AN: I can't believe I actually finished this. I think it's my longest chapter to date. You'll see why in a sec.

I'm sorry. I don't THINK the next chapter, or really any chapter, will be as long as this one, but you know me. I can't help myself.

Please enjoy, I'm real proud of this one.

Chapter 71: Alliances

There was a disturbance in the Force.

Darth Sidious opened his eyes, the sudden swell sweeping him from the tides of the Force and washing him back to consciousness, reality slowly blinking back into view as the Force faded from his vision. A deep scowl upon his face, he quietly ordered one of his red clad Imperial Royal Guards to summon Darth Vader, his hands tightening on the arms of his throne as he watched the swirl of the man's robes behind him as he left to do his bidding.

The last such disturbance in the Force had been caused when Darth Maul had been slain, an irritation on its own that was made even worse at the familiar, hated feel of stolen life that was characteristic of Lumis' touch. It was true that Maul had been gone for months before, and if he had the resources, he would have had the man hunted down for his cowardice. But Lumis had gotten to him first, another insult that Sidious would not soon forget and would one day make his former apprentice pay dearly for.

A thing that may well be immanent.

It had only been a few days since he had gotten the reports of Grand Admiral Thrawn's destruction of the Phoenix Squadron rebels that Darth Lumis had come to favor. It was a major victory, not just against the insurgents that had been plaguing the Lothal sector for the past few years, but also against a larger rebel cell that had been brought in to aid a major military strike that Thrawn's expert timing had ensured never had the chance to unfold. And soon after that, Mandalore had also burned, the planet put under orbital bombardment before an uprising there had the chance to become something more.

The reports stated that there had been no rebel survivors of either conflict, a thing that had particularly irritated Grand Moff Tarkin, as the man had specifically ordered Thrawn to take the rebel leaders alive. Certainly the alien had the skill to do so, if he had the rebels so handedly defeated, and had in the past demonstrated such a talent, but this time, Sidious knew it was irrelevant. Darth Lumis was alive, either having escaped the battle, or he hadn't been there at all, which he found unlikely, and more than that, it was unforgivably sloppy for Thrawn not to notice.

It seemed no coincidence that the disturbance he felt in the Force fell so close to these events.

The death of a Sith Lord would have rocked the Force, as it had when Maul had been slain. Lumis' grief was deep enough to rend gaping maws into the very heart of the Dark Side, as it certainly would have had his pet rebels been stolen from him. And Grand Admiral Thrawn, a most skilled servant, would not have made an error so careless as this.

Sidious glanced up at the expanse of his throne room, still and dark and silent, and a moment later, the doors swung open and Darth Vader stalked in, his stride long and heavy, his cape flowing behind him like the snap of wrath that trailed after him in the depths of the Force. He approached the throne and knelt, his head bowed, his breathing even and monotonous through his respirator, and for a long moment, Sidious peered down at him, the last and most faithful of his servants.

"I have sensed a disturbance in the Force," Sidious rasped, and Vader stirred, the movement slight, but nothing escaped the Sith Master's penetrating gaze.

"Perhaps you sense Darth Lumis," Vader said in a deep, angry rumble. "Or perhaps an echo of Maul's demise."

"It is neither," Sidious said dismissively. "This is something different. Something new." He paused, reaching through the Force to feel Vader's seething anger give way to interest. "I am sending you to uncover the nature of this disturbance and deal with it."

"Where shall I begin my search, Master?" Vader asked, and a wide, toothy grin spread across Sidious' face.

"At the edge of the Unknown Regions," Sidious said slowly, his intense gaze fixed upon the armored man. "The disturbance appears to be centered around a planet called Batuu." At this, Vader tensed, a thing that could not be seen beneath his armor, but could be felt in the strain of the Force. "I believe you have heard of it," Sidious said, not asked, and a deep rumble sounded in Vader's throat.

"Yes, Master," he said quietly. "Long ago."

"Long ago," Sidious agreed with a wicked grin. "In another life, when you had unwittingly interfered with my plans."

Vader remained silent and still, save for the monotonous sound of his respirator, his eyes upon the ground and his senses deep within the Force to feel for the Sith Master's signs of anger. But he felt nothing. Indeed, once long, long ago, Anakin Skywalker had stumbled upon one of the then Chancellor Palpatine's many contingency plans, a factory that produced droids impervious to lightsabers, in addition to hundreds of sets of likewise resistant clone armor. Skywalker had never known the truth of what he had discovered there, and never gave it more than a second thought when he had destroyed the factory and the connected mines. With Lumis running roughshod over the galaxy with his Lost Legion of Separatist loyal clones that he had stolen, it made sense that he'd have been involved in developing armor to protect his unit from the Jedi.

Vader knew the truth that Skywalker had been too foolish to see. Everything in the factory had been created by Sidious as part of his plot to destroy the Jedi in their Temple, a thing that Anakin Skywalker had only delayed, and that Vader himself had later completed. Thinking back on all of it now, he couldn't help but wonder if Lumis had ever even known of any of it. It was likely he didn't. Even as important to Sidious' plans as Lumis had been, Vader's Master kept many secrets.

But there was something else, something that hung heavy with anticipation in the Emperor's silence.

"Anakin Skywalker had not been alone," Vader said as he finally looked up at his Master. "He had been accompanied by Thrawn."

"Indeed," Sidious said slowly, equal parts satisfaction and seething rage in the glint of his glowing eyes. "It may well be that Mitth'raw'nuruodo is connected to this disturbance."

"Would it not be wise then to summon the Grand Admiral," Vader asked, and again, a malicious smile spread across the Emperor's face.

"Indeed, it would," Sidious said, the amusement swiftly vanishing before a disdainful scowl. "The Admiral has not responded to my summons."

For a long moment, Vader was silent, swiftly sorting through all the possible reasons for this, but his attention was drawn quickly to one thought, one he kept returning to despite his efforts to consider other possibilities. Anger stirred in his chest, both new and the bitter sting of old betrayal he had suffered so often when he had been Anakin Skywalker. It was as unpleasant now as it had ever been.

"You suspect Admiral Thrawn of treachery," Vader said, a statement, not a question, and the scowl on Sidious' face deepened.

"Perhaps…" the Emperor said slowly and pointed a gnarled finger at the Sith Apprentice. "I suspect you will discover the truth of it as you investigate this disturbance in the Force."

Vader said not a word, only bowed his head, rose to his feet, and strode out of the throne room to prepare a ship for the journey to Batuu.


There was a disturbance in the Force.

Darth Lumis opened his eyes, the sudden swell sweeping him from the tides of the Force and washing him back to consciousness, reality slowly blinking back into view as the Force faded from his vision. Eyes wide and breathing heavy, he looked around the bridge of the Chimaera, listened to the officers reporting ready, heard both Bo-Katan and Hera on the com reporting the Mandalorians and the Ghost secured and ready for transport. The bridge was a buzz of activity as they prepared for departure, the Star Destroyers outside the viewport blinking out of sight as they jumped to hyperspace for their next assignments. None were going where the Chimaera was, but all were abandoning Lothal.

Commodore Faro paced the bridge walkway and issued commands to the officers in the crew pits, and even over the buzz of conversation, Obi-Wan could hear the sensor officer and the first weapons officer, Hammerly and Pyrondi, joking with each other between reporting their status. There was an order to it all, a smooth, almost melodious way the ship came together in preparation for a mission that would certainly see them all branded as traitors to the Empire, but each and every one of them knew the situation and had chosen to be here, and all of them busied themselves in preparing for their own jump into hyperspace that would take them far away from their sister ships in the Seventh Fleet.

All except Thrawn.

The Chiss sat in his command chair, his fingers steepled together and his glowing red eyes staring unblinking at the Sith Lord, and Obi-Wan exhaled slowly as he tried to sort through what he had seen, what he had felt in the depths of the Force. As always, Thrawn had noticed that something was up. And something was, indeed, up. Thrawn remained silent, his eyes fixed upon Kenobi, patiently waiting for the Sith to answer the silent question, and Obi-Wan said nothing until his thoughts were organized.

"I have sensed a disturbance in the Force," Kenobi gasped, more breathless than he had expected.

"A disturbance…" Thrawn quietly repeated, looking up at his Commodore when the woman came to stand beside his command chair, a skeptical look upon her face. "Can you be more specific?"

"I don't know…" Obi-Wan said thoughtfully, his eyes closed as he dipped his fingers back into the Force to feel the cold current of the wave that had caused the disruption he felt. "Fear and terror and despair and hopelessness…" he muttered under his breath, his brow furrowing as he bit down on his lip. "But whatever's causing it, I can't identify."

"No, of course not…" Faro scoffed, and Obi-Wan flashed the suspicious woman a tight smile.

"These things are not uncommon feelings," Thrawn said calmly. "Certainly billions of beings across the galaxy experience such on a daily basis."

"Not enough to disturb the Force, not like this," Obi-Wan said more sharply than he had intended, but the biting cold of the disturbance scratched at the back of his skull, even now that the initial wave of the disturbance had vanished. "This is something else. Something important. Something that we need to investigate."

"Very well…" Thrawn said after a moment of consideration. "After-"

"No," Obi-Wan interrupted as he reeled on the Chiss, his golden eyes blazing with unnatural light. "We need to go now. Immediately."

"You don't even know what this thing is," Faro said, her face stony and cold. "Where is it we're supposed to go, exactly."

"Can you take us there?" Thrawn asked, his voice measured and slow, as if he was reluctant to ask, and the Sith Lord shrugged.

"I might be able to show you where," Obi-Wan said, and the Admiral gestured to the navigation officer and the lights and sounds that indicated ready for the jump to hyperspace powered down and went silent, the busy buzz of the bridge falling to an anticipated hum as the lights dimmed and a navigational star chart was projected across the bridge.

With a deep breath, Obi-Wan stepped away from the Admiral's command chair and walked into the projected map, glancing around for a moment before he shut his eyes and reached out his hand, feeling the chill of the Force moving around his limbs and directing his movements. Warmer here, colder this way, the rifts and currents pulling him this way and that until the chill of the disturbance resonated in his chest, his fingers tingling with the vibrations of that which caused it.

Beside her, Faro saw the Admiral's hand move on the arm of his command chair and touch at the controls and all around them, the projected star chart began to rotate. The Sith Lord, who had been moving steadily forward only a moment ago, stopped, stood still for a moment, his eyes closed and his hand outstretched, and decisively turned with the rotating star chart. He stopped only when Thrawn froze the map, and like no disruption happened, moved again toward the part of the map that he had been drifting toward before despite the one hundred twenty-degree rotation. Faro looked down at the Admiral, hoping to find an explanation there for the wizardry they were witnessing, but only found the Chiss staring intently at the Sith as he finally stopped and reached a hand out toward a planet in the projection, his breath catching in his throat as he touched it.

"Here," Obi-Wan said quietly, his eyes opening to look at the holographic planet surrounding his indicating finger. "This is where the disturbance originated from."

"Really?" Faro said flatly, her disbelief clearly evident upon her face. "That's way out in Wild Space. You expect us to believe you felt something from that far-"

"Batuu…" Thrawn muttered, his fingers steepled before him as he looked at the star chart. "Are you certain?" he asked, and Kenobi gave him a certain nod and the Commodore's jaw went slack as she glanced back at her Admiral.

"Sir…" Faro began, but Thrawn held up a hand that silenced her.

"I believe him," Thrawn said quietly, giving the incredulous woman a small, tight smile. "There will always be things that exist outside our understanding, Commodore. Discounting these things entirely leave us just as blind as unquestioning belief in them." He turned back to the star chart, his eyes narrowing as he studied the calm, confident Sith Lord. "I have been there before," Thrawn said firmly after a moment of silence. "A mission for the Ascendancy took me there, and it was there I met General Anakin Skywalker."

"Is it…" Obi-Wan said as he looked back at the star system, his eyes narrowed as he felt again for the subtle changes in the flow of the Force. "I don't think this is a coincidence, Thrawn."

"If it is, it is certainly an interesting one," Thrawn said as he leaned back in his command chair and gestured to the helm. "Set course for Batuu."

"Sir," Faro said stiffly as she leaned in toward the Admiral, the chorus of the ship preparing for the jump to hyperspace once again beginning around them. "We agreed to do this because you said you could show us evidence of the Grysk threat to the Empire." She gestured to the star chart. "What goes on out on the edges of the Unknown Regions is hardly a real risk to the Empire."

"The edge of Imperial territory is still the Empire," Thrawn said absently, and he glanced up at Faro when he felt the woman tense beside him. "Patience, Commodore," he said quietly, his expression hardening. "If we find the Grysk out on Batuu as I suspect we will, the threat to the Empire may be more immanent than I previously believed."

Jaw tensing, Faro gave the Admiral a stiff nod, and couldn't help feel a sense of foreboding as the deck beneath her shivered, the viewport filling with star flares as the Chimaera jumped to hyperspace.


Several hours after their departure, there had been no incident, and finally feeling secure enough to leave Luke and Ezra to train in the hold of the Ghost with a promise from Sabine and Leia to make sure the boys didn't get up to any trouble, Kanan and Hera left the safety of her ship to cautiously explore the Chimaera. It was, like most other Imperial ships they had infiltrated over the years, a bland, colorless collection of identical hallways and corridors that made it easy to get turned around in, a thing compounded by the fact they reflexively ducked into rooms or dashed into adjacent passageways to avoid Imperial patrols.

It wasn't necessary, of course, though no amount of reminding each other stopped them from doing it. Stormtroopers stationed outside essential or restricted areas and regular patrols kept them on edge, though the one time they decided to test their supposed new allies, they walked by without incident, no shots fired, no alarms sounded. The white clad soldiers remained still sentinels, their right shoulder pauldrons marked with a circular insignia that bore not the Imperial seal, but a stylized Chimaera. Loyal to Thrawn, they realized, not the Empire.

They relaxed after that, their pace slowed as they looked around and found that the hallways and rooms were actually very clearly marked, a thing they had never truly noticed before in their several stressful infiltrations of Imperial ships. More than once, they had been denied access to certain parts of the ship and had gotten a good number of looks from young Imperial officers, but otherwise, they were allowed to go on their way without a single soldier stopping them to ask for identification or otherwise try to arrest them, which made their walk through the Star Destroyer feel entirely surreal.

They had just stepped out on to the bridge, a place they had been certain they wouldn't have had access to, when the ship dropped out of hyperspace, the star flares collapsing back into the distant pinpoints of stars. By the forward viewport, Obi-Wan and Ahsoka sat together, their eyes closed and their heads bowed as they meditated, the buzz of the crew in the pits intensifying as they checked their consoles and readouts on their return to sublight space. Kanan and Hera only noticed something was wrong when they saw Thrawn tense and sit up straight in his command chair, a brief but noticeable flash of concern across his features.

Whatever it was that had disturbed the Admiral carried through the Force, enough to jolt Ahsoka and Obi-Wan out of their meditations, the two returning to themselves with a sharp intake of breath.

"We're early," Obi-Wan said as he glanced down into the crew pit at the navigator's board, a frown on his face as he felt for the strange thread of the current in the depths of the Force the disturbance had caused, but couldn't feel it.

"Indeed…" Thrawn muttered, his fingers steepling as he leaned forward in his chair, his eyes darting between his own bridge readouts and the viewport. "Hammerly, sensors at full range. Agrol, our exact navigational coordinates, if you please."

There were swift and sharp acknowledgements from the helm and the sensor stations as they got to work, and Hera strode down the command walkway, Kanan dragging his feet behind her as they approached the Admiral's seat, the Twi'lek's curiosity getting the better of her as she glanced around the bridge.

"Something wrong?" Hera asked as she stepped to the side of the command chair, the Chiss' red eyes glancing up at her for a moment before they returned to scanning the scroll of information on his datapad.

"Perhaps," Thrawn said calmly, his fingers drumming slowly on the arm of his command chair as he looked back out the viewport at the vast, empty space before them. "Commodore Faro?" he called, and the woman's head popped up from the crew pit where she had been hovering over Hammerly's sensor board. "Have the technicians run a full check on the status of the hyperdrive for any possible malfunctions. We seem to have dropped out of hyperspace unscheduled."

"Yes sir," she said crisply, and quickly set to logging the orders, climbing out of the crew pit and striding quickly off the bridge, giving the rebels a quick, disapproving glance as she passed by them, which Kanan answered with a broad, friendly grin.

"I don't think anything's wrong with your hyperdrive," Hera said when the Commodore left the bridge, and again, those glowing red eyes shifted to glance up at her.

"What makes you believe that?" Thrawn asked quietly, and Hera crossed her arms over her chest.

"Because when hyperdrives go wrong, the whole ship knows it," Hera said, and Thrawn gestured to the viewport.

"I do not believe there is any mistaking our exit from hyperspace," the Chiss said dryly, and Hera scoffed.

"I've been flying ships my whole life," she said, her chest swelling with both pride and confidence. "If there was something wrong with your hyperdrive, anything at all, even a ship this big, you'd be able to feel it in the deck." A small smile touched the edges of the Admiral's lips, and Hera felt her smugness vanish before disbelief.

"Very good, Captain Syndulla," Thrawn muttered. "There is indeed nothing wrong with the hyperdrive."

"So you sent your girl to go check just to get her off the bridge?" Kanan asked. "Don't know why you'd do that, she's got such a cheery disposition…"

"I like to eliminate as many possibilities as I can before I begin my analysis of a situation," Thrawn muttered as he swiftly worked on his datapad.

"So maybe your navigator isn't up to standard," Hera said more snidely than she intended, but if the Chiss was offended, he didn't show it.

"The Chimaera's crew are more than adequate to their tasks," Thrawn said flatly, his gaze never leaving his datapad as he studied the array of reports that had been sent to him. "I have the navigational data here. Their course had been correctly set."

"If it isn't the ship and the fault doesn't rest with your crew, then something out there pulled us out of hyperspace," Obi-Wan said as he sauntered toward the command chair, glancing down into the crew pits as he went. "The Unknown Regions are notoriously difficult to navigate. Maybe something new moved into the area and disrupted the hyperlanes."

From the crew pit, a hand shot up from the sensor station and waved excitedly in the air.

"Commander Hammerly," Thrawn invited, and the woman poked her head up from the pit.

"Sir, all scans are clear," Hammerly reported. "There's no way a mass could be big enough to pull us out of hyperspace and not be in scanner range."

"So the obstruction is originating from another source," Thrawn said calmly. "Perhaps, then, some forward movement will take us clear of the effect. Helm, take us ahead at two-thirds power. Scanners, continue all scans and report on any findings." The Admiral turned his attention to the Sith Lord when the bridge crew acknowledged his orders, a slight, knowing smile on his lips and a hard intensity in his eyes. "I grew up in the Unknown Regions, rebels," he said quietly. "I am familiar with the dangers of travel throughout the region, but this is Wild Space and is not subject to the same navigational disruptions."

"Well planets and moons aren't the only things that can keep a ship out of hyperspace," Hera said, the slightest edge of irritation in her voice. "You know that, Admiral. You did that to us at Atollon."

"Indeed…" Thrawn said gravely. "I believe you are very close to the heart of the matter."

"Oh…" Kenobi said quietly, glancing out toward the viewport where Ahsoka still stood before he looked the Chiss in the eye. "You know what it is."

"No," Thrawn said quietly, but it was unmistakable how his jaw clenched. "But I have a suspicion."

"So a ship out here's creating a gravity well," Kanan said. "If your sensors aren't picking anything up, it's gotta be cloaked, right?"

"An interesting thought," Thrawn said as he returned his attention to the datapad, clearing the screen of all the data and pulling up the navigational chart of the area. "Unfortunately, it is impossible to run a gravity generator and a cloaking device at the same time. The two fields work against each other."

"So if we can't see it, the gravity generator isn't running," Kenobi said. "Which means we can make the jump, right?"

"Helm," Thrawn called to the pilot. "Make the jump to lightspeed."

The deck shuddered beneath their feet, the stars outside the viewport flared into star lines, and just as soon as it had begun, the stars collapsed back into distant points, the bridge filling with a dissonant tone that indicated a failed jump. In his seat, Thrawn's shoulders stiffened as he sat up straighter, his eyes darting rapidly as he observed the stars outside the viewport.

