Ballad of the Winter Rose

A SW Rebels/Doctor Who Romance

Genre: Gothic romance, drama, hurt/comfort, dark fantasy, slight horror

Cast: the usual

Pairings: Thrawn/Minerva and Kallus/Zeb

Chapter 46: Fulcrum's Mission Impossible, Part2

Chapter Soundtrack: Summer and Mononoke Hime (Nobody Knows Your Heart)- Joe Hisaishi

Once the Ghost was back at Chopper Base, everyone was greeted by Commander Sato, who debriefed them on what was going on. There was some Imperial chatter about some grade school slicer calling themselves Delta Source. They were an equal opportunity troll, bothering both them and the Empire. According to the child's psychological profile (written by Thrawn, and hacked by Iron Squadron), he/she was in 3rd grade, exceled at mathematics and sciences, and came from a smuggling background. There was talk of recruitment, but Sato wasn't having any of it. War was no place for a child, Delta Source needed to go home to Mom and Dad.

Not surprisingly, Thrawn had recommended the same thing in mind. He had also intimated said child would be cocky and have a self-inflated ego. According to the Grand Admiral, Delta Source's parents were still alive and were most likely in the trading business on some backwater world, like Lah'mu. That was as far as the hack went, because Thrawn had activated his privacy programming update on his datapad.

"So, we can hire Skander, but not a nine year old with Asperger's Syndrome," Zeb inquired to the group as they sat around the galley table, eating peanut butter sandwiches. Kanan shrugged, "Excelling at math and science, a schizoid personality disorder, and trolling both sides in a galactic civil war does not mean Delta Source is on the autism spectrum. Besides, Thrawn would have noticed any inkling of a neurological disorder and written it down in red ink." Everyone else nodded in agreement, that sounded about right.

After the dishes were washed and put away, it was time to discuss Operation: Extract Kallus. Running through whatever hacked Imperial data that was available to them personally (most of it thanks to Kallus), they learned Kallus was currently on a light cruisier, acting as ISB's attache to the Seventh Fleet. It was sitting a safe distance outside of Lothal's orbit, because light cruisers had a bad habit of becoming temporary moons in some cases, much to the consternation of the Imperial Navy's support and maintenance corp.

"Well, according to Kallus's social media posts, he's bored out of his mind and his profile is full of sad face emoji's," Rex confirmed as he projected the screen of her datapad. Zeb frowned, he hated seeing his boyfriend looking depressed. "He looks like he's ready to commit murder just to get off that ship," Ezra observed. Kanan nodded in agreement, being cooped up somewhere on orders against your will was cruel and unusual.

Hera thought for a moment and nodded her lekku towards the armor lying in the closet not ten feet away. "Why don't we go for an undercover mission? One of us could pretend to be a criminal and have Chop and AP-5 go in." This seemed like a good idea, considering Wedge had picked up the wayward droid during an undercover mission on Corellia a few weeks ago. Since then, the protocol droid had been spending time with the Specters and had a rivalry with Chopper running red hot.

Zeb wanted to do the mission, but this was met with some pushback. Thrawn would expect that, and with his and Targeter's wedding plans having been made public, would hopefully be out of pocket. It would be easier for 1 person and two droids. The next step was to decide who would be infiltrating the light cruiser with the data codes Kallus had sent them the other day (in between racy texts to Zeb). Ezra declared he would go, considering how much time had passed since anyone had seen him before his growth spurt and haircut. With all of that out of the way, Ezra needed a disguise.

Luckily for him, Sabine had been working on one for him. It was a standard set of bounty hunter armor, but it was painted to resemble a Loth cat. The helmet even bore the likeness of a Loth-cat. Standing in front of a mirror, Ezra sighed. "I wish Sabine was here. She'd love a mission like this." Zeb ruffled his hair good-naturedly, "Yeah, I know. But, absence makes the heart grow fonder, as the sayin' goes. You're a good person, Ez. By the way, could you give this to Skander for me?" Handing Ezra a piece of cardstock, Ezra recognized it as the rough draft wedding invitation art Sabine had mocked up. Grinning, Ezra gave the Lasat a hug.

