From Flames, I Soar

by Kurenaino

With the Empire at the height of its power and the shadow of a greater threat hanging above all those who would oppose Palpatine, the Specters, led by former Jedi Padawan Kanan Jarrus, are forced to contend with the Sith Lord that set the galaxy ablaze. Sequel to In Chaos, I Thrive.

67. Twin Suns

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Here it is. An absolute disaster. Please understand that I know exactly what I'm doing for the next chapter. It's been burning in my brain for years and I can't believe I made it here. But that doesn't mean it's going to happen fast. It could. It MIGHT, but honestly, this November's looking very busy for this one. I'm hoping to get it done for Christmas. Just for you guys, my lovely readers.

Please enjoy this absolute trainwreck.

Chapter 67: Twin Suns

"There's a disturbance in the Force," Obi-Wan said, and with a groan and a roll of her eyes so exaggerated her head rolled with her eyes, Bo-Katan pulled the straps to tighten her armor to her shin. The Sith Lord's eyes raked slowly over the topless woman's back, a smirk of satisfaction on his lips as he beheld the dark bruises marring her pale skin For all her bravado, Bo-Katan Kryze bruised just as easily as her fairer sister.

Not that he had faired any better. He could feel the sting of long, angry red welts upon his back dug into his skin by fingernails and his muscles ached terribly as if he had come out the wrong side of a fight. Which, in a sense, he had. Bo-Katan was savage, both on the battlefield and, as he learned, in the bedroom, and while she certainly hadn't gotten the better of him, their tryst was less like sex than a contest of dominance. Even now, long after it was over, he wasn't sure which of them had come out on top.

"You Jedi are so fragile," Bo-Katan scoffed as she tossed Kenobi's horned helmet back at him and pulled her black, long-sleeved compression shirt over her head. "You have one nightmare and wake up screaming that monsters are real..."

"They are real, Bo," Kenobi huffed as he stood, a flick of his hand calling his discarded robes and armor to rise from the ground, the heavy black robes draping over him and the beskar steel snapping into its proper place around him. "I'm telling you, the Force is disturbed. Something's wrong."

"You're anxious," Bo-Katan said dismissively with a haughty smirk. "We're going to war, and it's been so very long since you've been anything but a pest. Maybe you've forgotten how to wage war, Shadow King."

"I haven't forgotten..." Kenobi muttered absently, his gaze unfocusing as he stared at the ground, his robes and armor orbiting around him as one by one, the Force snapped the pieces into place. It was more than battle anxiety as Bo-Katan believed, he knew. All night, thoughts of war and Force visions flickered through his mind like waking nightmares. The Force was disturbed, more so than he had felt in many years, as expected with the rising of a new war to threaten the galaxy. But it was worse than all that. Flashes of the massive beast from his visions occupied his thoughts, and no matter how hard he tried to focus, his attention was drawn time and time again to sandy Tatooine. The ships on the horizon, the world destroying moon in the sky, the flash of red lightsabers in the sand drowning out everything else, even in the looming threat that was Thrawn.

That was the nexus of his disturbance in the Force. It had to be. And it needed to be dealt with before it had the chance to rise up and deal untold damage to their efforts, before their own attempt to drag Thrawn into a two front conflict was turned on them instead. Nothing good ever came from ignoring the call of the Force, and Obi-Wan was better than most at following where he was led, and it had always served him well.

But it was, at best, massively inconvenient. They had already set their plan into motion, and Thrawn waited for nobody.

"I cannot stay," Kenobi finally said as the last of his armor was secured upon his body and his helmet was lowered over his head. Bo-Katan swiftly turned to face him, and though he was certainly grateful that her own helmet kept him from seeing the expression on her face, he could still feel her wrath through the tides of the Force.

"Are you really going to choose now to turn coward?!" Bo-Katan snapped as she reeled on him. "You come here invoking your name to rally the forces of Mandalore, and now that we're ready for your war, you're going to leave us?!"

"The Force-"

"I have never been impressed you're your Jedi mysticism and I'm not about to start now!" she said as she tore her helmet from her head and turned furious eyes upon the immovable Sith. "Maybe you've forgotten, Kenobi, but the last time you left Mandalore chasing some whim, Sundari was captured and Satine was murdered!"

He didn't so much as move, and even still, the air in the room snapped bitterly cold as if the walls of the Wren's fortress vanished and left them exposed to the frigid mountain air of Krownest, and no sooner had the words left her lips, Bo-Katan found she couldn't breathe, the ground beneath her feet dropping away as she was violently lifted into the air by an invisible force. Looking down, she found that the Sith Lord still hadn't moved, but through the visor of his horned helmet, she could see the blazing glow of his eerie, molten eyes.

"Don't you dare invoke her name in my presence..." the Sith Lord said in a flat, emotionless voice as cold as the air around them. She hung there for a moment more, able to do nothing more than stare at the Sith, and without warning, the glow faded from the visor, and Bo-Katan was dropped to the ground, gasping for breath as her neck was released. A cold hand was on her cheek before she managed to get up, affectionately stroking her face and brushing her hair back.

"I'm sorry..." Kenobi muttered under his breath as trembling hands carefully tucked loose strands of red hair behind the woman's ear, her discarded helmet floating through the air to land gently at her side. "My temper got the better of me, but you were very cruel..."

"It may have been cruel, but that doesn't make it any less true!" Bo-Katan hissed, bracing herself for another explosion of the powerful Sith's anger, but this time, Kenobi only bowed his head, the shaking hand upon her cheek tensing.

"I know..." Obi-Wan whispered in a voice that weakly trembled beneath the weight of guilt that rested on his shoulders, his eye tightly shut in the futile effort to block the vivid flashes of painful memories that came unbidden to his mind. "It won't happen again," he promised as he looked Bo-Katan in the eye, his voice steady, strong and confident. "No matter what, I will come for you."

"And yet, you're leaving me now," Bo-Katan said snidely and scoffed when the Sith Lord gave an uncompromising nod.

"I must," Obi-Wan said as he stood and helped Bo-Katan to her feet, and held up a hand when she looked as though she would once again begin to argue. "It was always the plan, Bo. One force to free Mandalore, one force to assault and liberate Lothal, and I can't be in both places at once."

"So instead you'll be in neither," the Mandalorian said pointedly, and Kenobi took of his helmet and flashed the woman a cocky smirk.

"I'll be back in time to join the attack on Lothal," Obi-Wan said with a shrug. "Unless you don't think you can handle things here..."

"I can handle anything!" Bo-Katan snapped, and groaned a second later when Kenobi gave her a triumphant smirk, realizing too late that she had too willingly allowed him to bait her. "Are you sure you'll be back in time? If our timing is even a little off, your Imperial is just going to jump from one battle to the next instead of being trapped between us."

"A quick trip to Tatooine to locate and deal with a disturbance shouldn't take too long," Kenobi promised. "I'll be there and back before anyone knows I'm gone. Hera has our preparations in hand, and you have the full might of Mandalore. The plan is in motion. I'll be there to see it through to its conclusion. After all..." he added with a wry smile. "Thrawn and I have a date. I wouldn't miss it for anything."

Bo-Katan hissed a breath between her teeth, but didn't raise any further objections and quickly pressing her lips against Kenobi's, she pulled her helmet back over her head.

"Ready to go?" she asked, and the Sith Lord nodded and followed the Mandalorian as she turned on her heel and strode out of the room into the busy halls of the Wren fortress, Mandalorian warriors rushing past them as the entire compound prepared for war. It didn't take them long to reach the throne room where Ursa Wren sat upon her throne, Sabine and Tristan at her side as they issued commands and discussed the upcoming strategy with the clan leaders that had arrived overnight. As they drew closer, Obi-Wan saw that Luke and Leia were involved in the gathering as well, and he couldn't help the swell of pride in his chest. They were young still, and they had a ways to go, but the both of his children were shaping up to be fine leaders.

"Shadow King," Ursa said as she rose from her throne as the Sith approached, the other clan leaders swiftly turning to face him and respectfully bowing. "We were discussing or strategy for retaking Sundari."

"The Shadow King will not be joining us," Bo-Katan quickly interjected as she stepped through the holomap they were standing around to stand at Ursa's side. "The rebel forces attacking Lothal aren't Mandalorian, so he will need to lead them personally. He trusts his people to do their duty without his direct supervision." She gestured at the holomap. "What do you have for us?"

The matter was settled and accepted with a nod from the clan leaders, and they turned their attention to the map and their plans laid out before them, and Obi-Wan couldn't help but be impressed with the trust that Bo-Katan Kryze commanded from her people. She was a fine leader, but given how good her sister had been, that was hardly surprising.

"Sundari is the center of Imperial power in the Mandalore sector," Ursa said firmly as she looked around the group, the holomap shifting to display a projection of the planet. "If we take Sundari, not just Mandalore but the entire sector falls back into our control."

"But Sundari is well defended," Bo-Katan cut in. "A direct assault on the capital would be a massacre. The Imperials have us considerably outgunned."

"We were just discussing that," Sabine said as she reached out and touched a point on the holographic Mandalore on the opposite side of the planet from the glowing point indicating Sundari. "There's another Imperial stronghold, a base, or a prison or something. If we attack that, it could draw enough attention away from Sundari to even our odds a bit."

"Once Imperial forces are divided, we can send the bulk of our warriors in to take the capital," Leia added, a slight, devious smirk on her lips. "We'll mobilize a forward strike team to get in and disable the main defenses, and once that's done..." She shrugged. "Mandalore's ours. A big enough shakeup to get Thrawn's attention, just like the Shadow King wanted."

"That's certainly the hope," Obi-Wan said as he eyed smug Leia and determined Luke, a pit suddenly sinking in his stomach. "We'll mobilize?" he asked, and through his focus, Luke visibly winced as Leia drew up tall and defiant. The very image Obi-Wan had seen of the twins each and every time they did something they knew he wouldn't like.

"We," Leia said firmly. "Luke and I are going to stay and help lead the assault on Sundari."

"You are absolutely not!" Obi-Wan snapped, sudden panic gripping him tightly, his composure cracking in the face of the cold, stubborn determination on both the twins' faces.

"No?" Leia asked as calmly as Obi-Wan had ever heard her. "So we're leaving with Zeb and Kallus to go back to the base so we can join the attack on Lothal?"

And that was it, Obi-Wan admitted silently to himself with a curse. He was trapped, and the twins knew it.

He suddenly felt ill.

"This is war," Luke said quietly, a calm evenness in his voice that the boy never had when he stood in defiance of his father. "The entire rebellion has led up to this moment. There is no place we can go where we won't be a part of this. Not anymore."

Obi-Wan began to object, but quickly broke off, his gaze falling to the ground as he battled with the awful, sickening revelation that Luke was right. He could fight this. He could. It would be easy to send the twins away to safety, to Bail on Alderaan, or to the only tangentially involved Yavin base, but...

But that was only delaying the inevitable, wasn't it? After today, the war against Sidious' Empire would begin in earnest, not the minor attacks and harassment of the past years, but open warfare, with all rebel factions coming together to fight whenever and wherever they could. And really, hadn't Luke and Leia already been involved? Not just with the Phoenix Squadron in the past months, but there entire lives. All he had taught them, all the training in the ways of the Force that he and Qui-Gon and Yoda had taught them, all their training with blasters and starfighters, had it not all been in the service of the war he knew they would one day be part of?

Glancing around the room, he spotted Cody back toward the doors, the man leaning against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest and staring right at the Sith Lord. He couldn't see his face for the helmet, but Obi-Wan could feel the clone's calm and resolve, sure and steady as he had always been. The man was too far away to have heard the conversation, but Cody had known him long enough to look and see exactly what was going on. And even still, Kenobi felt no concern from his longtime companion, no objection to another of the twins' efforts to wrest away from their father's tight grasp, no support for the Sith Lord's continued efforts to keep his children safe and close.

Cody gave him a small, tight nod, and Obi-Wan felt the ground pulled out from under him as he realized it was over. At some point, all children must be set free to fly on their own, and Luke and Leia's time had come. And really, both of them already flew so well...

Perhaps, Obi-Wan ruefully considered, it was him that wasn't ready to let go.

"I am leaving Cody and Rex behind to assist Bo-Katan in retaking Sundari," Obi-Wan said in a firm, tight voice. "You will remain close enough to them so they may protect you."

