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.

58. Steps into Shadows

AN: I don't think the next chapter's going to be as long as this one, so fingers crossed that the next one gets up a bit quicker.

But really, this chapter is LONG.

Only a few notes this time, guys, the first being that I, an Idiot, have been spelling Chimaera wrong THIS WHOLE TIME. One day, I'll go back and correct all the old, wrong spellings, but that day is not today, and from now, I'll do it right. I'm sorry I did you wrong, Thrawn. I'll do better next time. Don't want that error to become a mistake, NOW DO WE?!

The other note here being that, if you can't tell from the setup of this chapter and the past few, I'm taking a hack saw to Season 3, which I don't do lightly, as I dearly love season 3, but we're gonna be seeing some real changes happening pretty soon. Just a heads up for all the people that like to yell at me for, um...deviating from canon? Because I'm not doing enough of that already? Yeah, I don't know either. Get your pitchforks and megaphones ready, kids! It's about to get dangerous in this dumpster fire!

Let me know what we're feeling, lovelies, you know I love to hear it!

Chapter 58: Steps Into Shadow

Luke sat at Ezra's bedside, the unconscious boy's hand gingerly clasped in his own while a 2-1B medical droid put the final touches on Ezra's cybernetic leg. It had been weeks since the mission to Malachor, weeks for the limited medbay on their base at Atollon to stabilize the severely wounded Ezra and begin to heal him, the cost of the precious time wasted in their difficult escape from Malachor making his recovery a delicate, prolonged affair. It had taken time to procure the things they needed to properly treat him, even longer to obtain the expensive components necessary to build a proper cybernetic leg, a frustrated and worried Hera often leaving the base to secure the materials herself in order to see them personally delivered as quickly as it was possible.

And now, three weeks later, Ezra had been taken off the critical support systems and his new leg completed, a sleek, beautifully crafted duranium alloy shell encasing orderly array of wiring and mechanics and synthetic nerves, a custom-built improvement over the standard upgrades that Luke had worked on himself. He had hardly left the medical wing at all since they had returned from Malachor, leaving him to wander and worry endlessly as he staved off guilt and anxiety and depression and hopelessness until the first shipment of parts arrived and he could busy his mind with something other than the weight of crushing loss.

It was senseless to think that way, Luke knew. After all, the mission to Malachor had been a success, the objectives that they set out to accomplish were achieved. The Inquisitors were dead, all of them, and without the ability to effectively track Kanan and Ezra, their Atollon base was secure, giving them a sense of safety and security that they had never had before. True, they still had to worry about the Lords of the Sith, and even now, the ghastly sight of Darth Vader's visage was burned into Luke's mind, but after three weeks and no sign of the Empire, it had seemed as though they had wriggled free of the hook, the tight line the Emperor had upon them as he reeled them in for capture snapped, allowing them to retreat into the depths, more cautious this time for their close brush with certain destruction.

But it had come at a cost.

Luke's hand tightened around Ezra's as he bit down on his lip to fight the tears that stung his eyes. The mission may have been a success, and they may have obtained a rare and valuable Sith holocron to boot, but they had been trapped, captured, and only freed because someone came to slice the rope that coiled around their necks, and had done so at the cost of his own life. Luke hadn't been there, he hadn't seen it, but he had felt it, the crippling wail of the Force as it was sundered. Though he hadn't known what it was at the time, the panic and fear for his father trapped and alone with the Emperor and his Sith apprentices made him believe that the violent disturbance had been the brutal death of Darth Lumis, slain by the Emperor so that the rest of them could escape, leaving an agonized Luke to clutch his sister tightly as they both mourned the sudden loss.

It wasn't until later that they learned the truth from Ahsoka when the woman had returned to the base a few hours after them, following her very sudden departure once she had secured their safety aboard the Umbra. She had returned with an unconscious Obi-Wan, his body limp and broken and barely alive, her entire being grave and somber as she patiently waited for the overjoyed and relieved twins to calm themselves before she told them of Yoda's sacrifice, the Jedi's life freely given to save the life of a Lord of the Sith.

Yoda had been a part of Luke's life for as long as he could remember. Some of his earliest, fondest memories of being on Dagobah, leaping from stone to stone to cross the swamps, swinging from vines, running through the massive trees and studying the Force, all under the watchful gaze of the Jedi Grandmaster. Luke had learned a great deal of the Force from Yoda, had sat with him for long hours learning from him while Leia would run off on some adventurous whim, would listen to the ancient Master long into the night as he recounted his early missions, his time with the Jedi, the places he'd been and the things he had seen. Those stories were all that was truly left of the Jedi Order, and Luke treasured each and every one of them.

And now Yoda was dead and gone like the rest of them, and though part of Luke knew that to rejoin the Force was not a cause for sadness, that for one as ancient and powerful as Yoda, he was never truly gone, for as much as the spirit of Qui-Gon Jinn comforted and assured him that the tiny Master lived on in another form, just as he did, it didn't make it hurt any less. He knew Yoda had learned the secrets that Qui-Gon had, that one day, maybe even one day soon, he would wake to find the ghostly figure of the last Jedi watching over him. But there was something...final in knowing that Yoda would never again ride upon his shoulders, that the peaceful days on Dagobah were at an end.

Luke hadn't experienced death before, not like this, not when it was so close and so personal that he was left distracted by a wound that ached and bled that he didn't know how to heal. He wondered how long it would be before he saw Yoda again, and if seeing the tiny, ghostly form would bring him peace or simply make the wound hurt anew. He was grateful to Yoda for what he had done to save his father's life, but he was just as saddened that it had to come to that, that Yoda had to die to make it so, and Luke couldn't help but chuckle softly to himself as he wiped tears from his eyes when he thought of what the tiny Master would have said to see him like this.

With a heavy sigh, Luke looked up, his gaze drifting to the other side of the room lit by the soft blue glow of a bacta tank where his father floated within the thick, healing gel, a mask fixed over his nose and mouth and an array of sensor nodes and wiring interspaced along his arms and torso, sending vital information to the quietly beeping monitoring systems that surrounded the tank. Nobody knew yet what had happened between Obi-Wan and the other Lords of the Sith. He had already been defeated by the time Ahsoka arrived with help, and they likely wouldn't know anything until he woke up.

If he woke up.

The physical damage was bad enough. His body was covered with new, welted lightning burns that splattered across his skin like spider webs, burns that soaked deep into his skin and damaged muscle and nerves. Those had been easy enough to repair, the long soak in the bacta tank soothing and healing charred, blistered skin into smooth scars. But the greatest damage was on his back, a deep black line sliced deep into his skin through muscle and bone, severing the delicate connective tissue that allowed his arms to move. It was a difficult procedure to attempt to repair and reattach the muscle to bone, and while the surgical droids and the bacta did their work well, they wouldn't know for certain how successful they were.

The black scar of the saber burn that crossed his back lined up perfectly with the similar scar on his chest, a perfect band around him that looked as if it had been done in a single stroke, a lethal bisection separated by years into two brutal cuts. But it was not the physical damage and repairs that kept him unconscious in that tank. Something else had happened to Obi-Wan in the temple on Malachor, something that went far beyond the physical, and it only took the slightest brush of the Force to feel the gaping wound of a shattered mind. It was as if Lumis' powers had been turned against him, a brutal mental domination that left everything within him crushed and broken , the very essence of his being forced so far into the void that even he could not claw his way back out. Whatever it was that was done to him, Obi-Wan was lost in the wrathful torrent of the Force and couldn't find his way back to himself, and Luke knew all too well that it was far too dangerous to make the attempt to brave that void and find him, the risk of being lost as well far too great.

Kanan had said that his Jedi Master had been in a similar state, that she had faced Darth Lumis in battle and come out the other side broken beyond repair, her spirit seemingly absent from her body for over a year while she was suspended in bacta, hoping that the constant healing would somehow draw her back to them. Nobody was certain how she returned to them, only that she did, a thing not accomplished by medical attention so much as the Jedi believed it to be the will of the Force, but none of them were willing now to remove Obi-Wan from the bacta tank, just in case. It certainly couldn't hurt.

Luke bit down on his lip once again as he looked away from his father, tears stinging his eyes and running down his cheeks. He knew very well that Obi-Wan may never return to them, that he was already dead and keeping his body in medical suspension was just a grim reminder of what they had lost, but he couldn't help but hope that he would somehow find a way to return to them. He didn't want to wait a year like Kanan had, he wanted his father back now, but if waiting was what it would take, Luke would wait as long as necessary. Perhaps his presence would help his father find his way. Perhaps Qui-Gon could reach him and guide him back. Perhaps Yoda could. There were a thousand, thousands ways back, and Luke was certain his father was fighting to find them. He'd return to them. Luke knew it.

Ezra's hand twitched and tightly grabbed hold of Luke's hand, and Luke's attention swiftly shifted to his injured friend, leaving his heavy thoughts behind him as he was given something else to focus on. One shuddering breath and a pained groan later, Ezra's eyes squeezed shut, his body shifting slightly under the thin sheet before a stab of pain stilled him, his teeth grinding together as he winced. Luke laid his hand on Ezra's sweat-slicked forehead, brushed the hair away from his eyes and muttered quiet assurances to the boy that it would be alright, his heart beating faster when Ezra's eyes squeezed tightly together again before he slowly began to open his eyes, squinting against the light.

"Ezra..." Luke said, trying to be quiet and calm, though his voice shook with excitement, a wide grin spreading across his face for the first time in weeks, and he pressed his hand to Ezra's cheek, his thumb running over the high arch of his cheek bone. "Ezra, come on. I'm here, you're safe."

The boy's eyes shut again for a moment, his chest rising and falling with rapid, uneven breaths, and with a groan, Ezra slowly opened his eyes once again, the world hazy and unfocused for a moment as his gaze vacant drifted around the room. The world slowly brightened, the images around him sharpening, and with the return of his sight came confusion as he looked up into the hopeful, smiling face of Luke. With a groan, he tried to sit up, but a gentle hand upon his chest pushed him back onto the bed he lay in.

"No, don't get up," Luke said firmly. "You just take it easy, Ezra."

