The rays of dawn were just beginning to creep through the windows of the already busy Maccabees', a successful restaurant owned and managed by the Maccabee brothers, Judah and Jacob, in the fairly modest sized town of Jericho, but that's not what was concerning Sabine Wren right now; what had her concentration was the man scheduled to meet her here for a 'date', or in more precise terms, an extraction from this pitiful ball of dirt to meet with Commander Sato onboard the Quasar Fire-class escort carrier Phoenix Home.

Sato had been very specific about whom the mission was focused on; one armored, armed, and dangerous man, codenamed 'Blaviken' by the Rebellion, whom apparently had been in contact with Ahsoka for several years now, feeding her information on Imperial troop movements and operations on the planet.

And now, he wanted off Lothal.

Apparently, according to the transmission, his cover had been blown somehow. He did not give the specific details of how, why, when, and where this happened; all he would say is that he needed to get to the Phoenix Home ASAP.

Sabine took a sip of her caf, re-tucking a loose strand of dyed orange-red hair behind her head. All in all, this man sounded very mysterious. No one, not even Bail or Ahsoka, knew what this guy even looked like, let alone his real name.

Sabine smirked. Of course, if it turned out that Ahsoka really did know this man, it wouldn't have been the first time she had kept information to herself.

Just then, the door to the restaurant swung open, and a human male stepped through, wearing nothing but blue jeans, a long, grey shirt, combat boots, and a pistol strapped to his right side; a modified SE-14r, to be more precise. He was a full grown adult in the prime of his life, looking to be around 30 to Sabine, with a pale complexion that indicated that he was from a world with a colder climate, and had the facial hair to match such a description. His hair was a very dark shade of red; his hair was wine as opposed to Sabine's fire. His eyes were a brilliant blue, but unlike Ezra's, they did not show any warmth, curiosity, or friendliness to them. No, these eyes were cold sapphires, hardened and distrusting of everything they saw.

A waiting-droid had come up to the man and asked him where he would like to sit. The spacer indicated to the seat across from Sabine's, obviously recognizing her in some way.

The Mandalorian tensed up a little. Either this could be her contact, or he could be another ISB agent like Kallus. Either way, her right hand found itself itching toward one of her twin WESTAR-35 blaster pistols she kept on her at all times, though she was fairly certain that Zeb was also keeping track of the man through the sights of his bo-rifle.

The stranger came to sit across from her, waving away the waiting-droid with a simple order for caf when the robot tried to pester him. Sabine now got a good look at the man who was staring at her with his distrusting eyes.

His face was grim and foreboding like he was expecting the onslaught of disaster, whether man-made or natural. Beyond that, his face was stone, not showing an outward hint of emotion to her.

"Hello, Pulsar. It's so nice to finally meet you. The weather on Lothal is quite lovely this year, you know," the man greeted in what sounded like a rich Kuati accent.

Sabine felt herself relax a little and put her hand back on the table. He gave the code phrase, good.

"Indeed, Blaviken. And I heard the wine in this town is simply delicious," she replied, smiling and secretly giving him the counter while also signaling to Zeb and the others that the contact has been met.

Blaviken lowered his voice. "So it is you. Good, I was starting to wonder if Fulcrum even got my message, or if this was an Imperial trap," he whispered as he looked over his shoulder, appearing to look out the window. As far as either of them could tell, no Imperial patrols were coming through; most likely the company that was stationed here was just waking up and beginning their morning physical exercises, per Imperial SOPs.

Sabine smirked. "You've got the genuine article here, bucko. So tell me; why do you want to get off this dreary rock?"

Blaviken took a sip of his caf before answering. "Do you want the short and simple version or the long and detailed one?"

"I prefer short and to the point, please," Sabine replied. Sato could hear the full mission report later if he wanted to.

Blaviken looked at his caf cup for a moment before answering. "Two reasons. The first is my own damned fault. I blew my cover about a week ago while rescuing some poor sap of a miner from getting blasted by a particularly abusive Imperial Army captain."

Sabine's curiosity piqued. "How?" she asked, raising her eyebrow.