And with a quick nod from the twins, it was over, everyone's eyes returning to the holomap to solidify their plan, Bo-Katan directing the clans to meet in a secret enclave on Mandalore to prepare their teams for their infiltration of Sundari while Clan Wren led the diversionary assault on the Imperial facility. With the plan set and prepared to go into motion, Obi-Wan turned away from the group, giving the twins a stern reminder that the Force was with them before he strode to where Cody stood leaning against the wall.

"I'm taking the Umbra to Tatooine before I return to Atollon," Kenobi said quietly to the clone. "Get Kallus and Zeb loaded up on another ship to get them back. I can't afford the delay to drop them off first."

"Not a problem," Cody muttered as he tapped the com on his gauntlet as he pushed off the wall, his eyes raking over the tense, agitated Sith Lord. "...you alright, brother?"

"No!" Kenobi snapped, his hand tightening at his side as he felt the Dark Side flare up and lash at his back. "Yes...I don't know..." he growled, looking control as he brought his emotions tightly under his control. "The Force is disturbed, I–"

"I meant about the kids," Cody interrupted, and the Sith gave a heavy, suffering sigh.

"I take it you knew about this?" Kenobi grumbled, a frown creasing his lips when the clone nodded and gave an indifferent shrug. "And you didn't think to dissuade them from this madness?"

"The kids are good, boss," Cody said flippantly. "You're gonna need them."

"I know I need them. It's why I don't want to let them go." Obi-Wan's fingers drummed on the hilt of his lightsaber, uneven and halting, no better than they had been since he came out of the bacta tank. "You'll look after them, won't you?" he asked the clone, and the man nodded, laying a comforting hand upon the Sith's shoulder.

"On my life, they will be safe," Cody promised, giving Kenobi's shoulder a squeeze.

"Hey, Jedi!" Cody looked over the Sith shoulder as Obi-Wan quickly turned around to face Bo-Katan, the smug woman's helmet tucked under her arm as she sauntered toward the pair. "How about this time, we don't wait fifteen years to get together, hm?" she drawled as she punched the Sith's arm.

"Wouldn't dream of it," Obi-Wan said as he took his own helmet off and gave the woman a tight smile. "After Mandalore and Lothal are ours, I don't suspect we'll ever be apart."

"Our people have been waiting for this," Bo-Katan said proudly. "The Shadow King and the Mand'alor, united at last."

"Different Mand'alor," Obi-Wan said flatly, and the woman laid her hand upon his cheek.

"She'd be proud of you," Bo-Katan said quietly. "I know she would." The cocky grin returned to her lips as she patted the Sith Lord's cheek. "See you on the other side, Kenobi."

"You can count on it," Obi-Wan said, pausing for a moment before he quickly added, "May the Force be with you."

Bo-Katan scoffed, rolled her eyes, but said nothing, saluting the man quickly before she turned on her heels and walked back to Ursa's side. Sighing as he pulled his helmet back on, Obi-Wan laid his hand upon Cody's shoulder for a brief, tense moment before he walked out of the doors into the chilly Krownest climate to where the Umbra awaited him.

---

In her departure from Sundari, Moff Kryze had taken the highest authorities with her. When the Saxons and the Moff had disappeared from all communications, the power vacuum left chaos and fear and uncertainty in its wake, the Imperials left behind to jostle for power and argue over who was in command now that their leaders were gone, while the rest worried and prepared for the worst.

Upon his arrival, it took all of ten minutes for Thrawn to reestablish order.

He stood in the throne room of Sundari's palace, his hands folded behind his back as he carefully observed the artwork upon the walls, no different than the first time he had been here, but now, he had the time to give the reliefs and paintings and mosaics a proper examination. He had studied holographic copies of this work extensively, of course, but there was always something different about getting to observe art in person. There was no practical difference, of course, no extra information that could be gleaned from a direct observation, but it always felt richer when he could look upon the actual piece.

Soft, swift footsteps echoed in the hall behind him, and Thrawn pulled himself out of his thoughts, giving the mural a final glance before he turned away from it and walked slowly toward the throne, his fingers lightly brushing the carvings on the chair as he watched Commodore Faro approach, a datapad in the woman's hand and the line of her jaw as tense as he'd ever seen it. Usually when she went into battle, she had a hull of a ship between her and the shooting. Now, the Chimaera was standing vigil over Lothal while the Shyrak, the ship that Thrawn had decided at the last minute to take instead of his own, sat at the edge of the system, hiding and waiting for the command to execute an in-system jump to come to their aid. Here on the ground, there was much more uncertainty than the sure security of a densely armored ship.

"No activity, sir," Faro reported as she reached the throne and handed the Admiral the datapad. "At least, not so far as we can tell."

"Then it would appear as if we have arrived to intercept just in time," Thrawn said calmly as he examined the reports on the datapad, the information presented to him exactly as he had anticipated. "Have my preparations been carried out?"

"Yes sir," Faro said swiftly. "We ran an additional test after your preliminary examination, but everything now is ready and awaiting your command." The Admiral nodded, but said nothing, his eyes fixed on the datapad, and for a moment, Faro shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. "A lot of people are going to die," she finally said, her voice tighter and more measured than before, and Thrawn's glowing red eyes glanced away from the datapad to observe the Commodore.

"Yes..." he muttered quietly. "We have been left little choice in the matter. We no longer have the option of simply picking her up, as we had hoped before. Our best option is to force her into the open, and this is the quickest and most efficient way to do so."

"Is it?" Faro asked, a look of challenge in her eyes as she held her Admiral's gaze, a thing she knew most would consider defiance and punish appropriately. But not Thrawn. "She's looking to retake Mandalore from the Empire. That would necessarily lead her to Sundari. Certainly she will come here on her own."

"True," Thrawn said as he looked back down at his datapad. "Under normal circumstances, perhaps I would have allowed her plan to play out. But we have a deadline, and we are out of time."

"All of this hinges on the idea that she will create a diversion," Faro pointed out. "We can't be sure she will. The Mandalorians are nothing if not bold."

"Perhaps, but in order to believe that, you must also believe that this attack is independent of the impending Lothal attack," Thrawn said calmly as he swiftly swiped his finger across the screen of the datapad. "The Phoenix rebels and Obi-Wan Kenobi have a hand in this, Commodore. Of that we can be certain, and they have demonstrated a heavy reliance on diversionary tactics to maximize the effect of their limited resources." His eyes once again met Faro's. "There will be a diversionary strike."

"And if Moff Kryze is leading the diversionary strike?" Faro asked. "If she's leading the diversionary strike," she said quickly when Thrawn frowned and began to speak, "because the Shadow King is leading the main force."

For a long moment, Thrawn was silent, quietly considering as his eyes flicked between Faro, the datapad in his hand, and the mural upon the wall, his left hand behind his back slowly rubbing his fingers together. Then, he slowly shook his head, his gaze slowly roving over the mural one last time before he gave Faro his full attention.

"Kenobi is poised to be one of the leaders of the prospective assault on Lothal," Thrawn said in a measured, confident voice. "Do not forget, Commodore, that the entire Mandalorian uprising is in itself a diversion for the movement on Lothal. The discovery of the TIE Defender ensures that." Thrawn inclined his head. "The probability of what you suggest is slim, but you are right. That possibility does exist."

"What do we do then, sir?" Faro asked. "Bo-Katan isn't any use to us dead."

"On the contrary..." Thrawn said quietly, a hard edge in his voice. "If she leads the diversionary strike as you suggest, she will indeed die, and we will have succeeded in inciting the Shadow King instead." He paused, his eyes narrowing as he once again looked at the mural on the wall, the stark, harsh lines depicting the slaughter of Jedi at the hands of the Mandalorians. "Even in this scenario, our tactics remain the same," Thrawn muttered. "Be it here or at the rebel base, I am fully prepared to deal with Obi-Wan Kenobi."

"We've been at this so long, it feels strange that it's about to be over," Faro mused. "I don't know if these rebel groups will be able to continue once Phoenix Squadron and Kenobi are gone. Not in any organized, effective way."

"Indeed..." Thrawn quietly agreed. "Though there will always be new threats and dangers that must be faced. Our work is not yet done, Commodore." Faro's com chimed, a similar tone coming from Thrawn's datapad, and a wry smirk touched Faro's lips.

"Looks like you were right, Admiral," she said smugly. "The Mandalorians are on the move. One of our outposts two hundred kilometers outside the city is under attack."

"Deploy the weapon, Commodore," Thrawn said calmly, his voice monotonous as ever. "Let us make an end of it."

---

"Ursa reports that her warriors have disabled the outpost's defenses," Leia said triumphantly, looking away from the monitor she sat before and looking over the subterranean command center where hundreds of Mandalorians stood at the ready for the order to move on Sundari. There was a buzz of excitement and anticipation in the air, the warriors of two dozen clans eager for the glory of battle, all save for Sabine Wren, who's agitation was palpable in the air as she paced back and forth across the room, her eyes quickly darting between the various monitors and displays.

A smirk crossed her lips as Leia leaned back in her chair and pounded on the wall behind her where Cody and Rex stood, looking up through the shaft above her head at her brother's feet on the ladder high above her, his head peaking up through the hatch to look across the barren wasteland of Mandalore.

"See anything, Luke?" Leia called up at him.

For a moment, Luke said nothing, his eyes squinted as he looked across the harsh surface, the top edge of Sundari's biodome visible just over the distant horizon. "Not yet," he called back down, and with a nod, Leia turned her attention back to pacing Sabine.

"You know, pacing like that won't make things move any faster," Leia said in a lilting tone, and Sabine rolled her eyes, her stride not slowing in the slightest.

"I should be there," Sabine said flatly. "My entire clan is there, my mother and my brother are there. I should be with them."

"We've already been over this," Leia said with a heavy sigh. "We need you for the infiltration. You're our weapons guy. We need you to disable Sundari's defenses so the bulk of our force can get in."

"I'm not the only one who can do this stuff, you know," Sabine retorted.

"No, but you are the best we have," Leia pointedly replied. "Things could get real messy in Sundari, especially if Thrawn decides to show up. We're going to have to be both good and fast."

"Yeah, yeah..." Sabine conceded with a sigh. "But we could have sent-"

"There is nobody in the entire galaxy I trust more than your mother," Bo-Katan interrupted, her tone tired as if she had said these exact words to the nervous teen before. "Our success in capturing Sundari hangs on the success of this attack. I wouldn't trust a job this important to anybody other than Ursa Wren."

Sabine was clearly still agitated, but she gave the other woman a tight nod and ceased her pacing, standing for a moment in the middle of the room before she swiftly stood over to where Leia sat and looked over her shoulder at the monitor. Displayed were the call signs of the teams they had assigned to the Sundari assault, some teams large and others very small like her own infiltration vanguard. Beside each team's icon flashed their status, some reporting as ready to deploy, others listed as still in preparation as ships and armor and weapons were readied and clans were assembled. Before long, they would be off, and Sundari would belong to the Mandalorians once more.

"This is Wren," Ursa's voice came from Bo-Katan's com, and Sabine quickly moved away from Leia's station to hover behind the Mandalorian leader. "We've captured the base."

"You captured it?" Bo-Katan asked, her forehead wrinkling as she frowned.

"It wasn't so well defended as we anticipated," Ursa said tightly. "My warriors have swept through the place, including the prisons. They've been emptied. Maybe our intel was bad. This place is hardly in use." There was a tight, tense silence for a moment before Ursa gave voice to what they were all thinking. "This could be a trap."

"I don't know how it could be," Bo-Katan snapped. "We chose the target this morning, they had no way to know we were coming."

"Maybe the disappearance of the Saxons tipped them off that something was up," Ursa calmly replied. "It's possible they pulled back to defend Sundari. There was only a skeleton crew manning-"

"Imperials are on the move!" Luke called down from his post, and both Bo-Katan and Sabine were quickly running to stand beneath the shaft where Luke kept vigil.

"Sounds like you're about to have company," Bo-Katan said into the com. "What are we dealing with, Luke?"

"It's...not much," Luke said, his voice tight and uncertain. "A troop transport carrying an armored vehicle. There can't be more than ten Imperial soldiers there." Luke let go of the ladder, dropping down the shaft and landing gracefully on the ground below. "I don't like this. Something feels wrong."

