Rebellion's Victory:

D198/4 ABY, Home One

While everyone else was furthering the Rebellion cause on Kashyyyk, Hera went back to the Ghost to check on Jacen. She found him sound asleep on the couch behind the dejarik table, datapad fallen to the floor from where it had slipped from his hand. Chopper was standing guard nearby and acknowledged Hera's presence with a soft beep. Hera patted Chopper on the dome for doing a good job and got a quiet purr in response. Hera picked up the datapad and turned it off, placing it on the table, then she gently scooped up her son and carried him to his room so he could sleep more comfortably. His arms wrapped around her neck and he snuggled his face into her shoulder with a sleepy, "Mama." Hera hugged him just a little tighter, her throat tightening with emotion. Her little miracle was the most precious thing in the galaxy to her and she couldn't stand the thought of anything hurting him. Not even a common cold.

After setting Jacen in his bunk, Hera went to the galley and made soup for lunch. She left a bowl in the warmer for Chopper to give to Jacen when he woke up and reluctantly went back to work, wishing she could just stay on the Ghost and take care of her child. Even if all that entailed was watching him sleep.

Aside from the fact that the battle on Kashyyyk had been a success, Hera's day went from bad to worse, even if it didn't seem that way at first.

The Freemakers came back from their mission, and based on Rex's recommendation and Hera's own observations over the last month, they promoted Kordi to Lieutenant Commander. Hera also noticed the way Wedge was one of the first people to meet the Freemakers as soon as the Arrowhead landed and how Kordi blushed at his congratulations. Hera hoped that went somewhere because she really liked Kordi and poor Wedge had gone through a number of girlfriends over the years and none of the relationships ever worked out for him. He was seriously overdue to find the right girl and have his happy ever after.

Zander was made an official member of Blue Squadron after Lieutenant Valeria practically begged High Command for him to be added to her team. Zander was over the moon about it of course. He hadn't exactly been subtle in his hints to want to fly as an official pilot.

And Rowan? Hera actually had no idea what happened to him. Last she saw, he was with his droid, eating cookies. Four hours later, after Kordi proved once again that she was an excellent strategist, and Zander, in the Arrowhead, decimated yet another fleet of Star Destroyers, Kordi reported that Rowan, Roger, and the StarScavenger were gone and no one was answering the comm. A couple more hours after that, Kordi and Zander ran into the Command Centre claiming that Rowan had been captured by Darth Vader and taken to Coruscant and that they wanted to launch a full scale attack on the Imperial Capital to get their little brother back. Hera felt terrible when she supported Mothma's and Ackbar's decision not to do so, based on the insanity of the idea, but she had to.

And then one of Kallus' aides came running into the Command Centre, crying the news Hera'd been dreading to hear for over a year. The thing being built above Endor's moon was in fact a second Death Star. The missing boy was instantly pushed to the back of everyone's minds as the Rebel leaders went into something resembling panic mode for a minute or ten. Everyone, that is, but his siblings. It came as no surprise to Hera when it was reported that the Freemakers had taken the Arrowhead without permission to go rescue their brother. She silently wished them luck and then went back to strategizing in a meeting that went late into the night and early morning. Except for the two more times she'd gone back to check on a rapidly improving Jacen, who was being kept entertained by Kanan for the evening, Hera was in the Command Centre for almost twenty hours straight.

Plans were made to attack the Imperial facilities on Endor and the Death Star in two days, giving Luke time to return from his and Leia's long overdue rescue of Han from Jabba the Hutt. They recalled Rex's battalion from Kashyyyk so they'd have a day to rest and summoned every single Rebellion ship and soldier scattered across the galaxy to the staging ground near Sullust, as there was a (not so) secret Imperial hyperspace route called the Sanctuary Pipeline running by that planet that would lead them safely to Endor right under Imperial noses without detection until it was too late.

High Command made plans and backup plans, almost all of which didn't include the missing Arrowhead fighter and the equally AWOL Freemakers, much to everyone's dismay. Upon hearing about his missing apprentice, Quarrie had taken the StarScavenger and followed the older Freemakers to Coruscant. The last thing he'd reported was that Rowan had been rescued but the Arrowhead was now in the hands of M-OC, the Imperial hunter droid who'd been after Rowan for months, and that the droid was tracking them all over the galaxy as they tried not to get killed by their own fighter. To make matters just a little bit more depressing and urgent, Darth Vader had extracted the location of the Kyber rich planet that Rowan had found from the boy's mind. There was no doubt in anyone's minds that the second Death Star would be the recipient of those Kyber crystals.

