Young Minh Duka and Dunab Ari rebel in their own little ways, before learning of the consequences of speaking out against the Empire. Elsewhere, Mon Cala must stand up to the scrutiny of a key Imperial official or live to fight another day.

18 BBY- Early Empire Era

Minh was not where he was supposed to be. He knew, deep in his heart, that this outing would put him in big trouble with his mother, and yet here he was; still carrying buckets of paint to the courtyard outside of Nystullum's governance tower.

"Wait," chanted Dunab, her bulbous eyes flaring with mischief, "the guards should move on in just a… now!"

Minh dashed forwards behind his Mon Calamari friend, all the while unknowingly spilling orange and pink paint along his trail. Dunab was older than he was, nearing the teenage rebellion years and wanting to leave her mark. Minh just wanted to spend time with her and thought that painting the wall of the mayor's building was a harmless way to direct her away from another night in a cold cell for "disturbing the peace".

The courtyard was deep in Mon Cala's oceans, in the heart of the most beautiful planet in the galaxy (in Minh's unbiased opinion). It teemed with vibrant coral reefs tended by gardeners like his mother, Kestra Duka. Closer to the walls of the tower were kelp forests with small creatures darting in and out of the fronds, and little glowing sea shrooms added to the ambience. Minh could see his mother's telltale pale blue tentacles floating above her head as she knelt over the anemone patch. He crouched lower as he swam along the edge of the garden towards the bulbous tower, setting the paint buckets down next to him in the kelp. The lights of the city glowed underneath him as he and Dunab argued.

"Why would it be considered subversive," he questioned, crouching down as a group of Quarren shuttled through an overhead tube. "It's an octopus. You're underwater. It really isn't that deep."

"Firstly, that sucked. Secondly, it's clearly representing the Empire, and it has lots of TENTACLES," exclaimed Dunab, as she grabbed for Minh's head tails, "reaching into things it shouldn't."

He cried out, batting her hands away. She knew that a Nautolan's tentacles were extremely sensitive and took advantage of this at any given opportunity. When he finally got her off of him, she had kicked over the pink bucket and had painted both them and the walls with splashes.

The paint was several shades darker than her salmon coloured skin, but seemed right at home on her paint splattered red uniform. She could stand to be less messy with her art, but she claims it helped with her 'flow', to be part of the painting. She had the high domed squid head typical of Mon Calamari, with overly expressive large orange eyes that were already turning to scope out the wall.

"Some stealth mission this is turning out to be," he said, "Just start drawing your octopus and I'll keep watch. I hate it, and you."

"Thank you Mini," Dunab sing-songed and took up her paint brushes from her woven bag.

Grumbling, Minh swam further up the kelp and began to swivel his head back and forth. He hated that name. He also hated how natural the paint splatters looked on her. His dark blue skin showed the pink like nothing else, and his matching red uniform had no other colours on it. He had been keeping it clean for once, and had even scrubbed the oil stains off of it that morning. His head tails were thankfully paint free, but across his cheeks and under his dark eyes it was smeared.

Twelve standard years old and already a hardened criminal. He could only be glad that the King had kept the Empire physically off of Mon Cala for now. He'd read on the Holonet what could happen to people who spoke badly of their new government.

His mother tried to keep the worst from him but there was only so much she could do when he was taught about coding by Dunab's mother. They had watched the Emperor's coronation speech together, and he had stayed up all night watching as one by one the Separatist worlds were brought back to the Empire's control, reading the responses from across the galaxy.

Minh could still see scars from the planet's civil war only two years past. The Mon Calamari guards were circling towards them, past the monument to Quarren and Mon Calamari unity. It was made of the metal casings of Seperatist droids deployed during their invasion, and still had families coming to lay offerings to those they'd lost to the war. There were weld marks from where the city transport tubes were put back together and he knew the current through the Green line that he used to get home still had cracked glass somewhere that made the pressure weird and slowed it down.

He called out that a patrol was coming, and Dunab ducked back into the kelp. As long as they were careful, they'd get the art up and Dunab would be satisfied that she had resisted against the powers that be enough to calm for at least another week. Minh hoped it would last at least a week.

It had not lasted even half a week. The teenage rebel had nipped into a less than legal market right after they'd gotten out of schooling, and he had been grabbed by the guards while trying to cause a diversion with his BD unit. It's not Minh's fault his repair to the scomp link hadn't fully settled. He was also attempting to convince his droid that it wasn't her fault either, ignoring Dunab across from him in their little holding room.

"Crow, it just fell off. You did your best!"

The scavenged BD droid's antennae were still rotated down as she focused her lens on the floor. She let out a mournful beep.