"I feel it too..." Leia muttered as she switched her monitor away from the status screen to display the security cam feed from the outpost that the Wrens had captured. At the moment, all was calm, the only movement that of the warriors of Clan Wren as they took up their posts at the tower's defenses to prepare for battle.

"One troop transport and an armored vehicle," Bo-Katan relayed to her friend, and Ursa gave a harsh, scornful laugh.

"The fools..."

"Be cautious," Bo-Katan warned. "Nobody here likes the way this looks."

"We can take whatever they're throwing our way," Ursa said tightly. "We are Mandalorian. The Empire doesn't understand what that means, but it's time they learned."

On the security feed, Clan Wren suddenly rushed to their defenses, and over the com, they could hear the whining background noise of an approaching ship, and gaze fixed to the screen, Sabine's eyes widened, her heart stopping in her chest as swift and terrible dread grasped tight hold of her. Distant on the feed, she could see the Imperial ship approach, could see the thick, sturdy legs of the walker dangling from the ship's magnetic grasp, but something was off. This walker had been modified, the main cabin flanked by what looked to be boxy reactors of some kind, which made it appear top heavy and cumbersome.

But Satine knew better, and when she heard the reverberating, high pitched thrumming from the com, she knew her worst fear had become a grim reality.

"Mom, run!" Sabine screamed, grabbing hold of Bo-Katan's arm and shouting into the com. "Get out of there!"

The warriors of Clan Wren took to the sky, flying toward the walker, their weapons raised and ready, when the reactors on the walker lit up, sending arcs of bright blue lightning lashing through the air, not the chaotic web of natural electricity, but something targeted and awful that lanced straight toward the beskar armor the Mandalorians wore. For a long, silent moment, they stood huddled around Leia's monitor, staring in horror at the screen as the warriors twisted and convulsed before they fell out of the sky.

By the time the armor hit the dusty ground, the bodies that had been wearing them were gone, reduced to nothing more but fine black ash that drifted through the air.

"Oh no..." Sabine muttered, her voice weak and shaking as she tore herself away from the spot she had been rooted to and swiftly climbed the ladder behind them, Luke quickly pulling on his helmet and following close behind, and with a hissed curse, Cody left hos post at the wall and followed the teenagers.

"Ursa!" Bo-Katan snapped into the com, her gaze fixed upon the screen displaying the grim security feed, still but for the halting, uneven steps of the walker turned weapon and the small compliment of Stormtroopers at its side, who had been safe from the deadly weapon's wrath. "Ursa!" Bo-Katan snapped again. "Please."

But there was nothing, and looking at the scatter of Mandalorian armor upon the ground, she knew there would be no response. In an instant, Clan Wren, in its entirety, was gone.

"Call off the attack," Bo-Katan ordered Leia as she followed after Luke and Sabine, not bothering with the ladder and instead activating her jetpack and flying right out of the open hatch and swinging around to jet toward the distant spire of the outpost. Flying as fast as she could, she managed to catch up with Sabine, Luke and Cody just before they arrived, a swift sweep of the area showing that the Empire had already pulled out, and together, their armored boots touched down upon the blackened field at the foot of the towering outpost, Mandalorian armor spread out before them like a vast cemetery.

"This can't be happening..." Sabine muttered in a daze, her shaking, unsteady legs giving out under her and sending her to her knees in the black ash. "This can't be real, it can't be..."

"I'm sorry..." Luke said softly as he laid a hand upon Sabine's shoulder, and with a shudder, the last of the Wrens began sobbing, her shoulders hitching with every uneven intake of breath.

Turning away from the teenagers, Bo-Katan swiftly strode across the field, eager to put some distance between Sabine's open, unrelenting heartbreak so she could focus on ignoring her own. She had been friends with Ursa Wren since she was a child, had fought beside her during the Clan Wars and again during the Clone Wars under the Shadow King's banner. She had been so certain that this war against the Empire would be their greatest triumph yet, that together they would retake their homeland from Imperial grasp. Any other outcome seemed unthinkable.

Bo-Katan shook her head, fighting back the bitter sting of tears as Sabine's heart wrenching cries carried so easily across the emptiness of Mandalore's desolate surface. Her eyes scanned each piece of armor she passed, gauntlets and breastplates and helmets, all painted in Wren colors, all adorned with the patterns and designs that made each piece unique to the individual, a hundred warriors of Mandalore stolen far too soon by some unspeakable cruelty of the Empire.

She knelt in the ash when she found patterns as recognizable to her as the design upon her own armor, and she gingerly picked up the helmet of Ursa Wren, her thumb carefully tracing the curve of the visor and biting back the swelling grief that swiftly turned to blinding rage. There was no time to mourn the awful loss that happened here. This was war, and the Empire would pay for what they had done.

---

"Did you feel it?" Kanan asked as soon as the com had connected, before Kenobi even had the chance to say hello. "There's something in the Force, something's wrong."

"I felt it too..." Obi-Wan muttered, his gaze fixed unwaveringly forward at the golden planet that loomed large and bright in his viewport. "I'm on the way to deal with it."

"You know what it is?" Kanan asked. "I figured it had to be something that we saw when we traversed the Force, but we saw a lot, and it could be anything. I assumed it was Thrawn."

"It very well could be," Kenobi muttered. "All my visions kept bringing me back to Tatooine."

"Really?" Kanan scoffed. "With all that's going on with Thrawn and Lothal and Mandalore, you think the source is way out on Tatooine?"

"I'm in orbit around Tatooine now," Obi-Wan said absently as he closed his eyes and touched the Force, ice cold and blistering hot all at once, as turbulent and chaotic as he'd ever felt it. "Whatever it is that's disturbing the Force now, it's here. I feel it."

"Any chance it's more than one thing?" Kanan said flatly, and Obi-Wan felt his chest tighten. It hadn't occurred to him, with how his focus kept getting pulled back to Tatooine, and he silently cursed his blindness. As always, visions were misleading. Of course it could be something else, either happening at the same time or even before the disturbance he now faced. "Because I was thinking," Kanan continued, "that we saw an army of Mandalorians turn to dust."

"Symbolism," Obi-Wan quickly said, the edge of sudden panic in his voice.

"Maybe so, but with the Mandalorians mobilizing, it's concerning none the less," Kanan said grimly. "I'm thinking maybe you should deal with whatever it is out there on Tatooine quick so you can get back here. Hera's already not happy you're taking a detour."

"I'll be back before your battle preparations are done," Kenobi said as he quickly shoved aside his sudden doubts and fears. Luke and Leia were strong in the Force. They would be fine, they had to be. He would have felt it in the Force if it was otherwise.

But the Force was disturbed, wasn't it?

"Dodanna's force hasn't even arrived yet, has it?" Kenobi continued, and he heard Kanan groan.

They're at the final jump coordinates," Kanan said stiffly. "They'll be here within the hour."

"Kanan!" Obi-Wan heard the shout from over the com, and though he couldn't see him, he could feel the Jedi's accompanying grimace. "Is that Kenobi?!"

"Uh oh..." Kanan whispered. "You better run." But it was too late, and in the next second, his ship's com display flicked on, and the Sith found himself looking at the holographic display of an angry Hera Syndulla.

""Hera!" Kenobi chirped cheerfully, a wide grin spreading across his face. "Hello there!"

"You can keep your hello there, Kenobi!" Hera said coldly, her arms crossing over her chest. "We're about to go to war, and you thought now was the best time to go gallivanting?"

"I wouldn't have gone if I didn't think it was important," Kenobi said, his tone as cold as Hera's had been. Getting angry or emotional never went over well with Hera. "What's our status?"

For a long moment, Hera was silent, her lips pressed tightly together and her eyes narrowed as she stared the Sith Lord down. Then, with a sigh of resignation, her featured softened as she accepted the situation and chose to move forward.

"Mandalore has begun their attack, so they've cut communications," Hera reported. "Bo-Katan thinks that if the Empire can tap into communications, they can track us right back to our base and the whole Lothal operation goes belly up."

"She's worked close to the Imperials, she could be right," Obi-Wan said thoughtfully. "We still don't know how Thrawn's managed to intercept so many of our operations. She could be right. It might be through com transmissions." He paused, his lips pursing for a moment and his gaze drifting out to Tatooine as it grew larger and larger with each passing moment as he approached. "Get a status update from them as soon as you can."

"It might not be possible until it's over, Kenobi," Hera said quietly. "At the very least, it might not be until we begin the attack on Lothal."

"I know..." Kenobi huffed as he pinched the bridge of his nose, reaching out through the Force to feel for Luke and Leia, but the Fore was too disturbed to feel anything but the boiling chill of the storm that thrashed around him. "Any word on Thrawn?" At that, Hera's brow furrowed.

"Not yet..." Hera muttered. "One ship left the blockade, but that was before the Mandalorians began their attack, and it wasn't the Chimaera that left. And before you say anything," she said swiftly, "ship movement isn't unusual. We've seen as many as four Star Destroyers leave the blockade at a time."

"But you don't think this is standard," Kenobi said through grit teeth as K-2SO guided the Umbra through Tatooine's atmosphere.

"No, I don't," Hera said flatly. "They're bound to move eventually. I don't think the Empire will take a rebellion on Mandalore sitting down, and you're right about Thrawn's fleet being the closest. If someone's deployed, it'll be him."

"Let me know the moment anything changes," Kenobi said absently as he put his hand on the ship's controls and gently adjusted course to point them in the direction of the focal point of the disturbance. "I won't be long here."

"We'll be ready regardless," Hera said swiftly. "And be careful, yeah? Every time you run off, you come back worse for it."

"Mm, I didn't know you cared, Syndulla..." the Sith Lord purred, and Hera rolled her eyes.

"I don't, but you want to be at your best for Thrawn, don't you?" she said wryly, and with a chuckle, Obi-Wan inclined his head, and the com flickered off.

"If you must know, sir," K2 droned beside him, "I don't care either." With a roll of his eyes, Obi-Wan stood and patted the droid on his wide shoulders.

"I appreciate it, you useless bucket," Kenobi said mockingly. "I'm going to go prepare. I've already entered the coordinates. Bring us in as quickly as you can."

"You might go down and check the brig," the droid said to the retreating Sith Lord. "Your...guest is restless."

Obi-Wan groaned in response as he left the cockpit, feeling the ground beneath him lurch slightly as the ship accelerated, and quickly made his way through the ship toward the brig. Of course his guest was restless, with the way the Dark Side howled and thrashed. Any Force sensitive would be, and this one was more in tuned to the Dark Side than most. When the door slid open and he stepped into the dark room, equal parts laboratory and prison, he found that his guest was, indeed, restless, his gaunt and skeletal frame pacing madly in his small cell as he muttered unintelligibly to himself.

Kenobi couldn't help but grin.

"Grand Inquisitor..." Obi-Wan said with a mocking bow, a cruel smirk on his face as he watched the captive Pau'an wince, his yellow eyes darting to the Sith Lord, and with a feeble cry, his shaking legs gave out beneath him. He had been well and truly broken, had been so very soon after first finding himself in the Sith Lord's care, and like so many things, once the toy was broken, Lumis lost interest. He would still make occasional visits down here when the fancy struck or when he was feeling particularly cruel, and the Empire's former Grand Inquisitor craved the cruelty, as all of Lumis' enslaved pets had. As Lumis himself had once craved from Sidious.

"M-master..." the man said in a shaking, desperate voice, pressing his forehead against the red, hard light energy field keeping him imprisoned.

"Hush, pet..." the Sith soothed as he shut the energy field off, and the Pau'an hit the floor outside his cell with a broken sob. "You feel it, do you not?" he asked as he delicately held his hand out to the man, and the Inquisitor quickly grabbed hold of his fingers and brought them to his cold lips.

"The Sith..." he said, his voice shaking with fear. "They're here, they've come..."

"The Sith..." Kenobi repeated, his eyes closed as he dipped back into the Force. It had been so turbulent, so disturbed, the waters so rough and dark he couldn't feel anything specific or certain. But the Inquisitor, his vision far more limited, couldn't see the forest for the trees, but he could see the trees, which far-sighted Kenobi could not. He felt war, the impending threat of Thrawn, the weight of the visions shown to him, all of this made more murky by a deep, persistent fear for his children, but the Inquisitor felt none of these things. He only felt Sith. Cold fear gripped Obi-Wan's heart. If the Sith were here, on Tatooine, then perhaps they had learned of Luke and Leia, and that could not be allowed. At the back of his mind, an even more disturbing thought scratched at his consciousness. Perhaps his visions kept drawing him to Tatooine because of his fear of losing Luke and Leia, not because it was the most immediate danger.

