Cloud-Riders

AN: Spoilers for Solo: A Star Wars Story. Good Movie. Consider it tentatively canon to this Saga. Additionally, text marked as text indicates that it is not in Basic, and I didn't want to force the lot of you to learn the language that it's in.

10 Years Before the Battle of Yavin - The Fledgling Rebellion Grows…

Savareen System

Enfys smirked as the smugglers walked away, the Wookie trailing slightly behind the man. No matter what the man had said, no sane person gave up sixty million credits worth of coaxium without a good reason. Deep down, he supported the Rebellion. Perhaps it would take him a decade, but he'd come around.

Donning her helmet, she crossed the sand to where her swoop bike hovered, laden with the precious cargo. She smirked when she saw Auromae loading a pack of Savareen Brandy onto his bike. Giving the refinery owners a salute, she mounted her bike and called to the rest the Cloud-Riders.

"Back to the Aerie. The shipment is late enough as it is." The voice modulator distorted her voice, but it did not hide her commanding tone. The other members gave her a salute, and mounted their bikes. With one last check of the coaxium containers, the Cloud-Riders lifted off in unison. The owners of the refinery watched them go, then dispersed into the various buildings in the complex.

The wind whipped at Enfys' mask as her bike soared skyward. She commed the group. "Everyone, you know the drill. Masks in high-altitude mode." Around her, the members complied with her command, their masks hissing as they formed seals around the faces of the various rebels. Her own mask whirred as it made a seal against her body armor. Once the seal was complete, she commed Moda Maxa. Moda had the group's long-range transmitter.

"Moda. Contact the Aerie. Tell Kryss that we have the coaxium and we need to have the channel prepared to contact Fulcrum."

"Yes Ma'am," Moda acknowledged, then relayed her orders to Kryss onboard the Aerie. After a few moments, Moda commed her back. "Message has been received, Ma'am."

"Very good. Let's get this shipment delivered and done." Enfys closed the comm channel, and the group flew the rest of the way to the Aerie in relative silence.

Aboard the Aerie, Kryss prepared the encrypted inter-system channel to Fulcrum, her brown fingers flying over the various buttons. Pausing for a moment, she raised her hands and shook them slightly, glancing out the viewport of the upper cockpit as she did so.

The Aerie hung suspended some 400 kilometers above the surface of Savareen. It was an old Duros-made Bodge-class freighter with enough cargo space inside to carry either many tons of cargo, or two small starfighters. One of the two cargo bays currently held a Tognathan Patrol fighter, as well as the racks for the swoop bikes. The other bay was usually reserved for the spoils of various raids. Kryss winced slightly. Given that they were going to be transporting much less coaxium than predicted, they would have excess cargo space in Bay 2. That was not a pleasant thought. She forced herself to think positively. Perhaps they would be able to raid an Imperial convoy on the way to the rendezvous point.

"Unlikely, but possible," she murmured aloud. "Stranger things have happened."

The inter-system transmitter beeped at her, indicating an error in the power supply. She sighed, and activated her comlink. "Kryss to An'ge, could you-" A burst of rapid-fire Twi'leki interrupted her. She raised an eyebrow at the high volume of curses. It seemed that she had caught him in the middle of a tirade. "Having problems with the power systems again?"

An'ge paused for a moment, and she heard him take a breath. "Aye, it's the starboard relay grid again. It started sparking up a storm about the time that the others departed. I can't get it to work again, and the port grid is overtaxed just tryin' to compensate. It's just a kriffing mess." He sounded exhausted.

Kryss frowned. "Is Glass back there with you?" She hadn't seen the Cloud-Riders' astromech for some time.

A series of beeps and tones in Binary carried over the comm channel. That answered that question.

An'ge's strained laughter sounded through the comlink. "Yeah, she's about as annoyed as I am here. Nothing that we try is working."

