"Connection has been established sir," the ensign called out.

"I copy, transmit data dump," Admiral Runion said in reply.

It had been a few days since one of their probes had been found by a Covenant Separatist search party, and cloaked signal boosters had been set up in the dead space between their galaxy and the one that they were currently in. UNSC high command had been ecstatic to hear that his fleet had survived the supernova blast, and had requested a full report of what had happened.

The report of the battle around the nebula had been submitted with the combat logs, and now Runion was preparing to send them all the info they had discovered in this galaxy.

"Data has been transmitted Admiral," the ensign.

Runion leaned on the railing in the bridge of the Architect, when the UNSC received the info that he had sent, he fully expected all hell to break loose.

Now all he had to do was wait until the inevitable call came.

After the brief and deadly firefight in the hangar, Julian found himself alone in one of the side rooms on board the Broken Horn. The boy, Ezra, and Hondo were in the cockpit preparing for flight, and the droid, Chopper, was shut off and recharging.

Ezra Bridger.

"Lincoln?" Julian said aloud.

Said AI appeared before the Spartan in a whirl of digitized holo matter.

"Need something?" the AI inquired.

Julian gave an affirmative head nod, "Yes, search our archives for Ezra Bridger, I want to find more about our little Jedi friend."

Lincoln flashed, searching the database they had been provided by ONI and other Imperial records taken during Operation Moving Shadows.

"Nothing, the name isn't registered anywhere, that might be on purpose," the AI spoke.

Julian brushed his chin with his hand, "The data we have could also be outdated," Julian waved his hand, "Try facial recognition."

Lincoln flashed as his facial recognition technology mingled with the Imperial database.

"I do believe I've found something," the AI stated.

Julian watched as what looked like a profile appeared.

It seemed to be an Imperial transcript of sorts, for an academy. In the center of the document was a photo of Ezra, with the words "Dev Morgan" underneath.

Julian skimmed over the document, looking at the text near the bottom.

Status: Rebel Spy at large.

Julian jolted up suddenly, his mind racing to conclusions.

This kid was one of the rebels! Should have seen it coming with him supposedly being a Jedi.

"He must have been on an undercover mission, judging by his status and fake name," he said aloud to Lincoln.

Lincoln flashed again, "I found one last thing for you, an audio log that was kept in the Imperial database to study Rebel propaganda."

"Play it Lincoln," Julian requested.

A hissing noise sounded and a young, hopeful, familiar voice spoke.

"We have been called criminals, but we are not."

"We are rebels."

"Fighting for the people, fighting for you."

"I'm not that old, but I remember a time where things were better on Lothal."

"Maybe not great, but never like this."

"See what the Empire has done your lives, your family and your freedom? It's only going to get worse unless we stand up and fight back!"

"It won't be easy, there will be loss and sacrifice, but we can't just back down because we are afraid."

"That's when we need to stand the tallest."

"That's what my parents taught me."

"That's what my new family helped me remember."

"Stand up together! Because that's when we're strongest."

"As one!"

The voice faltered out into static and Lincoln reappeared.

The AI gave a chuckle, "This young one reminds me of me."

Julian gave a solemn nod, "He's the key to our mission then, if he is a rebel, then chances are he has a connection to a rebel cell."

"I will send what we have learned back to the Architect, perhaps they have made contact again with our UNSC friends."

Julian simply nodded his confirmation when his motion tracker went off.

He stood up quickly, "One of them is coming back."

Ezra walked down the hallway to let Julian know that the ship was about to take off.

Truth be told, he could have just commed the tall armored man, but Ezra had an ulterior motive in seeking out Julian.

Ezra hadn't really noticed it before hand, seeing as how they were busy getting shot at, but the green armored man was incredibly weak in the force.

Astonishingly so, as a matter of fact.

Kanan was fond of telling him that the force flowed through every living thing in the galaxy, but for Julian the force literally flowed through him.

Ezra's memory immediately brought up a teasing reprimand from Hera after he had been caught not paying attention at a debriefing, in one ear, out the other.

The statement sort of fit Julian, it was as if the force wasn't naturally a part of him and had instead forced its way into him. He barely had a force signature, and unless Ezra concentrated hard, he was completely invisible in the force.

Ezra also had a feeling that the man had something to do with the disturbance that had been bugging him for quite some time, judging by the strange feeling he got when they had first met.

Another thing as well, Hondo had said earlier that the man was rebellious and probably would have joined up with the rebels if not for him.

To say Ezra was curious was an understatement. And he had quite a few questions to ask Julian.

If he could even find the guy in the first place.

He palmed a random door open and was surprised to see that the man was in the room.

The massive armored figure stood up and faced him.