He quickly shook his head to clear the stray thoughts, focusing instead on the erratic wounded howl of the Force. No. The Grand Inquisitor was right. The Sith were here. Now. Luke and Leia's discovery was immanent, if it hadn't been found out already, and more than that, it put Owen and Beru in very immediate danger. Whatever it was that was tearing at the Force, this too was contributing.

"Your Masters," Lumis hissed, not a question, but an accusation, and the Inquisitor shivered, a pitiable whimper falling from his lips as he grabbed at the Sith Lord's robes with long, trembling fingers.

"Y-yes," the Pau'an muttered, his trembling voice hitching as he grasped Lumis' robes tighter between his long, thin fingers. "No! N-no, you're my Master, only you..."

"Your former Masters, then..." Lumis muttered, his hand extended, and a circular device flew to his waiting grasp, the room bathed in red light with a sharp hiss as he activated the captured Inquisitor's lightsaber. At his feet, the man shuddered, a whimper tumbling from his lips as he bowed his head, a trembling calm settling over him as he accepted death.

"Come," Kenobi said sharply as he switched the saber off and held the weapon out to the Inquisitor. "Let's go meet the Sith together, shall we?"

He said nothing, only stared at the weapon for a long moment, fear and uncertainty shifting the Force before he tentatively reached out and took it. The Sith Lord didn't rebuke him, didn't punish him, didn't lash out in another of his cruel tricks, instead only turning on his heels and striding out the door. Quickly scrambling to shaking, unsteady legs, the Inquisitor followed him, his eyes squinting against the light of the much brighter hallways of the Umbra. It had been so long since he had seen light that he had forgotten what it was like, forgotten how it burned his eyes and his pale skin, and he longed to return to the darkness of his cell, but the cruel comfort of the Sith Lord's presence kept him close to his side.

For all he had been ignored, Darth Lumis thought, the Grand Inquisitor made for a charming pet.

They sat together in the hold, Kenobi's eyes closed as he sat deep in the Force, his focus centered on the feel of the darkness that permeated the very air around them, pushing aside all thoughts and feelings of Luke and Leia and Mandalore and the rebels on Atollon to deal with the situation he now faced. The fearful, trembling presence of the man beside him sent ripples across an already turbulent and stormy sea, an insignificant drop in a sea that already boiled over with wrath and fury and madness.

Obi-Wan knew this feeling, could feel the pull deep inside him as the Dark Side screamed with a fury that had recently felt all too raw. He knew what it was he faced, who was waiting in the sands below for him, and he felt the painful burn in his eyes as he knew the vibrant gold was stained with murderous red.

The ground shifted beneath them as the ship slowed in its approach, and Lumis had jumped to his feet and opened the hatch before he felt the landing struts hit the golden sand, and without even waiting for the ship to land, he jumped out into the hot, dry air and fell to the little homestead in the dunes below, flipping once as the ground drew nearer and pushing off hard against the ground with the Force to slow his fall, leaving him to land delicately on his feet in front of a slack jawed Owen Lars.

"You could very well be the most dramatic man in the entire galaxy," Owen shouted over the sound of the Umbra's engines. "You couldn't have waited a minute for your ship to land?" The hard, cold look in eyes that burned red like flames made Owen's breath catch as he took a staggering step back when the Sith Lord strode quickly toward him. "W-what is it, what's wrong?"

"You and Beru are safe?" Kenobi snapped more than asked, and the moisture farmer gave him a nervous nod.

"Y-yes, we...Beru's in making lunch, we-"

"Hush" Obi-Wan hissed, his finger pressed to Owen's lips as his gaze darted behind the man's shoulder, quickly surveying something that could not be seen, the roar of the Force in his ears drowning out the sound of the Umbra landing behind him. "He's here..." he muttered absently, his eyes snapping over Owen's other shoulder with a sharp pull of warning in the Force. Without a word, he strode quickly into the homestead, the Inquisitor leaping out of the ship to follow closely after his Master, and an increasingly frantic Owen following in their wake.

So far as he could tell, the house was clear, the air still and quiet, if far too hot and dry, an eye in the fearful, howling storm of the Force. There was danger here, present and bloody and awful, but the wave had yet to crash down upon the Lars homestead. He had arrived just in time. For now, the little, humble family he had come to care for over all these years was safe.

Beru didn't have time to turn around before Kenobi entered the kitchen and laid his hands upon her shoulders, making the woman gasp and jump before she swiftly turned and found the Sith's lips upon her cheek.

"Hello, beautiful..." Obi-Wan drawled, and a wide smile cracked the woman's face.

"I didn't know you were coming, Obi-Wan!" Beru said brightly, quickly looking behind the Sith when a tall, pale alien entered with her husband.

"I didn't know either..." Kenobi muttered, his gaze absently drifting out the window to look at the dunes outside.

"Are you staying for lunch?" Beru asked, and the Sith Lord swiftly took his hand from her shoulder and rushed toward the kitchen's opposite door.

"Afraid not," Kenobi called over his shoulder. "There's something here the Force has called me to finish, and then I'm off to save the galaxy. " He shrugged. "You know how it is."

"Is Luke with you?" she called hopefully to him as the tall, slender alien passed by her, and Obi-Wan shook his head.

"No, but when our current mission is done, I'll be sure to bring them by. For now," he drawled, flashing Beru his most charming smile, "you beautiful, sensible woman, since your husband's the stubborn sort and absolutely won't listen to reason, I'm telling you that the two of you should go to my ship and wait there until I come get you."

"...are we in danger?" Beru asked in a voice tight with nervousness, and Kenobi flashed her a disarming smirk.

"Now that I'm here, of course not!" the Sith Lord said. "But just in case. Run along, now, children" he said as he turned away from them. "Time to get to work."

Kenobi left without so much as a glance behind him, could hear Owen's objections and Beru sternly telling him to hush and get to the ship as they too left the kitchen, and stepping into the sands outside, Obi-Wan pulled up his hood against the sun, the Inquisitor beside him offered no such relief as he hissed against the burn of the light. There was nothing out of the ordinary out in the sands, overbearingly hot and dry and not a cloud in the sky to offer even a moment of reprieve against the blazing suns, typical for miserable Tatooine. Obi-Wan had always hated Tatooine, but it had served his children well, had shielded them from Imperial eyes and fostered the fierce, tenacious spirit of survival that those born of softer planets lacked, just as his own Sith training on the most hostile of worlds tempered him.

He would not allow this world to now be their undoing.

Kenobi took off running for the crest of a nearby dune, the Force keeping his feet from sinking into the sand and slowing his pace, the calm of the Lars homestead shattered by the blistering cold of the wrathful Dark Side, erratic and wild like an untamed, mad beast, which he felt more than appropriate when he stood on the crest and looked down at the figure in black trudging through the sand, sickly red and yellow eyes in a black and red face staring hatefully up at him.

Darth Lumis couldn't help but grin.

"You've come an awful long way to return to me, slave," Lumis called down to the furious, snarling Maul. "For nothing, I'm afraid. I got myself a new pet. Sure, his teeth are regretfully sharp, but unlike you, he still has his lover half, and I find that simply delightful."

"I'm not returning to you, I'm going to kill you!" Maul hissed between tightly clenched teeth. "Sidious showed me it's possible!"

"Did he?" Lumis asked, his eyebrow arching as the wicked grin upon his face grew. "A strange thing to learn from him, seeing as how, despite the best of his numerous attempts, he's never succeeded in killing me."

"He could have!" Maul snarled, swiftly taking the saber from his belt and igniting it, both ends of the long hilt blazing wrathfully. "If he had, your filthy Jedi allies wouldn't have had the chance to save you. A mistake I will not repeat..."

"No, you won't," Lumis said coldly, a satisfied thrill running through him when Maul's eyes widened as the Inquisitor finally reached the top of the dune. "It took three of you to bring me to my knees last time. You think you can do this alone?"

"I can!" Maul growled. "Look at you, Darth Lumis. Skulking here in this hell like a rat. You are not what you once were, if you are reduced to this place to hide from the Sith."

"That so?" Lumis asked, suddenly all too aware of the way his hands shook in the folds of his robes, the deep scar left by Vader's lightsaber across his shoulder blades burning beneath the heat of the binary suns. "Did Sidious tell you that?" There was a flash of emotion across Maul's face, not wrath or rage as Lumis expected, but...embarrassment. Shame. Even after all this time, Maul remained distressingly easy to read, a thing that Sidious should have long ago drilled out of this would be apprentice, if he had ever valued him.

Between Sidious' two students, it was all too clear who the Sith Master's preference was.

"Sidious told me nothing," Maul finally said in a slow, deliberate voice, his words chosen carefully as if weighing what he should and should not be saying.

"No?" Lumis asked. "Without Sidious directing you, how could you have possibly found me?"

"You think me incapable?!" Maul snapped, the saber spinning in his hand as he crouched down, preparing for that attack, his wrath only growing then the Sith on the dune hadn't even moved in response. "I haven't been in my Master's presence since Malachor! I found you on my own!"

"So..." Lumis drawled, a wicked grin spreading across his lips. "You watched Sidious lose in that temple and you ran." He shrugged, feeling the Force surge with rage and shame, and knew he had hit the mark. "Sounds to me like you're the one hiding from the Sith, not me."

"Does it look like I'm hiding?" Maul spat. "I wouldn't come looking for you were I hiding. No, Kenobi..." he muttered, a mad, feverish chuckle spilling from his lips. "When I kill you, I'll finally be free of the Sith..."

"You know as well as I that you'll never be free," Lumis said flatly as he stared down at the pacing Zabrak. "You escaped from Sidious, and what did you do?" The grin returned to his face. "You sought out another Sith Master..."

"Believe as you wish," Maul snarled, his saber pointed at the Sith. "Soon enough, I will send you to join the family I stole from you."

The blistering heat of Tatooine suddenly ran frigidly cold, the Inquisitor beside him suddenly shivering as the Force snapped deadly still with the Sith Lord's fury, a stark and startling contrast to the uncontrolled blaze of Maul's rage. Lumis took a slow, deliberate step down the dune, and Maul took a hasty step back, his saber held defensively before him, the confidence he had been emboldened with disappearing beneath the Sith Lord's wrath and exposing the poorly repaired cracks in the Zabrak's mental fortitude.

"I was not here, filth," Lumis said coldly, his face blank and expressionless. "I came because I sensed you, so tell me how it is you came to this place." Maul stammered, averted his eyes, and shut his mouth close, resisting the Sith Lord's command. "Sidious does not know you are here," Lumis continued. "Vader does not know. If you were not directed, then how." He pressed harder with the Force, the weight of his command breaking Maul's fractured walls as if they were nothing, just as they always had before, exposing the wild, desperate insanity behind them, as uncontrolled and dangerous as it was easy to manipulate.

"The Force guided me to this place!" Maul snapped, his voice cracking through the dryness in his throat and the delighted chuckle that followed. "It's strong here, Kenobi, and it felt like you so I followed it!" His saber wavered in his shaking hand, his eyes shutting tightly as his free hand pressed to his forehead, his finger wrapping around one of his cranial horns. "But it wasn't you, was it?" Maul said coldly, glaring up at the Sith as one of his saber's blades hissed and crackled against the sand, leaving black, crystalized stone in its wake.

"There's nothing here," Lumis said coldly, and Maul responded with a long, harsh laugh.

"But there is!" Maul cried triumphantly, a wide grin spreading across his face. "What is it you're hiding here, Kenobi?" He paused, his eyes raking over the Sith and all too keenly feeling the silent swell of the Dark Side beneath the oppressive, glacial cold. "Who are you hiding."

A sharp hissing thrum of two lightsaber blades igniting cut through the air and the Inquisitor beside the Sith stepped forward with his weapon in hand as the silent command of his Master.

"The Krait Dragon does not answer to the whomp rat," Lumis said coldly. "My new pet has come to offer you the mercy of death. You should take it, Maul. I will not be so kind should you refuse this gift."