Kryss furrowed her brow. They needed that inter-system transmitter working now. She panned her chestnut eyes across the interior of the Aerie's upper cockpit. A thought came to her. "Could you pull some of the relay clusters from the lower cockpit?"

An'ge's voice was hesitant. "I think so, but that would make the lower cockpit unoperational. You know how useful redundant systems are on a ship this big." He went silent, and she heard Glass make a series of thoughtful trills.

Kryss crossed her sepia-skinned arms, keeping the comlink close to her face. "We need to get in contact with Fulcrum more than we need two cockpits. Most ships do just fine with one cockpit." Most of the time, she appreciated the fact that the young mechanic tried his best to keep every redundant system intact. It had saved their skins on more than one occasion, but this was not a combat situation.

An'ge responded almost instantly. "That's a fair point." His voice faded somewhat. He had probably turned away from his comlink. "Glass, how many relay clusters would I need to pull to cover-" A series of beeps cut him off. "Seven!" he exclaimed, the annoyance clear in his tone. Another series of rather insistent beeps carried through the comlink. "All right, all right, I'll go pull them." His voice increased in volume. "Be with you in a moment, Kryss." The comm channel went silent.

Kryss massaged her temples, making her short jet-black hair move slightly. She supposed that she should be thankful problems like this were rare. The benefits of using a vessel that had been retrofitted to act as a crime lord's personal assault freighter, she supposed. Despite being constructed decades before the Clone Wars, it was far from outdated. Its previous owner had seen to that. With two light turbolasers, five point-defense turrets, and military-grade shields, it was more than a match for the average pirate vessel. Its upgraded engines gave it surprising speed and maneuverability for a ship of its size. She just wished that the power relays had been given the same upgrades. A thought bubbled to the surface of her mind. Perhaps they had stolen the ship before the upgrades had been finished? That didn't seem impossible.

She heard An'ge's footsteps echoing in the connecting hallways below her. Wouldn't be long now, but she felt the need to pass the time in a more productive manner. She crossed the cockpit to the pilot's seat, noting the red lights that indicated inoperative systems in the lower cockpit, and booted up the navigation computer. She always got a sense of joy from the detail available to her when she looked at the Aerie's nav computer. While not fully complete, it was leaps and bounds better than the outdated star maps that she had been forced to work with in the times before the Cloud-Riders. She began to plot the course out of the Savareen system. While she didn't know exactly where Fulcrum would want to meet, she had a general idea.

The long-range transmitter paired with Moda's began to chime. She paced back over and activated it. "Kryss here."

"Moda here, we are coming up to dock. Can you open Bay 1?"

"Acknowledged Moda. Opening Bay 1." Ending the call, she crossed back over to the main control panel and pressed the button to open the outer doors to Cargo Bay 1. The vibrations of the sliding doors reverberated throughout the ship, ending when the doors had fully retracted into the walls of the bay.

Her comlink beeped, and she activated it almost immediately. "Yes, An'ge?"

"If you're looking at the inter-system transmitter, you should be seeing all green." His voice radiated pride.

Kryss smiled. "Not a moment too soon. Thanks An'ge. You too, Glass." A series of beeps echoed through the comm channel, then went silent as she ended the channel. "Time to get that call to Fulcrum through," she muttered. While Fulcrum could track every ship, they generally preferred that each cell be the one to contact them, and not the other way around.

The doors slid closed behind the Cloud-Riders as the last bike entered the hangar. Enfys piloted her bike over to the rack, avoiding the Patrol fighter as she did so. Once she shut off her engine and secured the locks, she slid off the bike. Removing her helmet, she walked to the back of the bike and began to remove the coaxium containers.

"Tubes," she called, "Carry the other one to Bay 2 with me." Tubes gave her a salute, and the two of them entered the passage that connected the two cargo bays. Once they went through the set of airlocks, they carried the containers over to the empty cargo racks.

Enfys looked at the several empty racks and frowned. They should have had so much more coaxium to deliver, a veritable fortune! Instead all that they had was a pittance in comparison. She shook her head. At least the Imperial shipyards wouldn't be getting their hands on it.