The last thing Hera did before collapsing on her bunk in Kanan's waiting arms for a few hours of much needed sleep was tell Zeb not to disappear because she needed him for something tomorrow. He wanted more details at the time, but Hera refused to say more, not wanting to deal with the inevitable protests just yet.

Hera rolled over, reaching for Kanan in her sleep and moaned a little when her hand felt nothing but air on his side of the bed. She groaned louder when her son bounced onto the bed and forced her out of a wonderfully sexy dream. She grabbed Kanan's pillow and put it over her head, feeling the heat in her face at the subject matter she'd been dreaming about when Jacen arrived in her room.

Jacen bounced again, a grin on his face as he pulled the pillow off and smiled at her squinty eyed look. "Morning, Mama. I'm hungry. I've been up for hours. I'm hungry. Can I leave the Ghost today? I'm much better, promise. I'm hungry. When will Rowan be back? I'm hungry. Where are we now? I felt the big ship move. I'm hungry."

Hera closed her eyes again and groaned in an extra exaggerated fashion, flopping her arms to the sides. "Too much energy," she bemoaned with a faint smile on her face. Jacen dived down onto her chest and hugged her, rubbing his face in her neck and laughing, which Hera knew he would do, having done this routine many times. She wrapped her arms around his squirming little body and tickled his sides, sitting up with him in her lap as her son's giggles rang through the cabin, filling her with happiness. "My weed is hungry, is he?"

Jacen nodded, still giggling, dark blue eyes alight with contentment with his world. "Yep."

"And neither Chopper nor Zeb could find something for you to eat?" Hera asked curiously, hand running through his ever wild hair, trying in vain to smooth it down.

Jacen shook his head solemnly. "Zeb's still snoring and Chopper said I'm old enough to get my own food. I tried, but the only things I can get to are the ration bars, but I wasn't hungry enough to eat one of those," he said with a scrunched up face.

Hera sighed and put Jacen down on the floor. "Why don't you go wake up Zeb and I'll make space waffles?"

Jacen cheered and ran out of the room and down the hallway then instantly ran back and stuck his head back in the cabin. "What about all of my other questions? I can ask them again if you forgot them."

Hera shook her head, laughing. "That won't be necessary. Yes, you may, for a few hours. I don't know, because we don't know where he is. And we're near Sullust."

Jacen blinked as he processed, then nodded. "Kay. Thanks, Mama. I can find him later if you want." He took off again, banging on Zeb's door once, before barging right in and jumping on the lasat's chest. "Wake up, Zeb! Mama's making space waffles!"

Hera smiled to herself as she threw on some clothes and listened to the grumbling and giggling coming from Zeb's room. "Kanan, I don't know if you're listening right now, but thank you for our son, even if he does have the most unfortunate timing sometimes."

Hera felt a faint caress on her cheek and a laughing whisper in her ear cone. "Which one was it this time?"

Hera felt her face heating all over again, despite the fact that Kanan knew her naughty dreams almost as well as she did by now. "The dancing slave girl mission from when I was twenty."

"Ohhh," Kanan breathed. "That's definitely one of my favourites. We can recreate that night later if you want. Especially the dancing part. You still have that outfit, right?"

Hera smirked to herself as she walked down the hall, talking softly again once she was out of hearing range of Zeb and Jacen. "Of course I do, love. You'd have to pay me a lot of credits to give it up."

She stopped outside the refresher door as a faint kiss brushed her lips. "Good. You know I'd be devastated if I couldn't see you in it every once in a while. You're still the most beautiful girl in the galaxy."

Hera smiled and wrapped her arms around herself, hugging in the warm feelings. "And you're still MY super hot man."

Kanan laughed again and left her with a final soft brush of his fingers down her lek.

Hera shook her head at the shiver he gave her, smiling ruefully, knowing that later was going to be way too long from now.

"Zeb, I want you to take Jacen to Sabine in the Phantom II." Hera told the lasat over her shoulder as she prepared the boys' favorite space waffles.