With a savage, wrathful cry, Maul rushed forward, and the Inquisitor ran to meet him, their blades clashing in a hissing fury of sparks and burning sand, the sabers spinning as both combatants spun and jumped around each other, their battle slowed by heat and sand and hunger and fatigue, though desperation kept them nimble despite their many disadvantages. Trails of blackened, crystalized sand scarred the ground with each slash of their sabers, with each near miss and each well timed block, and above it all, Darth Lumis watched, cold and impassive, the Dark Side cold and still despite the fury of the two fighting below, little more than scrapes against the thick ice covering the waters of the Force, the currents beneath steady and inevitable.

There was only one way this could end, Obi-Wan knew, a correction to an error he had made long, long ago, and despite numerous opportunities to set the balance right, pain and blood and cruelty had prevented him from paying the owed debt. It had felt right before, had fed the insatiable cravings of the Dark Side, though it had never satisfied it, and for all he thrived on pain, for all the strength that suffering had brought him, the bleeding gash in his heart remained a gaping, festering wound no amount of inflicted suffering could ever heal.

For all the power bestowed by the Dark Side, for all the strength and vitality he had leached from others to rejuvenate his body, there was something deeper inside him the path he had chosen could never heal, would never heal, even if it could.

He could never heal, Obi-Wan knew, but he could at least pay the debt he owed to fair, sweet Satine and the son they were both deprived.

A sharp, angry cry pulled Lumis out of his thoughts, Maul's saber striking against the ground and sending a shower of sand and crystalized grains up at the Inquisitor's eyes, and Lumis looked up at Tatooine's twin suns, a satisfied smile crossing over his lips, the scene before him an exact match for one of the visions they had seen in the Lothal Temple. It could have been many things, most far worse than what it ended up being, though this unattended could have been disastrous. An hour later, and Owen and Beru would have been dead and Maul would have been slinking back to deliver the discovery of Luke and Leia to Sidious.

To Vader.

He hadn't wanted to leave so close to their confrontation with Thrawn, but it was good he did. This couldn't have waited.

The Inquisitor had never been a match for Maul, Lumis knew as he looked back down at the two combatants, but he needed to test Maul's resolve, and the fight answered that quickly enough. His vision debilitated by the sand that had been struck into his eyes, the Inquisitor's fight was over, and with a single misjudgement and a swing that was only slightly too wide, Maul thrust his own lightsaber between the Inquisitor's circular lightsaber hilt, a strike so fine and precise that it touched none of the metal that formed the elaborate grip and plunged directly through the Pau'an's heart. Maul's saber was switched off as soon as it was done, the Inquisitor gasping at the feel of death piercing his chest and his body shuddering with the cold, his perfectly in tact saber dropping from limp fingers before he fell unmoving to the sand.

Slowly, Maul turned to face the Sith Lord.

"My..." Lumis hummed in quiet amusement. "You really do crave subjugation, don't you."

"You really think your slave was a match for me?" Maul snapped, his saber hilt spinning in his grasp, his thumb on the switch but not yet igniting it.

"Not at all," Lumis drawled. "I can't have more than one pet, now can I?" He shrugged. "I was making room for you." For a moment, Maul wavered, his eyes conflicted and intense, his body twitching as though part of him wished to run toward the Sith, while the other part fought to restrain him. In the end, neither side of the struggling man seemed to win, his mechanical legs shuffling forward a few steps before he stopped, his eyes tightly shut and his grasp upon his saber's hilt tight and uncompromising.

"I do not belong to you," Maul said between tightly clenched teeth, and he winced when the Sith Lord harshly laughed, his hand clawing at his horned heat at the feel of the bitterly cold tendrils of the Dark Side worming through his skull, the telltale sign of Darth Lumis' touch upon a mind, a thing he knew was pointless to resist. So he didn't, only shut his eyes tight and welcomed the biting pain that thrummed through his head.

"Oh, come now, pet..." Lumis said through his laughter. "What is it exactly you thought would happen? That you would come here and vanquish me? That you would return to Sidious with word of some secreted away weakness of mine and he would welcome you back without a thought to your cowardice?" Lumis casually held his palm out before him, and Maul gave a startled, almost resigned cry as the saber was torn from his grasp and gently landed upon the Sith Lord's waiting hand.

"No, you know as well as I that there were only two ways this could end," Lumis said coldly, his voice flat and emotionless as he took slow steps down the side of the dune to stand before Maul as the thin, sun burned Zabrak fell to his knees in the sand. "You either die, or you surrender yourself into my service. There is nothing else."

And there wasn't, Maul knew, his head bowing as his hands tightly grasped at the sand. Sidious would never have him back, not after he ran on Malachor, a betrayal the unforgiving Emperor would never forget, no matter how great a victory he achieved to win back his favor. He would be hunted, if he wasn't being hunted already, and sooner or later, Vader would catch up to him and kill him. There was little Sidious hated more than loose ends, and Maul knew well that there was no escape from the Sith. What had he hoped for when he had come here to Tatooine on Lumis' trail? He could no longer recall, but he was beginning to believe that Lumis had the right of it.

In all the years since Lumis had left his former Master's service, Sidious hadn't managed to stop him, so certain was he that his renegade student's fate was already sealed. It was why they had journeyed to Malachor that day, to see defeated Lumis returned to his Master to live in service to Sidious once again. But the Force had other plans, and instead of keeping eternally youthful Lumis as a nexus through which to channel the Dark Side as intended, Lumis had escaped, and mighty Sidious had been brought to his knees.

Truly, the safest place in the entire galaxy may very well have been at Lumis' side. Maybe, as Lumis had suggested, Maul had been drawn here to return to the Sith Lord who had enslaved him. And really, were chains so much more awful than being hunted across the galaxy like so much vermin?

With a groan, Maul's head fell to his head as the pounding pain in his head began pulsing with pleasure, the all too familiar reward for his shifting mental state, he knew, but he couldn't find it in him to resist. Truly, the Sith had taken everything from him, had first taken him from his family and discarded him when he was no longer of use, then cruelly enslaved him when he sought revenge against them. It was a fate worse than death, one he couldn't escape nor recover from, and now, having run from his Sith Masters, he only found himself returning to his slavers.

He shivered when he felt a cold hand rest upon his head, and when he looked up, Lumis was not looking at him, but at the lightsaber in his hand with intense, obsessive red eyes.

"Is this the weapon you murdered my family with?" Lumis asked quietly, his voice cold and unusually distant, as if the man had separated himself from the tragedy that shaped him.

"Y-yes..." Maul stammered before he was able to stop himself, his answer immediate and reflexive, and he hissed between his teeth when the hand upon his head tightened, a slight tremble in his fingers as they pressed hard between his crown of horns.

"It has been years and years, and every time I close my eyes, it's as if I'm there again watching it happen..." Lumis muttered as the weapon floated above his palm and slowly rotated. "The wound inside me is as fresh as the day you made it."

"Master, I-"

"How much of your suffering do you suspect it will take to heal this wound?" Lumis asked, finally turning his eyes upon the hapless Maul, the molten red slowly retreating from his iris to reveal his glowing gold free of the Dark Side's bloody fangs.

"As much as you want..." Maul said in a small, shaking voice, and Lumis gave a hollow chuckle, his fingers caressing the Zabrak's cheek and hooking beneath his chin to force his gaze to meet his.

"A nice thought, if naive..." Obi-Wan muttered, his eyes slowly raking over the Zabrak's face and drinking in every detail of it. "The Dark Side demands blood for power, and suffering keeps all wounds fresh and raw. No..." he whispered, taking Maul's sandy, sunburned hand in his and gently pressing his lips against the still visible scar inflicted upon him by Satine's teeth on the day she died. "I know well that no wound can be healed with suffering."

"...y-you could try," Maul said swiftly, his tongue suddenly thick with rising panic and all too keenly aware that despite the suns blazing down upon him, he only felt bitterly cold. It earned him a small, almost tender smile from the Sith Lord.

"You certainly are a tempting thing, aren't you?" Kenobi asked, his hand tightening around Maul's. "As a younger man, I may have taken you up on that offer, but now, dearest, there are things I must do. Will you help me?"

His breath caught in his throat, and unable to answer, Maul swiftly nodded, his eyes fixed on his saber that floated over the Sith Lord's hand and he winced as Kenobi's iron grip tightened around his hand. Looking down at his hand, he felt his blood run cold when he found that Kenobi wasn't even holding it, his hand instead caught in the jaws of the unyielding Force.

"I will never heal, Maul," Kenobi said coldly, and Maul struggled, trying to wrench his hand away when he felt that cold, awful touch creep up his arm, seep deep into his lungs, and close around his heart. "But I can have closure." He flashed a cold, mirthless grin at the wide eyed Zabrak, the thrashing, struggling man raising into the air with a gesture of his hand. "I go now to face Thrawn," Kenobi drawled as he stepped closer, feeling the wild burning of the Force searing his hands as he closed in around Maul's considerable presence. "You will help me be at my best for that."

"Sidious will come for you, Kenobi!" Maul snarled, rage and fury filling him as he struggled, his fire growing brighter and wilder in the attempt to resist being smothered. "He will hunt you down like the wretch you are and end your miserable existence!"

"Maybe," Kenobi said with a shrug, his eyes burning as molten red crept back into them as the fangs of the Dark Side sunk deep into him, the blaze of Maul's life held delicately between his hands. "But not today. Today is for you, and Satine and my son can finally rest."

Maul started to scream his fury, a myriad of curses catching in his throat as his chest began to burn, the air itself sucked from his lungs and his fingers going cold as if the very heat within him was slowly ripped from his body. Life stubbornly clung to each cell, each muscle fiber, so tightly that pain shot through his nerves as the Force was leeched from him by imposing, hated Lumis, little more than a black shadow in his pain hazed vision, the predatory glow of bright red eyes piercing through him. As his arms succumbed to the lifeless cold, Maul could have sworn he saw Lumis bathed in the unnatural fire of his stolen life force, and he absently wondered if, in a stroke of foresight and inspiration, this was why Sidious had called the fallen Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi Darth Lumis.

The thought drifted from his mind as the last wisp of heat fell past cracked lips, and Maul felt nothing else.

Obi-Wan looked down at the saber floating above his open hand, the Force hot and screaming as it pulsed through his body to rejuvenate the damage down by combat and time, his vision hazy and his thoughts slow as the euphoria of the satisfied Dark Side swept through him. There was little that sated the ravenous hunger of the Dark Side, always craving more blood, more pain, more death, but the Force itself stolen from the living could do it, at least for a time, but those moments were the sweetest of all, the Force less a furious, savage beast and more a contented lover. It wouldn't last, Kenobi knew, but in the wake of devoured life, resting in the embrace of the Dark Side, he almost felt whole again.

It was easy to see how Darth Nihilus had once been driven to consume entire planets of the Force itself.

He cast a slow, languid glance down at Maul, his vibrant red skin now cracked and dry and pale, casting a sharp contrast with the black tattoos upon his skin, little more than a husk of what he once was. A small, satisfied smirk touched the Sith Lord's lips when he saw that the scar had disappeared from Maul's withered hand, and with a flick of his wrist, golden sand swept up from the dune to cover both of the fallen bodies, and with a sharp, metallic crack, Maul's lightsaber split open, metal components falling to the sand and leaving the bright, glowing red kyber crystal floating before him.

There was something beautiful about it, Obi-Wan thought, his mind addled by the contented purring of the Dark Side. This crystal created the blade that had slain Satine and their son, and now, as his fingers wrapped around the humming kyber, he could feel them beside him once again, his eyes closing and reveling in the feel of the Duchess' hand in his own.

But it only lasted a moment before the unease crept back in, his chest tight as he watched the lines smooth out of his hand. The storm had subsided, the Force calm and clear once again, and despite this, Obi-Wan still had the pervasive feeling that something was dreadfully wrong.

---

"Sir," Commodore Faro said for the third time in a minute to her unresponsive Admiral, the man still and his glowing red eyes fixed intensely upon the surveillance feed. "Sir, that's Bo-Katan," she continued, pointing at the distinctly armored woman upon the screen. "We can take her now and-"

Without so much as looking at her, Thrawn raised his hand in a call for silence, his eyes narrowing as his gaze flicked between the displays, and after another moment of silent study, he reached for his datapad, his fingers running over the device pulling up files without a glance, documents and recordings opening with a touch of his finger, his movements almost automatic, as if he had opened them a thousand times, which Faro knew that he had.