"Boss?" Tubes' voice, distorted by the breathing mask he wore, snapped her out of her thoughts.

Enfys turned to look at him. "Thanks, Tubes. Nothing to worry about. Let's just get ready to meet Fulcrum." With that, she walked to the nearest doorway that led into the interior of the ship.

Tubes watched her go, then returned to Bay 1 to ensure that his old fighter hadn't been nicked by Auromae again. He had heard something funny on the way in, and he had a suspicion he knew what it was. If that gorgeous-sniffer scratched his fighter again...

Enfys rubbed her temples as she made her way towards the upper cockpit. "That's right. Nothing to worry about at all." Her tone became laced with bitter sarcasm. "Because Fulcrum is always so patient and understanding when complications pop up." Rolling her eyes, she quickened her pace, her footsteps echoing dully in the cramped corridor.

She reached the set of doors that led to the cockpit, and paused before entering.

"Just keep calm and keep confident," she muttered to herself. With that, she opened the door to the cockpit. She expected to find the long-range communicator displaying Fulcrum's insignia. She was almost relieved when she saw that the insignia was not yet hovering above the hologram projector.

Enfys raised an eyebrow, and turned her head to focus on Kryss, who was still working at the transmitter. "Is there a problem?"

Kryss didn't even look up. "There was one. An'ge and Glass got it under control though." She sounded almost amused. "So how did the second attempt at coaxium retrieval go?"

Enfys managed to keep a neutral expression. "We got it. Not as much as Fulcrum wanted us to get, but we got some. Not to mention that he Empire is down even more coaxium than they would have been otherwise."

Kryss met her eyes briefly. "And I'm sure that Fulcrum won't see it that way." She returned to working at the terminal. "I trust your judgment most of the time kid. You have a good head on your shoulders, which is why I'm ok with a kid half my age leading the group." She looked up from her task to stare straight into Enfys's eyes. "But was it really the best idea to decide not to contact Fulcrum before trying the second heist? Sorry, I know we went over this at the time, but humor me here."

Enfys's displeasure began to show on her face. "All that was necessary was to contact our agent in the Crimson Dawn. We knew that Beckett would cut a deal with Vos, and that Vos would contact Maul to tell him that the coaxium would be late, and that Maul would want to know exactly how he was getting it. People are predictable like that." Her expression grew determined. "Besides, if we had told Fulcrum that the heist failed, we would have been told to move on to the next job." She pointed at Kryss. "And we would have been moved to the back of the line for repairs and supplies. You know that."

While Fulcrum tried to be secretive, it was well known amongst the people that worked with Fulcrum that they were the coordinator for multiple Rebel cells. Every cell had to compete for the limited resources that Fulcrum could scavenge. The supplies were often too expensive to buy from traders on "backwater" Outer Rim worlds.

Kryss pressed her lips together. "Point taken. Still don't agree, but I'll live." She glanced up again. "Almost finished here. Had to reboot the entire system." She entered another string of commands. "I will concede that being last in the repair line would have sucked." She pressed one last button, and the panel in front of her started whirring. "And we should be receiving in five, four…"

The insignia for Fulcrum popped into existence above the hologram projector, cutting Kryss's countdown short. "Fulcrum here. Status report, Rain squadron." The voice was so heavily distorted it sounded almost droid like.

Enfys disliked using that code name, but Fulcrum insisted that the Cloud-Riders should only be known as pirates. Any Rebel activity should be known by a different name.

With her hands clasped in front of her, Enfys stared straight at the hovering insignia. "Rain 2 reporting in, Fulcrum. Sorry about the delay, we had issues with our communication system. We retrieved several kilos of coaxium—"

"Several kilos," Fulcrum interrupted, "That train was carrying several hundred kilos of coaxium. Are you telling me that you just left it for the Empire to use for their shipyards?"