"Nothing on scans, sir," Hammerly said from her station after the alarm had been shut off. "If there is something out there running a gravity well projector, wouldn't we have been able to see it when it kicked on?"

"Interesting…" Thrawn muttered, silent for a moment as he continued to stare out the viewport before he stood from his seat and walked down the command walkway to the sensor station and looked down into the pit at Hammerly. "Do you mean to suggest that the device is cloaked up until the moment the gravity generator is activated?"

"I…yes, Admiral," the woman stammered. "It fits, doesn't it? But if that was the case, we should have been able to see it when we tried to jump."

"Not necessarily…" Thrawn said thoughtfully, considering it for a moment before he slowly made his way back down the walkway to where Kenobi had very regally sat himself on the Admiral's command chair. "The disturbance you felt," Thrawn said as he approached the Sith Lord. "Can you feel it now?"

"No," Kenobi said, biting the inside of his cheek as he felt again for the violent disturbance that had set them on this path. "I haven't felt it at all since the first time."

"So what is happening here is not related to the disturbance?" Thrawn asked, and Obi-Wan gave him a non-committal shrug.

"I can't say anything for certain, but whatever it is that caused it…" Obi-Wan fell silent, his eyes closing for a moment as he shook his head. "No, I don't think it's here."

For a long moment, Thrawn was silent as he looked out the viewport, ignoring the datapad in his hands as it chimed with incoming reports and updates. Then, he drew up to his full height, resolved and confident, and strode back down the command walkway to the viewport. "Helm," he commanded. "Rotate forty degrees starboard and set a heading for Mokivj."

"Um, sir?" the officer at the helm said uncertainly. "There's no charted hyperspace lane to that system…"

"Indeed, there is not," Thrawn said calmly. "We must travel jump by jump."

"How far away is this system?" Kenobi asked as he stood from the command chair, glancing out toward the viewport to see if he could see what the Admiral did, but whatever it was that had captured the Chiss' attention before evaded his detection. "That could take a while."

"Twenty-eight hours, approximately," Thrawn quietly supplied, studying the Sith's face when the man frowned. "Is that a problem?"

"I'm not sure…" Kenobi muttered, his eyes fixed upon the distant stars as he watched the ship turn as the helm obeyed the Admiral's instructions. "The feeling in the vision felt…I don't know. Urgent. I don't think it's wise to take longer than we have to."

"This is likely the fastest course of action, given our current inability to jump to lightspeed," Thrawn said. "Or do you have an alternative solution?"

"We find what's keeping us here and destroy it," Kenobi said flatly, and a slight smile came to the Admiral's lips.

"I am afraid that is not possible," Thrawn said quietly. "Not at the present time. Not when it would take time to find and locate the cause of the obstruction."

"You think it would take longer than twenty-eight hours to find this thing?" Hera asked, and Thrawn shook his head.

"No," the Chiss said, glancing toward the rear bridge door when it slid open as the Commodore returned. "But I believe at present, it is irrelevant." He gestured to the viewport. "After our attempt to jump to hyperspace, our position changed."

"It…what?" Kanan asked, the Chiss' attention shifting away from him when Faro handed him her datapad.

"The techs went over the hyperdrive twice," Faro reported. "They thought maybe the illuvial dampeners had to be recalibrated, but everything is reading green. There isn't anything wrong." For a moment, Thrawn looked over the report and, with a tight nod, he returned his attention to Kanan, Hera, and Obi-Wan.

"The position of the stars shifted slightly," Thrawn explained as he held up the datapad. "There is nothing wrong with our hyperdrive. Our jump was successful, but a second obstruction brought us back to real space."

"So quickly it looked like a failed jump?" Hera asked as she gestured to the helm. "So quickly your navigator didn't see a change in position?"

"Indeed," Thrawn said quietly as he handed his datapad to Hera. "Because of the great distances covered by interstellar travel, navigational computers default to displaying coordinates rounded to the nearest thousandth. But the data can be expanded and-"

"And we've moved," Hera said with a nod as she looked at the comparison on the Admiral's datapad. "But so little that the truncated coordinates didn't update."

"So we could keep jumping, couldn't we?" Kanan asked. "If your clever little sensor operator's right, then whatever it is that pulled us out is cloaked now and can't keep us here."

"Until the next one pulls us back," Obi-Wan countered. "We don't know how many there are. So…" He groaned and fell dramatically back into the command chair. "Thrawn's right. Finding this thing's pointless if the next one just stops us again. Guess we're going the long way…"

"Kenobi," Ahsoka said from her place at the viewport, and when they looked at the Togruta, her back was straight, her posture alert, her gaze still fixed out the viewport at the distant stars. "He's here," she said quietly, though in the sudden stillness of the bridge, everyone could hear her clearly. "It's Vader."

"Vader?!" Kenobi repeated with a hiss, sat up straight in the command chair, and was just about to question the woman when he felt it too, like a cold wave through the Force that brought with it the blistering burn of anger. It hadn't been here before. This was sudden, and it was close. Vader had followed them.

"Helm, jump to lightspeed," Thrawn commanded, his tone more clipped than usual, and at the very edge of his voice, they could hear the traces of an accent. "Plot another jump to be executed as soon as we return to real space, then turn starboard forty degrees and continue forward at full speed. We will not get far, but our pursuers must deal with the same obstruction."

The helm quickly set to his task, and just as the deck of the ship began to hum with the prepared jump to hyperspace, a cold hand wrapped around Obi-Wan's wrist and Thrawn yanked him out of the command chair and unceremoniously pulled him behind him as he strode down the bridge. The stars had flared and collapsed back into pinpoints by the time they reached the pilot's station by the viewport, the alarm of a failed jump sounding around them as the Admiral ordered the pilot to leave his seat and assist the navigator. As soon as the flustered lieutenant had gone, Thrawn pushed Kenobi into the pilot's seat.

"You are going to take us to Batuu," Thrawn said to the Sith Lord, the calm control returned to his voice, the stars once again flaring across the viewport as the second jump was executed and predictably failed with the chime of alarms. "In eighty seconds, the Chimaera will be positioned to travel toward Mokivj, as we had planned, but instead of traveling jump by jump, you will guide the ship through hyperspace to our destination."

"I…what?" Kenobi stammered, uncertainty on his face as he looked between the viewport at the moving stars as the ship turned and the deadly serious Grand Admiral. "Thrawn, I want to get away from Vader as much as you do, but there aren't any hyperspace lanes out that way, there's nothing charted or mapped out. If we jump to lightspeed and just…go, we could run into a star, or collide with a planet or-"

"There are no mapped hyperspace routes in the Unknown Regions either, and still we manage to travel between the stars," Thrawn said, his voice falling to a whisper as he leaned in closer to the Sith Lord. "As you mentioned earlier, the instability of the region makes defined mapping impossible, but there exist groups with the abilities to guide ships through hyperspace regardless." He paused, a hard look in his glowing eyes as he held Kenobi's gaze. "This is made possible through a connection with the Force, allowing these guides to detect obstacles and dangers before they are encountered and adjust their course accordingly."

"And you think I can do this!?" Obi-Wan scoffed with a nervous laugh. "Thrawn, I've never-"

"You have greater strength than those I have observed in the Unknown Regions," the Admiral insisted. "The application is not much different than the method you use in order to intercept blaster fire with your lightsaber." He paused, his jaw tightening when the uncertainty remained on Kenobi's face. "You felt a disturbance from across the galaxy. You know where we must go, and the hours we will save will give us a necessary lead on Darth Vader." Thrawn bowed his head. "Please. Take us to Batuu."

Obi-Wan was silent for a moment, his eyes roving over the pilot's console before he looked up to the viewport, the stars now still as the Chimaera finished its starboard turn. His teeth grinding together as he clenched his jaw, the uncertainty he felt vanished before grim determination as he laid his hands on the ship's controls.

"You know, Thrawn…" Kenobi drawled as he primed the hyperdrive. "The fact that you were willing to head jump by jump to an alternative route instead of just suggesting this at the start makes me think this some big secret."

"The navigators that facilitate lightspeed travel through the Unknown Regions are hardly a secret," Thrawn said calmly.

"No, but you're not one to not use your resources," Obi-Wan said pointedly. "It took pursuit by dear sweet Darth Vader for you to bring this out. That's not a resource, Thrawn, it's a last resort. And that just reeks of secrets." His hands tightened on the controls. "After I bring us to Batuu, I want to know what it is."

"We shall see…" Thrawn said with a non-committal shrug, though the sharp golden eyes of the Sith didn't miss the tension in the Admiral's jaw. "Though I suspect the nature of our mission to the Ascendancy will necessitate that."

Obi-Wan stared at him for a few moments more before he nodded, closed his eyes and bowed his head, and the deck shuddered as the Chimaera made the jump to lightspeed, the flares of star lines morphing into the swirl of hyperspace, the ship finally unimpeded by the invisible obstacles lining the defined lanes. Thrawn stood still and silent for a few minutes more, observing the welcome blue and white of hyperspace and the slight twitches of the meditative Sith's fingers on the controls, and with a sigh, he returned to his command chair.

"Sooooo…" Kanan said slowly as he looked around at the tense and silent bridge crew, the officers all clearly disquieted in the face of the unusual situation and seeming to wait on baited breath for orders from the Admiral that didn't come. "It seems like we've cleared the blockage…" He paused, a wry smirk on his lips. "By launching us clear into the unknown. I think your Commodore here's gonna have a stroke," he drawled as he laid a large hand on Faro's shoulder, and the woman was stunned enough to delay in batting the Jedi's hand away.

"It's bold, I'll give you that…" Hera muttered as she leaned to look over Thrawn's shoulder at the datapad with the ship's readouts. "But is it good enough to shake the Imperials?"

"Don't count on it," Ahsoka said before Thrawn could answer, the woman finally turning from her place at the viewport and striding down the command walkway. "Anakin Skywalker was the best pilot I've ever known. If anyone can follow us through the unknown, it's him."

"I agree that such a feat is well within his ability," Thrawn said quietly, his fingers steepling together. "But only within the defined boundaries of the Empire, where he could use hyperlane travel to his advantage. Out here," he said as he gestured to the viewport, "without specific travel parameters, we could go anywhere, which makes us considerably more difficult to track."

"He can do it," Ahsoka insisted, her jaw tight and her expression cold, but Thrawn's confidence was not shaken.

"This is not a matter of ability, Fulcrum," the Admiral said in a calm, almost soothing voice. "This is about the creative application of the Force."

"And you think Vader's incapable of that?" Ahsoka pressed, this time a sardonic smirk touching her lips. "Anakin was a general during the Clone Wars, he was a cunning Jedi Knight, and now, he's a Lord of the Sith. You think he can't be inventive with the Force?"

"I think he grew up in a region where interstellar travel is a safe and easy thing," Thrawn said flatly. "As I said, it is not the talent, but the application, and a lifetime of reliance upon technology to carry a ship across the stars will severely limit the ability to think outside that particular box." A slight smile touched the Admiral's lips, an echo of the one upon Ahsoka's face. "Your own Sith Lord was likewise committed to several hours of jump-by-jump travel to reach our destination because he did not perceive an alternative. I do not believe the thought will occur to Vader without being explicitly told it is possible."

"Well, it's logical, I'll give you that," Ahsoka muttered as she glanced over her shoulder at Kenobi in the pilot's seat. "But I've seen Anakin beat the odds more than once. I just hope that Vader doesn't find a way to defy your logic, Admiral."

"If he does, we will deal with it," Thrawn said evenly, his tone almost reassuring. "We are not defenseless."

"How did the Empire follow us anyway?" Hera asked, her arms crossing over her chest as she stared contemplatively at the deck. "We came here right from Lothal, how would they even know to follow you? You covered your tracks, didn't you?"

"I did," Thrawn said gravely. "But my defection could not remain secret forever." He frowned, the ridges of his forehead drawing together. "But I had hoped the Emperor would not discover it so quickly."

"So the Emperor is tracking you," Hera pointed out.

"A full sweep of the ship was completed before our departure from Lothal," Thrawn said. "All beacons were disabled and there are no tracking or homing devices aboard."

"So someone on the ship is leaking the information!" Hera snapped, and the expression on the Admiral's face became hard and cold.

"I trust my crew, Captain Syndulla."

"All of them?" Hera shot back. "There are thousands of people aboard this ship. I doubt you've even seen all of them, how can you say you trust them?"

"The Empire is large, cumbersome, and mired in politics," Thrawn said, a hard, disdainful edge in his voice that made Faro wince. "The officer corps are the only ones with the possibility of possessing the necessary connections to provide a viable leak. I trust my officers, Captain. All of them." He paused, a sardonic smile drifting across his face that Hera couldn't decide if it was amused or disdainful. "More than that," Thrawn said slowly, "our original mission was to the Kurost sector. The decision to travel to Batuu was impulsive and immediate. The crew was not informed of the change, nor would anyone have been able to send a transmission while we traveled through hyperspace." The wry smile upon the Chiss' thin lips became wider. "Which we had been traveling through until we were pulled out of it by our unidentified obstruction."

"Making Vader showing up when he did impossible if he was acting on information that a leak had been giving him," Ahsoka said with a groan, her eyes squeezed tightly shut as she pinched the bridge of her nose. "He's right. This didn't come from anyone on the Chimaera."

"So you're suggesting that Vader being on our tail is a coincidence?" Hera scoffed.

"It would certainly be an interesting coincidence, if that were the case," Thrawn said with a shrug.

"No…" Kanan muttered quietly, chewing on his lower lip in thought and taking a moment to realize that all eyes were on him, the subtle strands of glowing silver flashing in his eyes before he blinked away the swirl of the Force from his vision. "There's another explanation to Vader being here," Kanan finally said. "One that has nothing to do with us."

"Which is?" Hera asked, frowning at the Admiral when he tensed in his seat.

"It's the disturbance," Kanan said as he glanced over at Kenobi. "The Emperor felt it too, and he sent Vader to investigate."

"The disruption of hyperspace travel in the region would indeed account for our close proximity," Thrawn said thoughtfully, his vision unfocused for a moment before he looked up at Ahsoka. "You were able to sense his arrival. Could he sense us?"

"Obi-Wan is the most powerful Force sensitive on the ship, and he's extremely difficult to detect," Ahsoka explained. "Most of us are trained in concealing our presence. We've had to in order to survive." Her features hardened, a grimly serious expression on her face. "But it's not like we've been putting a lot of thought into concealment out here, and there are a lot of Force sensitives on this ship right now. He felt us," Ahsoka said firmly. "I'm sure of it."

"With all due respect, Admiral," Faro said with a hard edge in her voice, "none of this matters."

"Of course it matters," Hera said with strained patience, giving the Commodore on Thrawn's other side a tight smile that was met with an irritated glare.

"The Empire is after us!" Faro snapped. "We knew they would come after us, the exact reason at this point is trivial!" Hera began to argue, and was swiftly silenced when Faro swiped her hand through the air and pointed at the viewport. "What matters," she said, much calmer and much colder, "is that someone went through great lengths to disrupt travel way out here, and it's not like this region sees a lot of traffic. Imperial records have the hyperlane we were using seeing about three ships a week." She paused, her eyes narrowing and her lips pressing together when she saw Thrawn's eyes on her. "We need to know who's doing this, and the reasons for it."

"That is indeed a mystery we must solve," Thrawn said quietly, giving Faro a faint, approving smile before his gaze once again flicked to the viewport. "I have suspicions, but we will need more information before we can draw any sort of a conclusion."

"What are you thinking?" Kanan asked, and the Chiss' features hardened.

"Nothing good…" Thrawn muttered. "And nothing I am prepared to share. I do not wish to interfere with your own analysis."

"Even if your suspicions are right?" Hera asked. "Obviously you have information we don't."

"Perhaps…" Thrawn said quietly, a faint smile coming to his lips. "But just as the reliance on hyperspace travel prevented Obi-Wan from considering using the Force to navigate space, your own background may allow you to provide insight I will be unable to reach on my own."

"That's unlikely…" Kanan scoffed. "You don't miss anything, or we would have at least had a fighting chance against you."

"On the contrary," Thrawn said as he glanced up at the Jedi. "My analysis often leads me to the correct conclusions, but a very great deal evades my detection. I value the input of others in order to compile a more complete picture of the situation. Many of the tactics I employed against your rebel cell were modified from ideas suggested by my crew."

"I see…" Ahsoka said as she glanced around the bridge and down into the crew pits at the officers there who had repeatedly offered their ideas or asked questions that most Imperials would have seen as insubordinate. "I was wondering how you got so much of your crew to turn against the Empire and come with you. I think I understand now."

"Nobody here turned against the Empire!" Faro snapped, though the slight waver in her voice undermined her outrage with uncertainty. Ahsoka waited for the woman to expand on the idea, to finish the explanation she began, but Faro remained silent, her eyes fixed straight ahead at the viewport as the swirl of hyperspace collapsed back down into the black of space, only the faint glimmer of a distant planet the only indication that they had arrived.

"Is that Batuu out there?" Kanan asked, his eyes fixed not on the viewport, but on the shuddering form of the Sith Lord in the pilot's seat. "Hey, Kenobi!" he called across the bridge. "You couldn't have brought us in a little bit closer?"

"It is just as well he did not," Thrawn said as he stood from his command chair. "It is possible that there are hostile beings on the surface. The arrival of a Star Destroyer may be counterproductive."

"You don't want them knowing we have a way to get past their blockage," Hera quietly pointed out, and the Admiral's expression hardened. "With Vader out there in another ship, it'll be easy for them to mistakenly assume that only one Star Destroyer tried to come through. They must have an idea how long it'll take to get through the obstruction."

"Interesting that you would assume the beings responsible for the hyperlane disruption are on Batuu," Thrawn said calmly, but there was an icy edge in his voice that made Hera instinctively shiver.

"That's the only thing that makes any sense," Hera said. "The disturbance Kenobi felt was on Batuu. It would be some coincidence if the blockage was unrelated."

"And I don't think it's a mistake he brought us out so far from the planet…" Kanan said thoughtfully, the telltale glow of silver in his eyes as his focus remained fixed on the Sith.

"Ahsoka…" Obi-Wan said, his voice distant and weary as he slumped back in the pilot's seat, his hands dropping from the controls. "Any sign of Skywalker?"

"…none," Ahsoka said after a moment of concentrated silence, her eyes narrowing as she glanced quickly at the Grand Admiral for the inevitable gloating, but found no such thing in the hard edges of his face.

"Good," Obi-Wan said as he swiftly rose to his feet, and had to catch himself on the back of the seat as his legs proved to be unsteady and his head began to swim. Snarling in irritation, the chill of the Dark Side swiftly banishing the weakness from his body, he swiftly turned and strode down the command walkway. "I feel the disturbance," he said as he approached the Admiral. "Whatever's causing it is down there, right now. We need to go."

"Agreed…" Thrawn muttered, his gaze swiftly sweeping over the bridge before he drew up to his full height, his hands clasped behind his back. "Commodore, rig the Chimaera for darkness and stealth. Keep a sharp watch, passive sensors only."

"Yes sir," Faro said crisply. "I'll contact you with reports of anything we find." At that, Thrawn's features hardened.

"You will do no such thing, Commodore," Thrawn said. "A transmission will betray the Chimaera's presence to anybody listening in. I am not to be contacted except in the case of an extreme emergency." He turned away from Faro before the stammering Commodore had the opportunity to give voice to the objections she obviously had and fixed his unsettling gaze on Hera. "Captain Syndulla, I want you and your two best pilots to have the Ghost and two starfighters prepared to launch. If it becomes necessary for us to chase down someone attempting to flee, I wish to be prepared." His eyes briefly flicked to Kenobi. "The Gemini will be suitable to the task."