"Sir," Faro tried again when Thrawn finally looked away from the security feed. "We're waiting on your word to take Bo-Katan."

"I know, Commodore..." Thrawn said absently, his head tilting slightly as he studied the images on his datapad, his lips pressing into a thin line as he glanced up at the security monitor for a moment before returning his attention to the datapad.

"...so are you ready to call our forces in?" Faro prompted again when Thrawn said nothing more, and this time, with a sharp intake of breath and a resolute nod, Thrawn drew up to his full height and turned to face her.

"No, I think not. Recall our forces to Sundari," Thrawn said calmly, ignoring the silent objection in Faro's suddenly slack jaw as he gestured to the security feed. "Who are we looking at, Commodore?"

Faro huffed, quickly issuing the command to return to their waiting forces, her eyes narrowing slightly as she looked at the monitor, swallowing her objections and the rising irritation she felt at the setup of what was certain to be one of the Admiral's thought exercises, which always seemed to come at the least opportune times. But Thrawn always did what he did for a reason, and she knew better than most that his meticulous methodology was the thing that allowed him to secure impossible victories where a more impatient commander would have failed.

"Bo-Katan, obviously," Faro said quickly. "CC-2224 of the Shadow Legion and Sabine Wren. And..." she squinted, leaning in toward the screen. "I don't know. Not Boba Fett. Gold trim like that makes them one of Bo-Katan's guards, doesn't it?"

"So we were led to believe," Thrawn mused, and Faro looked up at him, a frown on her face.

"You think it's something else?"

"Perhaps..." Thrawn mused, a slight smile upon his lips as he glanced down again at his datapad. "There is a long and deep history that exists between the Mandalorians and their armor. There is a reason that despite the nature of the weapon we have unleashed upon them, they will not discard their armor. Their culture and very identities is based around it." He glanced up at the Commodore, his expression almost reverent. "The markings and designs upon a Mandalorian's armor carry far deeper meaning than simply whom they serve." Again, he glanced down at the datapad. "But at the moment, that is irrelevant. We have seen this Mandalorian before."

"We have?" Faro asked, staring closer at the monitor at the Mandalorian in question, and frowning, she looked back at the Admiral.

"We have," Thrawn said quietly as he handed his datapad to Faro. "These are still images taken from security footage of the bank heist on Muunilinst one year ago."

"The Muunilinst heist? The big one on Empire Day?" Faro asked, though she knew there was no other. The banks on Muunilinst were fortresses, and even entertaining the idea of robbing them was madness, which made this particular heist so shocking, not just for the amount that was stolen, but that someone had been bold enough to even make the attempt. Faro looked back down at the image on the datapad when Thrawn nodded. "I thought all the security data had been destroyed."

"It was," Thrawn said flatly. "But the security feed from the investment brokers across the avenue was not." He glanced up at the monitor to see the three Mandalorians take to the sky and flee from the devastation at the outpost after having collected as many pieces of armor as they could carry, and with a slow drag of his finger across the console, he reversed the feed and paused on an image that clearly showed the unknown Mandalorian. "On its own, it means very little..." the Admiral muttered. "Nobody present when the crime was taking place remember anything about the event."

"The work of the Shadow King," Faro said tightly, and a small smile touched Thrawn's lips.

"Allegedly," the Admiral said, his even tone slightly bemused. "With effectively no witnesses, no security recordings, and none of his usual boasting left behind, the official reports have been unable to confidently identify hm as the culprit."

"Well, yes, but we all know it was him," Faro scoffed, and Thrawn inclined his head.

"The altered memories are certainly indicative of his style," Thrawn conceded, "and the day on which the heist took place does indeed fit Kenobi's pattern. However, there was no evidence left behind to unquestionably link him to this particular crime." He paused, the ridges of his forehead drawing together and plucking his datapad out of Faro's hands, a quick flick of his finger across the screen sending the image to the display beside the paused security feed. "Until now..."

The image was clear, three Mandalorians heading up the steps to the bank, the time and date stamped on the bottom corner marked the day of the heist. The shape of the visors indicated two men and one woman, all three in armor trimmed in gold, though the woman wore red, the taller man in the middle in black, and on his other side, the smaller man in blue. The same man, Faro could see now, that only moments ago had been at the Imperial outpost to survey the damage their weapon had caused.

"That one," Faro said pointing to the Mandalorian in black. "That's the Shadow King."

"It would be an incredible coincidence if it was not," Thrawn said coldly. "I have spent years learning everything about our current enemy," Thrawn said quietly. "Everything except this..." he said, his fingers lightly brushing the images of the Mandalorians in red and blue. "Two pilots, or two commanders, perhaps both, who Kenobi has personally trained and keeps close to his chest."

"So close that we haven't seen them before?" Faro asked, and Thrawn turned hard, glowing eyes upon her, an intensity behind them that made her shiver.

"But we have seen them, Commodore," Thrawn said quietly. "Twice, in fact. "Once above Yarma during the rebel reclamation of the Y-Wing bombers, and once at Skystrike, commanding the stolen Imperial Star Destroyer Subjugator." He paused, his mouth compressing as he stroked his chin, his eyes fixed upon the images on the displays. "Yes...I am sure of it." Nodding to himself, Thrawn drew himself up and turned away from the displays, his slow, purposeful stride taking him from the room, with Faro falling in quickly beside him.

"We have been given a unique opportunity, Commodore," Thrawn said, his tone every bit as confident as it always was when one of his traps was coming together. "If the boy is here, I doubt the girl is far behind. Our actions here will demand that Bo-Katan answer, and she will make her move on Sundari, sooner rather than later, I think."

"Are we sure of that?" Faro asked. "We just dealt them a pretty nasty loss. If they won't shed their armor, like you said, wouldn't the presence of a weapon that specifically targets Mandalorian armor be a deterrent to another attack?"

"On the contrary," Thrawn said grimly. "The existence of a weapon that turns Mandalorian strength into a crippling weakness demands that they destroy it, by any means necessary. More than that," Thrawn said as he glanced down at Faro, "the weapon was designed by Sabine Wren herself, and she will know that the weapon is only operating at a fraction of its potential power and it still destroyed her entire clan. No..." Thrawn muttered thoughtfully. "We have guaranteed a swift, decisive and focused response."

"So we give them the weapon," Faro said, catching on to where the Admiral was heading, and felt a swell of pride in her chest when a small smile spread across Thrawn's lips. "The threat it represents makes it likely to be their first target. We've created the perfect bait."

"Just so," Thrawn said with a nod of his head. "If I have read our enemy correctly, Bo-Katan and Sabine Wren's next move will place them exactly where we want them. And," he said quietly, his gaze hardening as he looked out the large window overlooking Sundari, "if we are fortunate, we will have a chance to capture Kenobi's two mysterious allies."

"You think they're that important?" Faro asked, and Thrawn's jaw tightened.

"I think they are vital to our victory against him, a far greater incentive than even Bo-Katan," Thrawn said, his voice flat and cold and certain. "Kenobi has gone to great effort to hide these two. Let us discover why."

---

"Clan Wren is dead," Bo-Katan said in a tight voice that brimmed with anger and grief. "All of them."

The large hangar where the clans had gathered, both leaders and their multitude of soldiers, erupted into a web of disbelieving proclamations and horrified whispers, the fear and nervousness humming like an electrical current through the room. They had all seen the footage. They had all seen what happened, and even still, so many refused to believe that such a thing was even possible. As clan leaders began throwing questions and accusations at stalwart Bo-Katan, Sabine sat in a corner of the room with her mother's helmet grasped tightly in her hands and her brother's helmet cradled in her lap, a silent Luke sitting beside her, his hair disheveled from the time in his helmet, and though he didn't look at her, his eyes were filled with empathetic pain that made her feel that somehow, he understood, a thing she both hated and was grateful for.

But he didn't understand, she knew. Her clan was gone, her mother and brother, both dead so shortly after their reunion, and it was all her fault.

Guilt and grief gnawed at the very core of her being, leaving her hollowed in a way she didn't think possible, her eyes burning from spent emotion and her visor long since fogged up from spilled tears and the heat of shame that burned her face. She had destroyed this weapon when she left Mandalore, had left nothing of her research behind that could be used to reconstruct this terrible thing, so...how? She couldn't understand it, but she knew that regardless of how it was done, it now fell to her to destroy it once and for all, not just out of shame for the weapon against her own people that she created as before, but now out of a duty for revenge in the name of her fallen family.

Somewhere on Sundari, her father existed as a captive of the Empire, and if he was still alive at the end of all this, she didn't know how she would face him.

But that was a problem for another time. For now, looking out at the gathered army of Mandalorian warriors, she knew she would have to come forward with her part in the creation of the weapon that would destroy them all. Somehow, in the wake of her own guilt, it didn't seem like such a difficult thing.

Taking a deep, shaking breath, Sabine carefully laid her mother and brother's helmets on the ground and stood, Luke quickly at her side as she slowly strode up to the platform Bo-Katan spoke from, a grim and determined Leia standing cross armed behind her as her gaze raked over the warriors. The room seemed to fall silent when Sabine approached, a thing that made the lone surviving Wren falter, though a gently nudge of Luke's hand upon her elbow spurred her forwards.

"I did it," Sabine said when she stood next to Bo-Katan, grateful that her helmet his the quivering in her voice. "I made the weapon the Empire unleashed upon us today."

There was silence, which was worse than the outrage Sabine had been expecting, though with the way Luke's hand drifted to the saber on his waist, she had the distinctive feeling that they were feeling all the vitriol she feared, though the weight of her loss forced them to hold their tongues.

Bo-Katan gave her no such courtesy.

"I saw what that weapon did, it was drawn to our armor!" Bo-Katan snarled, her voice low and thick with every bit of grief that Sabine felt herself.

"Yes..." Sabine said absently. "It's pulled to the unique composition of beskar and-"

The rest of her explanation was cut off when Bo-Katan wrapped her hands around her throat.

"You are Mandalorian!" Bo-Katan shouted, fury blazing in her eyes as she looked into Sabine's visor. "How could you do this to your own people?!"

"We need her, Bo-Katan," Leia said cooly as she stepped up to the woman and laid a hand upon her forearm. "She made the weapon, so she knows how to unmake it." Fury flashed behind Bo-Katan's eyes as she looked at Leia, offense and violent objection meeting the calm command of the younger woman. With a disgusted sneer, Bo-Katan let Sabine go, cursing under her breath as she stalked across the platform, weariness and grief quickly taking the place of her swiftly fleeting anger.

"I destroyed it when I left," Sabine explained in a weak, uncertain voice. "The prototype and the blueprints, I destroyed it all. I don't know how...they shouldn't have been able to rebuild it." She paused, shaking her head with a determined huff. "No, they didn't. The weapon is only operating at a fraction of its power."

"It's enough," Bo-Katan said bitterly.

"It means," Leia cut in before the other clan leaders had a chance to chime in, "that we have a chance to destroy it for good before they have a chance to figure out the real thing. Before they have a chance to make more."

"Our armor is the legacy of Mandalore and has always kept us safe," Bo-Katan snapped as she again reeled on Sabine. "And now, it will make us dead."

"Your anger is wrongly placed," Luke said calm and quiet as he put himself between Sabine and the furious head of Clan Kryze. "Sabine didn't deploy this weapon."

"No, but she did make it!" Bo-Katan retorted, and Luke shook his head.

"She didn't, not this one, but she has paid for it anyway," Luke said evenly, and with a hiss, Bo-Katan turned away, the curse in her throat catching on the sudden well of grief that she battled to push away.

"I know..." Bo-Katan ground out between clenched teeth, and feeling every eye upon her, she pulled her helmet on, the visor able to hide what she couldn't, and concealed behind the shield of her armor, she turned back to Sabine. "Your clan, your mother and brother deserve vengeance," she said, her voice through the helmet's vocal modulator strong and even despite the grief she could feel thickening her throat. "How do we beat this abomination?"

"Like Mandalorians beat anything," Sabine said as she took a small round orb from a pouch on her belt and laid it in Bo-Katan's grasp. "We blow it up."

"That didn't work the first time," Bo-Katan said flatly.