Enfys sighed inwardly. "The train was destroyed. The Empire won't be getting anything that was on the train, much less the coaxium."

Fulcrum was silent for a few moments. "What happened?" Enfys raised an eyebrow. Was that exhaustion she heard? Hard to tell with the modulation.

"Beckett got to the train before we did. Blew out the bridge. Nearly blew us all to dust. The rest of the train wasn't so lucky."

Fulcrum was quick to respond. "What about Beckett?"

"Shot dead by one of his own men. He won't be bothering us again." Enfys shifted slightly. "I'm pretty sure that his killer got away with some coaxium as well."

Fulcrum fell silent again. Kryss met Enfys's eyes. 'What are you playing at kid?' she mouthed.

'Later,' Enfys mouthed back.

Fulcrum broke the silence a moment later. "Just get to the rendezvous point at—" Fulcrum stopped, and Kryss swore she heard another comm system delivering a message. "Change of plans. You'll be meeting up with Wind squadron for their raid on the garrison on Elo Prime. They need backup, and I'm guessing that you have spare cargo space. Fulcrum out." The hologram projector shut off.

Enfys let out the breath she had been holding, and held up a finger to Kryss. "I know, I know. Giving Fulcrum less than the full truth wasn't a great idea—"

"A terrible idea," Kryss interjected. "At least Fulcrum seemed distracted enough not to give the report much thought."

Enfys winced. "Everything I said was true, technically."

Kryss's eyes widened. "So Beckett's really dead then? Good riddance."

"Yeah." Enfys met the older woman's eyes. "So, Elo Prime. Are we good to make that?"

Kryss crossed the cockpit and accessed the nav computer. "Thank your lucky stars, kid. Savareen is closer to Elo Prime than we would have been after the heist on Vandor-1. We only need to go about 2000 light years, as opposed to roughly…" She trailed off, doing the calculations in her head. "A bit over ten thousand." She smiled slyly. "We should actually wait for a bit so that we don't get there before we would have otherwise." Since the ship had been upgraded with a 0.75 class hyperdrive, that left them with over 12 hours to burn.

Enfys mirrored Kryss's grin. "I'll tell the rest of the crew. I'm sure they'll be more than happy to have some down time." She turned to leave, then turned back. "We picked up some Savareen Brandy while we were down on the surface. Care to join us in the main lounge?"

Kryss's smile turned into a smirk. "In a moment. I want to finish setting up the hyperjump coordinates first. Wait for me, would you?"

Enfys nodded. "Of course." She turned to leave once again, and almost made it out the door before Kryss called to her.

"One more thing. Get An'ge. I think he needs a drink too."

Enfys nodded again, and left the cockpit.

When Enfys entered the engineering section, she immediately noticed the heavy, oily smell. The next thing she noticed was the large blotch of blackened panels on the starboard side. The next thing that she registered was the overlapping sounds of Twi'leki and Binary.

"An'ge? Glass?" Enfys called.

"Cap'n? That you? Good to know that you're back!" Enfys could practically hear the grin in his voice.

"Yup, and I'm here to invite you to a share a drink with everyone in the lounge."

"I'd be happy to under most circumstances Cap'n, but as you might see..." An'ge trailed off as he came into view, the overhead lights reflecting off of his bright orange skin. "We have a wee bit of a situation here." Now she could see the wince on his face. "You see, I kind of had to strip power relays from the lower cockpit in order to keep the starboard relay panels operational." His lekku twitched. "Do you think that we could, um, get some relays the next time we get resupplied?"

Enfys furrowed her brow. "That shouldn't be an issue, unless Fulcrum is out of custom relays. I'll request them when we deliver the coaxium. That sound ok to you?"

An'ge opened his mouth to answer, but stopped when a series of beeps and whistles interrupted him. A moment later, he looked back to Enfys. "Glass says that that should be fine, and I agree." He smiled thinly. "Reluctantly."

