Disclaimer: Anyone wanna guess who owns this chiz? Victorious and Star Wars, I own neither. Still, I get to use them, so enjoy. Betting this'll never be on Disney Plus.

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Grey was walking in the direction of the hanger when he heard something over his comm unit. "Trooper, fall in line. We're heading over to the port hanger bay to see if the princess was being smuggled there." He suspected the com unit only worked due to the short range.

"Yes sir." Grey said, blending in with the other soldiers.

"I thought they said she died with the captains launch." One of the others said.

"No talking in the ranks." The commander snapped. "And we identified only one real life form in that ship. I'm guessing they scarified someone to try and distract us."

"What do you mean one real life form?" Malcolm asked.

"There were at least three suits of armor programmed to send out a false life tag." The sergeant said. "But they didn't realize that our armor doesn't fool life sensors, or we'd be able to mask ourselves from being found by them. No, they sent dead troopers, and we almost bought it. We're just lucky the captain isn't so easily fooled."

It was a quick run, nearly a kilometer, but they made good time and found themselves massing at the edge of the hanger, looking over the large area, trying to find anything out of the ordinary. "You." The commander snapped at one of the troopers. "Go find out what those cadets are doing here."

"Those are the baby offers." The sergeant said to his commander, and Malcolm could almost hear the smirking in the mans voice.

"Ensigns with no combat or command experience are just advanced cadets, learning how to lead men." Their officer said dismissivly.

"I'll go find out." Grey volunteered.

"He just wants to talk to the girls." One of the soldiers offered. However, there was no objection, and Lord Grey was allowed to go check.

Malcolm walked towards the small group of maybe six young officers, hoping that Jade had hid herself among them. He knew she was near by, he could kind of feel her, but was using stealth, so it was that much harder to figure out just where she'd gone. 'Still, smarter to hide in a group...'

"So I did what I was told, and put her on the shuttle." He head a voice say. A familiar voice. He looked at the gathering and saw Tori among the young officers, her face changed by a near professional makeup job, despite limited resources.

"Sorry to interrupt, but you said you put a girl on a shuttle?" Grey asked Tori.

"Yea, I put a twi'lek on a shuttle." Tori said. "I'm just waiting for the maintenance team to finish so I can report this to the pilot, then go about my duties."

'She'd hiding out here, among the other new officers, so as to draw less attention. This is good, but dangerous. If the superior officers check their ID's….' A smile crossed his hidden face. 'But they can't. Not yet. So she's safe enough here. But where's Jade?'

A shuttle pilot walked out from the ship in question, covered in the flight suit and mask, appearance nearly completely concealed. "We're almost ready. You wanna do the check?" It was a girls voice, one he was far to familiar with.

"Ma'am, I'll go with, just in case." He said. He turned to look at his unit. "Sir, their just here because it's out of the way." Mentally adding 'And extra guns are useful if there is a fight.' He waited for an acknowledgment.

"Very good." the Storm Trooper Officer replied. "Move them out of the way for now."

"Sir, I'm going with this officer to check out that shuttle, make sure no one snuck aboard before it launches." He called out.

"We haven't had any launch orders in over an hour." The officer said.

"Then it's double important I check." Grey said, smiling as his bluff seemed to work.

"I'll send a couple of more troops with you." The officer said.

They walked over to the shuttle, Grey and the troopers. He noted that Tori wasn't with the other young officers any more, realizing that Jade had taken her inside the ship, under one pretext or another.

Once he entered the shuttle, he could tell it was the best choice for this journey. The ship was arrayed with several small cabins for a long distance trip, as opposed to benches for short distance journeys. As they made their way in, Malcolm could sence that five of the eight staterooms were occupied. He didn't need the troopers asking who these people were. "Soldier, there's nothing to see here."

"There's nothing to see here." The troopers said, falling to his power.

"Go report while I check on the pilot." He ordered.

"Reporting in." The lead soldier said, heading out, the others trailing behind. He stopped to point at Grey. "You, check on the pilot."

Lord Grey made his way into the cockpit area at the front of the ship, ready for trouble. "We ready to go?" He asked. He could see Tori sitting in an unused seat, trying to stay out of the way.