"Where..." Ezra started, his voice tight and cracked, his throat dry, and Luke swiftly pressed a glass to his lips so he could drink. The first swallow was painful, the next less so, the third a welcome relief, and before he knew it, Luke was filling up another glass and Ezra was drinking from that one too. He was more thirsty than he had thought.

"Where am I?" Ezra asked in a hoarse whisper, his tongue thick in his mouth and his thoughts slow and blurry and sluggish, a loopy, unfocused grin on his face when he looked up at the refreshing sight of Luke and felt the other boy brushing back his hair.

"We're back at Chopper Base," Luke said quietly, and Ezra frowned, his mind churning clumsily through his memories for understanding, but there was none to be had. He wasn't even sure what Chopper Base was for a moment before his fumbling recollection found what he was looking for, though it was all still very hazy.

"Chopper Base?" Ezra slurred. "How did...how did I get here?"

"You don't know?" Luke asked calmly, patiently, and Ezra slowly shook his head. "What's the last thing you remember?" For a moment, there was silence, Ezra closing his eyes as he searched the thick fog of his memories, his jaw clenched in concentration, his hand tightening around Luke's, before he once again opened his eyes, his gaze distant and unfocused.

"Malachor..." Ezra whispered. "We were on Malachor, looking for Kenobi's holocron. Did we...did we get it?"

"We did..." Luke muttered, a small, sad smile quivering on his lips as he raised his hand, and the small pyramid flew gently into his hand, the golden capstones encasing the dull red etched glass, and Ezra reached out and gently took it, the faintest glow flickering beneath the frosty glass for a second before it faded once again.

"Wow..." Ezra muttered, turning the pyramid over in his hands. "Have we learned anything from it?"

"Not yet..." Luke said with a heavy sigh. "Most of us can't open it, and those that can are too afraid to touch it." Ezra frowned, confusion creasing his brow as he began to speak, and was silenced swiftly when Luke pressed his fingers to his lips. "What else do you remember?" Luke asked quietly. "Think. Take your time."

For a moment, Ezra thought about raising objections, a thousand questions buzzing in his mind that frantically demanded answers, but he ultimately decided to do as he was told, closing his eyes and taking a deep calming breath to calm his mind as he tried to remember. The memories were, at first, fast, rushing by with such speed that they were painful to look at, a piece of him screaming to look away from them, to keep them fuzzy and out of focus, but the feel of his hand in Luke's grounded him and gave him the courage to push past the rising fear he felt and peel back the haze that obscured his memories.

He saw Malachor, dark and cold and ethereal, the petrified monuments of the dead scattered about a battlefield in a ruined city that glowed with the presence of shimmering, restless specters. He saw the Sith Temple, dangerous and foreboding and intriguing as they wormed their way deep into the heart where the holocron rested. He remembered the elation and satisfaction of a successful mission, abruptly ended in a flash of red and a surge of fear, and then...

And then he remembered only pain.

Ezra opened his eyes, his hand in Luke's beginning to tremble as his other fingers curled tightly around the holocron, the edges of the pyramid digging into his palm as it responded to the roiling, sickening churn of fear and dread and pain with a faint red glow. He felt nauseous, his skin paling and slicking with cold sweat, his chest tight and his lungs burning as he tried and failed to breathe, his throat constricting like he was suffocating. He swallowed hard and looked at Luke, those blue eyes filled with sympathy and understanding and care, a hand that Ezra could not feel resting upon his leg.

"We didn't know if you were going to make it..." Luke said quietly as he carefully pulled down the sheet covering Ezra's body, revealing the cybernetic leg attached to the middle of Ezra's thigh where the flesh ended. "We did what we could to fix the damage. I know it's not the same as a real leg, but...well, you're alive. And Kanan and Hera got the best components and materials they could find to build this," he said, a small smile on his lips as he tapped the cybernetic leg. "It'll be like you never lost it."

Ezra didn't respond, only sat silently as he looked at the polished sheen of the dark, blue-gray metal that now formed the majority of his leg. He lightly ran his finger across the junction where metal met scarred flesh, barely breathing as the last traces of haze in his shock fogged memory cleared, the slow crawl of the ambush that took his leg occupying his every thought, his teeth clenching hard at the memory of the blinding pain he had felt when he fell to the ground. He wondered if they could have done it differently, if they had made a mistake or an oversight that allowed them into that situation, but he could think of nothing. They had known going in that it was likely a trap, and it was a risk they were all willing to take.

"The Inquisitors?" Ezra asked quietly as he dragged his fingers over the metal leg, and he scoffed when Luke nodded. "Guess I was pretty useless..." he sighed, staring at his leg for a moment before he looked up again at Luke. "Did they at least die for doing this to me?"

"Yeah, they're dead," Luke muttered, a brief, hard edge in his voice. "All of them. There are no more Inquisitors left to hunt us."

"Good..." Ezra growled as he sat up, and with a grunt of effort, swung his legs over the side of the bed, giving the cybernetic leg an experimental shake, and a bright grin spread across his face when it swiftly and smoothly responded. "Guess all we need to worry about now is the rest of the Empire and the Sith Lords, huh?" There was something in Luke's eyes, something so fast that Ezra didn't quite manage to catch it, but whatever it was, it made the slight smile on his face seem fake and his eyes seem sad and distant. "What?" Ezra asked quietly. "What is it?"

"...a lot happened while you were out, Ezra," Luke whispered after a moment of silence. "The Inquisitors weren't the only ones on Malachor. The Sith were there too."

"The Sith..." Ezra mindlessly repeated, swallowing a lump in his throat that came with the sudden dread. "More than just ours, I take it..."

"More than just ours, yes..." Luke quietly confirmed, his eyes distant and unfocused as he stared past Ezra. "They were all there, Ezra. All of them. Maul, Sidious..." He swallowed hard, a look of fear passing over his face as he looked back at Ezra. "Vader..." Luke said in a weak, shaking voice. "We knew it was a possibility, but I didn't think...I never thought they would all be there to see the trap close around us..."

"But they failed, didn't they?" Ezra said, a slight smile on his face as he laid his hand upon his worried friend's shoulder. "We got away." He stopped, the creeping dread rising as he looked at Luke's face and saw loss. "...h-how did we get away?" he asked in barely a whisper, unable to stop himself from asking.

"Not all of us did.." Luke said in a voice that cracked with the strain of emotion. "My Father did as he said he would. He stayed behind so we could escape."

"...h-he's dead?" Ezra squeaked, his heart suddenly jumping to pound in his chest. "My vision, I-it came true?"

"No..." Luke said, looking again behind Ezra, and this time, he turned to see what he was looking at, and he found himself unable to breathe through the tightening in his chest. Behind him, suspended in the light blue liquid of a bacta tank, was Obi-Wan, his body covered in both faint and dark scars, all of them healed, though something about him felt wounded and worse for ware. Ezra always had difficulty feeling the Sith Lord through the Force, a confusing weave of the energies around him making it seem as though nothing was there, even though he could clearly see the man, but now, there was an emptiness that didn't exist before, a void where nothing should have been, a hole in what should have been a pristine surface. It was so unsettling that Ezra couldn't believe he hadn't felt it until now.

"We don't know what happened..." Luke continued. "He was alone with the other Sith for a while before Ahsoka went back for him. She said when she got there, he'd already been defeated."

"...did Kenobi kill any of them?" Ezra asked, and Luke averted his eyes and shook his head. "How did Ahsoka get away?"

"With a little help," Luke said with a sad smile. "Master Yoda went with her, and he died so they could escape."

"...Y-yoda?" Ezra stuttered. "Yoda's dead?"

"A life for a life..." Luke said bitterly, his eyes once again drifting toward the bacta tank. "Ahsoka said he took my Father's place in that vision. The Force demanded a sacrifice, and Yoda denied the Dark Side that victory by willingly giving himself to the Light."

"...a lot of trouble for such a small thing," Ezra whispered as he looked down at the holocron in his hand. "I hope it was worth it."

"Yeah..." Luke said, his voice cracking slightly, and he swallowed back the lump in his throat. "I hope so too..." Clearing his throat and wiping his hand over his eyes, Luke flashed Ezra a small smile and grabbed a roll of tools from the table behind him. "Come on. You've been in bed long enough. Let's see how that new leg of yours works."

Offering him his hand, Luke helped Ezra slide from the bed, the boy wincing at the hard, metallic sound of the cybernetic leg hitting the floor, and he grabbed tightly for Luke's arm when he felt himself pitching off balance on unsteady legs. Taking a moment for his atrophied muscles to adjust to standing once again, Ezra took an unsteady, shuffling step forward with his flesh leg, his cybernetic one dragging behind him with a grating scrape, making both boys wince at the screeching sound. After another few attempts, Ezra slowly steadied, and with a boost of confidence from Luke's reassuring hand upon his back, he managed to lift the cybernetic leg to take an effortless step.

The movement was fluid, natural in a way that Ezra didn't believe possible, and after a few limping steps as he grew used to the strange feel, he slowly realized that he was limping because of his weakened flesh leg, not the new mechanical one. Gradually, Luke released him, allowing him to slowly walk around the room on his own, and Ezra made his way over to the bacta tank, laying a hand upon the warm glass as he looked at the Sith Lord within. Without saying a word, Luke knelt next to Ezra, opened a panel on the side of the leg, and went to work making adjustments, making Ezra lean against the tank for support when the cybernetic leg made his muscles contract without warning.

"Sorry..." Luke muttered under his breath. "This will just take a minute..." He looked up at Ezra and smiled, unconsciously reaching out to run his fingers down the glass of the bacta tank before he returned his attention to the inner workings of the cybernetic leg. "I saw a hitch in the extension of the knee when you're stepping backwards. I can fix it."

"You sure do know a lot about this leg," Ezra said slowly as he watched Luke work. "Did you build it?"

"No," Luke said quickly, his face and the tips of his ears turning a bright red that Ezra decided was endearing. "Well, not all of it. The medical droid did most of the work, I just helped with the inner mechanics. K2 helped too." He paused for a moment, bit down on his lip, and looked up at Ezra, though his fingers never stopped moving among the circuits and wires and hydraulics. "HK suggested we install rocket launchers in the knee, but...well, we didn't."

"Of course he would," Ezra said with a roll of his eyes as he softly chuckled to himself, his mood sobering considerably when he looked back inside the bacta tank. "...how long was I out?"

