. He stared at it before pressing the button again, the blade retracting.

"Right," Damian breathed. "Lightsaber crystals. Excellent. Worth something after all. And I can sell the lightsabers themselves separately."

He clipped them to his belt and followed the tunnel quickly, reaching the end only to find himself outside the hangar. Just as he got onto the shuttle he had seen, it powered up. He quickly hit behind some cargo as a door opened and a bald man with ratty brown clothes and a clone's blaster stepped into the room, closing the ramp. Damian swallowed hard, watching the man lean against the wall for a moment before turning and walking back through the door. Damian sighed, climbing out just as the door opened again and a Togruta stepped through, spotting him instantly and raising a hand. Suddenly, he found himself pinned to the wall and unable to move, the Togruta walking toward him, one hand extended.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"What the hell did you do to me?" Damian demanded.

"I said, who are you?" the girl demanded.

Damian swallowed. She was about his age and very attractive, but she clearly wasn't his type. His type tended to not be able to pin him to the wall without touching him. Usually it was him pinning girls to walls, and usually he had to make physical contact for that.

"My name's Ty," Damian said. "I'm a farmer."

"Bull shit," the girl said. "I'm not in the mood for games. Tell me who you are, or I through you out the airlock."

Damian swallowed hard.

"Damian," Damian said. "I'm a smuggler. I steal things for people-"

"I know what a smuggler does," the girl said. "You're describing a thief."

"I prefer smuggler," Damian said.

"I don't care," the girl said. "Where'd you find those lightsabers, thief?"

"I didn't steal them," Damian said. "There were these Weequay digging under the city, and they shot at me but hit the wall and this coffin fell out of it. But then the tunnel we were in collapsed and these fell out of the coffin and I figured they might be worth something so I grabbed them and ran!"

"I see," the girl said. "I actually believe you on that one. Thank you for returning them to me."

She held her other hand out and they sailed across the space between them to it before she clipped them to her own belt and narrowed her eyes again.

"Now, what should I do with you?" she asked.

"You're a Jedi!" Damian gaped, feeling stupid for not figuring it out sooner.

"Not anymore," she said.

"Sith?" Damian asked, suddenly afraid.

"No!" the girl snapped. "Do I look like a sith?"

"Well, no," Damian said. "But then do I look like a successful smuggler?"

"You look like you got shot out of orbit, caught by Darth Maul's forces, escaped, and then got caught by me."

"So you were watching me?" Damian grinned.

The girl blinked in surprise, Damian dropping to the ground before she shook her head, slamming him into the wall again.

"When a republic fighter falls out of the sky and then gets blown up, and it's not a clone or Jedi that jumps out, it's usually worth paying attention to," the girl said. "Tell you what. I'm feeling generous, so I'll just drop you off at the nearest bounty station."

She turned her hand and he rolled over before feeling cuffs click closed on his wrists. Then, he slowly floated to the floor and was set on his feet. He turned toward her as she stared at him calmly.

"Please don't," Damian said.

"Why not?" she asked. "Got a bounty on your head?"

"I may have pissed off an employer enough to have Cad Bane shoot me down over Mandalore, for triple the reward of actually finishing the job," Damian said.

"Wait, you were working with Cad Bane?" she gaped. "As a partner?"

"I have a knack for improvising," Damian shrugged. "He thought I'd be useful."

The girl stared at him for a long while before nodding.

"Alright," she said. "Where should we drop you off?"

"Coruscant," Damian said.

"I can't do that," she said. "I'll be killed on sight. An order went out to the Clone army to execute any and all Jedi. If I go to Coruscant, I'll be killed."

"Then get me a ship and I'll go there myself. I have an ex employer to...thank."

"You're going to kill him for double-crossing you?" she asked. "You're a thief. A smuggler. It comes with the territory."

"I'm not killing him," he said. "He has something of mine that he's holding as...let's call it incentive. I need to get it back. And I may or may not relieve him of a few priceless artifacts while I'm there."

"Alright. Fine. We'll get you a ship. But I would seriously recommend you leave whatever it is behind. You'll be killed on Coruscant too."

"I'm not a Jedi."

"But the Force is strong with you," the girl said. "It's why you have such good instincts, and why you were able to find my lightsabers without even knowing they existed. It's why I noticed you when you were shot down. I thought you actually were a Jedi."

"I'll be fine," Damian said. "Just drop me off some place I can get a ship."

"Well, there's a black market place nearby, if you have money."

"I don't," Damian said before glancing at her lightsabers. "But if you'll trust me, I might be able to use one of those to get us some."

"Why would I possibly let you sell my lightsabers."

"Not sell," Damian said. "Yoyo."

"Yoyo?" she asked.

"You know, the gimmick where you put a coin in a machine with a string attached so you can pull it back out?" he said. "I sell the lightsabers, then take them back after I have the cash."

"No," she said.

"You're no fun," he said. "Fine. I'll steal a ship."

She stared at him before shaking her head and releasing his cuffs using the Force. Then, she turned, motioning for him to follow and making her way to the cockpit, Damian following.


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