"No!" Obi-Wan said firmly, his entire body seeming to tense beneath his robes. "Under no circumstances-"

"You're right that they're among the best pilots we have," Hera said almost flippantly as she cast an amused glance at the Sith Lord. "I'll make sure they're ready to go." She gave Obi-Wan a coy smile and laid her hand upon his shoulder as she turned to leave the bridge. "Part of being in Thrawn's crew," she drawled. "He's very good at managing his resources…" She turned away before she caught the vicious, warning glare on Kenobi's face and walked down the rear walkway toward the turbolift, Kanan following behind her for only a few steps before a cold hand wrapping around his wrist sent shivers down his spine.

"Not you, Jarrus," Thrawn said in his monotonous tone. "You are needed to accompany us to Batuu."

"I…what?" Kanan asked, looking between the waiting Hera and the imposing Chiss. "Uh, I don't feel this disturbance, Thrawn…"

"Neither does Fulcrum, but she will be accompanying us as well," Thrawn said, and from the look on Ahsoka's face, it was clear that this was the first she'd heard of it. "A great deal must be done, and we have a very short time to accomplish it," Thrawn calmly explained. "Whoever is monitoring the hyperlane obstruction will report the Star Destroyer to their overseer. That gives us a limited time to discover the nature of the disturbance and collect what information we are able before they pull out of the region."

"And since jump-by-jump travel to Batuu would take us twenty-six hours," Ahsoka muttered, "they need to pull out within that time."

"Assuming the obstruction causes a similar or greater delay, yes," Thrawn agreed. "Though that time frame could be considerably shorter, depending on the length of the hyperspace lane that has been successfully disrupted. Our time is limited. We must move quickly."

"Alright," Kenobi drawled as he fell into step beside the Admiral, the Chiss' long stride taking him swiftly down the command walkway toward the turbolift. "What's the plan?"

"I have a freighter," Thrawn said briskly as they stepped into the turbolift, all of them having to squeeze in tightly to fit into the small space. "On Batuu, you and Fulcrum will investigate the disturbance, while Jarrus and I will discover everything we can about the situation."

"The Umbra will be faster," Kenobi said.

"The Umbra is certain to draw a great deal of attention," Thrawn quickly added. "We are best served by remaining anonymous for as long as possible."

"Alright, we'll take your ship, then," Obi-Wan said with a shrug. "But I'm flying."

"I would not suggest otherwise," Thrawn said with a slight smile on his face, and with a soft hiss, the turbolift doors slid open to the Star Destroyer's primary hangar. Hera stepped out first, swiftly escaping the claustrophobic space before the others filed out, Kanan quickly making his way to her side in front of Fulcrum, the Sith Lord, and the Grand Admiral.

"I don't have to go," Kanan whispered. "If you need me-"

"Think I can't handle my ship on my own, love?" Hera teased, a playful smirk playing on her lips when she reached up to pat the Jedi's cheek. "I'll be fine, and it sounds like they need you." Her gaze hardened as she glanced over at Thrawn. "And I'm not the one that needs looking after…" she whispered, her hand grabbing for the Jedi's and tightening around it. "Thrawn's taken a lot from me. You be sure he doesn't take you from me too."

"He won't…" Kanan said absently as he watched Ahsoka and Obi-Wan follow Thrawn toward an old, beat-up looking freighter that was parked comically beside a sleek, pristine Lambda shuttle. "Be safe," Kanan said as his attention snapped back to him, a gentle smile on his lips as he gazed down at the Twi'lek, and standing up on her toes, Hera planted a swift kiss to his lips before she turned for her ship, the two of them heading their separate ways.


"Those are new…"

Obi-Wan glanced beside him at the Chiss, tried to follow his line of sight out the viewport as he brought the ship down toward the Blackspire Outpost on Batuu, but the lighting coming in from the system's three suns was making it harder to see where those glowing red eyes were focused.

"What's new?" he asked, and Thrawn straightened up in the copilot's seat and pointed to a wooded area east of the outpost where three houses stood, hemmed in by dense trees and far enough away to be secluded. Even from their distance, it was plain to see that these houses were larger and better built than the homes within the outpost.

"They were not here the last time," Thrawn continued. "I wonder why they chose to build among the trees when other, more easily cleared ground surrounds the outpost."

"It's been a long time since you were here, right?" Kanan asked, a wry smirk quirking his lips. "Though I suppose if this was just typical expansion, they wouldn't be so far out, huh?"

"Indeed…" Thrawn muttered, his eyes narrowing as he unfastened his flight restraints and leaned over the console, as if the slight adjustment allowed him a better view. "I suspect it is for purposes of concealment. Do you note the additions to that stone tree?"

Both Kanan and Ahsoka unstrapped as well, standing from their seats behind the pilot and the copilot to crowd in the walkway and look out the viewport where the Chiss was pointing. Hundreds of the black, petrified stone trees towered over everything in and around the outpost, presumably the origin of the small town's name, and at first, they saw nothing, but as Kenobi brought them in closer, they saw what the Admiral did when the ship's scanners displayed an overlay of the area. Complex electronics had been woven along the thick stone branches of a tree at the edge of the three homes' clearing, carefully concealed from sight that, apparently, wasn't Chiss.

"That's a lot of hardware for a place as remote as this," Ahsoka said. "Especially when there isn't anything else in the area that even registers on the scanners."

"I believe it is part of a communications triad," Thrawn said, a beat of silence in the cockpit before Thrawn looked back and saw the lack of understanding on Kanan and Ahsoka's faces. "It is a system of sending signals over long distances used in the Unknown Regions."

"Part, but not all of it?" Kenobi asked, glancing at the Admiral as he circled the ship over the outpost. "I assume this triad is in three parts, yeah? There are three houses."

"Indeed, but such a communications array requires a much greater distance between the poles to be effective," Thrawn explained, his eyes sweeping over the landscape of the outpost and the surrounding terrain, his gaze settling on the landing field where several ships sat tightly packed together in the cramped space. "It is certainly a possibility another of the triad poles is within one of those ships."

"That's an awful lot of ships for a planet that supposedly sees only three ships a week…" Ahsoka mused. "There's definitely something going on here."

"Then it was awfully polite of them to leave us a place to park our ship," Kenobi drawled, the freighter banking hard starboard and sending Thrawn, Ahsoka and Kanan tumbling into the seats, the Togruta landing unceremoniously on top of the Jedi and he deftly positioned the unwieldy freighter and landed perfectly in the extremely tight spot at the edge of the landing field.

"Those houses are awfully suspicious," Obi-Wan said as he unstrapped his restraints, a wry grin on his face as he watched the other three awkwardly right themselves.

"At the very least, it is a good place to start," Thrawn said as he adjusted the black, loose fitting tunic shirt he wore, a stark contrast to the striking white of his Admiral's uniform. "Can you feel the disturbance?"

"I can."

"Are you able to use that feeling to track it to its origin?" Thrawn asked, and the Sith Lord nodded.

"Of course I can," Obi-Wan said with a roll of his eyes as he stood, tapped Ahsoka on the shoulder and beaconed her to follow him. "I assume you'll be making trouble in town?"

"It is not my intention to make trouble," Thrawn said flatly, and again, the Sith Lord rolled his eyes, the teasing comment having gone clear over the Chiss' head. "Though given the current situation, gathering information may very well lead to…complications."

"Well, I'm sure you're prepared to deal with that possibility," Obi-Wan drawled, patting Kanan on the shoulder as he passed him. "We'll try to finish up quickly so we can come help you."

"Warrior's fortune be with you," Thrawn said, and with a slight but genuine smile, Obi-Wan strode out of the cockpit and down the ramp, Ahsoka close on his heels. Taking a deep breath of crisp, cool air, he closed his eyes, felt the stirrings of the Force, faint but distinct, and grabbed hold of it, feeling the current around his fingers grow icy and taut.

"There," Obi-Wan said quietly, pointing out toward the woods and opening his eyes. "That's our disturbance."

"Exactly in the direction of those three houses," Ahsoka said, her hands resting on the hilts of her lightsabers at her hip. "There are other Force sensitives here. Can you feel them?"

"The root of the disturbance, I'll bet…" the Sith Lord grumbled, and looking at Ahsoka beside him, she nodded, and the two of them were off, the Force aiding their speed as they sprinted into the woods, the two leaping over large, raised roots and swinging from low branches as they went, not a single obstacle in their path slowing them down in the slightest as they made their way through the thick woods peppered with the tall black spires of petrified ancient trees.

It was colder out there than it had been on the landing field, the thick foliage blocking the light of the three suns and the Force running cold with uncertainty and anxiety and fear the closer they drew to their destination, the source alien and obscured and difficult to read, but the emotion was clear and tangible. They stopped when they had come within a hundred feet of the clearing, the two swiftly climbing into the trees and resting on large branches high above the ground, neither of them winded from the run, their breath so silent they couldn't hear the other next to them over the faint whisper of the wind.

"Twenty, I think," Ahsoka said quietly, and the Sith nodded.

"Not all of them are combatants," Kenobi added.

"No…" Ahsoka agreed. "Hostages?"

"I think they must be," Obi-Wan said as he closed his eyes and felt at the choppy, murky waters of a Force disturbed. "I can't tell how many, but we're in the right place. There's no doubt this place is the cause of the disturbance I felt."

"It's incredible…" Ahsoka muttered, turning a slight smile on the Sith. "Whatever's in there isn't terribly strong, but you managed to feel it all the way across the galaxy."

"There might be a reason for that," Obi-Wan said, and with a scoff and a roll of her eyes, Ahsoka made to shove the Sith, and stopped before she got that far when she saw the hard, serious edge on the man's face. "The touch on the Force is new," he quietly, "but the mind isn't. I think our hostages might be Chiss."

Ahsoka hissed in a sharp breath, her eyes narrowing as she looked out toward the houses and reached out with the Force, felt the resulting stir and a sense of a familiar, unreadable mind, alien and opaque in the same way that she had grown accustomed to over the past week. These minds, though young, had a very similar feel to Thrawn.

"This can't be coincidence," Ahsoka whispered. "The blocked hyperspace lane, our journey to help save Thrawn's people from an invading force, and now captive Chiss…" Hard resolve tightened her jaw, her lightsabers snapping to her hands as she crouched lower on the branch. "So, what's the plan? Can you feel exactly where the Chiss are?"

"The leftmost house," Obi-Wan muttered. "And the plan, dear, is to sneak in, secure the hostages, and do what I do best. You," he said, pointing in the direction of the clearing, "will wait for my signal and then make as big a mess as you can. I'll catch them from behind and-"

A swift, sharp spear of cold lanced through the Force, terror and dread so strong it threatened to knock them both from their perch.

"Your disturbance," Ahsoka gasped, and Kenobi gave a grim nod.

"It is. Move."

Without another word, they dropped down from their tree and immediately went their separate ways, Ahsoka disappearing into the brush to the right and the Sith Lord veering off to the left and melting into the shadows of the forest. He circled around the clearing until the house he identified as his target was closest, and with a sharp, readying breath, he cloaked himself in the Force and dashed into the clearing. It only took a few seconds for him to cross them empty space and press himself up against the cold stone of the house, easily avoiding the few alien creatures that strode purposefully across the small courtyard between the houses.

He only got a quick glance at the aliens, imposing creatures with wide shoulders, angled brow ridges, a tapered skull and deep-set eyes, creatures he had never seen before, and thought that these could be the aliens that Thrawn was hunting. A small smile twisted the edge of his lips as he riffled his fingers through the currents of the Force and found that, intimidating as these beings were, they were not the cause of the Force sensitivity that Ahsoka had identified earlier.

A sharp cry from inside the hut snapped his attention to the task at hand, a scream that sounded like it came from a terrified child more than anything else, and timing his movements just right, he ran around to the front of the house, pushed open the door to slip inside, and swiftly shut it behind him.

He was immediately seen by the two alien creatures standing inside.

Quickly reaching out with his hand, his fingers curling with the tension of his arm, the two creatures were wrenched into the air before they had the chance to move, guttural choked sputtering coming from their throats instead of the shouted alarm they intended. With a swift slice of his hand through the air, both the aliens' heads wrenched violently sideways, the sharp, wet snap of their necks breaking dull but audible over the sound of the crying and terrified shouting and the scuffling from the other room. Lightning arced from his fingertips, striking the dead bodies with such intensity that exposed skin began to blister and burn, the electronics in their armor beginning to smoke as they shorted out, the Sith Lord quietly bracing himself to defend against the possible explosion that Thrawn had warned them to expect upon their deaths, if these were indeed the Grysk.

But no explosion came, the device wired into the armor having either been disabled, or simply not present to begin with.

Obi-Wan remained still and silent for a moment, the bodies remaining suspended in the air as he waited for others to come examine, but whatever it was that they were doing in there seemed to be holding the entirely of their attention. With a malicious grin, the Sith Lord slowly lowered the bodies to the ground and silently stalked to the entry to the other room. Taking a deep breath and feeling the frigid Dark Side fill his lungs, he peeked around the corner and saw eight large, cylindrical pods laying in two even rows at the edge of the room, three of them closed and active with blinking lights and displays while three more aliens roughly handled five frantic, blue skinned Chiss toward the other pods.

The Sith Lord's eyes narrowed. He had the faint sense of it before, but seeing it now sent a flash of searing fury through him. These Chiss were children, girls no older than ten years old, the youngest one slung over one of the alien's shoulder far smaller than the others, likely no older than five or six.

For just an instant, the girls stopped crying, their terrified screams ceased, and five pairs of glowing red eyes snapped over to the door to stare at the Sith Lord. Force sensitive, Obi-Wan thought as he stepped around the corner to stand in the doorway just as the alien belatedly turned to face the intruder. All five of these girls were Force sensitive.

A lightsaber flew from his belt just as he extended his hand, and one of the girls that the alien held tightly by her arm swiftly ducked, and with a malicious grin and a snap of his fingers, the blue blade ignited, slicing effortlessly through the arm at the elbow, just over the girl's head, the room reverberating with the pained shriek of the alien as he grasped at the stub of his arm and staggered off balance. Released from the alien's grasp, the free Chiss ran behind one of the snarling creatures as he turned and raised his weapon, catching the little girl as she fell from where she had before been caried upon his shoulder, and without delay, she took the smaller girl and dove behind one of the pods.

These girls, Kenobi realized with swell of satisfaction, saw the future.

A weapon fired at him, the bolts a deep, unstable green unlike the blaster fire he was accustomed to, though unlike the Chiss weapon which his lightsaber was unable to deflect, these bolts of energy bounced easily off his lightsaber as the second blade flew from his belt and ignited in a burst of red. The lightsaber arched through the air, effortlessly intercepting the alien's shots and turning them right back to their origin and to the third creature before he even had the opportunity to throw his two captive Chiss to the ground and draw his own weapon.

Green blaster fire sizzled as it struck hard armor, the aliens jerking as they were struck, and the remaining Chiss girl managed to wrest her arm free from her captor's slack grasp and dive with the other girls into concealment behind the row of open pods. A deafening roar reverberated through the air, the ground shook beneath their feet, and the two aliens, for the briefest moment, looked sharply toward the origin of the noise, a flash of rage and fear sending a wave of darkness through the Force that the Sith Lord gleefully took hold of.

With the children safely out of the way, the thrown blue saber froze in the air, swiftly began spinning, and slicing horizontally in a wide arc around the room, the two aliens dropped to the ground, their severed heads falling moments later beside them. He shot a quick glance at the alien he had wounded first, now slumped dead against the wall when only moments before, he had been screaming, and splaying his fingers out before him, he directed the storm of Force lightning to strike these three bodies as well, the same electrical shortages occurring within these sets of armor as had happened to their comrades in the foyer.

As the crackling of electricity slowly died, the sounds of shouting and shooting from outside became audible. Looking over to the back of the room, Obi-Wan could see one of the Chiss girls peeking up over the pod, her face mostly hidden by the pod she hid behind, but her eyes were wide, curious, and not a little bit afraid. Snatching the thrumming red lightsaber out of the air and shutting the weapon off, he gave the girl a warm, gentle smile.

"Ch'ah'raszah Chiss'ch'at," the Sith Lord said in Cheunh, which Thrawn had told him was accented but serviceable. Good enough, it seemed, that the girl's eyes grew impossibly wider, the fear entirely gone and replaced with relief and hope so overwhelming it rippled through the Force. Beside her, three of the other girls poked their heads up as well, as if uncertain that they had actually heard their native tongue. "Retan'cehah'non," he continued, laying a finger over his lips to emphasize the point. "Csarcah sah'csah."

The girls nodded, all four laying their hands over their lips and once again disappearing behind the pod to hide as they had been told, and with that, Obi-Wan turned and ran out of the room, a gesture of his hand throwing open the door as he ran into the light streaming in and out into the courtyard where war had broken out.

The tall, black petrified tree that they had identified from space as having been wired with electronics had been broken, large pieces of it lay shattered across the ground and broken, frayed wires from the complex electronics sputtering with sparks. Five of the same aliens he had confronted earlier hid behind the other two houses or used the broken stone tree as cover as they fired across the courtyard where a green and white lightsaber spun effortlessly in Ahsoka's hands. A wide, malicious grin spread across the Sith Lord's face as he shook out his hands and looked at the back of the heads of the aliens that hadn't noticed he was there.

Raising one hand, the two aliens hiding behind the house closest to Ahsoka, were yanked into the air, their weapons dropping from their hands as they reached up to claw at whatever it was that had them, only to find nothing was there. Spinning so rapidly it blurred into a green disc of light, Ahsoka's lightsaber snapped out to slice through one of the bodies, vertically cutting it in two, and called back to her hand, the weapon passed through the second body on its way back, the saber returned to her before the four halves of the aliens fell back to the ground.

Extending his other hand, the Sith Lord caught the last three aliens with a barrage of Force lightning before they even managed to turn to look at their slain comrades. He closed his hand into a fist, the electricity ending before the alien stopped screaming, and Ahsoka rushed forward, grabbing hold of one of the groaning aliens and swiftly restraining him.

"Twenty, you said," Obi-Wan drawled. "Your count was off. You getting rusty, Fulcrum?" Without looking at him, without saying a word, Ahsoka gestured toward one of the houses as she began restraining a second alien. Looking quickly back at where she pointed, a wry smirk touched Kenobi's lips when he saw three blackened, overlapping burned circles on the ground, fine piles of smoldering ash the only thing left behind to explain what had happened. "You're wasting your time with them," he called back to Ahsoka as she moved to restrain the last of her prisoners.

"I think Thrawn would disagree," Ahsoka grumbled, the alien she was working on hissing as she tightened the restraints. "He said he's never seen a Grysk. I think he'd appreciate prisoners to interrogate."

"He would," Obi-Wan agreed. "If these are indeed Grysk. We don't know what they look like any more than he does." He shrugged. "Regardless, he's just going to have to settle for bodies." Ahsoka shot him an irritated glance, and before she had the chance to shoot the Sith a retort, she bit out a curse as she dragged her prisoner up to a sitting position, looked into his face, and dropped the limp body with another snarled curse, the alien falling lifeless to the ground.

"They must have a way to kill themselves if they get captured…" Ahsoka grumbled as she looked at her other two now dead prisoners. "It would make sense, since they're willing to go to extreme lengths to keep themselves hidden." Again, she gestured to the burned rings on the ground. "They opened fire on me and I hit their shots back at them. I got one of them in the head." She scoffed as she shook her head. "Thrawn wasn't kidding. He wasn't dead a minute before he exploded and took out his two closet buddies with him."

"Well, that's inconvenient for them…"

"So is the fact that we can disable the explosive mechanism with electricity," Ahsoka said with a wry smirk, tossing a quick glance over her shoulder at the gory mess left behind by the two bisected aliens. "Or by completely destroying their armor…there are Grysk, Obi-Wan. I've little doubt about that."

"Maybe so…" Kenobi muttered, and the smile disappeared from Ahsoka's face, her attention returning to the Sith.

"Are the hostages safe?"

"Mm." Obi-Wan cast a glance back at the house where he had left the young Force sensitives. "Eight of them."

"Well…" Ahsoka drawled, that sly smirk coming to her lips once again that reminded Kenobi so keenly of Quinlan Vos' lopsided grin. "Guess I really am losing my touch. I was off by one, there were twenty-one beings here."