Ezra felt himself shrink back a little, this guy made Zeb look short!

"Need something?" his filtered voice inquired neutrally.

"I just wanted to let you know that we're just taking off now," Ezra stated.

Julian nodded, then tilted his head quizzically, "You could have just commed me and told me that, why did you come here?"

"I just wanted to ask you a couple questions," he said cautiously. Ezra knew he couldn't rely on the force for this interaction, and trying to read his emotion was extra hard while he was wearing that helmet. He could only go off vocal inflections for now.

The man sat back down, "Sure kid, shoot away."

"Look, I'm sorry for bothering you…" Ezra started to say, when realization dawned on him.

"Wait, what?" he asked, surprised that the guy didn't just tell him to get lost.

The man shrugged, "So long as I get to ask a few questions myself, Jedi."

"Uh, right, yeah," Ezra responded, he should have guessed that the guy was probably curious about his Jedi skills.

The ship suddenly lurched as it entered hyperspace. And Ezra fell silent.

The armored man tilted his head after a moment and asked, "Well?" a hint of amusement in his voice.

Ezra flushed a little, and blurted, "Hondo said you would be in the rebellion if it wasn't for him picking you up."

"And why would you care about something like that?" Julian responded.

"Hey, the deal was you would answer the questions," Ezra said, getting a little bolder.

Julian gave a laugh, "You're pretty spunky, kid." His laugh turned to a sigh and he spoke again.

"I was born in the far reaches of the outer rim on a remote colony. When the Republic fell the world didn't align with the Empire and the Empire didn't take too kindly to our planets little rebellion."

"So, what did they do?" Ezra asked, now intrigued.

Julian looked at Ezra, his helmet unreadable, "They burnt the colony to the ground, very few survivors. The population was small enough as it was, so keeping the story covered up was easy. I was one of the lucky few to have escaped. Let's just say I'm not a fan of the Empire."

Ezra slumped his shoulders sadly, it seemed the Empire took something from everyone.

"The Empire took my parents away from me when I was young," Ezra said sadly, "That's why I was interested Y'know? The people who have been wronged by the Empire really need to stick together."

"Because that's when were strongest," the man said.

Suddenly, Julian reached up and pulled his helmet off.

"As one," he finished.

Ezra gaped at the youngish looking man in front of him, "Wait, you know that?"

The man nodded, his shortish hair swaying a little, "I knew from the second I heard your voice it was you, I just didn't know you were a Jedi, you're quite the inspiration."

Ezra shrugged nonchalantly, "Not many do and thanks for that."

Ezra hesitated again and spoke once more, "Would you be interested in joining the rebellion? I saw you fight back in that hangar, we could use someone with your skills."

Before he could answer, Ezra's comm beeped and Hondo's voice filtered through.

"Ezra, I need you up to the cockpit of this bucket of junk, the hyperdrive is acting strange!"

"I'm coming Hondo!" Ezra answered in a hurry.

He turned to exit and then looked back at Julian.

The man gave an amused grin, "Better get going, leaving Hondo alone to fix something is a bad idea."

Ezra nodded and was about to leave when Julian spoke one last time.

"And as for your question, I'll think about it," he said, looking deep in thought.

Ezra gave a mock salute to him and ran out the door.

Lincoln reappeared beside Julian the second Ezra left through the door.

"You are a pretty good liar."

Julian shrugged, "It's not technically a lie, just replace Empire with Covenant and me with my father and its perfectly truthful."

Lincoln put a hand on his bearded chin, "Why are you getting attached to this kid? I quite doubt he is the leader of the cell."

"Because, I think he could be a key in stopping this Empire before they realize our existence, that transmission of his no doubt inspired countless people."

"And yet, why him specifically?" the AI inquired again.

Julian raised an eyebrow at the floating Lincoln again, "You know the answer to that question already."

Lincoln smiled, "Indeed I do old friend, tell me anyways."

"In our few weeks of travelling this galaxy with Hondo we've seen all sorts of people. All of them had different motivations, desires, personalities, and such. And yet they all lack one thing that I see in this kid."

"And what might that be, old friend?"

Julian put his helmet on.

"Hope."

A/N: Talk about Cliche! I love that kinda stuff though, so I decided to keep it in. Sorry about the wait on this one, procrastination is awful.

I feel the need to respond to some reviews, as for questions regarding certain characters appearing and different elements of the Star Wars Universe and Halo Universe interacting I really can't tell you. Mainly because I have no idea how this story is going to go. Basically all I know are interconnected plot lines. One thing I do know for sure is how the events on Malachor are going to go down and how the story is going to "end" so we'll see what happens.

Thanks for your patience and support, nearly 7000 views!