Chopper wanted to go on the mission solely because he wanted to see the pretty Imperial lady and make Kanan angry again. Angry!Kanan was the best comedy act in the galaxy, in his opinion. AP-5 took a longer time to convince. "I have inventory to do, not go galivanting on an undercover mission." Of course, Chopper took this moment to call him a mindless philosopher and an overweight glob of grease. Dander up, AP-5 cut in, "ENOUGH! I will join the mission, but only to prove I am the superior droid around here." Hera managed to calm the argument and let AP-5 and Ezra figure out the nitty-gritty of the plan.

It took three days to figure out how sneak back to Lothal and get arrested for smuggling and finding an appropriate ship to use as a courier. There were a lot of old ships that had been impounded, and they were being used for target practice. Old Jho knew a few models that were still in good condition. "This shuttle has 500k miles on it and was used for smuggling in shonen-ai manga about fifty years ago." Ezra shrugged, his parents read that stuff all the time, so for him it was no big deal.

Old Jho was relieved, that was one less ship the Empire had in its arsenal. Contacting the gang, Ezra confirmed that he had the ship, and all he needed were the droids. Rex and Kanan would be his back up and would be following in the Phantom II, on standby. All they needed was clear weather, and that would be the better part of the week because of a nasty storm from moving in from the southeast.

Meanwhile, back on the light cruiser, Kallus was depressed and lonely. He wanted to play holochess with Minerva and discuss sports tactics with Thrawn at dinner in the officer's dining hall. There was nobody here he could really connect with, at least on a platonic level. Ugh, why did the Empire have to be so lonely?

The morning of 7 November, Imperial Year 18 began like it always did. The annoying blare of the klaxon woke him from another restless sleep. The sooner I wake up in Zeb's arms on the Ghost, the sooner I regain my soul and sanity, he thought to himself as he woke up. Groggy, he stumbled to the en-suite sink and stared at his wan face in the mirror. How could he drag himself through another ridiculous drill? Unbeknownst to the ISB agent, this was not a drill. This was a code red!

"Battle stations, sir," the trooper barked. Rolling his eyes, Kallus ran down the corridor, into the elevator, and onto the main bridge. He was hoping Lyste had a good reason for the too-early wake up, or else Yogar was going to be thrown out of the airlock.

Looking unreasonably well rested, Lyste saluted the officer. "Lieutenant Lyste , are we under attack," Kallus responded sarcastically. Lyste shook his head, "Thankfully not, we just got a report of a stolen freighter that's just left Lothal." Turning around, he gestured towards the windshield. The light cruiser had been firing at a non-descript freighter, and once it was within range, the tractor beam had it in its grip.

Gleefully bouncing on the balls of his feet, he and Kallus made their way to the docking bay. A couple of stormtroopers were holding onto a scrawny looking smuggler and two familiar droids. Good grief, what were they doing here?

Oblivious to what was going on, Lyste yanked off the helmet…revealing Ezra Bridger! Jesus Christ Superstar, what was he doing here? "What are you looking at, Imperial scum," Ezra snarled as one of the stormtroopers backhanded him. Motioning for everyone to follow, one of the troopers asked about the droids. AP piped up, "We are witnesses to the shuttle robbery. We can provide evidence at his trial." That seemed reasonable to Lyste.

Leaving Kallus to interrogate the smuggler, Ezra used the Force to turn of the cameras and microphones and used the Force to jump onto the ceiling. Kallus groaned, "Will you please stop that? You're going to give me a heart attack." Ezra shrugged and returned to the floor when Kallus gave him a large, fatherly hug. "Goodness, I have missed you all. How's Zeb, and what are you doing here?" Ezra explained the rescue mission and handed Kallus the cardstock.

"Sabine is a fine artist, she even got all the details right," Kallus gushed. Ezra nodded, and told Kallus they were dating. They spoke for another minute about relationships during war time, when Ezra held his hand up, "Lyste is coming back. Quick, fake punch me!" Catching on, Kallus began fake punching Ezra with the young teen confessing to everything.

Standing at the door was an understandably impressed Lyste, "You are as good as they say! However, the interrogation will have to wait. We have been summoned to Grand Admiral Thrawn's Star Destroyer." Kallus frowned, why in space would they be going there?

"We're going there to show Grand Admiral Thrawn and General Hektor I'm a capable officer," Lyste replied. Motioning for the droids to follow, everyone walked away, leaving Ezra's helmet and the cardstock.

AS the humans talked, Chopper discretely updated plans to Kanan and Rex.