"Sabie!" Jacen said happily

"But, Hera!" Zeb protested loudly at the same time. "That means I won't get to be in the battle with Rex! I was looking forward to that."

"I'm sorry, Zeb. But I need someone I trust to do this for me. And there's no one I trust more than you to take care of my son. And honestly, Zeb. I have a bad feeling about this one. I want as much of my family as far from this war as possible."

"But you're staying?" Zeb said accusingly. "I thought you weren't going to do that anymore. And you're letting Rex fight," he pouted.

Hera sighed and put the finished waffles onto a plate and poured more batter into the waffle iron. "I know, Zeb. But this one is incredibly important. We can't afford to lose. We're going to need every available ship and commanding officer to even have a chance. Besides. Rex is doing what he wants and he only has a few more years left in him before his body gets too old to fight anymore. You, on the other hand, are still young for your kind and will find many more battles to fight in the next few centuries, I'm sure." Hera put a plate of waffles in front of both Jacen and Zeb. "Now stop complaining and eat your food."

Zeb sighed, but dug in anyway. Nothing could ruin his favorite food.

Jacen looked up at his mother curiously. "You're leaving without me again?"

Hera's chest tightened with sadness as she met the blue eyes of her son. He wasn't even accusing. Just asking. What did she ever do to deserve such a mature little boy? "Yes, baby. I'm sorry, but I have to. But I'm making you this promise: If we win this one, I'm never going to fight another battle again. I'm going to retire and we can live on Lothal with Sabine. Would you like that?"

Jacen nodded eagerly, finally paying attention to his late breakfast. "That would be great, Mama!" He paused with a bite of waffle almost to his mouth as a thought occurred to him. "But what about Rowan? Can he come live on Lothal too?"

Hera smiled bravely as she worried about the almost teenager and his siblings, not knowing what was happening to them right now. "I'll ask the Freemakers when I see them again. If they want to come, I'm sure we can find a place for them too."

Jacen nodded and ate his waffle, happy with her answer.

Hera sighed softly and made a plate for herself before sitting beside Jacen. Everything was so up in the air right now. She didn't know if the Freemakers would bring the Arrowhead back with them, assuming that they survived to do so. She didn't know if they were going to win the battle to destroy the second Death Star. She didn't even know if Luke, Leia, Lando, and Chewie had managed to rescue Han yet. The worst thing she didn't know was if she was going to survive to see her son again after all of this was said and done. And she hated all of this not knowing. Hera put on a happy mask as Jacen glanced at her, doing her best to hide everything she was worried about.

Jacen glanced at his mama, feeling the waves of worry and sadness coming off of her. He gave her an equally happy mask of a smile as he worried about her. He glanced over at his daddy, who was standing beside Hera with a worried frown on his face, not visible to anyone but Jacen. They exchanged knowing looks and Kanan nodded reassuringly, telling Jacen without words that he would make sure that Hera would be okay. Relieved, Jacen felt free to enjoy his breakfast again.

Hera was picking at her waffles, barely chewing as thoughts went through her head, when something Jacen said earlier suddenly came back. She looked up suddenly. "Jacen, did you say you could find Rowan?" Jacen nodded as he took a giant bite of waffle. Hera waited sort of patiently with a raised brow while he chewed and chewed and finally swallowed. "Can you explain how, please?"

Jacen shrugged negligently. "We play hide and seek all the time on Home One. I'm much better at finding than he is, but he's really good at hiding. I used to follow his Force signature until I finally found him but then I got smarter. Now I look at a schematic of the ship and let the Force tell me where he was. I could probably do the same thing with a star map."

Hera gawked at her son, and Zeb even stopped inhaling waffles to stare in astonishment. "Uhhh. Is that a normal Force thing?"

Hera shrugged and shook her head with wide eyes.

Jacen shrugged too. "Don't know. Rowan can do the same thing to find Kyber crystals but he can't do it to find me." He glanced over to where Kanan was still standing in invisible mode with a questioning thought. Kanan nodded and smiled encouragingly at Jacen. "Daddy says yes it is. I can try if you want."

Hera nodded, not surprised that Jacen was communicating with Kanan without talking since they'd been doing that for Jacen's whole life, and looked around for Chopper. He had the most uptodate star map available, including the new systems that Ahsoka had charted. Not seeing the droid in the galley, Hera commed him. "Chop, need you in the galley please."