"Three weeks," Luke said with a shrug as he sealed up the leg's maintenance compartment and affectionately patted the metallic knee, and he smiled quietly to himself when Ezra began stammering and gawking.

"T-three weeks?" Ezra repeated. "Three weeks?! I've been in here for three weeks?!"

"And two days," Luke added as he stood, and with a last look at his Father in the tank, he took Ezra's hand and led him toward the door. "Come on. Everyone else will want to see you."

"I can't believe it..." Ezra muttered, allowing himself to be led from the room and only stumbling twice as he stepped out into the corridor. "Stars, what have I missed?"

"Not much, actually," Luke said quietly, waving at each droid and medic they passed in the hall on their slow walk through the building. "We've been laying low after all that happened. The Spectres have been running small missions around the sector, mostly supply runs, some of those being to get the medical supplies needed to heal you and Father and to get the components to build your leg. But outside of that..." He shrugged. "There hasn't been much. Most of the work has been in intelligence, finding allies, gathering information." Luke smiled slyly. "Ahsoka's been busy. Says a few of her agents have something big."

"How big?" Ezra asked excitedly, and Luke simply shrugged.

"Very. Though I don't know what it is. You know how Ahsoka can be."

"Yeah I do..." Ezra drawled with a knowing smirk. "I bet that's killing Sabine." He smiled softly to himself as he looked down at his feet and watch the slow, even tread of his feet upon the ground, his mind swimming with thoughts about his family on the Ghost before his eyes flicked back to Luke. "Did everyone else make it?"

"Yeah," Luke said quietly. "Vitios and Vehemis have been out exploring the planet. They say the feel something out there."

"Something?" Ezra asked, his nose wrinkling with scepticism. "Something like what? Something dangerous?" Luke said nothing, only shrugged. "Well, have you felt anything? I don't feel anything." Again, Luke said nothing, only shook his head. "...are they just going crazy?" Ezra asked with a sly smile that made Luke chuckle and roll his eyes. "I hear the Dark Side will do that to a person."

"I think..." Luke said slowly, carefully measuring his words before he spoke. "I think that whatever it is that's out there is calling to them, not us. If they are meant to find it, they will."

"Hmm..." Ezra's already slow pace slowed even further as he closed his eyes and stretched out with the Force, the swell of warmth slow and sluggish for not having touched it in so very long, but as he felt the gentle breeze around him, it came back like an old, familiar friend, warm and comforting as it embraced him. "...what about Leia?" He asked after a moment of silence. "She alright?"

"...I suppose so," Luke said after a brief hesitation. "She came back and immediately took command. She's been the one coordinating the missions and sending the patrols out. We always knew she was made for command, but we didn't know how well it would suit her." A small, genuine smile touched Luke's lips, his chest swelling with pride. "It took her no time at all to become a leader around here. Father will be so proud of her." Luke's smile faltered, and Ezra could feel the Force ripple with grief. "She blames herself for what happened on Malachor," Luke whispered. "She says we wouldn't have been there if she hadn't led us there. She feels like what she saw was somehow part of the Emperor's design to lead Father to him."

"...is that possible?" Ezra asked, and Luke's gaze fell to stare blankly at the floor.

"Anything's possible," he muttered. "And if the Lords of the Sith shape the Dark Side and bend it to their will, it's certainly possible that the Emperor's hand guided her visions. But we'll never know for sure." Luke's step faltered, his gaze shooting up and focusing down the hall, and a slow smile crept across his face. "Speak of the Sith and they will appear..." he muttered under his breath, and just before a confused Ezra managed to ask Luke what he was talking about, he saw Leia round the corner and walk down the hallway, her step swift and purposeful, her gaze intense and focused. When she saw them, she stopped for only a moment before she ran to them, a displeased sneer crossing her face as she muttered something under her breath and returned to her slower, more purposeful walk.

"Glad to see you up and about, Ezra," Leia said, giving him a short and business-like nod when they met before she turned her attention to Luke, a hopeful look on her face. "Is Father-"

"No," Luke quickly interrupted, and Leia's jaw tightened, her hand clenched by her side, and Ezra felt the Force quake with disappointment and guilt before it once again fell calm, the swell of emotion safely hidden once again behind the protective walls Leia constructed around her. Luke had been right. The girl had seemed a different person now than she had been before, less the impish girl and more the stalwart commander.

"Maybe he'll return to us soon," Leia said, taking a deep, calming breath as she looked between Luke and Ezra, the slightest flicker of a teasing smirk on her lips before it was swiftly banished. "Ezra waking up bodes well for Father, I hope." She drew up taller, brushing a stray strand of hair behind her ear and regarding Ezra with a slight, sly smile. "It's good to have you back, Ezra. You should let the others know you're awake. They'd love to hear from you."

"I will," Ezra said, nodding his head at the girl as she walked past them.

"Any idea where they are?" Luke asked his twin, and Leia spun to face them, though continued walking backwards down the hallway.

"Everyone's meeting in the command center," Leia said shortly, that impish smirk playing on her face once again. "We're gearing up for a mission. A big one. A real one."

"Really?" Ezra asked excitedly, and Leia's smirk only grew.

"Really..." she replied. "Get there quick enough and we'll see if we can't get you two lovebirds on board."

"Leia, how many times have I told you..." Luke said with a roll of his eyes as he reeled around to face her. "We're not..." She had already left, her figure retreating swiftly and purposefully down the hallway, and Luke sighed and hung his head. "Oh, forget it, why do I even bother..."

"The first real mission since Malachor..." Ezra said tightly, his voice strained with excitement. "My timing couldn't have been more perfect!" He took an experimental hop forward, and his leg buckled as he landed, and Luke was quickly at his side to catch his arm to steady him.

"Easy now..."

"We're going, right?" Ezra asked, taking a moment to test his knee before he continued walking, the pace slow again as he carefully flexed the cybernetics, feeling the impulses run through the stump of his leg as he made the metal replacement move.

"I can't promise that we're be involved in the mission, but yes, we're going," Luke muttered. "Like Leia said, the others will want to see you."

"Yeah..." Ezra cast a sidelong glance at Luke, a devious smirk on his face. "Race you?" he asked, grinning from ear to ear when Luke sighed heavily, though the faintest smile touched the tired boy's lips as he nodded, stopped, and took off down the hallway beside Ezra.

By the time they were out of the compound and running across Chopper Base's airfield, Ezra was running swift and smoothly, his breathing hard as he focused on catching Luke as he pulled just ahead of him, his cybernetic leg completely forgotten. He only slowed when his lungs began to burn and a bitter, metallic taste filled his mouth, his breathing heavy and labored as he stopped to place his hands on his knees and spit on the ground as he took large, greedy gulps of the hot, dry Atollon air. Within moments, he felt Luke's hand upon his back, the warmth of his touch spreading across his skin and seeping deep within him to calm his pounding heart and soothe his burning lungs, the gentle pulse of the Force healing the weight of his exertion.

"Too much too soon, huh?" Ezra asked between heavy pants, and Luke slowly nodded as he helped the boy upright.

"You were bed-ridden for weeks," he quietly agreed. "It'll take a little time." He tapped Ezra's thigh. "How's the leg feel?"

"Like I never lost it," Ezra said with a soft smile, feeling his face flush under the gentle expression on Luke's face.

"I'm glad to hear it." Luke pointed at the multi-storied building at the end of the airfield. "Almost there. Come on."

They took their time the rest of the way, silent as Ezra caught the breath he lost and swallowed the acidic taste of over-exertion in his mouth, his eyes wandering over the ships that lined the airfield and grinning at the sight of pilots and mechanics and droids all working upon them. They passed by half a dozen different types of ships, freighters and larger carriers and starfighters, and for the first time since he had joined Kanan and Hera, Ezra felt like he was part of something bigger. Their base had grown since he had been out, and now, they looked like an actual rebellion.

As they drew closer to the command center, he could see Luke and Leia's X-Wings, the sleek jet black bodies standing out even among all the other ships, polished to a fine sheen and free of even the slightest hint of dirt or scratching. Ezra's stride lengthened, breaking into a slow jog when he saw the Ghost a little way behind them, elation and excitement turning his jog into a run as he rushed toward the ship that had been his home for so long.

Rapidly slowing to a stop and gasping for air as he stood before the lowered cargo ramp, Ezra grinned broadly when he saw a few droids pushing hovercrates down the ramp, the unloading supervised by Chopper, and at his approach, the little astromech's head turned and emitted a series of sharp electronic groans, its body swiveling around as it wheeled its way to Ezra.

"Hey, buddy!" Ezra said excitedly, brushing the hair out of his face at Chopper's approach, its side ports opening to unfurl it's claw like service arms, and with an admonishing, grinding whir, the astromech struck Ezra's cybernetic leg with its wrench-like appendage. Beside him, Luke tried and failed to stifle his laughter. "Alright, I'm sorry!" Ezra said, his hands raised before him as he backed up, the little droid pointing its utility arms in a menacing way and continuing with it's irritable reprimand. Chuckling quietly, Luke knelt beside the fussy droid and laid a hand on its flat head, and Chopped stopped flailing its service arms.

"He'll be more careful in the future," Luke said softly, and with a last pointed shake of its service arm and a burst of grumpy, muffled grinding, Chopper spun around and wheeled its way back up the ramp of the Ghost.

"Some things don't change..." Ezra muttered as he rubbed the back of his neck and looked sheepishly at Luke. "Chopper doesn't like anyone, how'd you get him to like you?"

"It's all in how you talk to him," Luke said with a shrug. "And I've always been good with droids. Father always said..." He stopped, looked down at the ground before he cleared his throat and flashed Ezra a small smile. "It's very different from Father, he hates droids."

"Yeah, I never got that..."

"I never did either," Luke said with a roll of his eyes. "Honestly, you'd think the former leader of the Confederacy's droid army would feel differently, but we had more than one trip with him when we were younger when he would just tear through entire warehouses of droids and I rarely saw him happier."

"...your dad's a weird guy, Luke," Ezra said wryly, and a bright grin spread across the other boy's face, only wavering slightly as he looked away from him and toward the command center."

"Come on. We don't want to keep the others waiting."