"I won't make fun of you too much," Obi-Wan said with a shrug, and as Ahsoka walked past him toward the house with the hostages, he swiftly reached out and grabbed her wrist to stop her, every shred of amusement gone from his face. "They're children, Ahsoka…" he said quietly. "All of them."

"Children…" Ahsoka repeated, grim resolve tightening her jaw as she looked at the hut, a flurry of possibilities sending her thoughts into a spiral of grim and sinister reasons for the reason these Grysk were kidnapping Force sensitive children. "I'm going to check the other two houses," Ahsoka said absently. "Just in case there's anyone else hiding out."

Obi-Wan nodded, and when Ahsoka turned away, lost in thought, he returned to the house, the air inside considerably cooler than the humid air heated by Batuu's three suns. When he stepped inside the room he had left the Chiss, the girls weren't hiding as he had told them too, but peeking up over the pod, one of the girls not even looking in his direction as she intently studied the blinking buttons on a control board at its base. Apparently, whatever form their gift of the Force took, they had known they were no longer in danger. Be it the foresight that they had demonstrated before or something else, the Sith didn't know, but before this was all over, he'd have the full measure of these children.

"Is it just the eight of you?" Obi-Wan asked in Cheunh, and the girls collectively jumped as if they were startled by the sound of their own language. A lopsided smile slid across the Sith Lord's face. They probably were startled to hear an alien speak the reclusive Chiss language. "You five and the three in the pods?"

"Can you get them out?" the youngest one asked, her voice shaking and her eyes continuously drifting to the bodies of the dead Grysks on the ground. With a flick of his wrist, the Sith Lord sent the bodies skidding out of the room and out of sight, and the girls swiftly ducked back down to hide behind the pod.

"I moved them, they're dead, I promise," Obi-Wan said as he walked toward the pod and examined the control panel. "Is this a stasis pod?"

"They put us in to move us," one of the older girls said. "It makes us sleep."

"And makes it harder for others to detect you," Kenobi muttered with a nod, his fingers drifting over the blinking buttons of the control panel, his eyes narrowed as he studied the alien script etched beneath the row of indicators. "Do any of you know how this thing works?"

"I do," one of the older girls said before she shrank back, her impulsive confidence breaking into uncertainty. "I think…"

"What are you?" the youngest of the girls squeaked when Obi-Wan stepped away from the pod's control panel to allow the girl to step closer to study it. He looked down, found four sets of wide glowing red eyes looking expectantly up at him, and belatedly realized that it was entirely likely that these girls had only ever seen their own people and the foreign, alien faces of their captors.

"I'm human," Obi-Wan said quietly, kneeling to bring himself down to their level. "But like I said before, I'm working with the Chiss. In fact," he drawled with a wry smirk, "the ship we came on is commanded by a Chiss." An excited ripple traveled through the girls as they whispered to each other, a nervous thrill lighting up the Force, and with a soft hiss and a gentle chime, the pod began to depressurize, the girl at the control panel giving a small, triumphant exclamation before she moved quickly to the next pod. It only took a minute for the pod's opaque face to slide open, and the girls quickly swarmed the pod and dragged their companion out, carefully lowering the groggy girl to the ground and quietly explaining the situation when she was alert enough.

They had just managed to pull the last of the girls from the pods when they suddenly went scrambling for cover, Obi-Wan's hand instinctively shooting for his lightsaber before he realized with an amused chuckle what had the girls riled up. A few seconds later, Ahsoka came into the room, her eyes sweeping the room quickly before she approached the Sith Lord.

"All clear," she reported, a faint smile coming to her lips as she looked out of the corner of her eye to see a pair of glowing red eyes peeking from around the edge of one of the pods. "I figured Thrawn would want to study that triad device they have stored in the other house."

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised that he was right about that one too…" Obi-Wan grumbled, flashing a quick smile to the girls who were trying very hard and failing to be inconspicuous in their spying on the newcomer. Slowly, carefully, the girls stood, uncertain as they shuffled out from their hiding place. "I do hope you disabled it. The last thing we need is the damn thing transmitting to whatever reinforcements they have that something's gone wrong."

"I didn't need to. Destroying that tree they had wired up shut the whole thing down. But," Ahsoka said with a grim smile, "I'd think that the triad system shutting down would be enough to alert their reinforcements."

"Didn't Quinlan teach you to never say shit like that?" he chided. "Saying those things makes them happen."

"As a matter of fact, he did teach me that," Ahsoka said, a touch of mock petulance in both her voice and face. "But he always went ahead and said those things anyway. Kept things interesting, he said."

"Well, that does sound like him…" Obi-Wan conceded as he looked down at the small hand that had wound a tight fist around his robes, the youngest of the Chiss children hiding behind him as she looked up at Ahsoka, the other girls less obviously frightened, but still keeping safely behind the Sith. "Ch'a ch'acevi," he said to the girls, shooting Ahsoka a devious grin. "Cheunh lah'ch'can'vah ch'at'tasn'ah."

Ahsoka rolled her eyes, uncertain of what he had said but absolutely sure it was some level of sarcastic, and before she had the chance to retort, the Force ran cold, sharp and urgent with danger, and each and every one of them drew up, their backs stiff and their heads swiftly turning in perfect unison to look in the same direction.

"It's Kanan," Ahsoka said tightly. "Something's happened."

"So why are you still here?" Obi-Wan drawled, the levity in his tone undermined by the tightness of the feel of him in the Force. "Go on, get out of here. The girls and I will be fine."

"Are you going to bring them back to the ship?"

"No, I think not…" the Sith Lord said slowly, his eyes going distant as he looked up toward the ceiling. "I get the feeling that might be a bad idea. We'll stay right here. I can deal with whatever trouble comes our way."

With a tight nod, Ahsoka sprinted out of the house and into the woods, traveling as fast as she was able toward the Black Spire Outpost.


"So why did you join the Empire?"

Kanan tried not to shudder when those eerie, glowing red eyes shifted to glance at him, but he did anyway. Rubbing at the back of his neck and looking back at their parked speeder bikes, the Jedi knew it was a poor effort to hide how unsettled he was, and worse, he knew the Chiss saw it. Thankfully, Thrawn didn't say anything about it, only went back to observing the outpost as they leisurely made their way down the wide avenue toward the cantina at the far end.

"My people exiled me," Thrawn said flatly, and said nothing more, as if that was explanation enough. It wasn't.

"That doesn't really answer the question, do it?" Kanan scoffed, and this time when the glowing eyes fixed upon him, he didn't flinch. "I didn't ask why you were unemployed. I asked why you joined the Empire instead of doing literally anything else."

"What else would I have done, Jarrus?" Thrawn calmly asked, and the Jedi snorted in disbelief, and then quietly decided that the Admiral wasn't being glib, only stalling for time to consider how he should answer.

"Oh, I don't know," Kanan said with a shrug. "Gardening? I hear gardening's nice."

"I am a warrior, Jarrus. Gardening is hardly a constructive use of my abilities." The words were flat, the tone expressionless, but Kanan could see a faint smile on the Chiss' lips.

"So that's it?" Kanan asked. "You just went somewhere your talents could be put to use?"

This time, Thrawn didn't answer with any sort of reflexive, stalling question, only slightly lowered his gaze, his eyes still sweeping over their surroundings and taking in every detail, but Kanan could see his jaw working as he chewed at the inside of his cheek.

"I was exiled," Thrawn said again, quitter this time, "but the Defense Council also sent me with a mission. I was to make contact with the Empire, which was reasonably new at the time, and learn all I could. I was then to return, and we would assess the Empire's potential as an asset for the next time the Grysk threatened the Ascendancy." He shot a quick glance at the slack-jawed Jedi, and shrugged. "The Emperor offered me a position in the Navy, and I believed the opportunity to learn about the Empire from the inside was too good an opportunity to pass up."

"Oh…" Kanan said, a slight, devious smile sliding across his face as he finally understood what drove this man, his misgivings about the tenuous alliance with this Imperial Grand Admiral evaporating like mist exposed to sunlight. "So you were never with the Empire at all because your heart was with your people." Thrawn said nothing, only gave a curt nod, but the twitch at the corner of his eye didn't escape Kanan's notice. "Well…" the Jedi drawled, his hands clasping behind his head as he sniffed the air at the waft of exotic scents coming from a line of food vendors lining the avenue. "You've been away for over a decade on a mission that should have taken…what? A few months? A year? No wonder your girlfriend might not be happy to see you, running away to join a foreign military is terribly unfaithful…"

"Do you speak Meese Caulf?" Thrawn asked evenly, and Kanan felt immediately thrown off balance by how swiftly the subject had been changed when he had expected to get at least something of a rise out of the Admiral. Foolishly so, he admitted when he regained his bearings. He had been dealing with Thrawn long enough to know that nothing really got to him.

"No, I don't."

"There is a possibility that the bartender will remember me from my last visit," Thrawn said as he gestured to the cantina as they came upon it. "I will speak. You observe."

"You say that like you won't be observing…" Kanan muttered as he turned to look at a thin faced, predatory alien they passed at the edge of a large courtyard the cantina bordered, a clawed hand touching a long knife on his belt as he very obviously eyed them.

"You have methods of observation not available to me," Thrawn muttered in response.

"Yeah, well, at the moment I'm thinking that we're being watched," Kanan growled through clenched teeth, and to his vast annoyance, a thin smile spread across the Chiss' face.

"Indeed, we are," Thrawn said, and without another word, he opened the door of the cantina and stepped inside.

The establishment was dimly lit, the windows closed or covered with only small gaps allowing light to filter in, and in a darker environment, the Chiss' red eyes seemed to glow so much brighter, so noticeable that nearly all of the patrons of the mostly full cantina turned to look at the newcomers. A flicker of wariness and uncertainty rippled through the Force, but to Kanan, the only feeling that mattered was the sudden and prolonged flash of surprise that echoed the feel he had gotten from the thin faced alien just outside. The same species, the Jedi noted with a grim smirk, of the ten aliens that sat at two tables in the corner of the room, their eyes wide and their posture stiff as they leaned over and spoke in hushed hisses. One had even gripped another's arm tightly as he spoke, the feel of surprise coming from them slowly shifting into one of anxiety and planning.

Like they were preparing for an attack.

"Thrawn…" Kanan whispered to the Chiss. "They-"

"I see them," Thrawn calmly interrupted, his pace never faltering as he wove between the tables toward the bar, the patrons returned to their meals now that the fleeting interest in the newcomers had passed. All except the aliens in the corner. "We have a few minutes, I believe. The Darshi are not reported to be hostile to outsiders. It will take a moment for their thoughts to become action."

"The…what?" Kanan asked, resisting the temptation to look over at the aliens in question, instead focusing on the feel of them in the Force, as halting and anxious as before, wild and chaotic, though that feeling was slowly forming into something more organized, more planned. Thrawn's assessment was probably right, given how the usual warnings that tightened the Force had yet to manifest, but Kanan's hand dropped casually to his lightsaber anyway.

"Good morning," Thrawn said as he leaned over the bar, his arm resting upon the polished surface, and the large human bartender looked up and jumped, the expression on his face a mix between puzzlement and recognition, and Kanan felt the Force pull tight with bitterness and anger and sudden suspicion. Kanan scoffed. Clearly the man remembered Thrawn, and whatever those memories were, they didn't seem pleasant. Belatedly, Kanan noted that Thrawn spoke Basic to the man, not Meese Caulf, as he had asked about earlier, and a wide, knowing grin slowly spread across his face. It was, indeed, a quick and dirty trick to change the entire course of the conversation.

"You!" the bartender said in a low growl that would have been intimidating had his entire being not been laced with an almost timid panic. "The other, from before," he snapped. "Is he with you?"

"No," Thrawn said dismissively. "I am told he died some years ago."

"Good!" the bartender bit out, the slightest touch of relief upon his face before his features hardened again. "Have you come once again to deal with supposed oppression?"

"Do you wish for my help?" Thrawn asked, his head tilting and the ghost of an amused smile on his lips.

"Do I have a choice?" the bartender shot back, and this time, there was a definite look of amusement on the Chiss' face.

"Perhaps…" Thrawn quietly mused. "What oppression do you speak of?" For just a moment, the bartender hesitated, his shoulders slumping as he glanced off to the side at the two tables where the aliens sat conversing in swift, hushed tones, their entire group seeming to become more frantic by the moment.

"The newcomers to Batuu…" the bartender said in a hushed voice as he leaned over the bar to bring himself closer to the Chiss. "The Thinfaces."

"The Darshi?" Thrawn asked casually, and Kanan saw two of the aliens at the table appear to wince, the feel of their panic growing, and he couldn't help but wonder if the Admiral was intentionally attempting to goad the already nervous aliens.

"If that's what they're called," the bartender said as he cast a quick, nervous glance at the agitated aliens, his face pinched and pleading for the other to keep his voice down. "They've not spoken much to me. All I know is that since their arrival, Batuu hasn't been the same."

"When was that?" Thrawn asked.

"Half a year ago, give or take," he said, his hands gripping tightly on the edge of the bar as he leaned in closer, the worry on his face swiftly shifting to something close to horror and desperation. "And then eighteen days ago, a new group of them arrived, and they brought coffins with them! Ten of them!"

"Thrawn…" Kanan said under his breath as he grabbed hold of the Chiss' arm, his eyes fixed resolutely on the surface of the bar. "They're getting ready to attack." Thrawn said nothing for a moment, only closed his eyes and listened, heard the sound of chairs scraping against the floor and careful footsteps attempting silence fanning out behind them.

"They're attempting to surround us," Thrawn said, and Kanan stiffly nodded. "Weapons?"

"Yeah, but not their knives. Combat sticks," Kanan answered quickly, a swift, tight smile on his lips for just a moment as he looked at the Chiss' impassive face. "I think they're trying to capture us."

"I believe you are correct," Thrawn muttered, his own hand drifting to his belt before he froze, a clear chime coming from the commlink on his belt. The Admiral's jaw tightened as he took the device. "This attack may be more coordinated that we believed…" Thrawn grumbled before he activated the com. "Speak."

"Large ship, heavy freighter or small warship, heading toward your position," Faro's voice came over the com, her voice tense and determined. "There's a second ship and four smaller ships making orbit. Orders?"

Glowing red eyes met Kanan's for just a moment, examining and inquisitive as if he were asking for the Jedi's opinion on the matter. He had opinions, of course, but this was war, and the Admiral had shown time and time again that war was his specialty in a way that Kanan had never taken to it. The Jedi shrugged, and with a stiff nod, Thrawn's attention returned to the commlink in his hand.

"Commodore, dispatch the Ghost and the Gemini agents," Thrawn said, the hard authority of command in his voice. "Have them disable and capture what ships they can. I believe it wise to keep the Chimaera hidden, for the time being. It would be unwise at this moment to reveal our capabilities. Beyond that, I leave the Chimaera under your command. Act upon your own discretion." With that, he returned the commlink to his belt, his hand resting upon a combat stick holstered on his leg, the cold ruthlessness in the glowing red eyes sending a shiver up Kanan's back.

"Once they have lost some of their numbers, they will likely abandon any hope of taking either of us alive," Thrawn said, watching as the bartender swiftly disappeared into the back room behind the counter.

"Right," Kanan said under his breath, his hand on his lightsaber and dipping deep into the swirl of the Force. "So how many do we need for a proper interrogation?"

"Ideally, as many as we can get," Thrawn said as he reached over the bar and grabbed a bottle of rum, the deep green bottle spun a few times in his grasp as he drew his combat stick. "But realistically…" He shrugged as he turned around, finally facing the aliens that were attempting to encircle them. "Only one."

With that, Thrawn slashed his combat stick across the neck of the bottle, sending a spray of liquid right across the faces of the three Darshi that charged him, the aliens immediately halting in their forward rush and hissing with anger and pain as alcohol hit their unprotected eyes. He hurled the now half empty bottle toward the Darshi that moved toward Kanan, two of them ducking out of the way but hitting one of their less observant comrades upside the head, sending him dropping to the ground with a groan.

A sly grin slid across Kanan's face as he cracked his fingers and closed his hands into fists that he brought up to prepare for the fight. Before Hera, before his commitment to something greater, he was a drunken brawler, and this was nothing more than a bar fight. And Kanan Jarrus, Jedi Knight, roustabout and drifter, had never lost a bar fight.

He leaned out of the way when one of the Darshi launched himself at him, the choppy vibrations of the combat stick sweeping through the air felt on his face as the stick came fractions of an inch away from hitting him across his nose, and with only the slightest step out to the side, Kanan was ready for when the alien swung back around. Catching the Darshi at the wrist and elbow, the stick harmlessly held away from him, Kanan shifted slightly, putting the alien between him and his next attacker, and with a swift rotation of the Darshi's angular elbow, he sent the alien flipping through the air to collide with his friend just as the other charged forward, sending them both to the ground in a tangle of limbs.

The Force ran cold with warning, time itself seeming to slow as Kanan glanced over at Thrawn, four Darshi laying groaning and unconscious on the ground around the Chiss as he engaged with the last of his attackers. He saw movement out of the corner of his eye, his gaze shifting just in time to see the two Darshi that had yet to join the fight flip a table over and crouch behind it, the Force rippling with a swirl of fearful green and red resolve as blasters were drawn.

The two Darshi he had thrown on the ground had untangled themselves, snatching their fallen combat sticks off the ground as they began to stand, and grasping hold of the Force, Kanan thrust his hand toward the table barricade and let go, sending the Force slamming into the overturned table with such strength that the legs splintered as they broke, sending the flat, heavy table top slamming against the wall, crushing the two Darshi hiding behind it. Wide alien eyes filled with surprise, confusion and fear turned on him as his two attackers rose to their feet, both of them backing up as they drew the blasters on their hip, and both of them collapsed when, a moment later, Thrawn's combat stick slashed across the back of both their heads, the two of them crumpling to the ground once again.

"Well…" Kanan muttered as he swept his hand over his hair. "That was faster than I expected…"

"Indeed," Thrawn agreed. Flipping his combat stick in his hand and striking it on the back of one of the Darshi's heads as he slowly began the struggle to push himself off the ground. The alien collapsed back down to the dirty floor, completely still this time, and Kanan could see those sharp Chiss eyes surveying the others for signs of returning consciousness. "Your use of the Force was perfectly timed. Well done."

"I didn't really do much," Kanan grumbled. "You took out most of them yourself."

"Prepare yourself for reinforcements," Thrawn said as if Kanan hadn't spoken at all. "The Darshi we passed outside the cantina had the same reaction to us as the ones we encountered here."

"And you think he went to grab his friends?" Kanan asked, watching as the Chiss knelt beside one of the unconscious aliens and delicately removed the Darshi's knife, carefully examining the scabbard as he turned it over in his hands, his fingers brushing over the intricate carvings in the wood and metal.

"I find it likely," Thrawn muttered, gesturing to their surrounds for a moment with the knife before he returned to his examination, and Kanan looked up, his eyes narrowing as he looked around the dining area. Sometime during the commotion, all the patrons had fled through the door that still stood wide open, leaving behind a mess of overturned chairs, broken dishes and leftover food in the otherwise empty room.

"Alright, so what do these guys have against you Chiss, hm?" Kanan asked, and a brief frown twitched at the edge of Thrawn's lips, the slightest questioning glance fixing on the Jedi. "Well they sure as hell aren't coming after us because of me," Kanan shot back at the unasked question. "You're the anomaly here, Thrawn, so either they came across your path in one of your Imperial raids-"

"The Empire does not operate with any regularity this far out in Wild Space," Thrawn interrupted.

"Then they came after us because you're Chiss," Kanan drawled, a flick of his wrist sending one of the Darshi that began to stir slamming against the nearest wall, the alien slumping to the ground entirely still. He moved his hand to point at the door with the intention of slamming it closed to fortify themselves against the reinforcements that Thrawn predicted, but cold fingers wrapped around his wrist, the Admiral now beside him and giving him a stern glance that Kanan immediately understood. One group of Darshi had already fallen to them. Inviting the next group in, allowing them to believe they could sneak up on them, might goad them into attempting another capture instead of killing them outright.