Chopper replied that he'd be there in a moment and promptly rolled through the door a moment later. "What's up?" he asked with a curious beep.

"Please project a star map of the whole known galaxy, Chopper," Hera said.

Chopper beeped and did as requested, lighting up the small room with millions of dots representing suns and planets.

Rowan stared at the map in stupefaction for a minute until he felt his daddy's reassuring hand on his shoulder. "Right. It's just like Home One, but with a lot more closets to hide in."

Zeb snorted and Hera smiled. "Don't worry if it doesn't work, baby. This isn't a test."

Jacen nodded and closed his eyes, centering himself in the feel of the Force around him. He concentrated on the feel of Rowan's signature and let the Force guide his hand to point to a quadrant of the galaxy. He opened his eyes and saw he was pointing at a section of the Mid Rim. "Just that part now, Choppie," he told the droid. A good ninety percent of the dots disappeared and the Mid Rim filled the room instead. Jacen repeated his earlier process, opening his eyes again when his hand was pointing.

Hera looked at the planet that Jacen was pointing at and smiled. "Of course. I should have known Quarrie would take them to Shantipole. No better place in the galaxy to defeat another pilot because the atmosphere would do a lot of the work for you."

Zeb ruffled Jacen's hair in congratulations, giving the boy a big grin when a thought struck him. "Hey, kit, do you think you could find Ezra like that too?"

Jacen's and Hera's eyes widened at the possibility. "I don't know, Zeb," Hera pointed out. "Isn't he in uncharted space?"

Zeb shrugged. "But what if he isn't?"

"I'll do it," Jacen said suddenly. "Let me try."

Hera nodded and told Chopper to reset the holo map to the whole galaxy. Jacen closed his eyes and thought about Ezra, fiercely picturing in his mind how his big brother's signature felt. He let his hand point towards Ezra and opened his eyes. Everyone sighed at the same time, even Chopper, to see that Jacen was pointing at the wall of the galley, past where Ahsoka's chart ended.

Hera stroked her hand over Jacen's hair at the disappointed look in his eyes. "It's okay, baby. At least we know Ahsoka's looking in the right direction. I'll tell her the next time I see her."

D200/4 ABY, The Ghost

Hera was just finishing prepping the Ghost for battle when she heard Kallus walk up the ramp and call up the ladder, "I hear you're looking for a gunner?!"

Hera looked down the opening in the floor to see Kallus grinning up at her. "Why, yes I am, but I never expected it to be you."

Kallus shrugged and started climbing up to the bridge. "I refuse to sit at a desk while everyone else has all the fun. It's been much too long since I got to shoot something."

Hera snorted lightly but indicated the co-pilot chair as she sat in her own. "You might as well sit in comfort while Home One carries us to Endor. I heard this new hyperspace lane will get us there in only fifteen minutes. You got here just in time. We're just waiting for word from Han's and Rex's ground teams that they have the shield around the Death Star down."

Kallus nodded and reclined in the comfy chair, indulging in not having to think too much for once. "I heard a rumour that you're retiring if we win this one," he said with a sidelong glance and the barest possible amount of curiosity in his voice.

Hera sucked in a big breath and crossed her arms over her chest, staring up at the ceiling as if it held all the answers to all the questions in the galaxy. "It's true. I'm done. I've devoted nineteen years of my life to this Rebellion and lived in a war almost constantly through my childhood. I hardly ever saw my father and now I'm doing the same to my son, even now with the lack of missions. He's more than four and a half years old already, Kallus! When did that happen? I feel like I've barely been there for most of it. He has a dozen 'aunts' and 'uncles' because he's been foisted off on others so many times. I can't do it anymore. I just can't." Hera kind of deflated as she finished her rant.

Kallus reached across the space between the seats and put a comforting hand on her shoulder for a moment. "It's okay, Hera. I understand. We all understand. There's not a single person in the Rebellion who thinks your retirement is a selfish move. A lot of us thought you'd retire after the Hoth incident. You've only gained more respect for sticking it out as long as you have."

Hera smiled weakly at Kallus before turning her eyes back to the ceiling. "Thanks, Kallus. It means a lot to hear that," she said softly.

The comm jumped to life with Admiral Ackbar's voice. "All groups. Assume attack coordinates."

Hera and Kallus sat taller abruptly, adrenaline starting to thrum through her.