Ezra quickly fell into step beside Luke, smiling as he cast a final glance back at the Ghost, though the smile faded with a twinge of pain at the sight of the Umbra in the space beside the Ghost, the sleek black ship missed entirely in his exuberance. It sat silent and still in its place, no droids working maintenance, no activity surrounding it, no people in the vicinity, and Ezra suspected that nobody had gone near the Sith Lord's ship since they returned from Malachor. The silence between him and Luke suddenly felt uncomfortable and melancholy, and Ezra tried to find something to talk about to break the silence, but for all the hundreds of questions that sprung to his mind like a flood, not a single one didn't relate back to Kenobi or the mission where it had all went wrong.

"I'm not special..." Luke said as they entered the command center, breaking the silence between them and looking sheepish when he realized that Ezra had no idea what he was talking about. "With Chopper, I mean," he clarified. "He likes Hera and Kanan and Sabine too, and he weirdly likes my Father." A small smile crossed his lips as he looked at Ezra. "He likes you too, he was just worried. He came by just about every day to see you."

"...he did?"

"Yeah, everyone did," Luke said with a smile as he rested his hand on Ezra's shoulder. "They're your family, Ezra, of course they did."

"Yeah, I just..." Ezra sighed, smiling softly to himself. "I know..." he said quietly. "I haven't forgotten."

"I know you haven't," Luke said, patting the other boy on the back and nudging him forward. "Come on, I know you're anxious to see them."

And he was, each step they took through the command center making Ezra's heart beat faster with excitement, looking around to peek inside each room and observe each person, hoping to see someone he knew and uncertain of exactly where they were going. The base had only just been established when they left of Malachor, and it had come a long way since then, the entire building hardly recognizable for all the equipment that had been moved in.

It didn't take them too long to reach their destination, the two of them climbing a flight of stairs instead of taking the service lift up, Luke walking behind Ezra to observe the way his cybernetic leg moved in case further adjustments needed to be made, but from the way Luke was grinning, Ezra suspected that all was well. They walked down a short hallway at the top of the stairs, stopped before a heavy, secured door, and Luke laid his hand on the console on the wall, a green light making four sweeps over his palm before the console chimed and the door slid open, admitting them into the same room where they had hatched the plan to hunt the final Inquisitors on Malachor. Suddenly nervous, all the mounting anticipation getting to him, Ezra stumbled over his own feet when he stepped inside the room and he could barely breathe as he looked up and was met with half a dozen familiar faces.

For a moment, there was silence. In the next, Ezra was quickly surrounded.

Ezra found himself choking back tears when Hera tightly hugged him, his head falling to her shoulder and trying to calm his shuddering breaths before they parted, but she drew away too quickly, stepping aside to make room for the next. Before he could rub his arm over his eyes, Ezra gave a startled cry when he was lifted off the ground by a pair of strong, furry arms, and he quickly struggled in the Lasat's grasp when the powerful chest rumbled with laughter.

"You put on weight, Ezra," Zeb grunted, dropping the boy back to the ground and grinning wildly when the flustered teen quickly straightened his hair. "They said you'd lose weight, just laying around and doing nothing for weeks, but I said you'd just get fat." The Lasat grinned wider when Ezra's jaw tightened and his face flushed. "Kanan, you owe me a hundred credits, I told you so!"

"How many times do I have to tell you, I never took that bet," Kanan said with a roll of his eyes, stepping up from behind Hera and ruffling the teenager's recently straightened, earning him a quick glare from Ezra before it faded into a smile. "Glad to see you're up," the Jedi said quietly, laying a hand on his student's shoulder. "Doing alright?"

"Yeah," Ezra said with a nod. "Hungry, though, and I'm ready to do something again."

"Oh, please..." Sabine scoffed as she pushed Zeb out of the way and punched Ezra's arm, a sly smirk on her face when he rubbed the spot she hit. "You never did anything before." She lightly tapped Ezra's metal leg with her foot, her head tilted as she examined the smooth casing, the junction of cybernetics to flesh hidden beneath the torn leg of his pants. "For all the work and expensive components that went into that leg, I'd have thought it would look fancier."

"It's a leg, Sabine," Luke said with a sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose, a conversation they had clearly had before. "It looks like a leg so it can function like a leg. I know it isn't as flashy as the weapons you build, but it isn't a weapon."

"And isn't that a shame," Sabine sighed, flashing Ezra another smile. "I know you didn't choose to have a boring leg, Ezra. Mind if I paint it? I had some great ideas, but, you know..." She pointed at Luke. "He wouldn't let me."

"I-I'd love that..." Ezra stammered, smiling as the Mandalorian patted his shoulder and turned away from him to return to her seat around the holotable, the others following her, and with a playful nudge, Zeb pushed Ezra to do the same. Moving around the table, he caught sight of Ahsoka, the woman silent and focused as she bent over her datapad, her gaze flicking to Ezra as he came closer and the slightest smile on her lips as she nodded to him in acknowledgment and gestured to one of the free seats.

"Welcome back, Spectre Six," Ahsoka said quietly, folding her hands on the table before her. "Good to have you join us."

"I'm glad to be back," Ezra said as he dropped into his seat and grinned when Kanan sat beside him and slid his lightsaber and a ration bar to him.

"Can't do too much about the hunger right now," Kanan said, his fingers drumming on the table and smirking slightly as the teenager clipped his lightsaber onto his belt, tore open the ration bar and took a too large bite out of it. "But we can get you doing something again." Chewing quickly, Ezra swallowed long before he should have, grimaced as the hard lump went slowly down his throat, and looked around the table at the Spectres seated around him, at quiet Ahsoka in the command seat, at Luke as he sat beside his sister opposite him. Vehemis and Vitios were conspicuously absent, as were the others that called the Umbra home, and Ezra's eyes flicked toward the empty seat beside Ahsoka and couldn't help but wonder if the Sith Lord would ever come back.

"Luke said there was something going on," Ezra muttered, shaking the oppressive, unpleasant thoughts from his mind and focusing on the task at hand. "Something big?"

"Something big," Ahsoka confirmed quietly, her eyes downcast for a moment as she stared at her datapad and carefully swiped the displayed files away. "Though that something is for another time."

"Are you kidding me?" Sabine groaned, leaning back in her seat and crossing her arms over her chest, petulant despite the glares from Ahsoka and Hera, though Ezra couldn't help but grinning. He knew she'd be unhappy. "We didn't come here just so you could not tell us what you know!"

"And when it is ready to be told, you will hear of it," Ahsoka said calmly. "Right now, we don't have anything we can act on. What I can tell you is that one of my Fulcrum agents has made contact with someone we've had our eyes on for a very long time. Someone very, very important, and that's all I can tell you." Sabine huffed as she sunk down in her chair, but she said nothing more about it. She wasn't happy, Ezra could tell, but it didn't seem like she was going to raise any more objections.

"So what are we here for..." Zeb grumbled, and Leia put her own datapad on the table, tapped her finger a few times upon it, and the holotable lit up, the holographic field in the center flickering as it was activated.

"You're here for the other thing," Leia said as she stood from her seat, the galactic map flashing before them and swiftly zooming in a small, remote system of the Outer Rim. "Not so big as Fulcrum's developments, but just as important to our immediate concerns. The last mission Zeb and Sabine ran yielded results."

"It did?" Zeb asked, sitting up straight in his chair and his ears perking up.

"It did," Leia said with a nod. "The tip Hondo gave us panned out, you were right to take the risk to rescue him." A few more taps on the datapad, and the hologram zoomed in again, this time on a large, gaseous planet. "This is the planet Yarma," Leia said, gesturing to the planet in the holographic field. "And orbiting within it's atmosphere is Reklam Station, an Imperial reclamation platform that is well hidden from view and long range scanners by the gasses that Yarma is composed of."

"A secret Imperial station?" Ezra asked as he leaned forward. "What are they doing there?"

"It's basically a salvage yard," Leia answered. "Worth a look just for the components and materials that come out of places like that. Scrapped tech could give us very necessary components we need to repair our ships, weapons, and generators, but there's something more valuable there." A few more taps on her datapad and another image flashed inside the holographic field, a clunky ship with a wedge shaped cockpit and two heavy engines on a central spar behind it. "This is a BTL-A4 Y-wing starfighter, a ship that saw heavy use by the Republic forces during the Clone Wars."

"Y-Wings?" Hera asked, her nose wrinkling as she looked at the image. "Those are kinda old. Can they fly?"

"Rex believes so," Leia said confidently. "And Cody seemed appropriately irritated by the idea of them, so it sounds to me like they gave the Confederate forces a fair bit of hell. A solid, effective ship," she said, a devious smirk upon her lips as she looked around the table. "And Hondo says there are thousands of them passing through Reklam Station for dismantling."

"Hondo says," Kanan said with a roll of his eyes. "Hondo says a lot of things, and when those things aren't outrageous lies, which they often are, they're highly exaggerated."

"You don't need to tell me that, Kanan, I know that well first hand," Leia said with a roll of her eyes as she looked at Luke. "We didn't take him at his word. Ahsoka's latest Fulcrum agent confirmed the information for us."

"We have a new Fulcrum agent?" Hera asked quietly, and Ahsoka nodded.

"That would be my other 'something big,'" the Togruta said quietly. "A very, very well placed informant, better than I could have hoped for. If they say the information's good, it's good."

"We sent Rex and Cody out to scout the station so we have a better idea of what we're working with, and they also confirmed Hondo's information," Leia said, a sly smirk on her lips. "There are indeed Y-Wing bombers at Reklam Station, though not in the numbers Hondo claimed."

"No, of course not..." Hera said with a sigh, her eyes running slowly over the image of the Y-Wing floating in the holographic field. "If we could steal a squadron's worth, they would be key to building a strike fleet. We need those ships."

"I agree," Leia said, swiping her finger across her datapad. "I'm sending the mission data to the Ghost. Hera, you and your team are to rendevous with Rex and Cody at the edge of the Yarma system and go together to Reklam Station to steal whatever Y-Wings you can. Commander Sato aboard Phoenix Nest is standing by with two attack cruisers to lend you aid and bodies to fly the bombers, if you have need of them."

"With any luck, we won't have need of them," Hera said as she stood from her seat, her hand on Kanan's shoulder as she looked over at Ezra. "You up for stealing a few starfighters, Spectre Six?" she asked, and all Ezra could do was grin. He was definitely ready.