"Yep." Jade said. "Apparently Numbers Thee and Four did a good job talking Gary through the startup process. We're ready to head out." Like him, she could sense through his disguise. Their family connection making identifying one another easy.

"Soldier." Tori started. "Wait, four? Are you..."

"Okay, lets take a moment to figure out how we're going to get away from this ship." Grey said, ignoring his princess's catching up.

"We make a mess." Jade stated. "That'll give the Beetle a chance to slip away. We'll need her to overtake lord Rend, who took Trina." She glanced at her father. "So, who's lord Rend?"

"The insurgents main operative." Lord Grey sneered. "But I think he serve someone else. Now then, lets figure out what we're gonna do about the batteries, and launch."

"What about the hundred and fifty tie fighters out there?" Jade asked. "You know what? Never mind. I think we can handle this. I'm gonna do some real damage before we bop, so expect trouble."

Gary, having been told by Jade that they were safe, had moved up to the cockpit. As she mentioned wanting to leave, he produced a remote detonator and pushed the button, setting off the bombs he'd planted in the access tubes around the nearest anti fighter batteries. He'd found that, while the Jedi were playing hide and seek with the stormtroopers, he and his maintenance crew were able to access all kinds of near important locations, including the anti-aricraft batteries, as well as the armory where the explosives were kept. Despite taking the time for this one precaution, they'd been hiding in the shuttle, under the auspice of getting it ready to depart, for quite some time.

Gary's precautions were tactically the right thing to do, as well as making both Andre and Robbie feel like they were doing something to help with the escape. Now, their work was rewarded as the explosions ripped through the ship. Gary gloated. "I took care of the closest anti-arcraft guns. Or rather, we did. They have bomb detectors in their droids, but it was easy enough to get around those, even using old style earth technology."

Jade didn't hesitate, already moving with the first rumble of the explosions. The ship slid up into the air, floating towards the open bay doors. "Don't let them close us in." Grey warned his child.

Jade punched it, shooting out of the Star Destroyer before making a sharp bank. She flew as close to the skin of the ship as she could, knowing when and where the anti fighter batteries might show themselves. But, her target was the disabled sensor array, which she shot with the shuttles blasters.

Grey, at the same time, had Three disconnect his ship from the sensor array, and used the explosion to hurl the Beetle away from the Star Destroyer. As that was happening, Jade flew away, pulling on the force for another big effect, tossing an illusion out to make sure the many, many fighters that had launched missed her small shuttle with their vast number of shots. Grey, for his part, was angling the shields to maximize their ability to survive.

"I'VE GOT THE RANDEVU COORDINATES RIGHT HERE!" Gary screamed from his spot in the last of the shuttles crew stations, which he'd claimed as soon as the ship was airborn. "LET ME LOAD THEM IN!" He shoved the small stick that had the coordinates, as well as the codes that let them take the ship, into the receiver. Then, following the instructions he'd been given, he loaded them to the ships navigation computer. He'd found himself sitting at the navigation terminal, but didn't much care. They had only a few more minutes to get away from this level of attack before the fighters just flush the area with fire and undue Jade's clever illusion. "It's ready. Punch it."

Jade had to turn the ship around so it was facing a swarm of tie fighters, as well as the Star Destroyer, but she did so, and hit the hyper drive. The world blurred, and they were gone. 'Glad that's done with.' She thought. 'Lucky they never saw through the illusion long enough to target us, or…' Her mind blurred next, and she found her body, no longer channeling that much force energy, was exhausted, shutting down to a bare maintenance mode.

Grey had to take over the pilots station, even though, in hyper, there wasn't that much to do. "Rest, Jade. We still have the worst of the job to do. I'm afraid that invading Tansarii station is gonna cause us all kinds of problems. We're facing even more Dark Order Storm Troopers then were on that star destroyer. We'll have to find a way in, avoiding he legions of troops, get to where the princess is being held, hope to find Ashma's child there, rescue them both, and then escape, all without getting killed. At least not until we get away. So rest, because in a very short while, we're going to be having us a hard fight."