Two minutes later, Akbar spoke again. "All craft. Prepare to jump into hyperspace on my mark." She waited with baited breath for half a minute. "Jump in three. Two. One." Hera stared past the window of the Ghost and out through the hangar, waiting for the lights of hyperspace to appear past the shield. She finally breathed again when they did.

"And now we wait and see if we're needed," Hera said, anticipation racing through her veins. Despite deliberately choosing not to be in the groups directly attacking the Death Star, the familiar urge to test her skills against the enemy came rushing back. The unfinished Death Star was supposed to be undefended, but Hera didn't trust their intel on that any more than she'd trust Lando to keep his hands off any vaguely available pretty female. If there wasn't a whole fleet of Star Destroyers hiding nearby, she'd eat her cap.

Hera and Kallus sat in comfortable, if somewhat tense, silence for the next fifteen minutes, just watching people hurry around the hangar, prepping the backup fighters, mostly consisting of older A-Wings and Y-Wings, and dubbed Phoenix Squadron in honour of Hera's original team, in case things didn't go as planned. The flagship of Admiral Ackbar dropped out of hyperspace and things finally got interesting while they listened to the comm chatter.

"All Wings, report in," General Calrissian called.

"Red Leader, standing by," Wedge answered first.

"Grey Leader, standing by."

"Green Leader, standing by."

"Blue Leader, standing by," from Lieutenant Valeria.

"Lock s-foils in attack positions," Wedge called to his team.

"May the Force be with us," Admiral Ackbar prayed.

"Break off the attack! The shield is still up," Lando commanded.

"I get no reading. Are you sure?" Wedge questioned.

"Pull up! All craft pull up!" Lando called.

"Take evasive action. Green Group. Stay close to holding sector MV seven," from Ackbar and then a few seconds later... "It's a trap!"

"Fighters, coming in." Lando again.

"There's too many of them," somebody Hera didn't recognize called in a panic.

"Accelerate to attack speed. Draw their fire away from the cruisers," Lando ordered.

"Copy, Gold Leader," Wedge replied.

Hera looked at Kallus. "I've heard enough. We're joining this fight."

Kallus nodded and made for the top gun.

Hera opened the channel to Phoenix Squadron while she was flicking switches to get the Ghost up in the air. "Phoenix Squadron, this is Phoenix Leader. Let's go help them out, shall we?"

"Copy that," Mart Mattin replied. "We're right behind you, General."

Hera smiled just a little and took off for open space, listening to the battle over the open comm channel with half her attention. As she emerged from the hangar, she took in the battle scene in a glance. The two thirds finished Death Star hovered over the moon of Endor. Rebel and Imperial fighters zipped all over the place between the Rebel cruisers. And as she flew around the side of Home One, a rather impressive fleet of Star Destroyers hovered in the distance, waiting for some reason that she didn't like the feeling of.

"Alright, Kallus, Chopper," Hera called over the ship comm. "I'm going to fly at as many TIEs as I can. Take 'em out."

"You got it," Chopper and Kallus both replied at the same time in Binary and Basic eagerly.

"Phoenix Squadron, same for you. Pick a TIE, get it, and repeat," Hera said as she flew straight at the nearest TIE pursuing an X-Wing, Chopper already shooting at it from the nose gun.

At some point, Hera flew past the Millennium Falcon, taking out a TIE that had been chasing the other Corellian light freighter. "Thanks, General," Lando called.

"You're welcome, General," Hera called back. "Your debt to me just keeps growing," she teased.

"Ha. You're never going to the let the Azmorigan thing go, are you?" Lando called back as he flew off in a different direction.

"Never," Hera called back, making for a group of TIEs that were harassing the Medical Frigate.

A minute later, Hera was flying near one of the cruisers in pursuit of yet more TIEs when Kanan suddenly appeared beside her. "Hera, move! "

"What?!" she stared at him wide eyed for half a second even as her inherent trust in him had her pointing the Ghost away from the cruiser and putting on a burst of speed to anywhere else.

Two seconds later, the cruiser she'd been beside blew up to literal bits, only tiny fragments left floating though space left. If she'd still been beside it, she'd be just as dead as the TIE that had been caught in the blast.

"Where did that come from?!" she exclaimed. "Did anyone see?"