Blaviken waved it off. "I'll tell you the details later. Suffice to say for the moment that I was careless, and in this line of business, stupidity can cost you." He looked down back at his caf cup and muttered so low that Sabine could barely make it out. "But betrayal can cost you even more."

Now she was really curious. What had happened to this man to make him so sullen and distrusting of everyone around him? Sure, the crew and she had faced their fair share of betrayals and tragedies in the past, but the way this man spoke and acted, it was as if he lost absolutely everything around him. Before she could inquire him about it, he continued.

"The second reason should be more important to the Rebellion." He took another sip of his caf. "I've acquired information from some of my contacts in the Imperial Armed Forces and the Mining Guild. I can't tell you everything here, but rest assured…the things I've learned could change the very nature of the war itself."

"Intriguing." Sabine took a sip of her own caf. "You sure you can trust these contacts?"

Blaviken shook his head. "I don't trust anyone, not in the way I used to, at least. So no, I can't be sure, but if nothing else the information they gave me would be worth investigating."

Sabine nodded and stood up. "Alright. Let's get out of here, then."

Blaviken wiped his mouth and put ten credits on the table before standing up as well. "We need to retrieve my gear, first. It's in a safe house five clicks south of here. We'll also need to destroy said safehouse to prevent the contents inside it from falling into Imperial hands." He then looked out the window before walking out the door. "And could you please tell the Lasat to stop aiming his rifle at me? Even when he's trying to hide on a rooftop, I can still notice his kind."

Sabine was flabbergasted, letting her mouth drop open in bewilderment as Blaviken walked out the door.


It was an uneventful five-minute journey by 'borrowed' speeder to Blaviken's safe house, which was an unassuming log cabin; small, cozy, and unlikely to attract any Imperial attention, least of all from the rather subpar 15th Legion stationed on Lothal. Joining them on this little trip out to the middle of nowhere was Zeb, who was taking it about as well as she'd expect.

"Stupid karking piece of kriff-bait," she heard him mutter under his breath. "Why are we out here, again? Last time I checked, we are wanted in this system by the order of Governor Pryce for the crimes of sedition, sabotage, treason, the murder of Imperial officials, theft, and a hundred other things I'm sure they've drummed up."

The young Mandalorian woman sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Look, big guy, I'd rather not be out here either, especially as I am now without my beskar'gam. But since Kanan, Ezra, Chopper, and Ahsoka went on that little trip of theirs to Malachor, we three got the go-ahead for this mission instead. And I'd rather not get an earful from Hera again about 'our duty as freedom fighters' today, so let's just get this done with, ok?"

Zeb said nothing, only grumbling under his breath as Blaviken went inside the safehouse.

"Relax, you two. I just need to put on my armor and weapons, grab the intel, and set a few plastic charges down so the Imps can't grab anything of import later. Just keep pulling security and I'll be out in a moment."

Zeb muttered something under his breath as he got down on one knee and began to scan his sector, while Sabine walked to the other side of the cabin and began to do the same.

She had never really thought about it before, but in between her missions, her paintings, and generally everything else that came with being a soldier in a rebellion with the goal of freeing her homeworld, and the galaxy at large, from a tyrant and his lackeys, but she really never noticed how colorful Lothal could be.

The morning sky was a rich azure blue, the golden sun shining upon amber waves of grain and green ears of corn. The dazzling white snow on top of the mighty grey mountains to the distant north made a stark contrast to the vibrant green and brown forest that made up its base; one of the last of its kind on this world, she mused sadly. The tall sandstone spires, ancient, tan, and worn from millennia of abuse by the elements, stood as imposing rivals to the grey, utilitarian, and looming structures favored by Imperial architects, and yet Sabine figured that long after the Empire was gone from this world, whether in five years or a thousand, those natural spires would remain while the colorless, sentient-built structures collapsed.

Sabine shook herself out of her musings. This was neither the time nor the place to admire the beauty of nature. Right now she still had to extract the target from the planet, which, truth be told, was actually going rather well, if not as quickly as she would have hoped.

Just then, her comlink began beeping at her, indicating Hera wanted to contact them, now.