"So, we have a plan?" Gary asked. Tori, for her part, was slowly getting herself a room. She wanted to help, but had realized there was nothing she could do at that moment to make any difference in their plans. She never even heard Grey's response.

"Yes, we just fly in and take her." Grey said. "Believe it or not, the one good thing about the station is that I should be able to get us landing rights. Taking off, that may be a bit harder, but I'll think of something."

"We need a plan." The police officer pushed.

"We don't have much time for a plan." Grey shot back. "We'll try to come up with one, in the day or so it takes to get there. They have almost half a day's head start, and while the Beetle's fast, it's not that much faster then a shuttle. It's all we can to do get there and try the rescue. Besides, I recovered something form that ship, something ancient that they had no idea the real value of, that I was tempted to use on them. I'm glad I didn't, because it's a piece of Rakata technology I once helped identify, and it's a doozy. And unlike just about anyone else, I know how to use it."

"What is it?" Gary asked. He could see that Tori had sequester herself in a room, and was now probably breaking down, crying. 'I get it, this has been too much, even for me.'

"A bargaining chip, to get us out of a tough situation." Malcolm explained. "Gary, I'm gonna need you to take charge of this group, get them to a safe house. I'll contact Ashma, find us someplace. Someplace I won't know about until later, just in case. Then, once we've docked with the Beetle, I'll send over Four, have him pilot this ship for you. He'll need help, this really is a four person job, but for our purposes, it'll work just fine with Four doing the piloting. I'll need Three to help run the Beetle while Jade and I head in to mount the rescue. We'll need someone outside who can pilot the ship, just in case..."

"So you're just leaving me?" Gary asked. "I came out here to help..."

"And you are." Grey said, calming the police officer. "You have Tori now, along with several frightened children. Get them to safety. We'll not want to put them at any more risk, not as long as we can avoid it. So you're job is to make sure they get to the safe house, then to wherever Ashma decides you'll head before getting them home. Maybe the Gateway? It's where most of whats left of the Jedi are, so it should be safe enough..."

Gary looked back at the various closed doors, behind which the rescued children waited, none of them having a clue just how big this whole ordeal was, except maybe Tori. 'Cat and Andre, their not even a part of this. Neither is the weird kid. Funny, me calling anything weird. But hay, I'm a part of this, and I know a lot more about this world, this universe, then any of those three. Even Tori, who's been taught, she's not really aware of how much she knows. So the question is, can they ever go home? Back to Earth, with all it's joys, but the tech, it's so backwards...' He gulped. "Okay, I'll look after them. Not my style, but I think, this time, they'll need a fighting man near by, just in case..."

"I'll see about getting you some serious hardware to help defend them." Malcolm said. "But we only have so long. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to make contact with the Beetle, and through it, Ashma..."

Gary was left to watch the ship fly through the blurry background of hyper space, traveling just out of sight of anything real, but going so fast that even the stars, those that burned bright enough for them to be seen, even in hyper, were just blurs. 'Tori...' He thought, wanting to go check on her.

It was a couple of hours later when thy dropped out of hyper. "Okay, we're near an old safe house used by the rebels, a long, long time ago. The empire keeps it working as a place their agents can head to, if we need to be safe. But the Dark order's not likely to know it exists, so we're safe enough..." Grey informed Gary.

"How long before we land?" The police officer asked.

"We're not." Malcolm admitted. "Even this isn't safe enough. Four has the concordance of a place where Ashma has set up supplies and support for you. Once he's on board, you're gonna start getting ready to head there. Me and Jade, we'll board the Beetle, and get ourselves heading off to our own mission."

"I assume there's going to be a boarding tube?" Gary asked slashed guessed.

"We have ten minutes of dead space, once we head out the airlock." Grey stated. "Jade and I can set the shields to help cover the deadness, so we won't have that much to worry about, But we'll then just jump over, enter the Beetle thought the air lock, and once inside, I'll tell Three to make the jump to hyper..." His eyes glanced around the ship. "Or head away enough for us to make the jump. Won't have to be that far away..."

"And then I'm out here, alone?" Gary asked.