---

Grand Admiral Thrawn stood before the viewport of the observation deck on the Star Destroyer Chimaera, his hands folded behind his back as he looked out into the blackness of space. For nearly three weeks, he had been observing the rebel activity here in the Lothal sector at a distance, keeping his presence unknown to both the insurgents and the Imperial forces as he quietly collected data and came to understand the current situation that saw him summoned here. His initial assessment had been correct. Something had, indeed, changed, though what that change was fell outside of his expectations.

In the wake of the destruction of Nightswan's rebel insurgency on Batonn in addition to the splinter cells on Denash and Sammun, he had expected Lothal's Phoenix Cell to pull back and move more cautiously than before, which they had, but given his suspicions after his meeting with the Emperor, he had expected the nature of their activities to be different than what he had found. Under the influence of the Shadow King, he expected small precision strikes against Imperial outposts, small ways to loosen the grip upon the sector in which they operated. In recent years, Kenobi had become more dangerous and more visible, the nature of his attacks increasing in magnitude as he slowly tested the will of the Imperial forces, though with the destruction of Nightswan, it was likely that even the bold and brash Shadow King would pull back, becoming more a nuisance than a threat as he had been before, though those attacks had always resulted in humiliation for those that failed to stop him.

Those attacks, more often that not, were extremely personal, directed specifically at the Emperor himself, and designed to be taken as direct insults, and from the bitterness of the Emperor's disposition during their last meeting, Thrawn expected to find that cunning Kenobi had done just that. Something small and subtle, something that cut deep, something that shamed and insulted the Emperor personally in a way that none of his other attacks have. This went beyond the nuisance of before, beyond the destruction as of late, beyond mere insult, and with how well Thrawn had come to know the Shadow King over the years, he had expected to be drawn immediately toward the center of what had angered the Emperor.

But he found nothing. The Phoenix Rebels, for all their creativity and cunning, had been reduced to mere supply runs, periodically coming out of hiding to abscond with scrap and supplies from poorly guarded convoys or warehouses. It was uncharacteristic for the emboldened rebels, and while the destruction of Nightswan did account for increased caution, it did not explain their current behavior. In the past, it was not unheard of for Kenobi to lay low for long periods of time, emerging only periodically to cause just enough chaos to make certain he stayed fresh in Imperial thoughts, but his presence could still be felt in other ways, his touch like a fingerprint on every one of the many missions he had a hand in.

But here, now, in this group of rebels he was known to be part of, Thrawn saw nothing of the renegade Sith Lord's influence, no touch of his upon these petty missions, no hand in the planning or design. These raids, these paltry supply runs, these rough sketches of the Phoenix Rebels were drawn by another hand. This was not the work of Obi-Wan Kenobi. His hand was not present at all, like he had disappeared entirely from the planning and execution of the insurgent activities, a thing Thrawn knew that the Shadow King's vanity and unerring confidence would not allow. Missions could be run and planned by others, but even then, Kenobi's hand could be seen in the details, like a master subtly correcting a student's work. But now, in these missions, it was as if Kenobi had been entirely absent.

Something had happened. Thrawn had been correct about that.

It became necessary to test these rebels so that he might observe their actions and come to know how they think and plan. He would know their strategy before moving in, and the perfect window of opportunity to do just that presented itself when the Phoenix Rebels made a move with their characteristic boldness, once again devoid of Kenobi's hand, but very clearly the work of the Spectres Garazeb Orelios and Sabine Wren. The Imperial prison on the planet Naraka had been infiltrated by a small team of insurgents, and they had escaped with the pirate Hondo Ohnaka, a man Thrawn knew to be at least occasionally in league with Kenobi.

The reasons for his rescue were unknown, given that Kenobi very likely was not involved in the mission, but after briefly looking into the situation surrounding the current rebel activities and the pirate's imprisonment conditions, Thrawn determined the likely next course of action of the Phoenix Cell. Having studied them closely for the past few weeks, having become familiar with their tactics, it was time to test them and see how they preformed under pressure, and if Kenobi would come out of hiding when his rebels were caught in a trap, as he always did.

Thrawn didn't move from his spot when he heard the distant door to the observation deck hiss open and the quick clip of boots on the ground striding purposefully toward him. He had been expecting the company, and judging from the number of distinctive gaits he could hear, three, if he was not mistaken, they had arrived, though he had not been expecting them so soon. Glancing down at the floor for a moment, Thrawn looked back out the viewport at the thousands of stars scattered across the blackness of space. He had been lost in thought, and more time had passed than he had realized.

"Admiral Konstantine," Governor Ahrinda Pryce said to the Imperial officer beside her as Thrawn turned to face them. "This is Grand Admiral Thrawn."

"Grand Admiral..." Konstantine said hesitantly, looking at the Governor, the woman's head held high and very pointedly not looking at him, and then back at ISB Agent Kallus who had accompanied them, his eyes downcast. Swallowing hard, he faced the Grand Admiral. "Congratulations on your promotion, sir," he began meekly, knowing full well that this alien's presence here meant that High Command was displeased with his progress at best, and at worst, found him incompetent.

"Thank you, Admiral," Thrawn said quietly with a slight bow of his head, taking note of how the Governor seemed to stand taller, arrogant and prideful. "Governor Pryce, Agent Kallus, I am pleased to see you again."

"Thank you for coming to our aid, Grand Admiral," Pryce said, her voice tight and clipped as she cast a disparaging glance back at Konstantine. "Given your recent victory at Batonn, I thought you to be the best suited to deal with Lothal's rebel problem."

"Civilian casualties at Batonn outnumbered the insurgent's," Kallus said in a slow, measured tone, and the look Pryce gave him seemed to suggest that they had discussed this matter before.

"Acceptable margins," Pryce said disdainfully, Thrawn giving her a cautious, examining sidelong glance, "for there are no longer rebels in that sector. We could use results like that on Lothal." She shot a pointed look back at the Admiral. "The rebels we have are out of control as it is without them becoming a larger threat."

"A larger threat..." Konstantine scoffed. "They are hardly a threat at all!" He turned to face Thrawn, bold and brash and offended, his body stance becoming more confident with offense. "Grand Admiral, I'm certain that Governor Pryce is overestimating how organized this particular resistance is. While it's true that there are pockets of rebellion, there's never been evidence of a larger scale operation."

"There have been major assaults on Imperial installations within the Lothal sector and in bordering systems," Thrawn said coldly, his eyes slowly roving over the fidgeting Admiral as he watched every expression and movement Konstantine made. "A Senator and a notable holonet reporter had been publically executed by a rebel leader, Grand Moff Tarkin's Star Destroyer was brought down over Lothal, Lothal's Minister was abducted by insurgents, your own flagship destroyed by a small group of insurgents in an asteroid field, in addition to numerous large scale and damaging conflicts in the streets of Capital City over the course of the last year." Thrawn paused, his eyes narrowing as he took a menacing step forward to loom over the suddenly cowering Admiral. "That is to say nothing of the theft of the ISD Subjugator and a Quasar Fire-class cruiser-carrier over Ryloth, the heist of millions of credits from the vaults on Muunilinst, the battle above Bandomeer and a dozen more like it throughout the Outer Rim, all carried out by ships known to be used by your Lothal insurgency..." Thrawn stopped, silence hanging heavy within the large room as he cooly observed the three humans that stood before him before turning his dispassionate gaze back on Konstantine. "Shall I go on, Admiral?"

"N-no need, sir..." Konstantine stammered, suddenly so fearful for his position that he could not bring himself to lift his gaze from the ground. "Your point is well taken..."

"I trust you have a course of action to deal with these rebels?" Kallus asked, and Thrawn shifted his gaze to observe the ISB Agent, the human's posture stiff and straight, his expression attentive, and Thrawn slowly nodded, his hands folding behind his back as he walked to the observation deck's command chair and touched a few of the controls on the arm, activating a holofield before them.

"For the past few weeks, I have been studying all activity that could potentially be linked to the rebel insurgents originating on Lothal and the larger group known as the Phoenix Cell they have been known to be associated with," Thrawn said in his calm, even monotone. "For longer than that, I have been studying and following the activities of the insurgent known as the Shadow King," he said, a few more taps upon the controls pulling up the life sized image in the holofield of a man clad in distinctive black and red Mandalorian armor blended with heavy black robes and distinctive, sloping horns cresting his helmet and a red lightsaber and a strange black blade blazing in his grasp.

"You know this man," Thrawn said, a statement, not a question, his critical gaze observing the three humans as they shifted uncomfortably at the imposing image projected before them. "His bloody attack on Capital City is not so soon forgotten. I believe you were present, Admiral Konstantine. Your failure to comply with his demands led directly to the violent deaths of Senator Trayvis and Holonet reporter Alton Kastle."

"He left me no choice!" Konstantine growled between tightly clenched teeth. "What was I supposed to do, surrender to him and allow him to conquer Lothal without a fight?!"

"It would have been a prudent tactical choice to retreat to a better position," Thrawn said coldly, raising his hand for silence when the Admiral sputtered in defiant outrage. "At the time, he did not have the resources available to him to take Lothal from Imperial hands. Your refusal to bear insult allowed him the ability to cause significant damage to Imperial assets and give him an opening for escape when you would have maintained the advantage by holding your position and laying siege to him."

"If you had been in my position, you-"

"Would have done exactly that," Thrawn said quietly, a hard edge in his otherwise monotone drawl that immediately set the other Admiral on edge. "I did not ask you here to lecture you on tactics and strategy," he said dismissively, tapping a few more buttons, which minimized the image of the Shadow King in the holofield and displayed a sleek, black ship. "This is the Umbra, the Shadow King's personal starship," Thrawn quietly explained. "It has been seen as a part of numerous rebel operations throughout the Outer Rim and had been most predominantly witnessed beside this ship," he said, another press of a button displaying a VCX-100 light freighter. "The Ghost, the primary ship of the Spectre rebels led by the Jedi Kanan Jarrus of the Phoenix Cell. I believe," Thrawn said flatly, "that we can safely assume with absolute certainty that the Phoenix Cell and the Shadow King are very closely linked."