Kanan scoffed, a slight smirk coming to his lips. It was nice to be on this end of one of Thrawn's traps.

"So what have the Chiss done to them?" Kanan asked when the Admiral's fingers left his wrist, and he found himself rubbing at the skin to warm it.

"Nothing," Thrawn said as he moved to another Darshi and slipped their knife from their belt as well. "The Darshi are a border people. They are too far away for the Ascendancy to have done more than a superficial examination of them. I know little of them beyond their general appearance."

"Then they're working for someone else," Kanan said grimly, and with a nod, Thrawn stood and handed one of the knives to the Jedi.

"Indeed, they are…" Thrawn said, drawing the knife he held from its slightly curved scabbard and laying it upon the bar, Kanan's eyes widening for a second as he looked them over before he did the same to the weapon Thrawn had handed him.

"Well, isn't that something…" Kanan muttered as he laid the thin, straight knife next to the curved scabbard beside the other. "These aren't their knives, this isn't even a close fit."

"Very good," Thrawn muttered, his fingers once again tracing the intricate carvings on the scabbard. "I trust you are familiar with Captain Syndulla's kalikori?"

"Oh yeah…" Kanan scoffed. "Better not mention it around her, though. You might have given it back, but she's real mad about you having it at all."

"Noted," Thrawn said with a nod. "I believe these knives may have a similar significance to the Darshi, which may be why they did not draw them against us. It would have revealed that their knives were lost, and to the Darshi, that shame or loss of honor may be unacceptable."

"So where are their knives?" Kanan asked, and Thrawn looked at him out of the corner of his eye, the look in those glowing eyes hard and cold.

"The Grysk exploit cultural weaknesses for the purpose of destroying or enslaving a people," Thrawn said, his voice falling to a whisper as he scanned the room, his hand resting on the hilt of his blaster when Kanan twitched, his back and shoulders tensing as he swiftly snatched the lightsaber off his belt, the unignited hilt held tightly in his hand. "This may very well be the method through which the Darshi were forced into service."

"So we're right in the middle of it," Kanan said between clenched teeth, his vision bursting with color as the Force washed over him. "Though you already knew that, didn't you?"

"I had suspicions," Thrawn said as he slipped his blaster out of its holster. "The reinforcements have arrived."

"I see them…" Kanan whispered back, and out of the corner of his eye, he could see the slightest smile touch the Admiral's lips.

"Indeed?" Thrawn asked, his tone more amused than Kanan had ever heard it. "I cannot. They are cloaked."

"Don't you have x-ray vision or something?"

"Infrared," Thrawn corrected. "Their cloaking devices are designed conceal them from most methods of detection, including infrared scans and sight. This technology," Thrawn said as he glanced back at the Jedi, "is of Chiss design."

"This just keeps getting better and better…" Kanan growled, his eyes darting between the four slowly moving blurs of deep purple streaked with bright green, the world around him engulfed in the confusing, constantly shifting kaleidoscope of the Force, the ice blue of Thrawn, the hazy gray of the ten Darshi on the ground, and the creep of their four assailants the only things that remained certain and stable.

Kanan took a tight hold of the Force and with a swift gesture of his hand, he swept everything in front of him away, heard the crash of wood striking the walls as tables and chairs went flying, but the four figures didn't move, the beings crouched low and small, and just as Kanan ignited his lightsaber, the Force was swarmed with thick, black clouds. He shut his eyes tightly, willing the Force to leave his vision, though the splotches of color peeking through the roiling haze of black remained.

Kanan pitched sideways when Thrawn put his hand on the Jedi's shoulder and shoved hard, sending the man stumbling into the bar he couldn't see, and he whipped his head around when he sharp, shrill screech of blaster fire filled the air, followed by a guttural howl of pain. A bright, coronal flare of white and yellow filled Kanan's vision, burning away the black cloud and the colors of the Force like a savage wind, the world resolving itself around him once again to find one of the hidden Darshi revealed and dead upon the ground and…

Insects?

Kanan frowned as he ignited his lightsaber and swung at the swarm that angled in toward him, the blade hissing as it sliced through the tiny, flying insects, but did nothing to stop the rest from continuing their flight toward him. The swarm upon him, the pain he expected from biting or stinging never came. Instead, the second the insects touched him, they exploded in a puff of gray powder that landed on his skin and clothing, a curious, pointless thing that rapidly became alarming when the powder rapidly solidified into a hard substance like stone, making his limbs heavier and restricting his movements.

Like Thrawn had predicted, the aliens were still attempting to capture them.

He glanced over at Thrawn to find the Chiss likewise covered in the hardening gray substance and firing rapidly at the ceiling, sending a shower of debris and dust from shattered stone falling to the ground and filling the air like thick fog. He understood immediately what the Admiral was attempting to do when through the dust, he could see the hazy outline of a creature skulking at the back of the room, invisible safe for the dust the creature's presence displaced. He threw his lightsaber at the figure and watched as the Darshi blinked into existence as his saber cut the alien in two.

Another swarm of insects appeared from the far corner of the room.

Cursing under his breath, Kanan pushed out with the Force at the swarm, sending some of the synthetic insects splattering against the walls and scattering outers, the swarm disbursing and flying in several disorganized, loosely formed clusters to hit against legs and arms and continue to weigh them down, too numerous for Kanan to fend them all off with the Force. With a growl of irritation and a twitch of his stiff fingers, Kanan threw one of the overturned tables with the Force, hoping that one of the aliens would be behind it and Thrawn could get a shot at them, but the Chiss was facing the opposite direction, his blaster now held in his left hand, his right entirely immobilized at his side.

He gestured again, this time behind him in the direction Thrawn was facing, could hear the shattering of a wooden table as it slammed against the wall, followed by rapid bursts of blaster fire, but the electronic crackle of the cloaking device shutting down or the hiss of pain of a creature being shot was never heard. In the moment of focus to wield the Force, another cluster of the insects slammed into Kanan's body, further encasing him in stone, and as he moved to stagger back, he found his legs completely unable to move, and now, with the hardening of the gray substance, found he could no longer turn either.

Kanan closed his eyes, felt the Force for focus and clarity, and found the chaos of battle absent from the tides, the waters smooth and clear and entirely at peace with the touch of something he recognized all too well.

The buzz of the synthetic swarm was drowned out for a moment by the reverberating snapping hiss of a pair of lightsabers.

The haze of dust lit up bright green with the flash of the blade as it cut through the air, the sudden arrival of the newcomer enough to startle the remaining two Darshi into revealing their location, first with the scrape of overturned chairs and tables that they stumbled over as they stood, then with the red flash of blaster fire as they selected a more conventional weapon to deal with the intruder. No shots hit, instead effortlessly bouncing off green and white blades as Ahsoka swiftly closed the distance, two tight, precise slashes revealing the hidden foes as she slashed through them, the two bodies falling to the floor with only a surprised gasp before the silence.

"Well…" Ahsoka said as she shut off her sabers, returned them to her belt, and surveyed the wreckage of the room around them, a mess of splintered wood and shattered stone and unconscious or dead bodies covered in a layer of settling dust. "A lot of damage for a man who said he wasn't looking to cause trouble."

"It was unavoidable," Thrawn said, his voice as calm as ever, and Kanan rolled his eyes just as Ahsoka did. "Were you and Kenobi able to locate the cause of the disturbance?"

"We were," Ahsoka said as she strode over and examined the two men, both of them looking more like statues than living creatures. "Along with an alien force," she said as she drew her lightsaber and slowly dragged the blade along the stone that encased Kanan, the stone in the wake of the plasma weapon hissing before it crumbled and fell away.

"These aliens?" Thrawn asked, and for a moment, Ahsoka was silent as she freed Kanan's arm, allowing the Jedi to ignite his own lightsaber and work to free himself. Ahsoka turned to look at the bodies on the ground before she turned back to Thrawn and began cutting away at the stone covering the Admiral.

"Not these aliens," Ahsoka said as she worked, the stone falling away quickly as the blade moved through the surprisingly brittle substance. "The force we fought exploded when they died."

"The Grysk?" Thrawn asked, a strained excitement in his voice that Ahsoka hadn't heard from the typically monotone Chiss before, but she found it infectious none the less.

"Certainly a possibility," Ahsoka said as she sliced through the stone on the Admiral's legs, the process aided by his movement as soon as he was able. "We know less than you do about them. We figured you'd have a better chance at identifying them."

"You have prisoners?" Thrawn asked cautiously, pausing in his efforts to shake off the gray powder that clung to him in the wake of the disintegrated stone.

"No prisoners," Ahsoka said with a shake of her head as she shut off her lightsabers and returned the hilts to her belt. "We tried to take a few alive, but I guess they have a way to kill themselves in the event of capture. But-" she added, a wry smirk on her lips, "we found a way to disable the explosive mechanism in their armor. We have bodies."

"Indeed?' Thrawn asked, his red eyes seeming to glow brighter with interest and an excited curiosity. He started to move, but quickly stopped himself, his attention drawn to the bodies that lay upon the ground, some of the unconscious Darshi only now beginning to stir. "I will go to see what I can learn from the bodies you managed to obtain. You and Jarrus remain here and restrain our prisoners and prepare them for interrogation."

"Thrawn," Ahsoka called after the retreating Admiral, the man halfway through the door when he stopped and turned to face the Togruta. "Whatever it is that the Grysk, or whoever, are doing out here, that isn't what caused the disturbance Kenobi felt." The red eyes narrowed, his face hardening for a moment before the man gasped and took an almost staggering step backwards, a look of surprise upon his face. Ahsoka glanced at Kanan to find the Jedi looking back at her, the same curiosity on his face as she knew was on hers.

"Do you know the cause?" Thrawn asked, the momentary surprise passed, but there was a tension and urgency in his voice that wasn't there before.

"We do," Ahsoka said, flatly, carefully observing the expressions on the Admiral's face and the sense of him in the Force. "Chiss children," she said slowly. "Eight of them."

"Eight…" Thrawn muttered under his breath, his gaze falling to the ground for a moment before he looked over his shoulder outside the cantina. "Were you able to intercept them?"

"We were," Ahsoka said. "Kenobi's with them now."

Thrawn didn't wait to hear anything else. Before Ahsoka had finished speaking, the Admiral was gone.


"I don't like this…" Sabine muttered from the copilot's seat, her eyes on the sensor display and watching the alien ships hanging in Batuu's orbit. "I don't like that Kanan's down there by himself," she continued, "and I especially don't like that we're taking orders from Imperials now…"

Hera sighed.

"First of all, Kanan isn't down there alone," Hera said patiently as she eased the Ghost in closer to the planet, hoping that the alien ships wouldn't take notice of them before it was too late. The Ghost was reasonably difficult to detect, but unfortunately, there were already signs that the biggest of the ships, a small warship or a heavy freighter, at least had taken note of them, beginning a slow drift toward deep space and their escape. "And secondly, we aren't taking orders from anyone."

"No?" Sabine scoffed, and Hera couldn't help but roll her eyes. "Sounded to me like the Commodore ordered us out here."

"Actually, she said that given the circumstances, Thrawn said we'd be the best chance for success," Hera said as she reached over and tapped the com.

"So we're taking orders from Thrawn," Sabine said bitterly.

"No…" Hera said slowly in an effort to conserve her already strained patience. "To me, that sounded like trust. I understand your reservations," Hera said quietly. "Believe me, I do. Thrawn's taken a lot from us all, but this isn't the time for this. Not with Kanan, Ahsoka and Kenobi down there." For a moment, Sabine was silent, her eyes averted in what looked to Hera to be equal parts anger and shame. Sabine nodded stiffly, her attention returning to the sensor display as she set to work checking the weapon systems. The com pinged, and Hera leaned over the console, her hands tightening around the control yoke. "Gemini One, do you see them?"

"I see them…" Luke's voice calmly replied. "I think we should go after the smaller ships first and take down the big one together."

"I think the bigger one's closer to escaping Batuu's orbit and jumping to hyperspace," Hera said.

"True, but the smaller ones will be faster," Luke countered. "And I think there's a good chance the big one will hang back to protect its friends."

"I think we should go with Luke's plan!" Ezra called down from the gunner's seat above them, and Hera couldn't help the knowing smirk that touched her lips, though beside her, Sabine groaned and rolled her eyes.

"I don't suspect Thrawn's the type to be mad about losing a few ships," Hera said. "Alright, Gemini One. We'll do it your way."

"I'm going now," Luke said tightly, and in the distance, they could see the flare of an X-Wing's engines as it shot away from them, followed closely by a second X-Wing. "Those freighters are breaking off, but that other ship looks like it's making for the surface. I'm going to make sure it doesn't get there."

"Which leaves us with five…" Sabine grumbled as she looked at the displays, her back pressing hard into her seat as Hera pushed the Ghost forward at full speed, not fast enough to catch the two X-Wings, but fast enough to swiftly close the distance between them and the alien ships. "You know, this would be a lot easier if the Imperials thought it wasn't beneath them to actually help."

Sabine had barely finished speaking when the sensors gave a warning trill, the proximity alarms going off at the sudden arrival of another ship that appeared directly behind them, and before Hera even had the chance to react, four TIE Defenders shot past the Ghost, swiftly overtaking the ship and rapidly putting more distance between them, the com blinking with an incoming message.

They were much, much faster than Hera even realized, and she couldn't keep the grin off her face. The starfighters had launched in their shadow, a tactical move Thrawn had used against them more than once, and if they hadn't detected the approaching Defenders, neither had the alien ships.

"Spectre Two, this is Commander Dobbs," a tight, youthful voice said over the com when Hera switched it on. "Commodore Faro dispatched us to aid you in whatever way you see fit. It looked like you're making your move. What do you need us to do?"

"Those freighters rest look like they're trying to make a run for it," Hera said. "Any chance you're fast enough to get them before that happens?"

"I think so," Dobbs said, the com switching off as the now distant shapes of the TIE Defenders fanned out into an attack pattern and angled toward the fleeing freighters.

"Which leaves us," Hera said with a wry smirk, her hands tightening around the control yoke, "with just the warship." She flashed a tight grin at Sabine. "Think that's too much for us to handle?"

"Not a chance," Sabine said with a smirk, taking the control for the forward cannons in hand, the flash of energy streaking across the space before them as the warship opened fire on the Defenders, their flight for open space ceasing suddenly to hold ground against their attackers. Just as Luke had predicted.

The Ghost reached the combat zone only forty seconds after the Defenders arrived, and in that time, the battle had become a route. The X-Wings were nowhere to be seen, Batuu's gravitational field and atmosphere concealing the small ships on scanners, but the four freighters that Hera sent the Imperials after were dead in space, the ships dark and their engines smoking, entirely disabled. More tellingly, however, was that the warship had returned to its efforts to escape, all of its many weapon clusters firing into space at the Defenders that swarmed it.

But the Defenders weren't the only thing they were shooting at.

A series of missiles launched from the warship struck one of the freighters, enveloping the ship in a ball of flame that didn't leave so much as a scrap of debris in its wake.

"Damn it, Howl, you and Shadow take out those starboard weapon clusters!" Dobbs' voice snapped over the com when Hera tuned into their channel. "Clipper and I are going for the engines to disable the damn thing. Try and keep them busy!"

"You got it, boss," a bemused female voice came back, and Sabine shot Hera a look, a wry smirk on her face.

"Nicknames from TIE pilots?" Sabine said with a scoff. "I'll be damned, these Imps are different."

"Pilots are pilots, ma'am," Dobbs replied almost flippantly, and Sabine winced, embarrassment on her face as she looked at the com speaker and realized it wasn't muted as she thought.

"What's the plan, Commander?" Hera asked, her eyes raking over her displays as she shot forward toward the warship's port side, Ezra above them already opening fire before a vulnerable target was in range, his shots splashing off a powerful barrier that defended their flank.

"The Chimaera sent a troop transport our way," Dobbs said tightly, his voice almost drowned out by the background sound of him firing the Defender's powerful weapons. "We're trying to disable the warship so they can board and capture it."

"You want to capture this ship?" Hera asked, shooting a glance at Sabine and finding a wide grin quickly spreading across the Mandalorian's face.

"The Admiral likes information," Dobbs said casually. "And this warship isn't very big. I think we can take it." The com cut out just as a flash illuminated the cockpit, and at the end of the warship, Hera and Sabine saw two Defenders shooting away from the wreckage of what was once the warship's engines. The ship wasn't going anywhere, which settled things, Hera thought as she piloted the Ghost right along the port dorsal edge of the foreign ship toward one of the intimidating weapon clusters.

"So what's Imperial protocol on boarding ships these days?" Hera asked as the Ghost rolled, avoiding a barrage of fire from the warship as Ezra hit the weapons cluster in front of them, but unable to avoid the resulting shower of flame and debris.

"Generally they latch on to a boarding hatch and cut their way in," Dobbs answered promptly. "But I thought we'd open them up for the boarding party while we're waiting for them."

"I like the way you think," Hera said as she pulled away from the warship and banked hard to port to cut the Ghost around to face it again, the warship now little more than smoking pits and a blackened hull, the engines and weapon systems all damaged beyond repair. She ran a quick check on the larger ship, her eyes flicking over the sensor readouts, and while the ship did read as dead in space, a knot still twisted in Hera's gut that kept her from getting closer to the badly wounded warship.

"Commander," Hera said slowly into the com as she watched the four Defenders circling around the warship like predatory birds. "How much did Thrawn tell you about these aliens we're fighting?"

"I read his report," Dobbs said. "They blow themselves up at a moment's notice. I think it must be them, since they weren't exactly shy about destroying their own freighters. They got all of them but one."

"I was just thinking that just because the ship's systems are down doesn't mean they don't have a way to blow themselves up anyway," Hera said grimly. "I don't know if it's a good idea to board."

"It's a risk we're willing to take, ma'am," a new voice came over the com just as the sensors picked up the Imperial troop transport emerging from the Ghost's shadow, a trick that Hera was swiftly getting tired of. She didn't like people sneaking up on her, even if they were allies with a perfectly sound reason for doing so. "If it's all the same to you, Commander, I'd rather follow procedure on this one," the new voice continued. "Especially given the circumstances. The tested procedure will keep us safer if the situation's as volatile as you think."

"You're the one boarding, Major Carvia," Dobbs gruffed. "How you do it is up to you."

"I don't think it would be a bad idea for us to open the hull," Hera cut in as the troop transport swiftly moved in toward the wounded warship, the grapplers fixed to the belly and back of the transport swiveling as they locked on to their target. "If we make them think we're coming in somewhere else it might take some pressure off you."

There was silence, the moment feeling much longer than it actually was, and with a huff of frustration, Sabine hit the console, transferring control of the forward weapons over to Hera's console as she stood, slid the helmet on her head, and felt for the blasters at her hip.

"Good idea, Ghost," Carvia's voice came over the com, his troop transport firing the grapples that locked on to the warship and quickly pulled them in beside it. "We'll be through in sixty seconds. Get on it, Dobbs."

Dobbs didn't say a word, the Defender swiftly peeling off from where it floated sentry around the crippled ship, the other three Defenders swiftly swinging around to fall into formation with their leader as they shot around to the other side of the ship, lasers blazing and jolting the defenseless warship. Muting the com, Hera turned in her seat to look at Sabine as she began to stride out the cockpit.

"And where do you think you're going?" Hera asked, and Sabine just shrugged as she continued on her way, snatching her jetpack from off her painted seat at the back of the cockpit.

"I'm not much use here," Sabine said as she snapped the jetpack on to her back. "But those Imps are about to board a ship that might blow up, and I'm an explosives expert."

"You're not going over there, are you?!' Ezra called from the gunner's seat, and a moment later, his head popped into view from the ceiling just beyond the cockpit, hanging upside down from the ladder to his post, a look of marked concern on his face.

"I'm Mandalorian," Sabine said grimly, her helmet making her voice sound cold and hard. "There isn't anyone in the galaxy that does this sort of thing better than us."

"I'll go with-"

"You'll stay right here," Sabine interrupted the other teen. "They could have friends out there, and if they come to play, Hera's going to need you."