"You'll be safe enough." The Gray Knight assured him. "Also, we're not giving Four a chance to tell either Jade or myself where your going. The only way for us to find you is to succeed in our mission, then have the princess, and hopefully that Beck boy, contact control to get the information we need. The enemy, they gain nothing if they capture one of us. Now, I need to get Jade ready. We'll have a bit more tiem then if we just hopped over, since we're bringing survival packs, but still, we don't want to doddle..."

Jade was only barely rousing herself when her father attached a life support extenuation pack on her uniform and loaded her into the airlock. "Jade save your strength. I've given us each a jump belt, so we can make an extended leap over to the Beetle. When I pulled Four over, you jump to that airlock. I'll be right behind you. Three knows were we're going, and will pilot us for the early part of the flight. I'll need to come up with some way for us to approach Tansarii station, but once I do, we're going to need to conserve out power for the long term fight we're heading into."

"Dad, the man who took Trina, he's called Lord Rend." Jade moaned.

"Darth Rend." Grey corrected. "I've heard of him. Second in command of the Dark Order. This is bad. I'm guessing I know who he's meeting up with, if the visions the Jedi have shared with us are anything close to true, but I'll save that for when we get there. I don't need you doing anything but marshaling your strength. We have a hard fight before us."

Jade nodded, allowing herself to be led to the edge of the airlock. They put their helmets on, creating an air tight seal, then cycled the lock. Jade watched as the Beetle closed, hovering just a football field away. Four walked to the edge of it's airlock, waiting as the door opened. Grey reached out with the force, and pulled the droid to him. Seconds later, the protocol droid found itself in the airlock of the shuttle. Jade had jumped as soon as she saw the droid heading her way. The small repulses on her external belt pulsed to life, giving her enough momentum to reach the ship across the void. Once there, she clipped a safety line to the inside of the airlock, and reached back out for her father. He was maybe thirty seconds behind her, and his aim was true enough. She grabbed his arm and pulled him in, using her other hand to hold onto the safety railing, giving her leverage to pull the man inside. He reached out and started the cycling of the airlock. The whole exchange took maybe eight minutes, including cycling the airlocks. However, at the six minute mark, as the airlock doors were closing, they were moving again, Three activating the engines and retracting the shields. They watched the shuttle shrink to nothingness as the airlock finished cycling.

Jade and her father then ran to the cockpit to help run the ship for the attack on the station. "What can you tell me about this station?" Jade asked.

"Old criminal holding, built into the side of a large chunk of stone drifting out in extreme orbit of a star." He started. 'But the Dark Order took what was once a secure station and probably added all kinds of weapons and shields. No way around it, I'm asking Baron for help."

"And what do I do while we're waiting for you to come up with a plan?" Jade wondered aloud.

"Pull as much of your power to the ready, and expect a fight." Lord Grey said. "Recovering the princess is our first priority. All else pales in comparison."

"Right." Jade acknowledged. 'Funny, who'd have thought I'd ever be putting my life on the line for Trina? But I'm doing it, and the lives of how the fuck many people are on my shoulders now, depending on me to succeed, cause that makes sense, right? All I ever wanted was to be loved. This, it's crazy. I could easily be feared, I guess. But loved?'

"You will be loved." The ancient spirit who had helped train her whispered into her mind. "You will be great and powerful, and loved, because you have someone who you love, and who can love you. But more importantly, you will be loved, because hero's always are. Sacrifice sucks, but it's what I was asked to do, what I've asked of my family since time immortal. Jade, be a hero, as we all were meant to be, and be loved, at least by yourself."

'Who are you?' Jade thought, almost speaking, but staying quite out of respect for her father and the trance he'd entered. But it didn't answer, only hovered, in whatever place it occupied, and she felt a name. More then one, but the name she felt was… 'Anakin...'

:}

Did you see the subtle hint at who he ancient spirit is? I could repeat it, but it is kinda obvious.

The Rakata come from the video games, and probably other sources, and I used them because I wanted an ancient, force using species with a bit of wisdom. Plus, I could look them up on line. Just an FYI.

Thoughts? Reviews? I take all comments.