"But what do we do about it?" Pryce demanded, and Thrawn didn't so much as glance at her as he tapped the buttons on the arm of the command chair, the images clearing away and displaying a map of the region, several dozen red points flashing upon different points throughout the sector, a great deal of them concentrated around the vicinity of Lothal.

"These are the sites of attacks upon Imperial installations over the course of the last year by your insurgents," Thrawn said calmly, another tap of a button causing a handful of blue lights to begin flashing, these ones much further away from Lothal and more tightly grouped together than the spread out array of the red lights. "These are the points of their attacks during my observations these past few weeks," Thrawn said quietly. "Attacks devoid of the usual boldness typical of the Shadow King's influence."

"Is he not involved with them anymore?" Konstantine asked. "Could he be dead?"

"Perhaps..." Thrawn muttered. "Whatever the case may be, something has happened to cause the Phoenix cell to begin operating independently of his designs, and based upon the fairly consistent pattern and distance of their attacks, we can surmise that they have established a permanent base of operations."

"So we find and destroy their base," Pryce said smugly. "That should be simple enough."

"Not so simple if we can't find their base..." Kallus said, his voice tight with annoyance as he crossed his arms over his chest. "There are thousands of systems in the Lothal sector, any one of which the rebels could be hiding in, assuming they're in this sector at all."

"Yes..." Thrawn said absently, his glowing eyes fixed upon the map. "That was certainly the case before. But now..." A tap of a button cleared the red points from the map, leaving behind only the loose cluster of blue over the sector. "Now we have a discernable pattern that we previously lacked, and using the distances and spread of the recent strike points in the wake of a dramatic change to their methods, we can narrow down the location of their base from any number of a thousand systems to approximately one hundred, and I know with near certainty that they are hiding within one of those systems." Eyes narrowing, Thrawn turned from the holographic image to face the humans. "Yes, Agent Kallus," he whispered, "they are in the Lothal sector, and it is only a matter of time before I have them."

"So..." Konstantine said, fidgeting uncomfortably under the Chiss' gaze. "Do you have an idea of where to begin?"

"I do," Thrawn said quietly, another press of a button clearing all the blue points save for one, the point glowing brighter as the relevant data was displayed beside it. "This is Naraka prison, an Imperial detention center our rebels recently infiltrated in order to rescue this pirate, Hondo Ohnaka." The image of an aging Weequay appeared beside the data, a long list of his offences recorded beside his image, and with another press of a button, another blue point appeared. "Within the past twenty four hours, mining guild ships reported the presence of an Imperial Lambda class shuttle passing through the Sereeda hyperspace waypoint."

"That's hardly unusual, we have patrols and convoys passing through there all the time," Konstantine said dismissively, but swiftly fell silent when Thrawn looked at him, a hard edge in those glowing red eyes.

"Given the recent attack on Naraka and the current trend of strikes upon supply ships, I took the liberty of cross checking Imperial records with all naval activity through travel corridors passing through systems our rebels are active in and found that the Lambda shuttle in question was not deployed by any Imperial ship." Thrawn was silent for a moment, his gaze slowly returning to the map on display in the holofield. "Taken separately, they may seem unrelated, but given their recent trend of activity and an analysis of Ohnaka's detainment conditions lead us here." Another point lit up on the map, this one in red. "A starfighter reclamation plant in the Yarma system, one jump point away from the Sereeda waypoint, and Ohnaka's cellmate was previously a laborer at the station."

"You believe the rebels intend to raid the station?" Kallus asked skeptically.

"I am certain of it," Thrawn said firmly. "Every ship they add to their arsenal increases their threat to our own armada."

"Surely you don't believe that a few old starfighters could truly be a threat to the Empire," Konstantine scoffed, and Thrawn remained still, unmoving as he looked at the map.

"I do believe that, Admiral," Thrawn said softly. "The fact that you do not is why I was brought in. I will start my operations here," Thrawn said, cold and dispassionate in his unwavering monotone, "and pull the rebels apart piece by piece. They will be the architects of their own destruction."

---

The sight of the Imperial Lambda shuttle nearly sent the rebels running before the ping of the tight beam communication from a familiar code set them at ease, and with a wide grin, Kanan answered the call.

"Gotta say, I'm impressed that you two managed to occupy a ship together without crashing it into the nearest planet," Kanan said with a lazy drawl as he watched Rex and Cody curse, the two clones jostling to be front and center of the com feed.

"It wasn't for lack of trying!" Cody shouted from the floor when the larger Rex managed to bump the scrappy clone out of the seat with a satisfied smirk. "Believe me, Jarrus, death would have been preferable to dealing with this kriffing insufferable slave!"

"Don't mind him, he's just mad that I got to fly the ship," Rex said smugly. "Everyone knows you don't let traitors fly the ship."

"Man, some things never change, do they?" Ezra said with a roll of his eyes, and a wide grin spread across Rex's face, and moments later, Cody muscled in next to him, the two clones pressed close together in the holocom's visual field.

"Is that Bridger?" Cody asked, and an identical grin spread across the two clones' faces when they saw Ezra come into the transmitter's range, draping himself over the back of Kanan's chair and waving at them. "Kriffing hell, Bridger's on the mission. We're all doomed."

"Good to see you, kid," Rex said. "How you holding up?"

"I'm alright," Ezra said with a smile. "Ready to steal some ships. What have we got?"

"Didn't you read the mission briefing, you little shit?" Cody said with a roll of his eyes. "You said it, Bridger, some things never change..."

"Y-Wings," Rex said between his teeth as he once again pushed Cody out of the transmission field. "A lot of them, but within the last hour, they've begun destroying them at an alarming rate."

"As one does at a reclamation plant," they could hear Cody grumble from the side.

"We tried to get a message through to Fulcrum, but we haven't heard back," Rex said tightly, the previous good humor fading from his face and replaced with a soldier's resolve. "If we're going to have a chance at getting any of those ships, we need to go now."

"I'll contact Commander Sato for his reenforcements," Hera said, swiftly tapping in the com code into the communications array. "I want to make sure he's in position to deploy people to take more ships, if we can, and ready to cover us if we find trouble." She glanced up quickly at Rex. "Well, what are you waiting for? Lead the way."

With a swift salute, Rex shut off the feed and the Imperial shuttle's engines powered on, the engines roaring to life as the Lambda shot through space, the Ghost following closely behind it. It didn't take long for them to reach Yarma, a swirling gas giant of drab grays and browns and yellows, and after taking a quick scan of the surrounding area for surveillance droids or patrolling ships, the Lambda and the Ghost dove into Yarma's gaseous atmosphere.

"I can't see a thing..." Sabine muttered, frowning as she looked at the scanning display and saw only static. She reached over and opened communications between the Ghost and the barely visible Lambda before them, the static, unstable image of Cody appearing over the center console. "Cody, our scanners aren't picking up a thing, you sure this station's around here?"

"Yeah, it's here," Cody said, his voice muffled by the poor connection. "They put this place in here for a reason, finding it without getting the coordinates directly from the control tower is...less of an exact process and more of a series of estimates."

"That doesn't sound promising," Hera muttered, flicking a few switches upon the console to increase the range and power of the scanning systems. "You sure you can find it?"

"Positive, Captain," Rex said. "We recently observed the station, it should-"

"Wait, I see it..." Hera said, squinting as she leaned forward in her seat to gaze out the viewport at the hazy image in the gas before them, and with a hand on the acceleration, she pushed the Ghost faster toward the shadow, the floating Reklam Station becoming clearly visible as they drew closer. They kept low on their approach, diving beneath the floating station and coming up from underneath to avoid detection from the control tower and hoping that interference from the gasses in the atmosphere would be enough to help conceal their presence. There was no sign of any activity as they slowly drew closer, no patrolling ships, no indication on their displays of any scans that had picked up on their presence, and secure that they were undetected, Hera docked the Ghost beneath the main platform on an unloading hatch for much larger ships.

"Chopper," Hera said to the droid as her crew climbed up the ladder to file out of the hatch. "Stay here and keep the ship running in case we need to make a quick escape. You know what to do." A few short, grinding bursts from Chopper's vocabulator, it's utility arm hitting the ladder as Hera climbed upon it, and the pilot stopped, her hand patting the blaster it's holster on her hip, and she flashed a quick smile at the droid. "Don't worry, we'll be careful," she promised, and climbed the rest of the way out of the ship to pull herself up on the station's long docking walkway.

Ducking behind a high stack of crates with the other members of her crew, they watched as the Imperial shuttle flew up next to the walkway and Rex jumped out, the clone landing with a hard thud and immediately sprinting toward their position, keeping to cover as much as he was able as the Lamba swiftly flew away from the station.

"Cody's going to keep watch," Rex whispered as he ducked in next to the others, peeking over the crates they hid behind. "I don't see anything. Think we're undetected?"

"We can hope..." Kanan muttered. "They're destroying those Y-Wings pretty fast, we need to move."

"Hold it," Hera hissed, grabbing hold of Kanan's arm when it looked like he was about to run for a ship. "These Y-Wings are scheduled for incineration, and fuel is valuable. Not even the Empire is so stupid or wasteful to destroy ships filled with fuel, those tanks are going to be on empty. We're going to need to refuel them first."

"Damn it, of all the..." Kanan frowned, peeked up from behind the crates once again, his eyes narrowed as he swept his gaze over the long walkway and the rickety, jarring conveyor that started up once the incinerator was empty and stopped once again when the next one was loaded in. "We're not going to have time to refuel them so long as that conveyor's going. Sabine." The Mandalorian snapped to attention. "Find the control panel and stop that conveyor. Zeb, you're in charge of refueling, get that nozzle to each ship as quickly as you can, we're only going to be able to fuel one at a time."

"I'm on it, boss," Zeb said with a firm nod.

"This is going to attract attention," Kanan quietly warned. "Hera, Ezra, Luke, get in those ships and prepare to take off as soon as you're fueled up. Rex and I will be covering you guys in case we've got company."

"Let's hope luck's on our side today, we need a win like this," Hera muttered, quickly checking over the crates for any sign of Imperial activity and nodding resolutely when she saw nothing. "Time's wasting. Let's go, kids."