Enfys clapped her hands together. "So then, about joining the rest of us for a drink? It's Savareen Brandy~…"

An'ge's grin turned exuberant. "Why didn't you start with that?" He turned to face further back in the room. "Glass, are we good back there?"

A series of trills sounded. Enfys swore they sounded almost amused. She really needed to learn Binary, but there was never enough time.

An'ge laughed. "Alright, alright. I'll be back to help you soon. Thanks, Glass." He turned back to Enfys. "See you in the lounge, Cap'n!" With that, he bounded past Enfys, heading for the crew lounge.

Enfys smirked before walking after him. He was two years her senior, but he acted like he was the youngest in the group. "Could be worse," she murmured. "At least he stopped pranking Tubes…"

The crew had some mixed reactions to the unexpected downtime, but most of the reactions were positive. Enfys had her suspicions that the brandy had a hand in the group's morale as well. Most of them, herself included, had not had a decent drink for several standard weeks before this mission.

"A toast!" Baroosh's reptilian voice echoed through the room. "To our good fortune, and to the future of the galaxy!" He downed his mug with gusto.

"Here, here!" Various voices chimed in agreement. An'ge had already left and made his way back to the engineering section. Kryss was still in the middle of the group, enjoying both the famous drink and the general atmosphere.

"To stupid smugglers who save our doshing hides," grumbled Tayshin. He took a long, slow drink from his mug before setting it on a table and wandering back to the general quarters. Enfys frowned, and made a move to follow him, but Moda intervened. "I'll talk to 'im, Ma'am. You've dealt with more than enough over the last couple of days."

Moda vanished, slipping into the corridors that led to the sleeping rooms. Enfys hesitated, then reluctantly went back to her drink. She trusted Moda. Besides, she probably needed to get some sleep. They had another engagement in just over half a day. She had to be ready. With that thought in mind, she made her way back to her cabin. She paused before leaving, and made eye contact with Tubes. "Could you wake me before we get there?"

Tubes nodded, and Enfys made her way to her cabin. Once there, she closed the door, stripped out of her armor, and plopped onto her bunk. Sleep overtook her almost immediately. The dreams followed not long after.

Blood in the night.

Fire in the sky.

Screams of the civilians as the blood-red bolts cut them down like crops at harvest time.

The warriors meeting the same fates, slaughtered in droves.

A figure made of shadow with a blade red as the sunrise cutting down her mother as she watched, restrained by an invisible hand.

That figure looking into her eyes and laughing.

That same invisible hand gripping her and tossing her like a doll into the wreckage of her home.

The fighters devastating the small spaceport.

The sun rising on a devastated town.

Crawling out from the wreckage and finding her mother's corpse.

Taking her mother's helmet, and donning it herself.

Finding herself the last of her people.

Finding the single ship that escaped the destruction and—

A hand rapped on the door to her small cabin.

"Boss? We're going to be coming out of hyperspace soon."

Enfys snapped awake. She was shaking. The dreams had some again. Reliving the memories of the raid five years ago was never fun.

She groaned. "Thanks, Tubes. I'll be out shortly." Rolling out her bunk, she slowly forced herself upright, her spine protesting as she did so. Her head was also pounding lightly. She winced. "Hopefully this clears up before we get there. Ugh."

Donning her armor, she slowly made her way across the room and opened the door. It slid open with a whirr, and light flooded through the opening. The light didn't feel like needles in her eyes, so that was something.

Enfys shook her head to clear it, and slowly made her way up to the upper cockpit. Time to see what they were going to be taking out of the Empire's hands this time.

The Aerie dropped out of hyperspace near a rust-colored planet orbiting a red dwarf. Enfys watched as Kryss booted up the communications system.

"Wind squadron, this is Rain 1. Rain squadron is ready to assist. Please respond." Kryss hunched over the inter-ship transmitter, trying to make contact with their allies. Despite Enfys being the leader, Kryss went by the name of Rain 1 as an effort to ensure that they would not be linked with the Cloud-Riders.