"If anything, blame that pink menace there," Minh pointed at Dunab, ignoring her faux-hurt gasp.

"Like I said to the guards; how was I meant to know that buying that holovid was illegal? I'm but a young woman, with nary a thought in my mind." Dunab said.

"Yeah, definitely no thoughts," snarked Minh.

She was caught because she all but danced her way down the street, telling Minh about her new training video. She was going to learn to break codes and get into encrypted messages!

She had said that loud enough for the whole star system to hear, Minh felt. The quarren couple coming out of the building next to the pair definitely had heard it. They had then called the guards about rebel activity, the teens had ran, and Crow's scomp link had fallen off as she tried to open a door for them to run into.

They were now just waiting for Kestra to show up and let them out. The bored man at the front desk had told them that she was on the way a few minutes ago.

"Why do you even call it Crow? I've been trying to figure out where you get that from BD-12, or a name like that for an underwater droid," Dunab said as she poked and prodded his arm. She peered at the BD unit that had turned to look at her.

Minh grinned, "She's beady eyed! Get it, BD, beady? Like a bird. I read this cool thing about crows when I fixed her! They're super smart, they have them on Naboo, they like to take shiny things, and that's exactly like her."

Dunab groaned, and spun around to walk towards the other side of the room, saying, "You're such an idiot. Why do I put up with you?"

The door to their holding room opened, and a pale blue Nautolan woman stepped in wearing overalls.

The newcomer said with a look that would stop a rampaging Rancor in its tracks, "That's true enough for both of you."

Kestra Duka had arrived and was not pleased at all. Behind her followed a well dressed Mon Calamari in a dark grey uniform, with a neutral look on his face.

"Hi Mom," muttered Minh.

"Hello Ms Duka," said a momentarily contrite Dunab.

Minh's mother sighed, and sat down at the table across from him. Dunab followed suit and sat down with Minh.

"I'm disappointed in you kids," Kestra started, "this isn't a laughing matter. You're lucky that Officer Otod stepped in."

The newly christened Officer Otod cleared his throat and placed his hand on the chair, leaning forward to speak,

"Thank you, Ms Duka. Mr Duka, Ms Ari, I do not think the seriousness of the situation has been impressed upon you. The Empire is ruthless in stamping out any arguments against its rule. They will not care that you are young. They will not care that our treaties do not allow them on our planet, yet. We looked the other way when you vandalised the governance tower."

Dunab opened her mouth to deny they were there, but subsided at a look from Minh's mother.

"We looked the other way at many of your antics, but you cannot admit to learning how to de-encrypt coded messages in public areas like that."

Minh checked out of the conversation at that, he was flummoxed. The officer was only saying that they shouldn't have said it, not that they shouldn't learn to do it. A look at Dunab showed that she had also picked up on that difference.

He looked at his mother. With his eyes, he attempted to say, 'I'm sorry mother, it wasn't my fault, in fact it was all Dunab, as per usual, and I shouldn't really be held responsible for any of this.'

She looked at him. He read in her eyes, 'You shouldn't have been involved, and you should have stopped Dunab from going in there. I told you that robot couldn't be used for your antics and you'll be hearing it when you get home.'

He looked at the table. The table was saying nothing.

He tuned back into the conversation at hand as Officer Otod finished up his rant to Dunab and him,

"You'll run on home, and the Qhi's will hear that the rebels they reported were dealt with. No more of this anti-Empire talk outside of this tower. When you've finished learning from that tape, come back and see me. I know a few people that may have a few feelings in common with you."

Officer Otod winked one of his large eyes at Dunab and then gave his thanks to Minh's mother for her time. They gathered up their meager belongings, with Minh handing the BD unit over to his mother at her expectant look. She turned it off and they went to leave the room, with a promise of a verbal lashing as soon as they got home.

A Quarren comms officer raced into the doorway, the tentacles over his mouth flaring with his breath.

"Officer Otod! Otod! They've done it, the Imperial Ambassador's shuttle exploded over Dac City not 10 minutes ago. They're preparing a landing force!"

The sky was falling. Raddus had pulled all of the deep sea reef ships back to the city of Nystellum and had pulled the governance tower out of the ground, along with some others. All city-ships currently ready to launch had, and had linked shields. The entire population of Nystellum was within their fleet and protected by bubble shields. They hid under the ice cap to protect from orbital bombardment and the ship shields- rated for deep seas, space, and pirates- were holding the small blaster fire from scuba troopers easily at bay.

Dac City, in the north, was invaded. Stormtroopers were being shuttled down to the surface all across the planet, but Raddus' plan was keeping the south clear of civilian bodies, for now. The surface outposts had all been destroyed by King Lee-Char's shellwhale attack. The large creatures had breached the surface near the cities and had caused great waves to engulf the Imperials still above.