"She's right, Ezra," Hera said as she maneuvered the Ghost around the warship to where the Defenders had blown a hole into the hull, debris and sparks and plumes of flame flowing from the opening. "Go get ready, Sabine, I'll have you close enough to jump aboard in thirty seconds." With a stiff nod, the Mandalorian drew her blasters from their holsters and ran from the cockpit, and Hera unmuted the com to the sound of stiff, barked orders from the Stormtrooper commander. She took a deep breath, allowing herself just a moment to adjust to the surrealness of working in tandem with Imperial Stormtroopers. "Major Carvia," Hera said firmly, and the shouts of the Stormtroopers quieted to the dull buzz of background noise as the soldiers worked to breech the hull of the ship. "We have an explosives expert on board. We're sending her in with you."

"Would that be Sabine Wren?" Carvia asked, followed by a short, scoffing laugh. "Oh yeah. She's more than welcome to join us."

"She'll meet you in there," Hera said as she pulled the Ghost alongside the hole the Defenders breeched in the side of the warship, and she hit the controls to open the cargo port. "You're clear, Sabine," Hera said, a slight smile coming to her lips despite the worry she felt when she saw Luke's X-Wing rise up from the atmosphere, his rapid flight toward them slowing into a more cautionary sentry drift around the wrecked ships. "Be careful in there."

"I will," Sabine said, her hand closed tightly around one of the rails in the cargo hold, and with a deep breath, she sprinted down the ramp and jumped, her jetpack firing on to give her the boost she needed to clear the short distance of space between the Ghost and the warship. She landed amongst smoke and debris, her weapons raised in front of her as she made her way to the door in the bulkhead. The readings on her helmet's visor showed the ship still lacked power, and laying her own explosive on the door, she backed out of the range of the controlled blast and detonated the charge.

In a flash of green and purple, the door cracked open, the bent metal just large enough for her slight frame to squeeze through, though as she slipped further into the warship, she couldn't help but miss Zeb terribly. It was in these situations that she and the powerful Lasat would work in tandem to make easy work of every door and security seal in their way. Zeb only needed the smallest opening to be able to pry a closed door open, and here, in a ship without power, that sort of strength would have been welcome.

Instead, she'd have to make due on her own, with her explosives substituting for the strength of her fallen friend.

The ship was dark inside, the floor lined with pale green emergency lighting that cast an eerie glow and long, odd shadows through the corridors. Her weapons held in front of her as she carefully made her way through the halls, the structure more freighter than warship, and though she could hear the distant sounds of blaster fire, she didn't encounter anyone. Apparently, these aliens hadn't been fooled by the diversion, or…

Or the intruders weren't the aliens' priority.

"Spectre Five, this is Gemini One," Luke's voice came clearly over her helmet's com, and Sabine rolled her eyes, a slight smile touching her lips. "You alright in there?"

"All clear," Sabine answered quietly, quickly turning down one of the corridors and heading toward the sounds of battle, the whine of blaster fire becoming louder as she went. "Did you manage to catch that other ship?"

"We did," Luke said. "We got it in low orbit and it burned up in the atmosphere. Whatever was left fell into the ocean, we think. Gemini Two's down there now."

"Looking for the ship?"

"Helping Spectre One and Fulcrum," Luke said. "It sounded like they have prisoners."

"It's always exciting around us…" Sabine muttered as she turned a corner, and mouthing a silent curse, she darted back around the corner and flattened her back against the wall. There were aliens there, five of them using large crates as cover from red, blazing bolts of blaster fire. A long, grating screech made Sabine's teeth grind together, and again looking around the corner, she saw the aliens pushing the crates down the hall, moving them closer to the line of Imperial Stormtroopers at the other end of the hall.

She took a deep breath, pushing back the reflexive disgust she felt knowing she was about to come to the rescue of Imperials.

Blasters in front of her, she turned the corner and opened fire, killing two of the aliens outright before the remaining three realized they were being flanked. The aliens turned to face her, one of them sent sprawling to the ground before he had a chance to raise his weapon against her, the others only managing to squeeze off a few wild shots before blaster fire from the Imperials now behind them brought the last of them down.

"Commander Wren," one of the Stormtroopers said as he strode forward, his armored hand raised, and the rest of the soldiers lowered their blasters from firing positions, though they kept their weapons raised and ready to be brought swiftly to a new target. "I'm Major Carvia," the Stormtrooper commander said. "We're glad to have you. Did you have any trouble on your way in?"

"I didn't see anyone at all," Sabine said stiffly. "Not until I got here."

A low, irritated growl sounded in Carvia's throat, a thing that came out sounding like a mechanical grind through his helmet's speaker, and he turned and issued a series of short commands to his men, the rest of the soldiers swiftly forming up into organized teams. Through the moving soldiers, Sabine caught a glimpse of the ground behind them and saw bodies, not just the aliens, but armored Stormtroopers as well. The aliens, it seemed, had been waiting for them and had managed to catch them in a brutal offensive before the Imperials had managed to push them back.

Sabine didn't like how raw that loss made her feel.

"This feels like a layered defense," Carvia said as he turned back to the Mandalorian, the sharp ring of blaster fire making Sabine jump before she realized it was the Imperials shooting, the assigned clean up crew making certain the aliens were dead.

"You think they're protecting something further on?" Sabine asked, and Carvia gave a non-committal shrug, gesturing for his men to move, and one team filed swiftly past them to take up point, the other team forming up behind them.

"Could be," Carvia grumbled. "Or they're just preparing something nasty up ahead to deal with us. It'd be crazy if they've never heard of a layered defense."

"Well, let's find out," Sabine said as she activated the com on her gauntlet. "Gemini One," she said clearly. "We're encountering some resistance in here. Any possibility you can tell us what's going on?"

"I…yeah, give me a second," Luke answered back, the high whine of the X-Wing's engines filling the silence while they waited. Sabine looked up, saw Carvia looking straight at her, and shrugged.

"Jedi," she casually explained, and she couldn't keep the satisfied smile off her lips at the Stormtrooper's uncomfortable shifting, and fell into step beside him when he ordered the troops to move, the group carefully making their way through dark corridors.

"A lot of activity at the rear of the ship," Luke answered after a few minutes. "The cargo hold, I think."

"Is that all?" Sabine asked, and cursed under her breath when they turned the corner and the Stormtroopers opened fire. They stopped only a moment later, and Sabine peered around the line in front of them to see two aliens dead on the deck. A sentry, maybe, but nothing more. "Never mind…" Sabine grumbled into the com after she and the Stormtroopers began moving again. "Think you could open up the cargo hold for us?"

"You want to vent them into space?" Luke asked, and didn't wait for answer before he added, "Yeah, I can do that. Just tell me when."

Sabine didn't have a chance to answer before they rounded another corner and were raked with blaster fire, the first line of Stormtroopers taking the brunt of the attack and falling dead to the ground before Carvia could backpedal and order the retreat. By the time the remaining squad had taken cover behind the corner in the corridor they had come from, five of their soldiers were dead. Sabine had only been in the hall for a second before the shooting started, but it was long enough to see the two mounted heavy blasters positioned in front of a large metal hatch and the eight or ten aliens manning them.

"Now, Gemini!" Sabine snapped into the com on her wrist. "Blow it open!"

She crouched down low, sliding her blasters into their holsters and snatching two of her explosives from her belt. Above her, one of the Stormtroopers stood in high cover and shot blindly around the corner, chips of plastoid and ceramic flinging off from the walls where the alien weapon struck. She threw the explosives around the corner when a muffled roar filled the halls, followed quickly by shouts in alien voices that sounded a little like tearing metal, the deck beneath their feet rocking as Luke executed the attack on the cargo hold. The Stormtroopers braced themselves against the rocking of the ship, their attack ceasing in favor of maintaining their balance, and with all the Imperials safe behind the cover of the corners, Sabine detonated her explosives.

The ensuing explosion was much larger than she anticipated.

Shrapnel tore into the walls and smoke billowed from corridor, but the shooting had stopped, leaving only silence in its wake, and Sabine leaned around the corner, the enhancements in her helmet allowing her to see even before the smoke cleared. Her explosives had caused the two mounted heavy blasters to explode as well, creating a violent chained detonation that left every alien lying dead on the ground before the bulkhead. Rising to her feet and stepping into the hall, her weapons in front of her just in case, she made her way toward the wreckage, the Stormtroopers filing in behind her.

"You alright, Spectre five?" Luke's voice came over her wrist com, and despite herself, Sabine couldn't help flinching, her weapons raising swiftly as her heart rate jumped.

"We're alright…" Sabine answered back, sliding her blasters back into their holsters when the Stormtrooper clean-up squad moved forward, putting a cautionary shot into the alien bodies and collecting what they could of the twisted, destroyed weapons for later analysis. "Nice shooting."

"Thanks…" Luke said absently. "I don't know what they had going on in there, but whatever it was, they didn't want anyone getting hold of it. There are a lot of explosives along with whatever it was they were trying to destroy."

"You have it in tact?" Carvia asked, leaning in toward Sabine to make sure the com picked him up.

"Some of it was damaged when I shot my way in," Luke explained. "It looks like a few of the explosives went off, but the vacuum prevented any chained explosion. Most of it looks to be in pretty good shape."

"Get Spectre Two to collect what she can," Sabine said into the com when the Stormtrooper commander turned away and began issuing orders to the other soldiers as he activated his own com.

"She already is," Luke said in a slow, pleased drawl. "At least, she and Spectre Six are taking what they can. I'm not sure some of this stuff would fit in the Ghost's cargo hold."

"What is it?" Sabine asked, and for a long moment, there was silence, long enough for her to shift her attention to Carvia as he sent one of his team ahead of them to secure the bridge and begin figuring out how to fly the alien ship back to the Chimaera.

"I don't know…" Luke finally muttered. "They're cylinders of some kind. No idea what they're for, but they're big."

"I'll get the Imperials to come get those," Sabine said as she shut the com off and she found Carvia looking at her. "You get that?" she asked, and the Stormtrooper nodded.

"The Commodore's going to bring the Chimaera over to tractor everything aboard," Carvia said, his foot tapping for a moment before he gestured over his shoulder with his blaster. "Unnecessary now that we're getting tractored in, but we're heading to the bridge to see if we can make sense of things. Want to come along?"

To Sabine's immense surprise, she did.


The enemy, Thrawn mused to himself, had been caught completely flatfooted.

The disruption of the hyperspace lanes to Batuu served several purposes. Such interruption prevented the swift passage of an armada or any significant force, but most importantly in this context, isolating Batuu in this manner would give those running the operation here a substantial warning to any possible discovery or opposition. With an observer and a functioning triad, the latter of which they had confirmed to be present, the forces here could be warned of any ship pulled out of hyperspace and the level of threat that ship represented. And with the blockage, any alternate, jump by jump route to Batuu would take no less than twenty hours, more than enough time for an organized force to move their entire operation elsewhere.

A thing that would have happened had Vader's presence not pushed them to take a faster option. An option that was unknown outside the tumultuous Unknown Regions.

Their timing had been exquisite, accidental as it was, which had been enough to dull the bitter knowledge that this threat, likely the Grysk and possibly their allies or subjects, had managed to disrupt hyperspace travel with technology that they may have learned from him in his last confrontation with them.

The enemy was off balance now, and while a more opportunistic commander would have pressed their advantage with all possible speed and force, Thrawn saw the advantage in choosing now to pull back and reevaluate the situation. There was new information to consider and data to be observed and analyzed, all things that could drastically change their tactics and strategy moving forward, all things that could significantly shift the probabilities of desired outcomes. More than that, allowing the enemy a chance to regroup after being caught so unawares came with certain advantages that Thrawn was inclined to exploit.

The forest rushed by him as he maneuvered his speeder down the thin, narrow path, and only slowed when he heard the distant roar of a ship's engines. Looking up as the sound grew louder, a faint smile touched his lips when he saw the black X-Wing in the air, the distinctive blue trim marking it as Gemini Two visible as it shot overhead toward Batuu. He hadn't heard yet what had become of the ships Faro reported earlier, but for Leia Kenobi to be here, the battle must have ended favorably for them.

It only took a few more minutes for his speeder to enter the clearing that had been cut for the three houses to find that a battle had indeed taken place here, as Ahsoka had said. Rubble littered the ground, and the petrified tree they had observed from their freighter had been shattered, leaving behind severed, twisted wires and large, jagged chunks of stone-like wood. Toward the middle of the courtyard were three scorched circles that were reminiscent of similar explosions he had seen in Grysk held mines when he had gone with an alien force to liberate them, the result of the dying and wounded destroying themselves to prevent capture or any study of the elusive aliens.

But unlike the mines on the unnamed planet he had called Sunrise, here, there were bodies as well. Five of them.

He carefully made his way toward the nearest one and knelt down beside it, the faintest smile touching his lips as he observed the deep-set eyes, the tapered skull, the angled brow ridges and the black, angular armor it wore on its wide shouldered frame. The similarities between the design of the armor, the heavy weapon that lay close to the body and the ships of the fleet he encountered during his war with the Grysk was immediately apparent. This alien was, in fact, a Grysk.

"Thrawn."

Thrawn looked up quickly, immediately taken from his thoughts, and found Kenobi leaning casually against the doorway of the house furthest from him. Taking another quick glance around the battle ravaged courtyard, Thrawn stood and made his way on long strides to meet the Sith Lord, the smirk on Kenobi's face growing wider as he approached.

"Not bad work for a day, is it?" Kenobi asked.

"The day is not over yet," Thrawn muttered. "Do you have them?"

Kenobi's smirk became a wide grin, and stepping out of the doorway, he gestured for the Admiral to enter. Thrawn quickly did so, his gaze immediately flicking to the line of dead Grysk at the side of the room, though his pace didn't falter as he crossed over to the doorway at the back and froze in his tracks just before he crossed the threshold when he saw eight pairs of wide, glowing red eyes looking up at him.

Standing back at the house's entrance, Obi-Wan could feel the unmistakable feeling of intense relief ripple across the Force, along with a much deeper sense of dread.

The youngest of the girls burst into tears when she saw Thrawn, another of the girls ran to him and threw her arms tightly around his waist. The others were a little more cautious, but their shoulders slowly began to sag in relief when they realized that their ordeal was actually over. His hand on the head of the girl that clung to him, Thrawn's eyes narrowed as he slowly looked around the room at the rows of open, inactive pods, the design generally consistent with what he had observed in the armor on the dead Grysk outside, but there were marked differences that suggested that this technology had been taken from elsewhere and adapted.

"Are you going to take us home?" one of the girls tentatively asked, and a slight but genuine smile crossed Thrawn's lips as he looked at the group of Chiss children.

"I am," Thrawn said quietly. "We will rendezvous with an Ascendancy warship, and from there we will be heading back to Csilla."

There was silence for a moment as the children stared at him, as if they were assessing him for his intentions, before they started whispering amongst themselves, the girl clinging to him releasing her grip to join her friends, all of them appearing simply exhausted, the wide-eyed panic Obi-Wan had found them in faded into memory now that they were safe.

"Did you find anything at the outpost?" Obi-Wan asked in Basic as he finally approached the Admiral, and Thrawn gave a tight nod.

"An ambush, as you no doubt already know," Thrawn said quietly. "And information. The proprietor of the cantina said aliens had brought ten coffins with them." He gestured to the stasis pods. "I can only assume he meant these."

"Ten…" Obi-Wan muttered as he peered into the room. "You think they have two more girls?"

"If they do not, they intend to take two more," Thrawn said gravely. "They need to be stopped, and if they already have them, the children must be rescued."

"You got a plan for that?" Kenobi asked, stepping closer to Thrawn and looking down at the girls sitting huddled together. "Any chance the information you got from the cantina points you to another ship or a base or something?"

"No," Thrawn said dismissively, his glowing eyes shifting from the Chiss children to the Sith Lord at his side. "I thought you could bring us to them."

"Me…" Obi-Wan said flatly, the rest of his objection dying when Thrawn raised a hand for silence.

"You felt the distress of capture from these girls from across the galaxy," Thrawn said in a calm, even tone, though his jaw and expression hardened considerably. "As did Vader or the Emperor, given Vader's presence in the region. Certainly if there are other captured Chiss children in the region, you would be able to detect them."

"Unless they're in the pods," Obi-Wan said pointedly. "After that initial disturbance, I couldn't feel them at all."

"We are considerably closer now," Thrawn countered. "Furthermore, you are now aware of what we are seeking and can therefore refine your search." Obi-Wan growled, his hand running through his hair as he turned away to stare at the dead aliens by the entrance, all eight pairs of the children's glowing red eyes looking up at him with worry, which Thrawn swiftly soothed away with a slight, tight smile.

"This," Kenobi said after a moment of silence, turning back to face Thrawn and gesturing casually to the children. "This is the secret you've been keeping. Force sensitive Chiss used to guide your ships through the Unknown Regions, like those groups you were telling me about." The Sith Lord smiled and leaned in closer toward the Admiral. "Only your people don't use those groups, do they? Because you have your own way of freely traveling through the stars."

"The Chiss do use these navigational groups," Thrawn said flatly. "Just enough for our neighbors to believe we must."

"But that's over now, isn't it?" Kenobi asked, lowering his voice and gesturing over his shoulder with his thumb toward the other room. "Because those assholes out there know the Ascendancy's secret."

For a long moment, Thrawn was silent, his jaw tight and his eyes fixed on a distant corner of the room, the Force rippling with tense, unmistakable emotion that didn't show at all on the Admiral's face. Then, he nodded, his gaze returning to the Sith Lord, the glowing red so intense and focused a shiver ran down Obi-Wan's spine.

"Yes…" Thrawn whispered as he glanced down at the girls. "The Chiss do not have an understanding of the Force as you know it, nor do we produce an appreciable number of Force sensitives. But when we do," he said as he gestured to the girls and looked back at Obi-Wan, a slight and sad smile on his face, "the talent comes to us in only one form. That of precognition. Third Sight, we call it."

"All of them girls?" Kenobi asked. "All of them children?"

"The ability fades over time," Thrawn explained quietly, his shoulders slumping in what looked like defeat or resignation or weariness. "No amount of training or practice can change or prolong it. Young adults only retain a fraction of their childhood strength. Only children have the strength to navigate our ships at the speeds the Aristocras demand. As for their gender…" Thrawn shrugged, but said nothing else.

"The Force works in mysterious ways…" Obi-Wan muttered. "Think this is as bad as this looks? I mean, what are the chances that the Grysks are stealing Force sensitive Chiss kids because they need navigators?"

"The probability of that is vanishingly small," Thrawn said grimly. "The Grysk have tried once to destroy the Chiss through the military might of their allies, but failed. They tried again to turn the families against each other and incite a civil war, but we thwarted that attempt as well." He glanced down at the girls huddled closely together. "It seems they are attempting once again with a new lever." His jaw tightened, his glowing eyes narrowed, and Kenobi could see the muscles in Thrawn's shoulders tense. "The Grysks must be dealt with and taught not to test the will of the Chiss Ascendancy."

"That was the plan, wasn't it?" Obi-Wan asked as he closed his eyes and sunk deep into the Force. For all the death that surrounded them, here, it was calm, warm, the Force echoing the sigh of relief from the Chiss children like a gentle breeze. But all around them was the frigid cold, the bitter wrongness of spilt blood and death and the lingering terror of what had happened here. He could feel Ahsoka, calm and confident and focused, dutiful Kanan edged with thoughtful annoyance, Leia seething and irritated, the alien prisoners they had captured in pain and frightened and subdued. Further away was more death and wreckage, the bitter anger of soldiers and grim, relieved satisfaction from the crew of the Ghost.

And beyond that…

Beyond that was fear. Dread. Terror. Powerful enough to rock the Force with waves from a storm. A disturbance, weaker than before, but familiar all the same.

Chiss Force sensitives, just like the girls in the room, and they were not far. In fact, they had already passed by the place on their way here.