Wind squadron responded after a few moments. "This is Wind 1. We read you, and we should be coming into visual range."

Kryss checked the sensors again. "We see you. Adjusting course now." She cut the channel, and maneuvered the Aerie closer to the cluster of ships she saw on the sensor readout. Wind squadron came into view after a few minutes. A pair of small Ghtroc 540 light freighters, relatively new ships, floated near a much larger and older Gozanti-class cruiser.

"Thanks for coming, Rain squadron. We lost two of our freighters in the last raid we did, so we didn't think that we would have enough cargo space for this raid." Wind 1 sounded relieved. "Glad to see that Fulcrum could round up some extra help, even if it is just one ship."

Kryss rolled her eyes. "This one ship probably has enough spare cargo space to hold one of those 540's if you could get it through the hangar door. I'm sure that will be more than enough."

"Err, my apologies." Kryss could almost hear the wince in Wind 1's voice. "I didn't mean any offense. We are glad to have you with us, Rain squadron." The channel went silent for a moment. "Anyway, here's what we are up against. A pair of Gozanti-class cruisers should be dropping out of hyperspace in less than an hour. The convoy will be carrying weapons and supplies for the garrison below, which we are currently far out of sensor range from. We are to ambush the cruisers after they land, and take the captured supplies to the rendezvous point." Wind 1 paused. "Transmitting coordinates now."

The plan went off without a hitch, and just over an hour later the Cloud-Riders followed Wind squadron to the rendezvous point. They emerged from hyperspace above a nondescript desert planet illuminated by a binary pair of a red and blue suns.

The Rebel ships made their way down towards the surface. As they approached, they noticed the ships that Fulcrum had sent to collect the supplies. A modest group of YT-series freighters, mostly YT-1300's, waited for them on the top of a large mesa.

When they all landed, Wind and Rain squadrons began unloading the supply crates from their vessels. Enfys moved one of the crates to the nearest freighter, and got the attention of its pilot. "Does anyone in your group have any spare power relays?" She had to try.

The pilot, an Ithorian, made a quick set of comm calls to the other members of Fulcrum's supply ships. After a moment, he gave her an answer. "Talk to the captain of The Sword of Ska'bas'a. She says that she has a few. Look for the YT-2400 over that way." With that, he took the crate from her and made his way up the ramp into his ship.

Enfys made her way over to a heavily modified YT-2400, verified the name, and made her way up the ramp. "This is Rain 2, looking for power relays for a Bodge-class? Hello?" She heard shuffling behind her, and turned. She was face to face with the captain, a female near-human with white hair and skin so pale it made her own look tan by comparison.

The captain blinked at her. "Follow me, young one. Let's get you set with some supplies." The captain turned and headed into the hold. Enfys followed.

The hold was full of various electronics and open crates of wiring. The captain weaved between several crates before coming to a set of boxes near the back of the hold. She turned to look at Enfys, and beckoned her to come closer. "Here. Just don't touch any of the other crates. They're delicate."

Enfys carefully made her way towards the woman, and stopped when she reached the crate. The woman handed her a set of three power relays. The woman looked her in the eye. "This is all we have. You are using an old ship. You may want to invest in upgrading its power system."

Enfys nodded. "I'll see what we can do about that. Thank you." She turned and left, carefully avoiding the other crates. She made her way back to the Aerie, noting that Tubes was handing off the coaxium to one of Fulcrum's pilots. She nodded at Tubes, and he nodded back. She quickly made her way to the engineering section and handed the relays to An'ge.

"Is this all that they had?" An'ge asked with a wince.

Enfys nodded. "Yeah. Can you make this work?"

An'ge's lekku twitched thoughtfully, and he turned to face Glass. "What do you think, Glass?"

The green droid let out a series of beeps.

An'ge faced Enfys again. "These should do for a while, but we'll need to use them in here to fix the port relays. We can't make the lower cockpit operational again with any less than another seven new relays. Thanks, Cap'n. We'll make do." He walked over to Glass, and the two of them set to work replacing systems in the port relay board.