"I did," Kallus replied from the top gun turret of the Ghost. "It came from the Death Star. That kriffing thing is working! The Emperor has set a very clever trap indeed."

"Admiral," Hera called. "The Death Star..."

"We saw it. All craft prepare to retreat," he commanded.

"We won't get another chance at this, Admiral," Lando called.

"We have no choice, General Calrissian. Our cruisers can't repel fire of that magnitude."

"Han will have that shield down. We've got to give him more time," Lando swore.

"I'm with Calrissian on this one," Hera jumped. "I think we should give Han and Leia a few more minutes. If we retreat now, we're doomed. This Rebellion will officially be over. We have to take out that Death Star, whatever the cost."

"I agree as well," Wedge added.

"Me too," Kallus said. "We can't leave now. To paraphrase one of Rex's brothers; at least we'll go out fighting for something we believe in."

The comm was flooded with Squadron Leaders and cruiser Captains all agreeing to stay and fight on.

Ackbar sighed. "I don't like it, but I guess we're staying. Let's make it count."

Hera smiled at Kanan as the comm exploded in cheers and war cries. He settled into the co-pilot seat and nodded to the battle. "Go get 'em, Hera. I'll keep you safe, I promise."

Hera glowed at Kanan for half a moment before turning her attention back to the battle. Kanan steered her away from another cruiser that exploded from the Death Star's green laser beam. This time, she saw it for herself, and she wished she hadn't, but it strengthened her resolve to see this through. If that super weapon was left to reign its terror across the galaxy, she just knew that Lothal and Mandalore would be the Emperor's first targets. Those worlds had been ignored by the Empire lately for a reason and would make perfect examples.

"We'll lose all our cruisers at this rate. They're sitting nerfs out here," Hera commented.

"We need to move them closer to the Star Destroyers," Lando replied.

"What?!" Ackbar cried.

"Yes, I said closer," Lando said resolutely. "Keep as close as you can and engage those Star Destroyers at point blank range."

"At that close of range, we won't last long against those Star Destroyers," Ackbar said incredulously.

"We'll last longer than we will against that Death Star. And might just take a few of them with us," Lando said with grim determination.

"Calrissian's right," Hera added. "Move all the cruisers amongst the Star Destroyers. The Death Star will have a much harder time targeting us with their own ships in the way."

"Alright," Ackbar sighed. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but all craft, move to sector four seven amidst the Star Destroyers and do your best to stay alive."

So that's what they did, fighting for their lives against the ships designed specifically for war. At one point, Hera thought she saw the Freemakers' StarScavenger, but dismissed it as wishful thinking, since what she'd glimpsed didn't look quite right. After what felt like both an instant and an eternity, the shield around the Death Star was finally taken down by the ground teams. Lando and Wedge led their small group of handpicked pilots to attack the Death Star from within, Hera silently wishing them luck, hoping they survived what was essentially a suicide run.

"Admiral, we need to distract them somehow. There's too many TIEs going after Gold and Red Squadrons," Hera called as she saw Wedge's and Lando's squadrons getting picked off before they could even make it to the Death Star.

"We've got to give those fighters more time! Concentrate all fire on that Super Star Destroyer," Ackbar called to all fighters.

"You heard him, Phoenix Squadron," Hera called to her group. "Target the bridge deflector shield. We take out the Bridge, we take out the ship."

Hera set her sights on Darth Vader's flag ship, the Executor, with grim determination, despite the herd of TIEs pursuing her. "You might want to hit a few of those, Kallus," she called as she glanced at the sensor screen.

"I'm trying," Kallus called back through gritted teeth. The kriffing TIEs were dodging like mad and shooting at the Ghost at the same time, the bigger ship making a much easier target. "It's like we have a bullseye painted on our tail."

"It is one of the most wanted and recognizable Rebel ships in the galaxy," Kanan commented wryly.

Hera grinned. "Exactly the way it should be, dear." She glanced at a consul as an alarm started beeping madly. "We've losing the rear deflector shields. Hang on." Leaving the Executor for someone else to deal with for the moment, Hera flipped the Ghost over her pursuers and chased them instead so Chopper and Kallus could more easily pick them off.

By the time that was done, someone had taken out the Executor's bridge deflector shield generator and Hera watched in wincing sympathy as Green Leader flew straight at the Bridge in a barely controlled dive straight at it. "That's one way to take out a Star Destroyer," Kanan commented, barely able to watch as Green Leader's smoking A-Wing crashed right into the Super Star Destroyer. "But if you try that, Hera, I can guarantee I'll stop you."