"I found them," Obi-Wan said as he opened his eyes and strode for the door. When he crossed the room and heard no following steps behind him, he looked back at the Chiss and flashed Thrawn a tight smile. "Your two missing Chiss girls," Kenobi said with a roll of his eyes. "They aren't far. I'll get the shuttle so we can load up the girls and the bodies, if you want them. We'll stop by the outpost to pick up the kids, and we'll be on our way." He opened the door, the daylight from outside pouring into the room, and Kenobi flashed Thrawn a wide grin. "We need to hurry. By now, our Grysk friends certainly know something's up. I'd hate for them to disappear."

With that, Obi-Wan turned on his heel and strode out into the humid, blood soaked Batuu afternoon.


The Chimaera came out of hyperspace at the edge of the system, the central star that the collection of planets orbited little more than a small point of light at this distance. Obi-Wan opened his eyes and looked at the displays around the pilot console around him, his abrupt and unplanned exit from hyperspace making the bridge officers bark orders to the various stations. The first of his monitors to blink on was the sensor display, unsurprising given how swift sensor officer Commander Hammerly had proven herself in the short time since the Sith Lord had been aboard the Chimaera. And, accompanying Hammerly's confused report, was a perfectly clean sensor sweep. No ships in short, mid, or long range, no stars, planets, or objects of any significance in range either. Just space, empty and vast.

And a deep, pervasive feeling of unease.

He looked back up over his shoulder to the command walkway where Thrawn sat, a datapad in his hands ignored in favor of the readouts and displays around them as each displayed the relevant sensor and navigational data, now that Kenobi had surrendered his manual piloting for their Force assisted jump back over to the Chimaera's more automated navigational systems. And, unlike the confusion in the bridge officer's voices as they reported on their middle of nowhere destination, the narrowed, glowing red eyes seemed to know exactly where they were.

There wasn't much that could take Thrawn away from the preliminary analysis on the captured Grysk ships, weapons, technology and biology, but this, apparently, was good enough.

"Mokivj…" Thrawn muttered under his breath, his eyes fixed on the emptiness of space beyond the viewport for a long moment before his gaze briefly flicked to the sensor and navigational displays, and then down into the pit where the Sith Lord sat. "There are more Chiss on the planet?" Thrawn asked.

"Two more, like you thought," Kenobi muttered.

"I do not believe it is a coincidence that they are here," Thrawn said, his fingers tapping slowly on the arm of his command chair as his attention returned to the viewport. "The mission I undertook together with Anakin Skywalker ended on Mokivj."

"Sorry, what?" Kenobi snapped, his eyes boring up at the Chiss as he stood from the pilot's seat and jumped out of the crew pit, landing lightly on the walkway. "The Grysk were out here during the Clone Wars?"

"No," Thrawn said dismissively, glancing over his shoulder as he felt Commodore Faro step up beside his seat, attentive and curious, though attempting not to appear so. "Not in force, in any case. But the Separatists were."

For a moment, there was silence while Obi-Wan searched his memory for any sort of Separatist activity occurring way out here so far from where the fighting had taken place, any orders or bases he or Dooku had decided to put so far out of the way. But he knew there would be nothing. Something this far out would have had to be something secret, which he certainly would have known about, and with that knowledge, even after all this time, he felt anger and hate welling within him, his eyes beginning to sting with the power of the Dark Side as it wrapped its sharp fangs around him. Another one of Sidious' secrets, another one of his betrayals, hardly a surprise at this point, not something that even mattered after all this time out from under his Master's thumb, but it enraged him all the same.

"Doing what, exactly?" Kenobi managed to ask, his voice tight and higher in pitch and deceptively cheerful. "I lead the Separatists for a time, as you know, and I didn't have anything going on out here."

"There was a factory," Thrawn said flatly. "A small operation tasked with manufacturing specialized battle droids with cortosis, an exceptionally rare metal with unusually high energy absorption and transmission coefficients, to the point where many energy weapon blasts will be dissipated along the fibers without damaging the fibers themselves." He looked pointedly at Obi-Wan. "Including lightsaber blades, which would short out on contact with the material, as Anakin and I discovered."

"That certainly would have made things more difficult for the Republic forces…" Kenobi muttered, swallowing hard in an effort to stifle his anger, but to no avail. "This is something I should have known…"

"Perhaps…" Thrawn muttered. "But it was not the only thing they created there. We also found Republic clone armor crafted with the same cortosis weave."

"That makes no sense," Faro said tightly, so tight that Obi-Wan almost couldn't hear the tremble in her voice, but he could feel her instability as so many of her beliefs were quickly deconstructed. "What use would the Separatists-"

"Come now, Commodore…" Obi-Wan chided with a teasing smile. "Certainly you've figured out by now that there was only one side in the Clone Wars. We fought and died so Palpatine could come to power."

"We did not know it at the time," Thrawn cut in. "General Skywalker thought it might have been a Separatist attempt to infiltrate Coruscant, though given the Separatist resources, such an infiltration would not have been possible. Not even with the clones you stole." He tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair, glancing up at Faro when he felt the woman tense beside him. "Knowing now what actually transpired, this makes more sense."

"Or would have, if it was put to use," Kenobi grumbled. "Not that he needed it, in the end."

"No…" Thrawn agreed quietly, his expression thoughtful for a moment before he turned his attention back to Kenobi. "Given their activities around Batuu and the subsequent blockage of the hyperspace lanes, I find it extremely likely that the Grysks have moved into that Separatist factory and have been using it as a regional base."

"So what's our best vector for attack?" Faro asked, a hard confidence in her voice that hadn't been there before, and she frowned when nobody responded. "If this is a forward base, we can't leave it here," she continued, a new edge of menace creeping into her tone. "A hostile alien species on the Empire's doorstep? This can't be allowed to stand."

"Actually…" Kenobi drawled, the flippancy in his voice at odds with the seriousness of his expression. "The Grysks aren't even a concern to us." His eyes locked with the Admiral's glowing red. "Vader's there."

"…you are certain?" Thrawn asked after a moment of silence, and Kenobi swiftly nodded.

"It's why I brought us so far out," Obi-Wan said. "He's there. I can feel him."

Turning his gaze back to the viewport, Thrawn steepled his fingers, pressed them against his lips, and was silent, lost in planning and considerations that only made Faro fidget nervously beside his seat before anxiety sent her down the command walkway, observing the stations and demanding additional reports and scans of the area. Nothing would come up, Obi-Wan knew. They were too far out, at the edge of the system, but not in it, certainly too far for any long-range scanners he knew about to detect. But he could feel it in the Force. The panic and the terror that had drawn them to this region in the first place, and the dark, wrathful presence of another Sith Lord, blistering and consuming in its wrath in contrast to the small, cold fear of the two Chiss girls.

"It is likely that if the Grysks were there, they are no longer a threat," Thrawn finally said, his eyes still unfocused with deep thought.

"Agreed," Obi-Wan said quietly as he moved closer to the command chair. "I don't think the Grysks have anything that could really prepare them for Vader."

"And you?" Thrawn asked, finally turning his eyes back on the Sith Lord, the glowing red sharp and focused. "Can you beat Vader?"

"I-" Kenobi began, but quickly cut himself off, the knee-jerk insult and bravado quickly fading before the reality of the situation, and he quietly cursed himself, both for the frankly childish posturing that was his first instinct, and for the dawning truth of his own weakness that followed. "I don't know," Kenobi admitted sheepishly. "Our last encounter didn't go well."

"You lost to him?"

"I lost to him, Sidious, and Maul," Kenobi scoffed, holding up his hand before him and a bitter scowl touched his lips at the slight but persistent tremor in his fingers. "But the damage has been done, and as you said, I'm not exactly at my best. Until I master wielding a lightsaber with the Force, I don't know if I'd be able to beat him in a direct confrontation."

"Understood…" Thrawn muttered, his gaze drifting again out toward the viewport. "We need to rescue the children. That is non-negotiable. They are still there?"

"I can feel them, yes."

"It is vital that they are kept out of the hands of the Empire," Thrawn said in a low, dark tone that was equal parts dread and danger. "I will travel to Mokivj to rescue the children. You will create a distraction to turn Imperial attention outward."

"Wait, back up…" Obi-Wan said with a huff, shooting a pointed glare at the Admiral. "You? You think it's a good idea for you to personally go down there?"

"I do not see that we have a better option," Thrawn said flatly, earning him a sharp, disdainful scoff from the Sith Lord.

"Oh, you don't?" Kenobi mocked. "You're supposed to be some kind of genius, one of our greatest assets. Our entire reason for being out here hinges on you, and you think risking putting you in Vader's line of sight is our only option?"

"What would you suggest?" Thrawn asked calmly, and Obi-Wan rolled his eyes, gesturing uselessly around the bridge.

"I don't know, send literally anybody else!" Obi-Wan snapped. "Send someone with the Force, send me. We don't need to kill Vader, we just need to get in and out alive."

"A thing easier done with you causing a distraction," Thrawn said evenly, his calm demeanor doing everything just right to rankle the Sith. "With his ship and only means of his return to Imperial space at risk, he must respond." He pointed at Kenobi. "With you the cause, it is the greatest chance we have of Vader responding personally, leaving the base largely free for me to rescue the children."

"You're missing the point, Thrawn!" Kenobi said, his voice rising with his frustration. "This isn't about the distraction, this is about you going down there personally." He crossed his arms defiantly over his chest. "Suppose you go and he doesn't take the bait. Then you'll be left down there with Vader. What then?"

"Then I will deal with him," Thrawn said, a cold, hard edge in his voice that made the Commodore at his side visibly tense. Glowing gold locked with glowing red, both men defiant and resolved, the moment long and tense and only made more fraught by Faro too afraid to move or breathe standing as witness. There was objection there, Kenobi could feel. Thoughts of treason against the Empire she served and the line they would be crossing if they directly attacked another Imperial vessel, but it remained unsaid, held back by a deep and persistent conflict within her. Her Admiral held no such reservations, the whole of the Chiss' being committed to this act, his final turn against the Empire he had served for so long so insignificant it didn't even register within the even flow of his thoughts.

This thing, Kenobi realized, had already been decided in Thrawn's heart.

With a growl of irritation, it was Kenobi that looked away first.

"Fine…" the Sith Lord said under his breath, running a hand through his hair as he glowered at the Chiss who showed no satisfaction at having won their battle of wills. "But you aren't going alone."

"The fewer people that go down to the base, the less likely the chances of detection," Thrawn said casually, almost disinterested, enough for the Sith to grind his teeth together. He lost the initial disagreement. He wouldn't lose this one too.

"I didn't say you should take an army, I said you're not going alone!" Obi-Wan shot back. "One other to watch your back is all I'm asking for. Just in case something goes wrong."

For a moment, Thrawn was silent, his fingers steepled together as he looked at the Sith Lord, and after a moment of deliberation, the Admiral nodded his head.

"Very well," Thrawn said as he rose from his seat. "But I will choose who will accompany me."


"Are you doing alright?" Ezra asked as he slid into the seat opposite a silent, morose Sabine, her helmet on the table and held tightly between her hands. She glanced up at him when he sat and gave the boy a wry smirk, a swift and easy mask she found herself wearing often.

"What, managed to tear yourself away from kissing Luke for a minute?" Sabine teased, her smirk growing into a full, genuine grin when Ezra darkened with flustered embarrassment. "You know, those corners aren't nearly as secluded as you seem to think. They never worked for Kanan and Hera and they won't work for you either."

"We haven't been doing anything!" Ezra said frantically, and quickly cleared his throat when he heard how badly his voice cracked. "Look, he's just really good with the Force!"

"So is Kanan," Sabine said flatly.

"Look," Ezra ground out between tightly clenched teeth as he leaned in closer to the Mandalorian. "Don't you think that if I had been fooling around with Luke the way you seem to think that I'd be flaunting it?"

"You're certainly boastful enough for it," Sabine said with a roll of her eyes before the smirk returned to her lips and she mirrored the Jedi student's conspiratorial lean in. "If his father weren't a Sith Lord that would set your blood on fire before he tore you to pieces for messing around with his far too cute and innocent son?"

"…oh, damn it, I didn't even think about that…" Ezra mumbled, a flash of shock on his face as he leaned back in his seat. "Hey, you don't think-"

"Oh yeah," Sabine drawled, a devious, satisfied smile on her lips as she closed her eyes. "He knows. You can count on that."

Ezra growled softly to himself, his eyes drumming on the table as he glared at Sabine as viciously as he was able, an effort wasted because the girl wasn't even looking at him. But the irritation and the burning on the tips of his ears faded quickly when his attention drifted down to the helmet on the table, the usually bright and vibrant colors that previously adorned it scrubbed clean, exposing the shiny silver beskar steel beneath.

She was repainting it, as she did ever so often, but this time, Ezra knew, was different. This wasn't an expression of her individuality as it had been in the past, vibrant and chaotic and flowing from her as free and easy as the air she breathed. This was an expression of grief, heavy and oppressive and powerful enough to stem the easy creativity of her very soul to make it sluggish and uninspired.

So very unlike Sabine.

"Repainting?" Ezra asked, gesturing toward the helmet. A new approach was needed to get through the steely Mandalorian, and when Sabine gave a slight, nearly imperceptible nod, he knew he had something to work with. "What are you doing this time?"

"I don't know…" Sabine said absently, her fingers lightly brushing against the smooth, cold metal. "I thought maybe something for my mom. For my brother. For my clan." She shrugged, her eyes averting in an attempt to hide the well of tears in her eyes, the following moments of silence to cover the tightness of the lump in her throat. All things Ezra saw, but said nothing about. "For Zeb," Sabine continued quieter than before, her fingers delicately tracing along the face of the helmet. "Every time I think I have something, I pick up the paint and just…can't."

"Maybe you just haven't found the right thing yet," Ezra said quietly, and Sabine responded with a short, harsh scoff.

"I don't think there's a right thing for something like this," Sabine said as she wiped her arm across her eyes and picked the helmet up, a frown on her face as she stared at her reflection in the polished silver. "And you know the worst thing?" Sabine asked bitterly as she looked up at the teen opposite her, a hardness in her eyes that Ezra hadn't seen in the girl before. "I checked the evacuation logs from Mandalore, and I found my father." She paused, her jaw tightening. "He's alive, and safe on Concord Dawn, if the records are right."

"Sabine, that's great!" Ezra said, a wide grin spreading across his face to match the enthusiasm in his voice. Which, he realized too late, was the absolute opposite as the pained, hopeless expression on Sabine's face.

"I thought about going to see him when I found out," Sabine said so quietly Ezra had to lean in to hear her, her shoulders hunching as she seemed to curl in on herself. "We weren't there for the evacuation, but we had a few days before we left. I could have." Again, her features hardened, and this time, along with the pain, Ezra saw shame, felt it through the Force as if he was feeling it himself.

"But every time I thought about going to see him," Sabine said in a low, vicious hiss that dripped with guilt, "all I could think about was how all that death, my mother and brother and the entire clan, was my fault."

"Sabine, it wasn't-"

"Wasn't it?!" Sabine snapped as she slammed the helmet on the table. "Our tactics, our strategy, our plans were all dissected and analyzed using my art, and death came to Clan Wren with a weapon I built!" She was silent for a moment, furious eyes fixed on Ezra filled with wrath and shame and tears she no longer tried to hide. "And worse," Sabine said, her voice finally cracking under the strain of emotion, "we now fight at the command of the one who killed them all."

Before Ezra had a chance to speak, before he could gather his thoughts and find something comforting to say that could help soothe his grief-stricken friend, the hatch hissed open and Thrawn stepped through. Quickly looking away, Sabine growled a curse, removing her helmet from the table and placing it safely out of sight on the bench beside her, a reasonable thing, Ezra thought, considering the Chiss' knack for finding meaning through art.

"Ezra Bridger," Thrawn said, and Ezra found himself straightening to attention despite himself, and with a huff of irritation, he slumped in his seat, his eyes narrowing as he looked at the Chiss and understood immediately why he was on edge. Thrawn's white Admiral's uniform had been replaced by a black, armored military combat suit, a blue patch with a multi-circled insignia on one shoulder and a burgundy sunburst on the other. A variety of blasters and combat sticks were strapped to his waist and thighs, but the most intimidating of the array was the rifle strapped to the Chiss' back. If he cut a striking figure in the Imperial Admiral white, the black he wore now only served to make him seem more intimidating than he already was.

"Sorry, Ezra's not here right now," Ezra drawled as he slumped down further into his chair, his arms crossed indignantly over his chest as he shot the Chiss a defiant look that withered swiftly when it didn't seem to register any reaction with the stoic Admiral.

"You are needed for a mission," Thrawn said as if Ezra hadn't spoken at all, and without another word, the Chiss turned and strode out through the hatch and walked briskly down the ramp. Ezra looked at Sabine and found the girl looking back at him with the same confused expression he knew was on his own face, and without a word, fueled by curiosity on what the insufferable Imperial was planning this time, Ezra stood and started after Thrawn.

"Ezra," Sabine said in a tight, harsh voice as she swiftly reached out and grabbed hold of his hand, the grief and guilt that had been in her eyes burned away by the intensity there now. "He killed Sato, Dodanna and the bulk of our fleet. He killed my mother and brother and the rest of Clan Wren." She paused, her jaw tightening as her already crushing grip on Ezra's hand became tighter. "He killed Kallus, Chopper and Zeb. Take care he doesn't kill you too."

"He won't," Ezra said, and with a squeeze of the Mandalorian's hand and a flash of a small, empty smile, Ezra ran out of the Ghost and down the ramp after the Chiss. It only took a minute to catch up to the Admiral, and coming up beside him, Ezra frowned when discovered that he needed to jog to keep up with Thrawn's muck longer stride. He wasn't as tall as towering Kanan, but it was close, which only served to irritate Ezra further.

"What mission?" Ezra snapped, allowing his frustration and anger to give his words more bite than he normally would have, but if the Chiss noticed, he didn't show it.

"We go to rescue two Chiss children," Thrawn said flatly, and despite himself, Ezra felt his chest tighten with resolve. He knew that the team that had gone with Thrawn down to Batuu had returned with rescued Chiss, eight girls the youngest of which was only six and the oldest no more than eleven or twelve, each and every one of them sensitive to the Force, based on what Ahsoka had reported. And if there were more out there…

Ezra knew what it meant to be alone and abandoned, his own parents taken from him far too soon. If he could help other kids, he had to do it. Bitterly he thought that Thrawn must have known that too, which was likely why he had been selected.

"From the Grysk?" Ezra asked, and Thrawn stiffened, the slightest falter in his gait, but it was just enough for Ezra to notice.

"No…" Thrawn muttered evenly as he glanced down at Ezra. "From the Empire."

"The Empire…" Ezra absently repeated. "The Empire's here?"

Thrawn said nothing, only continued his way across the hangar toward the ray shielded opening into space. The hangar was busier than usual, Ezra noted, with technicians and mechanics busy at work at what looked like every ship in the hangar, from troop transports to the imposing TIE Defenders, but Ezra couldn't determine exactly what they were doing. None of the ships looked to be in need of repairs, and while it seemed possible that Thrawn had ordered all the ships be checked, the hurried feel in the hangar made him feel like whatever was going wasn't standard procedure.

Ezra sidestepped quickly to get out of the way of two mechanics pushing a hovercart, bringing him so close to the Admiral he nearly bumped into him, and he was immediately hit with a wave of dizziness, his head immediately beginning to pound and his limbs feeling as if the strength had been sapped from his body. Staggering away from the Chiss, the feeling immediately lifted as if he had imagined it. He stopped, allowing some distance to be put between him and the Admiral before he followed after him at a safer distance, his eyes narrowed as he warily looked the man over.

Thrawn had a way to beat the Force, Ezra remembered, a thing that felt more insulting than anything else, but he hadn't imagined he'd be able to feel the effects of whatever it was the Chiss had created so strongly. Once again glancing around the hangar, the saw that the space the Umbra was assigned to in the vast hangar was empty, and he couldn't decide if that was a good thing.