"But it will this time," Sabine quickly retorted. "This time, the Imperials won't have the opportunity to rebuild it because we're taking Mandalore back."

"Fair enough," Bo-Katan, said, gesturing over her shoulder, and the clan leaders quickly climbed the platform to circle around them, attentively listening for the plan for battle. "So the diversion failed," she said bitterly, flippant in a way that didn't belay the pain she felt, though it all came rushing back when she looked to her right side, the place that had been occupied by Ursa Wren since she was a child, and found it empty. It would have been easier if someone else had taken her place, but the warriors had all kept respectfully away, and Ursa's absence was keenly felt. She looked to Sabine, a piece of her hoping that the girl hadn't noticed, but even with her helmet on, Bo-Katan could see that she had.

"Maybe so, but I don't think our plan has changed," Leia said when Bo-Katan didn't continue. "An infiltration team goes in to take out the defenses and pave the way for a massive strike." She shrugged, almost indifferently. "The only thing that's changed is now our infiltration has an extremely explicit target."

"Which will draw Imperial attention inward, allowing our forces a clear shot at taking the city," Bo-Katan finished. "It'll put a lot of heat on the infiltration team, though, so I have to take our best if we're going to succeed."

"We have to succeed," Leia said firmly. "The Shadow King is counting on us to make a mess and I'd hate to disappoint him." She grabbed hold of Luke's shoulder. "We're going with you."

"Which means the clones are coming" Bo-Katan said as she gestured back at Cody and Rex. "And we need Sabine to destroy the weapon and make sure every trace of it is erased from the database." She fixed Sabine with a hard glare. "For good, this time."

"For good," Sabine agreed, a hard and angry edge to her voice that replaced the muted numbness of before.

With a pleased smirk on her face, Leia's lightsaber flew to her hand and ignited with a hiss in a burst of blue, and a moment later, the cascading hiss and thrum of a hundred lightsabers igniting filled the room, bathing the entire cavern in blue and green light as Mandalorian warriors throughout the crowd held up their own humming weapons.

"For Mandalore!" Leia called triumphantly, and the answering roar of the warriors shook the very air in the room.

---

It was, as the unwanted, clawing thought whispered at the back of Sabine's mind, far too easy.

An Imperial heavy cruiser hung low in the atmosphere over Sundari, which hadn't been there on their initial scans before their failed attack on the outpost, but as intimidating as the ship was, getting into the city had been easy. They flew one of their small, modified freighters right into the capital's protective dome through one of the port openings right alongside other ships flying in and out with supplies, and they hadn't been checked or scanned once.

Either Imperial security was extremely slack because of the disarray caused by their sudden lack of leadership or...or something was up.

Judging by how tense Luke and Leia had become when they entered the city, something was up.

"Father always told us stories of Sundari..." Luke muttered, his helmet unable to filter out the strain in his voice. "I never thought we'd actually be here."

"It was better before the Empire," Bo-Katan said flatly. "You'll see soon enough."

"I'm not impressed with their security," Leia said flatly, giving voice to the thought they all had running through their minds, and despite his helmet, Sabine could see Luke visibly wince.

"They did just lose their entire leadership structure," Cody said with a huff. "Not to say anything about the hundreds of faithful Mandalorians they lost when we called for war."

"Probably why that cruiser is here," Rex added as he gestured up to the ship that hung overhead. "Reenforcements of proper loyal Imperials."

"They aren't any match for our forces," Bo-Katan said confidently. "One Mandalorian is worth a hundred Imperials. With Fett leading the war party, we can't lose."

"I don't think that's why it's here..." Luke muttered, his gaze drifting from the ship overhead to the distant Sundari palace. "There would be more chaos, more energy, more..." He paused and shook his head, his shoulders tensing as his fingers touched the hilt of his lightsaber. "All I feel is calm and cold. The Force is still. If the Imperials were here in force and scrambling for leadership, it wouldn't be like this. The outpost was a trap. This has to be one too."

"We can't do nothing, Luke," Leia said sternly. "Father's depending on us create a diversion big enough to draw Thrawn's attention away from Lothal."

"Maybe we already have," Luke snapped back, his hand balling into a fist at his side. Nobody said a word, nobody so much as moved, even after their ship gently touched down on the platform the automatic docking system guided them to.

"They killed Ursa," Bo-Katan said tightly. "They eradicated nearly every member of Clan Wren. They built a weapon that will end Mandalore! No," Bo-Katan snarled with every ounce of authority she possessed. "The dead are owed vengeance, and no matter what, this weapon needs to be destroyed before it can be turned on the rest of us. And," she said with bitter contempt, "if Thrawn's here, and he's the one that unleashed this weapon upon us, Kenobi's going to have to get in line, because I get the first shot at that big blue asshole."

"You think Thrawn's here?" Sabine asked, and she was answered with uncomfortable silence by a group that didn't want to truly entertain the prospect. With a huff, Luke shrugged his shoulders and took the com unit from his belt.

"Only one way to find out," he grumbled as his fingers swiftly tapped the device, and before it had the chance to chime more than once, that call was answered.

"Luke, hi!" came the excitable voice of Ezra Bridger, and with a scoff and a roll of her eyes, Leia punched her brother's arm.

"And exactly what good is calling your little boyfriend going to do for us?" Leia hissed, and laying his hand upon the visor covering her face, Luke shoved her away, resolved to ignore her.

"We need a status update, Ezra," Luke said quietly into the com, his voice lowering when someone passed by the ship, but didn't stop or appear to take any notice of them. "We just infiltrated Sundari. There have been a few...complications, but within a few hours, we should have the city."

"Sounds like things are lining up perfectly then," Ezra said smugly. "Dodanna's fleet just arrived. It's huge!"

"Yeah, I know," Luke said dismissively. "Any movement from the Imperial fleet?"

"Uh..." For a moment, Ezra didn't speak, the only sound the buzz of machines and monitors filtered through distance and the communicator's speaker. "One ship left a few days ago, but that's all the scouts have reported."

"A heavy cruiser?" Luke asked knowingly.

"No, a Star Destroyer," Ezra corrected, and though his helmet hid his expression, everybody on the ship felt the same shock they knew was on Luke's face.

"The Chimaera?" Luke asked.

"No," Ezra said quickly. "We have eyes on Chimaera. It hasn't moved, not since it returned from wherever a few weeks ago."

"Fett," Bo-Katan said into her own com. "Rebel Base is reporting that a Star Destroyer left Lothal around the time we killed the Saxons and their allies."

"Is this the part you tell me that's a hell of a coincidence?" Boba responded dryly.

"I'd love to, but are we ever that lucky?" Bo-Katan said wearily. "Get a scout up there."

"Order's already logged," Boba said. "If it's up there, we'll find it."

"Everything alright?" Ezra asked when B-Katan returned her own com to her belt, and with a heavy sigh, Luke shook his head.

"I don't know," Luke muttered. "Things haven't gone well here, and if that Star Destroyer ended up here..." He paused, his head bowing as he stared at the com in his hands. "It's possible they knew about this attack, and if they did, then this is a trap. Not just for us, but all of us."

"Well," Ezra said flatly. "Shit."

"Maybe we should think about calling off this attack," Luke said, and was immediately met with furious objections from the three women in the ship. "Not just here on Mandalore, but the Lothal attack too. Is Father there?"

"No, but he will be soon," Ezra said, his voice tight with concern. "I talked to him maybe an hour ago."

"Let him know about this," Luke commanded in a voice that sounded a little too much like his sister's tone. "We have something important we need to do here first, but after..." He looked around at the people occupying the transport, his chest aching with fear for the lives of people he cared for. "I don't know. Maybe we'll pull the clans out of here and add their might to the rebel force."

"Hey, be careful out there, Luke," Ezra said gravely, though a playful smile tugged at the edge of his lips. "Thunk how intolerable Kenobi will be if something happened to you."

"Well, I don't think you'd have to worry about that for very long, since he'd certainly kill you all," Luke said so casually that Ezra balked. "But we'll be careful," he quickly added. "Careful as we can be, anyway. We'll keep you posted when we can."

"Alright," Ezra said quietly, relief washing over his face. "May the Force be with you."

"And also with you." With a sigh, Luke switched the com off and returned the device to his belt.

"We aren't abandoning the plan," Bo-Katan said firmly. "Not destroying the weapon, not taking Mandalore back, none of it."

"I think it's more likely than not that we're walking into a trap," Luke said calmly, and Leia gave a short, hard laugh.

"Knowing it's a trap will help us defeat it," Leia countered. "When it doesn't work because we know what to look for, the Imperials will be forced to call in reenforcements, just like Father wanted."

"And you know what that trap is?" Luke asked, crossing his arms over his chest as he looked at his sister. "Unless you do, we don't know what to look for."

"But we do know it's a trap!" Leia shot back. "That gives us an edge!"

"I know you want to impress Father, but he isn't going to be impressed if we wind up in enemy hands!"

"Which isn't going to happen!" Leia scoffed. "We have the Force, Luke, or have you forgotten?"

"The Force didn't save the Jedi when Sidious turned the clones on them," Luke said flatly, and Leia dismissively waved a hand.

"That's different, Luke, that was a Sith trap. Other Force sensitives who manipulated the Force in their favor."

"Who do you think runs the Empire, Leia?"

"That's enough!" Bo-Katan snapped as she stepped between the twins. "We can't afford to be divided in this, and arguing isn't helpful! Especially not when we're jumping at shadows. We can't pull back," she said firmly. "Not now. Not when a failure to act could end in the Empire using that weapon to root us out."

"I'm not saying that we do nothing," Luke muttered, sufficiently chastised. "Only that we be careful, and should the trap be too much, we retreat to fight another day."

"Mandalorians don't retreat," Sabine said flatly, and Luke sighed and hung his head.

"I know..." he said almost bitterly. "I bet Thrawn knows that too."

"We don't know that he's here, kid," Cody said as he nudged Luke's shoulder, his hand slamming on the ship's ramp release and the deck shuddering beneath their feet as the hatch opened. "Rex and I will keep you kids safe. Don't worry."

"We need to move," Rex said as he gestured down the ramp. "We keep that kid of yours waiting too long, Cody, and he's likely to start blowing things up."

"That would be very like him..." Cody groaned, watching everyone file out of the ship before he followed to bring up the rear.

Their journey through Sundari to the palace that stood as the Imperial stronghold was fast, quiet, and extremely eerie. There were no civilians in the streets, likely do to a lock down the Imperials imposed due to the sudden disappearance of Bo-Katan and the Saxon forces. Though if that was the case, the supply convoys into the city and the poor security at the port seemed even stranger. They saw a few Imperial patrols, which they quickly and carefully avoided, though not nearly so many as anticipated from a force in crisis.

By the time they reached one of the many back passages into the palace, they had all come to the same conclusion. The Imperials weren't in crisis because someone had come in to take command.

"If we're lucky, it's Thrawn," Bo-Katan snarled as she led them through the twisting passages beneath the palace.

"That's not something I thought I'd ever hear," Cody said wryly, grunting as he moved a heavy iron door that blocked the passage back into place.

"Thrawn has some restraint, I've heard," Bo-Katan answered, stopping as she came to a fork and, considering for a moment, led them down the left path. "If we're unlucky, it's Tarkin. I've worked closely with him over the years, and he'll take my defection as a personal insult, and that man will burn the entire planet to the ground just to spite me..."

"Do they even know you defected?" Sabine asked. "They don't know what happened on Krownest, do they? Maybe they think you're dead too."

"It's possible," Bo-Katan said with a shrug, looking up at the ceiling and swiftly scanning the readouts projected on her visor. "We really have no way of knowing either way." With a tap to the side of her helmet, she pointed above them. "Looks like you were right, Wren. They're keeping the weapon in the main hangar."

"How could you have missed that?" Cody asked quietly as Bo-Katan entered a code into the security pad on the wall, the woman's shoulders tensing considerably. "A weapon like that sat right under your nose, and you didn't notice?"

"It wasn't built here," Sabine quickly answered. "It couldn't have been. The palace doesn't have the facilities necessary to build such a weapon. Even the original prototype was built in the Imperial academy." She grabbed hold of the ladder that slid from the wall, a hatch opening high above them with a soft hiss. "They can maintain it here, but that had to build it somewhere else."