Without another word, they scattered, Sabine sprinting as fast as she could down the long walkway toward the incinerator's controls, while the rest of them peeled off toward the starfighters, each of them running to a ship and quickly ducking behind it and moving with them when the jolting mechanical conveyor moved them closer and closer to the incinerator where they were destroyed. Peering out from behind one of the ships, Zeb's ears perked up when he saw the bulky fueling station, and with a quick look at Kanan and Rex, the Lasat made a dash for it, the Jedi and the clone following quickly behind him.

Taking a look at the rusty control panel, Zeb frowned and wiped his hand over an old, cracked display, growled softly when the information shorted out, and with a few heavy taps upon the screen, it flickered back on. After a few experimental flicks of switches and presses of buttons, Zeb managed to change the settings from draining to refueling, and flashing a quick grin to Kanan and Rex, he hoisted the heavy nozzle out of it's locked slot, his eyes fixed intently on the Y-Wing Hera was standing beside and waiting for his opportunity to begin refueling when Sabine got the conveyor to stop.

He didn't have to wait long. With a grinding screech, the conveyor slowed to a shaking stop, the loud sound of whirring mechanics powering down filling the air right before they heard the heavy thud of the incinerator closing, and throwing the heavy hose over his shoulder, Zeb wasted no time in rushing toward the Y-Wings. By the time Zeb reached Hera's Y-Wing, Sabine had run back from the incinerator, breathing heavily from her long sprint as Kanan and Rex guided her to one of the unclaimed ships, their weapons in hand and ready to deal with any trouble that might find them.

The ship took longer to fuel than they would have liked, and as soon as the nozzle snapped shut when the Y-Wing's tank was full, Zeb wrenched the hose away from that ship and brought it to the next one in line, leaving Hera to close and seal the tank and run the final checks necessary to make sure it was ready to fly. Hoisting herself up into the cockpit, she quickly looked over the controls and began the pre-flight sequence, and she couldn't help but smile to herself when she felt the thrum of the engines. These ships, despite their age, were in good condition, and would make fine editions to the Phoenix Squadron. They had always planned to return to Lothal and liberate it from Imperial rule, a task that was insurmountable without a proper strike force. These ships would be the first step to making that happen.

By the time the engines had warmed up and the ship's computer had completed the pre-flight checks, Zeb had already moved on to fueling his fifth ship, the fueling process speeding up as the old fuel pump warmed. In the next ships over, Ezra, Luke and Sabine all sat in the cockpits, running their own pre-flight sequences, and Hera very slowly stood, the cockpit hatch raising as she released the lock, and she looked out at the Imperial control tower and the roiling gaseous clouds of an otherwise empty sky. Cursing quietly under her breath, she jumped out of Y-Wing, taking off running toward Zeb, Kanan and Rex the second her feet hit the ground.

"What is it?" Kanan asked swiftly when he saw Hera approaching, nervousness immediately gripping him at the look of concern upon the Twi'lek's face. "Is something wrong?"

"No," she muttered as she looked around. "And that's exactly the problem. We've caused a lot of commotion here, and we haven't seen one Imperial patrol. This mission is going too well, it's too quiet."

"I didn't want to question our good luck, but you're right..." Kanan mumbled as he looked down the walkway toward the control tower. "Not seeing us creeping around down here is one thing, but not noticing the incinerator shutdown and the engagement of the fueling station is another thing entirely."

"Maybe those Imps up in the control tower aren't paying attention?" Rex suggested. "Can't imagine this being a prestigious position, out here in the most ass backwards part of the galaxy, and seeing as how this station is so well hidden, I don't think they see a lot of action." He shrugged. "Maybe they're just a bunch of data-pushers up there, sleeping on the job. There's a hundred reasons they wouldn't have noticed us."

"But there aren't many reasons why they'd notice us and not do a thing about it," Kanan growled. "And none of them are good."

"I'm going back to the Ghost," Hera said quickly. "Get those ships in the air, I'll escort you. Rex, contact Cody, see if he sees anything up there. If we're flying into trouble, I want to know about it."

"Good call to have Commander Sato nearby with reenforcements..." Rex muttered as he snatched his comlink from his belt. Before he even had a chance to call Cody, the comlink gave a sharp burst of static before it fell into the smooth, electronic hum of a connected call, leaving Kanan, Hera and Rex standing tense and still as they looked at the device.

"Oh...hey guys..." Cody's voice drawled lazily over the com. "Our friends decided to show up."

"How many friends?" Rex asked between clenched teeth, and was answered by a tense, nervous laugh.

"You're asking the wrong question," Cody said as he cleared his throat. "It isn't a matter of how many, it's a matter of who." There was silence for a moment so tense they could feel it in the air thicker than the gaseous atmosphere. "The Chimaera's here..." Cody quietly said. "It's Thrawn."

"Oh, what kriffing fantastic timing!" Kanan snapped, his gaze shooting over to the teenagers waiting in the ready ships, their heads sticking out of the cockpit and alertly looking at them. "Exactly how dangerous is this guy?"

"Kenobi seems to think he's extremely dangerous," Hera said quickly. "They've been playing mind games with each other for years, but we escaped the last time we came in contact with the Chimaera."

"Barely escaped..." Kanan mumbled.

"We sure it's the actual Chimaera?" Rex asked, and Cody laughed bitterly.

"Oh, it is..." the clone said gravely. "I'd recognize this ship anywhere after last time. This isn't just the ID transponder, boys, it's the actual thing, engraved hull and all. I'm sure. It's Chimaera."

"Well, shit..." Kanan hissed as he ran his hand through his hair and quickly eyed the idling ships. "Guess it's safe to assume he knew we'd be here and this is a trap. I want to know how he knew."

"A good question for another time, love," Hera said swiftly as she started running toward the Ghost. "We need to go."

"Right. Zeb!" Kanan shouted as he ran toward the Lasat and the ship he was fueling. "Get in a ship, we've got company and we need to get gone before it's too late."

"Where's Hera going!" Zeb asked, gesturing to the retreating Twi'lek.

"She's getting in the Ghost to cover us."

"But I fueled seven ships!" Zeb said indignantly as he dropped the hose, and quickly patting his shoulder, Kanan flashed him a wide grin and jumped into the nearest ship. "Karabast..." the Lasat growled, and ran over to his own ship.

The cockpit shield slid over Kanan's head as he dropped into the pilot's seat and he quickly flicked the switches on the console, the Y-Wing rumbling as the engines powered on and the pre-flight sequence began. Impatiently tapping his foot, Kanan looked out to either side of his ship and saw Zeb and Rex in the cockpits of the two ships beside his, both of them rushing to do exactly as he was and prepare the ships for flight. Catching a flash of movement out of his periphery, Kanan looked up into the sky to see the Ghost flying overhead, and with a swift curse, he cut the pre-flight sequence short, grabbed hold of the controls, and lifted the ship up into the air, quickly followed by the three teens and then by Rex and Zeb a few moments later.

"Alright, kids," Hera's voice said over Kanan's com, and with a small smile, the Jedi took the com off his belt and placed it on the console. "Everyone check in." A cascade of codenames and status updates sounded over the com, Kanan giving his own response once the other five had checked in. "We have a situation up there," Hera continued. "The Chimaera is in orbit. Everyone prime your hyperdrives, and with any luck, we can get away without much trouble once we clear Yarma's gravitational field. I'm sending you the coordinates."

"Negative, Spectre Two," Luke said calmly. "These Y-Wings don't have hyperdrives."

"What?!" Ezra snapped, and a moment later, a chorus of curses came crackling through the com. "Oh, this is garbage."

"Hyperdrives are valuable, they must have removed them before they were sent to be destroyed," Sabine groaned. "It's a wonder these ships fly at all, we're lucky they weren't entirely gutted."

"So what are we supposed to do now!" Ezra asked frantically.

"We call in Commander Sato..." Hera sighed. "I was hoping to keep him out of it. If this is a trap, we're asking him to walk right into it."

"It can't be helped," Kanan said firmly.

"No, it can't," Hera agreed. "New plan. We bring the Y-Wings to Phoenix Nest and set down in hangar bay two."

"Sure is handy to have that carrier," Zeb chuckled. "And Kenobi didn't want to steal it."

"Spectre Two, I can help see the rest of the squad to safety," Luke said. "If there's trouble up there, you're going to want me covering you."

"That isn't a good idea," Cody said quietly, his Imperial shuttle just coming into view as they flew higher up through the atmosphere. "Any idea how angry your Father's going to be if something happens to you?"

"My Father isn't here," Luke said coldly. "I don't know if my Father is going to come back at all, but Phoenix Squadron needs me now." Luke's Y-Wing broke out of formation to loop around and come up to fly beside the Ghost. "I'm ready to cover you, Ghost."

"Try not to do anything reckless," Hera said, and was answered by a soft, amused chuckle.

"Don't worry," Luke said coyly. "I won't do anything I can't handle."

As soon as they broke past Yarma's gaseous atmosphere and into space, they saw it, the Imperial Star Destroyer looming in the distance, large and imposing, a swarm of TIE Fighters released from the hangar bays rapidly closing in on them. Suddenly, the TIEs swerved wildly off their path, and in the space between the Y-Wings and the Chimaera, Commander Sato's Phoenix Next blinked out of hyperspace, followed quickly by two attack cruisers. Without wasting a moment, the cruisers opened fire on the TIE Fighters, and the chaos of battle erupted around them.

Keeping close to the Y-Wings, Luke and Hera carefully corralled them toward the four massive hangars of Phoenix Nest, weaving between the lines of red and green laser fire that filled the previously empty space around them, occasionally having to peel off from the group to destroy a TIE Fighter that drew too close for comfort. They were about halfway to Phoenix Nest when a lone fighter dispatched from one of the carrier's hangar bays, and the Spectres watched as the black and blue X-Wing's wings opened up into attack formation, their coms crackling with a triumphant shout from Luke as the new fighter launched at one of the TIE attack patterns, causing the group to scatter when the lead ship was destroyed, the persistent X-Wing taking off and gunning down another two before they formed back up.

"Is that who I think it is?" Ezra asked, and was answered with excited laughter.

"You better believe it is!" Luke said, his Y-Wing pulling away from formation, the ship's nose pointed toward the distant X-Wing and the TIE squadron it was engaged with. "I'm going to go help her," he said firmly. "We're going to take the fight to them."