Sabine cursed under her breath in Mando'a before answering the call. This wasn't a scheduled comm check, which occurred at hourly intervals. No, this had to be urgent.

"Specter 1, 5. How copy, over?"

"Specter 5, 1. Be advised, I'm tracking multiple hostiles closing in on your position, bearing down from the south, over."

Haar'chak! "Specter 1, 5. Foot mobile or technical, over?"

"5, 1. A couple of Indigos, assume to carry 10 foot. One Petro also confirmed. ETA till contact approximately five mikes; I can make it in six, over."

Sabine grimaced. They didn't have the firepower to take on two Imperial Troop Transports, a full fire section of stormtroopers, and a gunship at the same time.

"Roger, 1. We'll be ready for a quick exfil out. 5 out."

With that, she ended the transmission and yelled back to Zeb and Blaviken.

"Heads up, you guys! We've got a couple of personnel carriers with full payload and a gunship bearing down on us from the south! They'll be here in under five!"

"KARABAST!" She heard Zeb curse. "Why can't anything ever be simple? Where the kark is Hera when you need her?"

"Six mikes out, which means we need to hold out for a mad minute, and I don't know how we're gonna do that when they have armor and air!" She responded back, checking her energy packs for her blasters and really wishing she had her armor on right about now, though she didn't really know how much good it would do against heavy cannons and missiles.

"I do." She heard a mechanized, yet familiar, voice reply from behind them. There Blaviken stood, completely encased in pitch black armor, save for the faceless silver visor and the grey wolf on his breastplate. He motioned for them to come inside, and as they followed him, he turned on the lights to the room.

Stacks of papers and computer drives littered one table on the far side of the room, and in the back was a whole plethora of weapons, ranging from rifles to missile launchers and everything in between.

"Pulsar, I take it you're good with rifles?" He asked.

"One of the best." Was her confident reply. And it was no boast, she was one of the best shots that came out of the Imperial Academy on Mandalore.

"Good. Take the DC-17 there with the grenade launcher attachment." He then turned to Zeb. "And you, Lasat. Any good with anti-armor munitions?"

"Decent enough, I suppose." Zeb shrugged. Blaviken nodded and handed him one of the rocket launchers from the wall.

"It's a PLX-1, though I've heard the stormies call them 'Plexes'. It can be used for anti-armor and anti-air. And make no mistake when I say that this thing can take down even heavy tanks."

Zeb smiled as he hefted the rocket launcher, chuckling to himself. "Oh-ho, I take it back; this is going to be a lot of fun."

As Zeb stepped outside with Sabine following him, the Mandalorian girl looked behind her to see Blaviken, in addition to the carbine strapped to his back, a sword to one hip, and the sidearm to his other hip, grab a Z-6 rotary cannon and several power packs for it, along with a tripod. He stepped outside with them and pointed to a slight ridge a click to the north of them.

"We're exposed out here if we stand near the cabin. I suggest we move just past the top of that ridge if we want some cover."

Both Sabine and Zeb nodded in the affirmative, and together the trio hoofed it to the ridgeline.


About three minutes later, just as everything was set up and the three were in their fighting positions, the tell-tale whine of Imperial engines could be heard on the horizon. Sabine looked through the scope of her rifle to see two ITTs rolling in at fairly high speeds to the shack, with an IPT hovering overhead to provide close air support for the ground element.

"Don't know about you, Blaviken, but it looks to me like someone ratted you out to the local garrison. Those boys are wearing the markings of the 15th, from what it looks to me." Zeb commented dryly as the ITTs came to a halt and started unloading the section of stormtroopers, about twenty in all, who moved out of the armored carriers with all haste.

At least their section sergeant is competent, Sabine wryly thought as she observed a Stormtrooper with a yellow pauldron directing his two squads; one to pull security, the other to stack up on the door and get ready to breach.

"It doesn't matter anymore," Blaviken replied. "For soon, we leave this world and Pryce won't have to worry about me messing up her coffers any further." He pulled out a detonator, presumably for the plastic explosive charges he had placed around the cabin. "Soon, the Emperor himself will know the meaning of my words." He began cryptically as he pressed the button. A resounding roar drowned out all noise as the cabin exploded into a fireball of gargantuan proportions, taking out the breaching squad and flipping over the ITT closest to the cabin.