"Then let's hope the blueprints aren't out of our reach," Leia muttered as she followed Sabine up the ladder. "If it was developed off-planet, then maybe-"

"One thing at a time, princess," Rex called up to her. "Let's not make things worse than they are before we even know the situation."

One by one, they climbed up the ladder and passed through the hatch into the main hangar, each one running for cover as soon as they emerged. The hangar was dark, though far from silent, with techs working beneath ships and regular patrols of Stormtroopers walking up and down the rows of ships and vehicles. For all the silence of Sundari, the Imperial activity in the palace was exactly as it should be. The Imperial forces may well have been recalled to the palace in the wake of their vanishing leadership in order to regroup or to prepare for an assault that they expected was immanent.

From here, it stank less of a trap and more of an observant and proactive commander.

Tapping Bo-Katan on the shoulder, Sabine pointed to the command center window on the far wall, and just beneath it, the weapon they were looking for, the massive thing hooked up to a mess of wires and devices that seemed improvised to charge the powerful weapon. It accounted for the darkness in the hangar. The weapon needed a huge draw of power, and for a complex unprepared for such a weapon, main power could in fact be diverted to provide the extra necessary power.

The clones took their blaster rifles in hand, and counting down the seconds after they saw the boots of a patrol pass on the other side of the ship they were concealed behind, the took off, one by one, across the hangar toward the command center. It was slow, careful work, but once they got a feel for the Stormtroopers' patrol patterns, it was fairly effortless to slip between patrols and use the dark to their advantage to remain unseen behind vehicles, supply crates, and in the darkest edges of the room.

Before long, they were ducking into the doorway and bolting up the stairs to the command center, and two perfect shots from Rex and Cody took out the stationed guards. Before the officers inside had the chance to raise an alarm, the three Imperials were in the air, struggling against the power of the Force that Leia commanded as the others ran into the room and immediately set to getting into the system.

"I'm in," Bo-Katan said only after a few seconds of working, and Luke and Sabine immediately left their stations to peer over her shoulder, a quick flick of Leia's wrist sending the officers slamming against the wall to slump unmoving on the floor as she joined the others. "Looks like they haven't scrubbed me from the system yet. This might be easier than we anticipated if they still think I'm Imperial."

"That might be a dangerous assumption," Luke warned.

"Or an advantage we can't let go to waste," Leia cut in. "Even if the officers know, the average soldier might not. It could buy us time in a critical moment if they think she's the highest authority." With a soft sigh, Luke inclined his head, and with a subtle tightening of his fist, the dead Stormtroopers just outside the door were pulled into the room, concealing them from view of anyone casually passing by.

"Locate the blueprints and destroy the weapon," Bo-Katan said as she stepped away from the console and gently pushed Sabine toward it. "You'll be able to find those plans better than I."

"The plans and all the research behind it," Sabine said through tightly clenched teeth. "I'll get this done, you start and blowing that thing to hell."

"Um, if I may..." Luke cut in, putting a hand on Bo-Katan's shoulder as she turned to leave the command center. "An explosion will call the entire Imperial presence down on us. The weapon's already plugged into the power grid." He shrugged. "Why not reroute the entire grid directly into the weapon to overload and fry the systems?"

"Can you do that?" Bo-Katan asked, and Leia scoffed.

"If it's electronic, Luke can do anything," Leia said flatly. "Could the Imperials repair that?"

"I don't see how they could," Luke said quickly. "Funneling the amount of power we're talking about will completely destroy all the electronics if it doesn't outright disintegrate them. There won't be anything left to rebuild without those blueprints."

"Do it," Bo-Katan said quickly, unlocking another console and stepping aside to allow Luke to get to work. Pacing back and forth as she watched the two work, she took the com off her belt, fiddling with it for a moment before she put in a call to Boba Fett, and was met with nothing but static.

"They have jamming active..." Leia grumbled, quickly looking over to where her brother was working. "Looks like we were right about this being a trap. Any sign they've noticed us, Luke?"

"If they have, they're not logging any orders about it..." Luke muttered, his eyes darting over the spread of readouts before him. "Rerouting the power is guaranteed to get their attention, but this is also something that could just happen, especially with the energy draw on this monster. While they're figuring out what's going on, we should have a pretty good window to slip out."

"Will rerouting the power take down the palace's defenses?" Bo-Katan asked, and Luke gave a curt, distracted nod, his fingers flying across the board in front of him. "Perfect. Our troops can get in and take them apart before they even know what hit them. Mandalore will be ours in no time..."

"I have the files," Sabine said triumphantly, looking over at Luke working at the console beside him. "If we time it right, they'll be too busy with the energy surge to even notice what we've done here."

"Agreed," Luke muttered, tapping the console a few more times before he grabbed hold of one of the levers. "You first. I'll follow once the programs have been given a chance to be properly purged." He looked behind him at Bo-Katan. "Ready to call Fett in?"

"I've never been more ready for anything in my life..." Bo-Katan said tightly. "We'll escape the way we came and use the passages to get as close to the central control as we can. That's where anyone important will be."

"Ready?" Luke asked Sabine, his hand tightening on the lever.

"Ready," Sabine quickly replied.

"Alright, get ready to run," Luke muttered, silent for just a moment before he pointed at Sabine. "Go."

Quickly confirming the completion command, Sabine looked intently at her monitor, watching the progress bar swiftly fill as her old research was swiftly purged from the system, and the second her screen flashed complete, Luke pulled the lever and the screen before her quickly went blank. A loud, high pitched whine filled the room as the electronics shorted out and through the command center window, they could see electricity dancing along the wires attached to the weapon, the attachment points beginning to glow red and white with heat. Panicked shouts from below began echoing through the hangar as Stormtrooper patrols rushed to deal with the dangerously overheating weapon, emergency sirens drowning out all other noise as the soldiers sounded the alert. Hitting the console as she stood, Sabine ran toward the door where Rex and Cody waited, their weapons at the ready to deal with any Imperials that might come their way in an effort to solve their current problem.

Just as Bo-Katan's com bursted with sound as the jamming was lifted, Luke and Leia both tensed, looking at each other as their bodies shivered under the sudden cold snap in the Force. They ran for the door together, Luke's hand outstretched before him to slam the Force into Sabine, throwing the hapless girl out of the command center and right into Cody and Rex, but neither twin made it to the door before a bright red energy field closed off their exit, sealing them inside the command center with Bo-Katan. For just a moment, Boba Fett's voice came from the com, tight and serious with warning as he told them about the Star Destroyer that just appeared above Mandalore, and then it was swiftly silenced, the energy field surrounding them disrupting their communications.

"Oh, no, no, no..." Sabine muttered helplessly as she scrambled up from the floor and rushed toward the sealed off command center, taking one of her explosives from her belt and slamming it onto the wall. "Take cover, I'm blasting you out of there!"

"Sabine, wait!" Leia called, but it was too late, the other girl quickly speeding away and detonating the bomb just as she dragged Cody and Rex into an adjacent hallway. The explosion was deafening, loud enough to be heard over the wail of the alarms, and peering around the edge, Sabine's heart dropped when she saw that while the wall had been blasted into jagged pieces, the red barrier remained, not just around the door but surrounding the inside of the entire room. The walls could all be destroyed, but the containing barrier would still remain.

They were well and truly trapped.

"Oh, shit," Cody hissed as he staggered to his feet and ran to the energy field, his weapon clutched tightly in his hands. "Hang tight, we'll get you out of there."

"You don't have time," Leia snapped, snatching her lightsaber from her belt and igniting the blue blade and swinging it at the red barrier. It bounced harmlessly off with a sharp hiss, and cursing loudly, she redoubled her efforts, cutting at the consoles in an effort to deprive the field of its power, but to no effect.

"You need to go," Luke said, his voice calm and even. "Get back to Father, tell him what happened."

"I can't leave you, kid," Cody said grimly.

"We can't leave you!" Sabine said, her voice tight and frantic and trembling with tears her helmet hid. "I lost my family today! My mother and my brother and my entire clan! I-I can't..." Her voice broke, her head hanging for a second before she drew her blaster and uselessly fired it at the barrier. "I can't lose anymore today! I can't!"

"I need you to get out and tell Fett to launch the attack!" Bo-Katan snapped. "We can hang on until then. We aren't defenseless in here."

"But-"

"I'll keep watch over them," Cody said, laying his hand upon Sabine's shoulder. "You need to escape so you can warn Phoenix squadron." He nudged Rex with the butt of his rifle. "Get her out safe."

"I will..." Rex said quietly, holstering his own weapon and grabbing hold of Sabine's arm. "Don't go dying on me, traitor."

"Wouldn't dream of it, slave," Cody drawled, watching as Rex pulled Sabine down the hallway, the teenager fighting him for a moment befor her shoulders tightened with resolve.

"We'll come back for you!" Sabine called down the hallway. "All of Mandalore and the entire rebel fleet! I'll bring them all!"

And they were gone, swiftly turning into the stairwell that would bring them back they way they came, a short way back to safety. Luke, Leia and Bo-Katan stood there, bathed in the red light of the field, the wail of the emergency sirens echoing around them, Leia breathing heavily from the fury of her assault on the consoles, and with a frustrated snarl, Bo-Katan began to pace. With a deep breath, Luke closed his eyes, felt for the Force and found it...clouded. Unresponsive. Something in the energy field was disrupting or blocking his connection to the Force, and he couldn't help but feel foolish for not having felt it before.

They weren't left waiting more than a minute before someone came running down the hallway, and Cody raised his blaster rifle, took aim, and opened fire as soon as he saw the gleaming black armor of Death Troopers. He hit one, two, the first one again, but they didn't fall to the ground, just seemed to shrug off the fired shots and kept coming. When they returned fire, it wasn't in red lines of blaster fire, but in pale blue rings that struck Cody and made him convulse as he fell stunned to the ground. Another stunning shot was fired into the clone's body when the Death Troopers stood over Cody, the man weakly struggling to push himself off the ground, and he fell still to the ground with the second shot.

Leia raised her lightsaber as Luke ignited his and Bo-Katan readied her own weapons, but the Death Troopers didn't make any effort to open the barrier to deal with them. Instead, they stood guard in the hall, their jumbled, unintelligible vocalizing the only words they spoke. A moment after, the emergency siren shut off, though the sound still rang in their ears, and the Death Troopers stood at attention as their commander slowly walked down the hall toward them.

They weren't surprised, but Luke and Leia felt fear tightly grip their chests anyway at the sight of the Chiss Grand Admiral.

"Looks like you were right, sir," a woman at Thrawn's side said in a clipped, Coruscanti accent so favored by Imperial officers.

"Indeed..." Thrawn said quietly as he looked at the clone at his feet. "And something extra, it would seem..." He looked up, glancing over the people neatly caught in his trap for a moment before he turned away. "Bring them to the ship and have all our forces pull out."

"...all of them, sir?"

"All of them," Thrawn repeated. "I have no doubt the bulk of the Mandalorian force will be attacking Sundari shortly. I intend to be on our way when they do. Let them have Mandalore. We do not need it."

"Too afraid to meet Mandalorian might in battle?!" Bo-Katan snapped, her body tight with offense and glaring at the alien when he turned to face her.

"I have nothing but the deepest respect for your people," Thrawn said quietly. "But I will not lose a war to win a minor battle. And the war is over, Bo-Katan Kryze," he said as he took a step closer to the imprisoned Mandalorians. "Your Shadow King has already lost."

"If you think I'm going to tell you anything-"

"I do not need you to tell me anything," Thrawn interrupted, cold and dismissive. "As I have said, I have already won. But you..." he said slowly as he turned glowing red eyes on to Luke and Leia. "I am very curious to learn about you two."

"They won't tell you anything either," Bo-Katan snarled, stepping defensively between the twins and the Grand Admiral, though Thrawn's gaze never left them.

"Perhaps not..." the Chiss muttered. "But perhaps they do not need to. Commodore Faro, prepare our prisoners for transport to the Shyrak." The slightest hint of a smile touched his lips, his eyes almost seeming to glow brighter in the dark of the hallway. "We will have plenty of time to discover their secrets on the way to Atollon."

With the press of a button, a powerful charge jolted through Bo-Katan's body, her muscles tightening and spasming as electricity shot through her and when she dropped to the floor, she saw Luke and Leia unmoving on the ground just before darkness took her.