"Luke," Hera said sharply. "We need you here to-"

"The TIEs can't attack the bombers of we take them out," Luke interrupted, his ship drifting further away from the group. "We'll give them something else to focus on. I'll see you back on Phoenix Nest, Spectres." Cutting his end of the com feed, Luke grabbed hold of the bomber's controls and shot away from the other Y-Wings, testing the limits of the starfighter as he accelerated and grinning wildly when he felt himself pressed back against the pilot's seat. It didn't accelerate as quickly as his X-Wing and it wasn't nearly as responsive, but when he hit top speed, it wasn't much slower than his own ship. Brow drawn in concentration, Luke reached out with the Force, using it to warn him of incoming danger and adjusted accordingly as he wove between laser fire, spinning and looping off his course to deal with the occasional rogue TIE Fighter.

By the time he pulled up behind Leia's X-Wing and destroyed the TIE on her tail, Luke had familiarized himself with the more bulky Y-Wing and had managed to coax the old ship into smooth spins and precise flips to increase its maneuverability, noting how the ship responded to his commands so he could help other rebel pilots learn how to get the most out of the outdated fighter, though it would take a capable pilot to get the most out of it. He smiled softly to himself when his com gave a short burst of static and the X-Wing fell back to fly beside him, his smile becoming a wide grin when he looked over and saw his twin through the other starfighter's cockpit canopy, and he enthusiastically waved at his smirking sister.

"I've never seen you in an uglier ship..." Leia drawled, a teasing lit to her voice that made Luke roll his eyes. "Whatever will Father say when he finds out you've been slumming it with that Spectre boy?"

"It honestly isn't something I want to think about."

"I can hardly blame you," Leia said with a shrug. "Can that box of yours even fly? Doesn't look like it can fly."

"It handles like a sleepy Hutt, but it flies well enough to save your ass," Luke said, earning a short scoff from his sister. "You ready to take the fight to the Imperials?"

"What do you think I've been doing?" Leia said dismissively as her X-Wing pulled out in front of him. "Try to keep up."

The X-Wing's engines blazed and the ship took off, Luke following as close as he was able as they shot toward a TIE squadron harassing one of the attack cruisers, picking off three of the small fighters before the squadron scattered. Luke hung behind Leia, picking off the two TIEs that fell into close pursuit behind her, and as he flew through the debris of the destroyed TIEs, Leia took a wide, looping flip and fell behind Luke to destroy his attackers. They continued on like this, flying from ship to ship and destroying the attacking TIE Fighters as they covered each other, and before long, they had the full attention of the scattered squadrons weaving through the rebel ships.

Accelerating to full speed, Luke and Leia flew beside each other away from the rebel cruisers, spinning and circling around each other as they deftly evaded the stream of green laser fire being shot at them from the trail of TIE Fighters that followed closely behind them out into open space. Taking a wide turn in the opposite direction from each other, Luke and Leia looped around to fall in behind the TIEs, selecting and following their targets as the group scattered, formed back up, and immediately began a full speed retreat back to the Chimaera.

The followed the group, trying to pick off what fighters they could, but the TIEs were faster and quickly began pulling away from them, and with a deep, calming breath, Luke pulled back on his yoke and flipped his ship around, beginning his own retreat back to Phoenix Nest. Leia did not do likewise, continued her pursuit of the enemy fighters, and with a quiet curse, Luke pressed the button on his com to open up the communications with his sister.

"Break off the attack," Luke sternly commanded. "Any closer and you're going to be in range of that Star Destroyer."

"I know!" Leia snapped between clenched teeth. "But don't you think something's wrong here? They have a Star Destroyer, and instead of firing up those ion cannons, they threw a few TIE squadrons at us. They could have easily destroyed our entire fleet with that one ship!"

"Maybe they're trying to lure us to them," Luke said. "Sort of like what they're doing to you right now."

"Sith Hells..." Leia growled, and Luke breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the X-Wing bank hard left and circle around to join him on his retreat. "I'm contacting Commander Sato and signaling the retreat," Leia muttered as she pulled up next to Luke. "When you dock in Phoenix Nest, stay in your ship until we give the all clear."

"You got it..." Luke muttered, pulling up hard on the acceleration to slow the ship as he entered the second hangar bay of Phoenix Nest and landed his Y-Wing in the first empty space. The moment his ship powered down, he felt the familiar lurch as the carrier escaped to lightspeed.

---

Thrawn stood at the viewport on the bridge of the Chimaera, his hands folded behind his back as he stoically and silently watched the rebel ships blink out of existence as they fled to hyperspace. For a long while, the only sound in the air was the soft hum of the engines and the rhythmic beeping of the multiple stations in the crew pits, but even without looking at the officers that sat at their stations behind him, Thrawn could feel their tension.

Usually after one of the Chiss' unconventional operations, and there have been many just like this one over the years, the crew was calm, their confidence in their victory assured, even if they could not understand the path they took to get there. But now, in the presence of an Imperial Governor, another Admiral, and an ISB agent, the bridge officers were anxious and uncertain, not for the decisions of the Grand Admiral, but for how the visitors would react.

The silence was only broken when Admiral Konstantine, in a weak, confused voice, asked, "We're letting them go?" All eyes turned to the Grand Admiral, who remained unmoving and silent at the viewport. "We're letting them go?" Konstantine asked, stronger this time, insult and anger creeping into his voice. "I don't understand! The Imperial Navy, retreating from such a meager force! Our ships could have easily destroyed the rebel fleet-"

"That is not the rebel fleet," Thrawn said coldly, finally turning away from the viewport to face his three guests. "I was not called here to chase small victories while the greater war is lost, Admiral Konstantine. I came here to back the entirety of your rebel cell into a corner so that they may be utterly destroyed."

"We can't do that if we let them escape!" Konstantine insisted. "We cannot win the war if we keep losing battles!" There was silence for a moment as glowing red eyes stared intently at Konstantine, the Admiral shifting slightly and swallowing hard as he wondered if he had crossed the line. But Thrawn merely inclined his head, and gestured to the Admiral.

"What do you know of our enemy, Admiral?" the Chiss asked calmly, and Konstantine clenched his fist, his teeth grinding together at the mere thought of his struggles against the illusive insurgents.

"Rebel scum, they-"

"Specifics, if you will," Thrawn interrupted, and Konstantine seemed to choke on his words, drawing up taller and sputtering with a dozen half started sentences before Thrawn held up his hand for silence. "To defeat an enemy, you must know them..." Thrawn said slowly, turning back toward the viewport and gesturing out to the empty ships where only minutes ago, the rebel ships were. "I have spent a great deal of time studying the Shadow King and his associates. I know their histories, their patterns of behavior, their strengths and their weaknesses, the things they love and the things they have lost, and knowing such, I can predict and anticipate their actions in nearly any situation."

"And knowing all of that, you still allowed them to escape?" Konstantine asked, confused and bewildered, and Thrawn looked over his shoulder, his glowing red eyes narrowing as he glared at the man for a moment before he turned back to the viewport.

"Things have changed," Thrawn patiently explained. "Their pattern of behavior has shifted, and new elements have been introduced. It requires further study."

"If you know them so well, how much could one thing change?" Konstantine scoffed, and for the briefest moment, Thrawn's shoulders tensed, his hands clasped behind his back tightening, and then, like it hadn't happened, the Chiss stood relaxed once again.

"It changes everything..." Thrawn muttered, his eyes fixed out on empty space. "As I mentioned before, the Shadow King is, indeed, gone. Where the Ghost goes, the Umbra is nearly always certain to follow, and while we did see the Ghost today, the Umbra was absent." He paused, his shoulders slowly rising with a slow, deep breath. "Those pilots..." Thrawn whispered, deep in thought as he stepped closer to the viewport and laid his hand upon the cold transparisteel. "The ships they flew were vastly different models, and still they flew as if they were one being..."

"Do you think we've seen those pilots before?" Governor Pryce asked, and Thrawn bowed his head, the slightest smile touching his lips.

"Those were no pilots, Governor..." Thrawn said softly. "They were artists. And they have my full attention."

"So what do we do now?" Konstantine asked, and after another silent moment of consideration, Thrawn turned from the viewport and walked down the command walkway.

"Now, we test the rebels so that I may further study them," Thrawn said in his flat, inflection-less voice. "I shall see if I can draw the Shadow King out of hiding. Our victory against the Phoenix Cell is incomplete if he is not destroyed with them, and should he manage to evade our grasp, his eventual retribution could be very costly in lives and resources." He stopped before the visiting trio, his eyes slowly drifting between them before he settled on Konstantine. "Admiral," he said coldly. "You will return to Coruscant for reassignment."

"I...what?!" Konstantine gasped, and the Chiss' eyes narrowed as he looked down upon the man.

"Your ship, the ISD Relentless, has been destroyed," Thrawn said slowly, his voice quiet and icy, which was far worse than any kind of temper the man could have visited upon the reeling Admiral. "An Admiral without a ship is no Admiral at all."

"T-the rest of my fleet is still blockading Lothal!" Konstantine stammered. "I've been-"

"A temporary assignment," Thrawn said firmly. "One you have now officially been relieved from. Your continuous failures against these insurgents is indicative of your stubborn refusal to see the bigger picture, and in your relentless pursuit of meager victories, you have allowed the rebels to slip out of your grasp time and time again. You will be of no use to me as I move forward in my operation against the Phoenix insurgency. Your talents will be better suited elsewhere."

"High Command gave this assignment to me!" Konstantine growled, and the indifferent Chiss calmly turned away from him and sat on his command chair.

"And the Emperor assigned the mission to me," Thrawn said coldly, his fingers pressing together as his eyes ran over his hard at work bridge officers. "I will return to Lothal so that I may oversee the instillation of a new project in the armory complex. You will accompany us, and then you will check in at the Imperial complex and get on the next shuttle back to Coruscant." He looked over his shoulder at the fuming Admiral. "If you mean to question me further, you may take that as a direct order, Admiral."

"...understood, sir," Konstantine said between tightly clenched teeth, and Thrawn looked away from him and leaned back in his seat, and with a quick order to the Chimaera's captain, he watched as the stars became a burst of long lines of light as they made the jump to hyperspace.