To Sabine's ears, however, the most chilling sound wasn't the roaring of the fire produced after the explosion, nor was it the horrified and desperate screams of the wounded unlucky enough to survive the blast. No, the most spine-tingling thing she heard were the next words out of Blaviken's mouth, full of quiet contempt for the Imperials and a certainty of doom.

"Winter is coming."

At that moment, Blaviken opened up with his mounted Z-6 onto the remaining Imperial infantry, which made a terrifying brrrt sound as it ripped through two troopers, with the rest diving for the ground and trying to counter fire onto their position. To their credit, the stormtroopers weren't wavering, bounding up the hillside in teams of two while their comrades tried to suppress herself and the others. However, Sabine was also making headway into making them fall back, as she lobbed another grenade from the under barrel launcher on her rifle near two troopers position. She then looked up to see the gunship swing around and begin a strafing run.

"Zeb, smoke that fucking flyboy or we're all going to die! Now, please!" Blaviken yelled as he kept up the fire on the stormtroopers, who by now were abandoning their position on the hill and slowly falling back to the remaining ITT, which was providing covering fire for them.

"Working on it, kriff-bait!" Zeb yelled back, and Sabine saw him turn to face the gunship, which was now strafing the ridge with rapid cannon fire, with his Plex. Sabine hugged the ground to avoid the bolts impacting the earth around her, and then she heard the tell-tale screech of a missile being launched.

For a split second, she feared that it was a rocket being fired from the gunship, but as soon as she heard a metallic groan following another explosion, followed by the sounds of an airborne vehicle desperately trying to avoid crashing, she looked up to see the gunship going down in a plume of fire and smoke, hitting the ground hard as it rolled over several times before coming to a complete stop.

It was a twisted, crushed remainder of what it had once been.

After this, the ITT, now full of the remainder of the Stormtrooper section, decided to back off, for at that moment the Ghost came soaring overhead, firing its nose gun at the armored vehicle, which sent it hightailing it back to Jericho, before the ship circled back and opened up its ramp onto the ridge itself, whilst still airborne.

"Specters 4 and 5, this is 1. You might want to hurry; those stormtroopers you've run off have probably alerted the Star Destroyer in orbit about us." Hera warned over Sabine's comlink, in a tone that said 'Hurry the kark up now, please and thank you.'

"Roger, 1. 5, out," Sabine replied hastily, and then signaled the others to get on the ship.

Zeb got on first, being the closest to the ship. Next, Sabine boarded the vessel, being helped along by Zeb to make sure she didn't fall off. Finally, Blaviken simply walked on without missing a beat, abandoning the rotary cannon altogether.

When they were all aboard and accounted for, Hera punched the throttle and made her vector into the space around Lothal. Soon after, Sabine could feel the familiar sense of the ship jerking itself forward, as the Ghost made the jump into hyperspace.

Sabine wearily made it back to her room, colorful and full of life as always, sat down near her bunk, and leaned on the bulkhead, contemplating the events of the day. After a few moments of thinking, she chuckled to herself slightly.

Just another day in the office.


Well, another chapter of this story is finished, and another day's work done.

Now, for those of you wondering why Robb is completely competent when it comes to the Galaxy, keep in mind that this was 12 years after the events of the Red Wedding on his homeworld; 12 years to get acclimatized and familiar with a galaxy so much more technologically advanced and diverse than his planet that at first, it would seem like he landed in the realms of the gods themselves. Rest assured, he isn't going to be upstaging the SW characters. (Most importantly, Sabine, Ezra, and the OT main cast, whom I've got big plans for). But on the other hand, there will be a reason for him being here; he is a leader of men, after all…

And for those still wanting more of my other fic, I&F: Total War, don't worry; I promise it will be up by the end of this week at the earliest, and by Sunday afternoon at the latest. There is just one scene I need to plow through on my chapter there, and the rest will fall into place.

Till the next.