Hera shook her head at Kanan and went looking for something else to target. There was another twenty or so ISD's that had intact shield generators that looked like mighty fine targets to her.

"I wouldn't be very pleased either," Kallus called over the comm.

"Don't worry," Hera said. "I fully intend to see my son again."

"Good," Kanan said.

Hera glanced at him. "You know, you could make yourself a little more useful and use the Force or something to keep those TIEs from blowing up my ship. Our shields are down to five percent and Chopper's a little busy right now being a gunner."

Kanan jolted out of his chair. "Why didn't you say something sooner?" He disappeared, presumably to redirect the enemy fire of a TIE or two.

Hera smiled to herself and continued on with her objective, trusting Kanan to keep her ship in one piece.

The ArrowScavenger darted out of the inner workings of the Death Star only half a minute before it exploded to billions of pieces behind them. Zander uttered curses and pleas as he eked out every ounce of speed he could get from his ship as the blast radius pursued them with deadly intent. "Our Kyber shield would be really handy right now," he growled out.

Rowan winced and shrugged from his seat behind Zander. "Sorry, I had to use the Kyber Sword to stop M-OC. It kind of blew up when I threw it into the Super Crystal." Rowan looked back towards the Death Star blast that he couldn't actually see through the ship. "But if you really want a Kyber shield back right this moment, I can get us more Kyber crystals. There's thousands of little pieces floating through space right now that survived the explosion."

Kordi turned around in her chair to stare at her little brother. "But can you get them?"

Rowan shrugged again with a smirk. "Sure."

Zander brought the new hybrid ship that Rowan had made from the pieces of the two original ships to a halt and turned around as the blast came to a stop and started to dissipate. "Alright, little bro. Do your thing."

Rowan nodded and closed his eyes, concentrating on all the thousands of tiny scared songs he could hear in his mind, calling them to him. The songs got louder and happier the closer to Rowan they floated.

Zander, Kordi, Roger, and Quarrie watched thousands of tiny lights zooming towards the ship through the other debris of the dead Death Star. "Whoa," Quarrie said in awe. He'd seen the boy build a ship from nothing but scrap with just his mind, but this was a whole other level of control.

"Yep," Zander replied with pride. "Our little brother is something special."

The little lights came to a stop just in front of the ArrowScavenger and converged into one solid light that glowed with a blue tinge. With a big flash of light, the ball solidified into a tooka sized blue Kyber crystal.

"Open the scoop, Zander," Rowan said without opening his eyes. Rowan floated the ball through the open hatch into the cargo hold and Zander closed the door and repressurized the hold. Rowan imagined the inner working of his masterpiece of a ship and floated the Kyber crystal to the waiting holding chamber for it that he'd built into the ship back on Shantipole, knowing he'd either get his original Super Crystal back or make a new one eventually. Rowan opened his eyes, job finished. "You can turn on the shield now, Zander."

Zander rubbed his hands in anticipation and turned on the shield and deployed the Embersteel Blade, then turned the ship toward the fleet of Star Destroyers. "Alright, who's first?"

At the call of success from Lando, Ackbar had pulled all of his ships further away from the Death Star, right alongside the Star Destroyers, the only thought in anyone's mind for those few minutes was avoiding the blast radius.

The moment people got over the shock of the massive structure actually blowing up, the battle continued as if it had never stopped. That is, until a new ship entered the fray and started cutting through the Star Destroyers. A cheer went over the Rebel comm system that was near deafening.

"The Freemakers are back!" Zander called over the comm. "Sorry it took so long to get here, Admiral."

"That's quite alright, Freemaker. You just keep doing what you're doing," Ackbar replied, knowing they'd won this battle for sure now.

By the time Zander had cut through three Star Destroyers, the rest had already manoeuvred to make a retreat and then promptly jumped away from the battle scene over Endor.

Hera breathed a sigh of relief as the battle came to an end. She could call Sabine and tell her it was finally over. Hera was going home as soon as this mess was wrapped up. Which... might take a little while, since there was now debris falling on the forest moon of Endor, endangering everyone living down there, including their Rebel troops.

"Admiral. We have a problem..."