It didn't matter, they were still surrounded by Imperials. Kestra Duka, Minh, and Dunab were huddled together in the belly of the MC-75 cruiser "Aspiration", having taken the express transit tube home from the governance tower, packed up their lives in mere moments, and gathered out into the street to board the evacuation ship. Minh and Dunab never knew that the next door tower was a fully operational Star Cruiser. Kestra wasn't surprised. She had already had to run from a war with her child once. She had made sure that their home on Mon Cala was near the quickest escape. She just waved them through the entrance.

Many of their fellow refugees were gathered and listening for any sign of changes in the war on Dunab's home-made comm unit. It had been a Life Day gift from Minh. Kestra didn't know why that stuck in her mind, but she could remember the face Dunab had made when Minh had given it to her. She had called her father on it that night, the transceiver strong enough to reach him in the deep sea exploration ship he had been deployed on at the time. The little comm set rang out with updates from the still functioning Mon Cala Caller radio show. They had converted into emergency communications for the city instead of the normal entertainment program Minh always asked Dunab to switch away from. They had been listening to updates as town after town and city after city went offline in the north.

Kestra's arms were wrapped tightly around the children and she was putting on a brave face, but any good Nautolan could feel the anxiety and fear flowing from her. Minh was overwhelmed by the feelings he could sense with his tentacles and wished he could be anywhere else.

"We're receiving word that King Lee-Char is making a broadcast. Please stand by for updates," said one of the broadcasters.

Murmuring picked up amongst the refugees trying to guess at what the King could say.

"We're standing down… the King has told all forces to surrender."

The speaker sounded like he was in shock, or about to cry. The ship shook, and a strange humming noise began to rise in the background. The cargo bay rang with cries of dismay and despair. Kestra merely held her son tighter, pulled her all but daughter close to her, and wept silently.

The broadcast crackled for a moment, and then Raddus' voice blasted through the comm, "Disregard that message. This is not over! Mon Cala may be lost to us now, but we will return to liberate our home. We are a people of the sea… Space may not be so different. Brace yourselves for the transition."

The ship's engines fired and the shields were wrapped back around individual ships again. The Mon Cala fleet broke through the surface and began to rise into space as the bombarding Star Destroyers joined their lone comrade to fire upon them.

The Mon Cala Caller had returned, and was giving updates on their fleet now, "We are broadcasting from what is now the Regency One. Admiral-Mayor Raddus' governance tower has become the Profundity. Alongside us are the Dreamer, the Dignity, and the Aspiration."

Dunab spoke up in a whisper, "Dad is on the Dreamer… he was supposed to be coming home today."

"Oh, my darling. Oh my poor girl. He'll be okay. We all will," whispered Kestra as she placed a kiss on the Mon Calamari's forehead.

The broadcaster listed losses of several smaller ships as they got closer to the Imperial fleet, and the whole cargo bay held their breath. The ship began to shake violently, and the lights began to blink red.

"The Regency One is under fire, and shields are falling across the fleet. Dear Force, they're breaking- " came from the broadcast, as it crackled and turned to static. Kestra reached out and turned off the comm link. The lights turned off in the cargo bay as all power was routed into maintaining the shields

In that dark cargo bay, in the hearts of many Mon Calamari and Quarrens, hatred for the Empire grew and many vowed to see it destroyed. The refugees hunkered down and hoped to live to the day Mon Cala was free again.

On the bridge of the Imperial Star Destroyer, an Imperial lieutenant reviewed the data from scans of the fleeing ships, and reported to his commanding officer.

"They've set their aft shields at full power, Governor. At this range, we won't be able to destroy them before they jump to lightspeed."

Governor Tarkin did not turn from the viewing port, choosing to watch the MC-80 cruisers race off into the stars and spoke.

"It does not matter, lieutenant. We will find them eventually. I am not particularly concerned about three ships. Begin powering down the orbital cannons. This is over."

Stormtroopers poured over Mon Cala, gathering the population and putting them into holding camps for 'processing.' The sparks of rebellion began to spread amongst the newly enslaved population. The Imperial octopus had wrapped tight around the Mon Calamari and they would not take it lightly. Tarkin would live to regret allowing those three capital ships to flee.

A/N

Some text is taken liberally from Darth Vader (2017) Issue #17, specifically lines from Raddus and the Imperials. The description of the Mon Cala Exodus fleet also comes from the same comic and from the Rogue One visual guide (the Profundity being the main Mon Calamari cruiser that is destroyed over Scarif). I hope you've enjoyed the beginning of a story of rebels in the vein of Andor and Rogue One, being a story of the rebels that joined the fight without Jedi. See you next time!