Enfys left them, heading back to the bridge. It was time to see what Fulcrum needed them to do next. They would do what the Rebellion required of them. It was all they could do.

Epilogue

9 Years Before the Battle of Yavin…

The bridge was filled with smoke, small fires melting equipment and wiring in the walls. Kryss's lifeless form was draped across the hologram projector, a charred hole where her heart used to be. Enfys was choking, but not from the smoke.

"So you're Enfys Nest. You're the one who has been interfering with so many of my associates. The one that stole this ship from me. I'm curious. What lies beneath your mask?" The quiet voice did not seem to match up with the figure in front of her, whose clenched fist kept her suspended in the air.

A force tore the helmet from her head, even as her throat remained gripped by a vice she could not see, as she once again hovered above the ground. With her face fully exposed, her assailant was able to look her fully in the eye.

"You look familiar. Have we met? I truly hope that we have. I do love it when people want revenge on me. It's just so satisfying." The figure smiled, mirth clear in his eyes.

The force gripping Enfys's neck loosened slightly, and she gasped for air, then managed a few words. "The Empire will… never… ack… win, Maul..." Every word was torture to her throat.

The former assassin frowned. "Not willing to give me the satisfaction? That's fair. I killed all of your soldiers. I can understand that you don't want to give me anything." His frown shifted into a slight grin. "You are right about one thing though. The Empire will fall one day. I will make sure of that."

Enfys's eyes widened. "But why… ack... would you... work with the... Empire… ugh... if you want... it dead?"

Maul's grin widened. "Every Moff that Crimson Dawn worked with has been executed. Usually by us. We will destroy the Empire from within." He tilted his head. "Don't you think that's a wonderful way to do it?" He opened his fist, and Enfys dropped to the ground.

Enfys's eyes narrowed, anger bubbling to the surface. "You crush worlds beneath your feet to supply your forces. You eliminate any people that won't serve you. That's not how you kill an Empire. That's how you start your own in its place." She spat at him. "And I'll fight that to my last breath!" She sprang at him, only to be caught by the invisible force once again.

Maul shook his head. "Then you will die." He wiped the spit from his leg, and noticed the helmet, still on the ground where it had fallen. His face twisted in thought. "This, this is from your home, isn't it? I think I remember now. A small town on a backwater world, filled with warriors with helmets that looked like these. All women warriors. Reminded me of my old home." He squinted at her, studying her face more closely. "But you look too young to have fought me back then." He made a gesture with his free hand, and the helmet lifted off the ground. "It probably means a lot to you, right?" He watched her eyes, which currently glared angrily at him. "Perhaps it belonged to a family member. Your mother, perhaps?"

Enfys's glare intensified, and Maul smiled. "I thought so. You remind me of myself. It's a shame that we had to be enemies. I think we could have done remarkable things together—"

His comlink beeped. "One moment." He activated it. "Yes?"

A gruff voice came from the device. "Their droid sabotaged the reactor before I could shoot it. The ship is going to blow in less than five minutes." Enfys almost beamed. At least Glass had denied Crimson Dawn their spoils.

Maul sighed. "Evacuate the rest of the boarding party. I will be at the ship shortly." He shut off his comlink and turned his face back to Enfys. "I guess we will have to cut this short. Goodbye, Enfys Nest." He allowed the helmet to drop, and grabbed the weapon at his hip with his free hand.

A red blade pierced Enfys's chest, and she was falling. Maul had pierced her right side, purposefully avoiding her heart. Not that it mattered, as he had nearly crushed her windpipe. He wanted her to die slowly and painfully. Dimly, she was aware that Maul had left, and she met of the eyes of her mother's helmet, which were staring back at her from where it had fallen. She could barely get words out of her mangled throat. "I'm sorry... Mother…" Her world was shrinking rapidly, the helmet blurring into the walls of the ship. Her mother seemed to take shape from the helmet, and reached out her hand. Enfys reached for the hand, and knew nothing more.

Maul walked calmly through the connecting tube between the ships. It was a shame to lose the Aerie. He never liked losing things that had belonged to him. "At least no one will have it now," he muttered. It was a small comfort.

Maul's Gauntlet fighter, the Nightbrother, detached from the Aerie and moved to join the rest of the assault group. Several assorted freighters and fighters hovered around the flagship in the center, an imposing Munificent-Class frigate by the name of Talzin's Revenge. The assembled vessels watched from a distance as the Aerie was replaced by an expanding cloud of shrapnel.

Maul was silent for a moment, then activated his inter-ship transmitter. "We're done here. Let's get a move on to the Ot'waq system. There's a convoy there that I imagine the Empire would rather hate to lose."

The assault group blurred for a moment before vanishing into hyperspace, leaving behind the rapidly cooling debris that was once the Aerie.

Elsewhere, a blue skinned Rodian sat in the middle of several screens, making adjustments to the data displayed on them. An indicator light began to flash yellow, then turned red. Rain squadron's ship had been destroyed.

"Kriff." Sighing, the Rodian began adjusting the schedules for the other squadrons. Maybe Thunder squadron should take the job at Gendri-6?

"R4! Bring me something strong. I lost another one." His tone wasn't even sad, just tired.

The droid responded with a set of low-pitched beeps. It headed towards the drink storage before pausing and stopping at the wall next to it. The wall contained only an old Clone Wars era propaganda poster with marks beneath it. A blowtorch popped out of the front of the droid, and it burned a tally mark into the wall. That made eight marks now.

AN: Some things:

If you want to write the story of how Enfys stole the Aerie from Maul and formed the Cloud-Riders, or of any adventures set before the epilogue, just PM me. We can work something out.

The Aerie as it looks in this Saga is on my DeviantArt page under the same username as my author name.

If anyone wants to also create art for this Saga please PM me.

The Tognath in the Cloud-Riders isn't the same one as the Partisans from Rogue One. I'm making that change.

Savareen is also now very close to Kessel. No longer in Q-16. But the movie already made that change, so it should be fine. I'm putting Vandor-1 in R-10, near the edge of Hutt Space.

Also, Enfys' actress is 19, so I am putting Enfys at 19. Nice and "Star Wars Protagonist" Age. (Luke/Leia in ANH, Anakin in AoTC, Han for most of Solo after the time skip, and I think Rey in both TFA and TLJ).

The Cloud-Riders' Fulcrum is not Ahsoka. Many Fulcrum agents.

Another note, I am saying that the amount of Coaxium is less than initial raid by the following logic. Beckett said he owed Vos a certain amount of coaxium, and could have raided the imperial train for that amount and kept the rest. Since the amount of coaxium at the end of the movie (roughly the exact amount that Beckett owed Vos) looked a lot smaller than the amount in the train, I think that this interpretation works. Not to mention the fact that the amount on the train could have "powered a fleet" vs. "a dozen destroyers" the Kessel raid produced.

AN:

I was not planning to start this story until after I finished Anakin the Chosen, but I had writer's block.

Here's the first chapter of Era of Rebellion, one of many stories set in this new Saga. Unlike most of the other stories, this one will mostly be a set of interwoven oneshots/Arcs that focus on Rebels other than Leia or the Spectres. Probably slow updates because every chapter will probably feature different plots and oc's with little to no overlap. Mostly.

If you have any questions about this new Saga, please see my profile, or PM me if the Profile doesn't cover enough.

If you wish to follow the entire Saga as it comes out, I have a community set up that the stories are a part of. Following the community may make it easier to follow the Saga as a whole.

Here's the disclaimer. I do not own anything that is officially part of Star Wars, Legends or Canon. I do not claim ownership of any of the property of Lucasfilm, Disney, or any published authors. I am not making any money from this story.