"I know Hera said the Empire may have followed us," Ezra said, trying once again to get Thrawn to give up at least a little information about what exactly was going on. "But we left them behind, didn't we? Did we come back looking for them?" But like before, Thrawn didn't answer, only continued his swift stride toward what Ezra now saw was a Lambda shuttle. "That's the ship we're taking?" Ezra groaned with a roll of his eyes. "We're going to go fight the Empire and you want to take-"

Ezra was swiftly cut off when Thrawn grabbed the back of his collar, the disorienting weakness slamming into him once again, leaving him to stumble bonelessly in the direction the Admiral directed him. By the time Ezra managed to get his bearings, Thrawn had marched him up the Lambda's ramp and without so much as a word, shoved him into the cabin, the young Jedi staggering for a few steps before falling into a seat as the hatched closed and sealed behind them.

"After rescuing the girls on Batuu, Obi-Wan believed he detected others and led us here," Thrawn called from the cockpit as he sat in the pilot's seat and began the preflight sequence. "He also detected the presence of Darth Vader in the system. We believe he may be present at our destination."

"And you want to go there?" Ezra asked as he hoisted himself out of his chair, the dizziness passed with the distance between him and the Chiss.

"Obi-Wan is aboard the Umbra and en route to provide a diversionary strike against Vader's Star Destroyer," Thrawn calmly explained, his hands wrapping around the yoke when the console chimed with the all-clear system check. As Ezra settled himself into the copilot's seat, Thrawn lifted the Lambda into the air and they swiftly passed through the atmospheric barrier and into space. "The plan," Thrawn continued, "is that his presence will draw Vader off the planet."

"Because Vader really, really hates Kenobi," Ezra chimed in with a nod.

"And because if his ship is destroyed, stolen, or damaged, his return to the Empire becomes considerably more inconvenient," Thrawn said, punching in coordinates into the navicomputer and pulling back the lever, the ship shuddering for only a moment before it lurched forward with its jump to hyperspace.

"I guess if Vader's dealing with Kenobi, rescuing the kids will be easy," Ezra said flippantly, and he winced when he heard how little his casual tone hid the way his heart was pounding. He and Kanan had faced Vader once, brief as it was, and there was absolutely nothing they could do against the dark, imposing Sith. True, they worked with a Sith Lord, but Darth Lumis was personable and charismatic. Darth Vader was fear itself.

"Do you think it will work?" Ezra asked in a much quieter voice, and to his dismay, the Chiss' hands tightened around the yoke.

"…no," Thrawn said evenly, a coldness in his tone that made a shiver run up Ezra's spine. "The animosity between Obi-Wan and Vader goes both ways. It would be a poor tactician indeed to abandon a place to lay a trap."

"Wel, yeah, but he hates him," Ezra insisted. "Good tactics don't hold up if you're too mad to use them."

"Indeed…" Thrawn agreed quietly. "But I believe the opportunity to face him in person is more appealing than a ship-to-ship confrontation." He shook his head. "No, Vader will bide his time in an effort to draw Obi-Wan to him."

"But he won't," Ezra said pointedly, lurching forward slightly when the ship dropped out of hyperspace.

"Indeed, he will not," Thrawn agreed, his hands on the yoke as he turned the ship, and Ezra frowned when he looked out the viewport and didn't see the Imperial ship he had been expecting, nor did he see any sign of the planet they were supposed to be headed to. "Which is where you come in," Thrawn said as he methodically punched in new coordinates into the navicomputer.

"You want me to deal with Vader?!" Ezra said in a voice that was just high pitched enough to be embarrassing. "Me?! Are you out of your-"

"I will deal with Vader," Thrawn interrupted coldly as he pulled the lever and sent them shooting back into hyperspace. "You are here to bring the children to safety." The sideways glance the Chiss sent in Ezra's direction made the young Jedi feel angry and guilty all at once. "I could not trust the others to leave me to face Vader, but you will have no such difficulty."

It felt like as sharp a judgement as had ever been leveled against him, made all the worse by the chilling casualness of the Admiral's voice, not meant to be an insult, but little more than a fact. Thrawn truly believed that, and most damning of all, even through his impulse to object, Ezra knew he was right about that. Be it selfishness, the dark desire for vengeance, or the gnawing need to survive that had driven him since he was orphaned, Ezra knew he'd run when Vader showed his face. If it was Kanan beside him, things would be different, but the high death toll on Thrawn's hands made a darker part of Ezra know he wouldn't risk himself to save him.

The darker feelings pounding in his chest suddenly vanished when Ezra realized Thrawn wasn't accusing him of leaving him alone with the terrifying Sith Lord.

He was counting on it.

"So how are you planning on getting past the Star Destroyer?" Ezra asked as he sat up straighter, newly resolved. "If Kenobi's harassing them, they aren't going to be sending anyone down to the planet."

"The diversion is designed to keep them from looking elsewhere," Thrawn said as the ship dropped out of hyperspace once again, this time a planet looming large and imposing in the viewport, no sign of the Imperial ship in sight. "We are coming in from the opposite side of the planet. Obi-Wan's diversion will narrow the focus of the sensor operators."

"…and here I thought you just messed up the jump," Ezra said as he leaned back in his seat, his hands clasped behind his head as he watched the planet swiftly grow larger with their approach. Thrawn didn't respond, the faintest hint of a smile on his lips as he brought them into Mokivj's atmosphere, a gray and black thing that darkened the cockpit and only grew worse when they pierced the cloud cover. It wasn't volcanic like Ezra had first thought, but the planet had been devastated, the ground blackened and burned, the landscape predominantly barren, save for a few small patches of green that stubbornly persisted, but not enough to indicate that anything could be grown to sustain a population.

It looked, Ezra bitterly thought, like one of the hundreds of planets that the Empire had stripped bare and left when they could no longer be of use. A fate he knew that one day soon, Lothal would share, if they didn't return swiftly enough.

"How are you going to beat Vader?" Ezra asked when the silence became uncomfortable, their rapid approach to their destination making Ezra increasingly nervous. "We've seen that you have a way to beat the Force, but I don't think that's the only thing that makes him dangerous."

"Indeed, it is not," Thrawn agreed quietly. "But my method of disrupting the Force is a shield, not the weapon I will bring against him."

"…you have a weapon?" Ezra asked quietly, equal parts excitement and dread making his heart pound hard in his chest, and he cast a suspicious glance over his shoulder toward the hold of the ship before he looked back at the Chiss. "What is it?"

"Memory," Thrawn said simply, and Ezra stared dumbfounded at him.

"Memory?" he asked, and the faintest smile touched the Admiral's lips, a thing Ezra felt more than saw carried a strange, melancholic satisfaction.

"Memory," Thrawn said again, much quieter now than before. "The past, Ezra Bridger, is the most powerful weapon of all."

Ezra stared at him, hoping his silence would prompt more of an explanation out of the Chiss, but Thrawn said nothing, only began a slow descent as they drew closer to the old Separatist base that was their destination, their approach the exact vector that he and Anakin Skywalker had once taken so many years ago.

Ezra, a habitual nervous talker, had just come up with another question to fill the silence when he saw the structure on the horizon, an old, partially destroyed structure that looked more like an ancient castle than the military base he had been expecting. As they flew closer, he could see that some of the damage looked recent, and as they landed, his heart jumped into his throat when he spotted the Imperil ships in the courtyard, two troop transports, a Lambda shuttle, and a singular TIE Fighter, not the standard model, but one that bore the curved wings of the Advanced model.

Vader's ship. Thrawn was right. He was here.

"So what's the plan?" Ezra asked quietly once the Lambda settled on the ground in the courtyard, his voice lowered as if speaking loudly would attract the attention of the Stormtroopers the Imperials had sent in, or worse, the Sith Lord himself.

"We do not wish to attract attention," Thrawn muttered as he punched something absently into the navicomputer, his voice distant and his eyes fixed out the viewport before he suddenly rose from his seat and strode out the cockpit, Ezra following close behind. "The western entrance will provide the least resistance," Thrawn said as he pressed his fingers to a control panel on the wall, the ship's hatch opening with a hiss as the ramp lowered.

Before Ezra had a chance to ask any further questions, Thrawn was off, the Chiss running swiftly across the courtyard with the young Jedi following dutifully behind him, their path taking them behind the Imperial ships to offer them the greatest possible cover should anyone choose that moment to return to the courtyard. Nobody did, and within minutes, Thrawn and Ezra had reached the western wall and swiftly darted through an opening where a heavy door had been recently blown off. Broken stone littered the corridors of the old building, burns of blaster fire evident in black scoring on the stones and the acrid scent of ozone a testament to how recent the signs of battle had been made.

Thrawn drew his blaster at the sign of the first body they discovered, a Stormtrooper that had been caught in an explosion, from the look of it, the white armor cracked and shattered and exposing badly burned, blistering skin, a thing that Ezra quickly looked away from. There were more bodies as they pushed further inside, the state of them in even worse condition than the first, indicative of fighting that only grew fiercer as time wore on. And then, suddenly, there were no more bodies, the long, still smoldering burns cutting gashes into the wall painting a clear image of what had happened.

Vader had arrived, and his men had stopped getting killed by whoever was holed up here.

Even worse, the air around them had suddenly become very, very cold.

Focusing on the lightsaber burns faintly glowing on the wall, Ezra nearly bumped into Thrawn when the Chiss suddenly stopped, his glowing eyes fixed on the stretch of hallway before them before he suddenly knelt, his fingers brushing away the dust on the ground before hooking on a latch and opening a well-hidden door. Ezra peered inside, the opening beneath them too dark to see, and without a word, Thrawn dropped inside, the sound of him hitting the ground swiftly following. Hissing a curse under his breath and peering down at the glowing red eyes now staring up at him from the darkness, Ezra followed, landing on the ground beside Thrawn and with a wave of his hand, the hatch above them silently closed, plunging them into darkness that was swiftly chased away with the snapping hum of his lightsaber. Secured within the hidden tunnel, Thrawn took off running, Ezra following closely behind.

"How did you know this was here?" Ezra said as quietly as he could manage as he ran.

"I have been here before," Thrawn called back, his pace slowing slightly as his eyes darted around the tunnel. "When you return to the ship, you need to contact Obi-Wan. He is waiting on our signal to call off the attack. You will-"

"Woah, wait," Ezra interrupted, shooting a questioning glance up at the Chiss he was certain went unseen. "You really think these girls are going to come with me if you're in trouble? You're probably the first Chiss they've seen in a while, they're not going to want to leave you." At this, Thrawn stopped running, the swift stop almost making Ezra trip over himself, and the Admiral's shoulders seemed to drop with an almost palpable relief. It took Ezra a moment to realize the relief came from his objection not being about leaving the Admiral behind, but on the logistics of how that was to be done.

He only felt guilty after he realized he didn't feel any guilt about leaving Thrawn behind.

"You must get away with them," Thrawn said quietly, with an intensity that said in no uncertain terms that this was not up for debate. "Any delay and we risk the children falling into the hands of the Empire. This cannot be allowed."

"I can't disagree with that…" Ezra muttered.

"I will meet you at the rendezvous I have programmed into the navicomputer," Thrawn said flatly as he continued walking down the subterranean corridor, his eyes trained on the ceiling. "You will wait for fifteen minutes. If I do not arrive within that time, you will return to the Chimaera."

"And how exactly do you plan on making it to the rendezvous at all if I have the ship?" Ezra shot back, and this time, he actually saw the Chiss' eyes roll, the dark of the corridor making it all the easier to see every movement of those glowing red eyes.

"How many ships were in the courtyard when we landed?" Thrawn said dryly, and Ezra scoffed, his own eyes rolling as well before a devious smirk twisted his lips with his sudden understanding.

"Three," Ezra drawled. "But only one of them makes any sense to take."

Thrawn nodded and swiftly stopped a moment later, took a few slow steps backward, and stopped again, pointing up at the ceiling. Squinting and holding his saber higher, Ezra tried to see what Thrawn did, and could only make out the faintest hint of cracks above them.

"The central factory is above us," Thrawn said, his voice lowered once again. "Nobody is there. If we move swiftly, we may avoid a confrontation entirely."

"Sort of a waste," Ezra said as flippantly as his nerves allowed. "Kenobi will be so disappointed if you don't manage to steal Vader's TIE Fighter."

"I was planning on abandoning it after the rendezvous," Thrawn grumbled as he gestured above them. Taking his meaning, Ezra stepped up, cracking his fingers, and with a gesture of his hands upwards, the hidden trap door snapped open, allowing faint light to pour in from above them. Backing up a few steps to allow him some space, Thrawn took three long, fast strides, Ezra hissing a curse under his breath as he dove sideways to keep from being hit, and the Chiss jumped at the wall, his foot striking the rough stone and pushing hard against it to repel himself higher up, allowing him to just succeed in grabbing the edge of the opening, With a swing of his legs and a soft grunt of effort, Thrawn managed to pull himself up, disappearing through the opening above. Impressed despite himself, Ezra shut off his lightsaber, bent his legs, and used the Force to effortlessly jump up through the hatch.

Judging by the rundown, broken, ancient exterior, Ezra had been expecting a similar mess inside. Instead, what he found was a modern, obviously active factory, crates stacked high along rows of conveyor belts and assembly lines. Nothing was on, and it looked like a fair bit of it had been destroyed, but the destruction was recent, the smell of smoke and electrical fires still heavy in the air. Throughout the area, he could see a few dead Stormtroopers on the ground, but otherwise, it looked as though the Imperials had passed through and hadn't returned.

Yet.

Quickly spotting Thrawn as the man darted between conveyor belts, Ezra ran after him, following his lead and keeping low and running along the machines and crates when he was able. It only took a minute to catch up to the Admiral, the man crouched beside a large, cylindrical machine of some sort. A thing Ezra recognized as one of the things Sabine and Thrawn's Stormtroopers had managed to capture from the freighter.

"A gravity well generator," Thrawn whispered when Ezra knelt beside him, and he gestured upward, the young Jedi's eyes following where he pointed to several more of the same capsules secured in large pallets above them. "This is where they are making them."

"What are they going to do with all these?" Ezra asked, and Thrawn grimly shook his head, his eyes remaining fixed above them.

"These are weapons…" Thrawn muttered. "The ability to control where an enemy will appear provides vital military advantages. There are few things more dangerous than a skilled enemy on their own carefully chosen ground."

"So we need to destroy them," Ezra said firmly as he began to rise, but a cold hand on his shoulder kept him from doing so.

"The Grysk will likely return to do that themselves," Thrawn said evenly. "Destruction to them is preferable to discovery, and they have already suffered a major loss at Batuu. They will likely consider it a priority to see that as little information as possible may be gathered from this place." He pointed up toward the pallets held in the grasp of alien machinery at two smaller cylinders hanging separately from the gravity well generators. "And our mission is not destruction, but rescue. Bring those two devices down. Carefully, if you would."

Squinting up at what Thrawn was pointing at and pressing his lips together as he focused, he reached up, the Force making the pallets sway as he grabbed hold of one of the cylinders, and with the creaking and groaning of metal, Ezra managed to dislodge it. The cylinder jostled less gently than he would have liked, but by the time he set it down upon the ground, he had complete control over the large, unwieldy thing, and managed to settle it upon the ground without it making a sound.

The second one came down faster and easier than the first, and by the time Ezra set it upon the ground, Thrawn had popped open a hatch on the first device and was very carefully scooping a disoriented and extremely groggy Chiss girl from the pod.

Ezra felt immediately nauseous with the swell of rage that swept over him. The girl couldn't have been more than six years old.

"This planet has ten moons," Thrawn said quietly, the little girl held close to his chest and cradled in the bend of his arm as his free hand tapped swiftly along the control panel on the second pod. "But I only counted six on our approach."

"Wha-?" Ezra started, forcing himself to look away from the little girl that clung tightly to Thrawn, her tiny fingers scraping on the multi-circle patch on his shoulder, but the swift change in subject and the fury he felt kept him from getting back on balance. "We didn't exactly fly around the planet, they could have been on the other side-"

"No," Thrawn interrupted, a hard edge in his voice as those glowing eyes seemed to bore holes through the young Jedi.

"…you think the Grysk destroyed them?" Ezra asked, the shock of the Admiral's harsh tone bringing him back to the moment through the haze of his anger.

"I think it more likely they towed them away from the planet's orbit," Thrawn said, his voice lowering as the pod hissed open, the man waiting for a moment for the little girl inside to gasp and open her eyes before he reached inside and lifted her out. "A gravity well projector such as the ones they create here can only cause so much disruption. But by moving an entire moon out of orbit?" He held both girls closer to his chest when one of them sniffled and both began to cry, their tiny hands balling tightly into his clothing as they clung to him.

"They can change travel through the region forever," Ezra finished, and Thrawn gave a small, tight nod before he turned his attention to the girls and whispered something to them in a language Ezra didn't understand, the Admiral's voice far gentler than Ezra thought the man capable. It only lasted a moment, though, as Thrawn's eyes narrowed and shifted upwards, his eyes swiftly darting from one side of the room to the other.

Just before Ezra looked over his shoulder to see what Thrawn was looking at, he felt it too. A second later, and he heard the cold, mechanical breathing that accompanied the sudden cold.

"They're here," came the low, modulated voice. "I can sense them. Spread out. Find them."

A sharp, swift chorus of affirmatives answered back, and slow, armored footsteps echoed through the room as the group fanned out. Chancing a quick glance between the conveyor's struts, Ezra could see at least a full squadron of Stormtroopers, ten, maybe more observable just from his vantage point. Which was manageable, but the presence of the Sith Lord in room made that irrelevant. One Stormtrooper or a thousand, it was all the same with Vader to contend with.

"We need a diversion so you can escape with the children," Thrawn whispered. "Can you provide one?" Eyes trained up at the ceiling, Ezra gave a short, tight nod, but his attention was swiftly torn back to Thrawn when the man laid his hand upon his shoulder. "You will wait here with the girls for the right moment to run."

"And what moment is that?" Ezra asked.

"You will know," Thrawn said simply, and with that, he pulled the girls closer, whispering something to them that Ezra couldn't hear nor understand. Looking back up at the ceiling high above them, the sound of the Stormtroopers drawing ever closer, Ezra focused on the pallets held by mechanical claws, and closing his hand into a tight fist, he wrenched his hand sideways, the pallets tethered by the Force and following his movements. With a groaning creak of metal, the machines swayed, bent, and with a second pull, snapped, sending the pallets and their cylindrical cargo crashing to the ground. The flash of blaster fire flying toward the movement above them and the shouts of the Stormtroopers to dive for cover only lasted a moment before the clanging impact of metal upon the ground drowned out all other sound, the rising cloud of dust and dirt obscuring everything around them.

When Ezra finally removed his hands from his ears and opened his eyes, the dust had yet to settle, but Thrawn was gone, the two Chiss girls now clinging tightly to his legs, the glow of their red eyes looking up at him expectantly. For a moment, Ezra wondered if this was the moment he should go, now before the dust settled while the Stormtroopers' vision would still be obscured, but the opportunity was taken from him when he heard two soldiers just on the other side of the conveyor belt he was hiding behind, the lights on the end of their blasters passing just over his head as they searched the area.

Tapping one of the girls on the shoulder, he pointed to his back, and to his relief, the girl understood and quickly climbed on, her legs wrapped tightly around his waist and her hands clasped just below his neck. Picking up the other girl and holding her to his chest, Ezra took a few deep breaths as he pressed closer to the machine as the Stormtroopers searched nearby, and scanning the area as the dust began to settle, he grinned when he saw that there was nobody near the trap door they had come through.

He started to creep out, and swiftly pressed himself back against the machine when he looked around the corner and saw Darth Vader, tall and imposing and standing in the middle of the room where he had a clear view of where Ezra had to run to get to safety.

He was trapped, and with the Stormtroopers searching so nearby, it was only a matter of time before he was discovered. Even if he managed to evade the Stormtroopers, Vader had said he sensed them. How long would it be before the Sith Lord zeroed in on his location and-

"Anakin Skywalker!"

The voice rang out clear and loud across the entire area, and the search lights on the Stormtroopers' weapons swung back over Ezra's head and pointed up in the opposite direction. Peering up over the conveyor belt, Ezra saw every Stormtrooper in the area facing away from him, their weapons pointed upwards toward a second story walkway where Thrawn stood. But more importantly, Vader's attention was captured by the Chiss as well, his back now turned away from the trap door, and a wide grin spread across Ezra's face. His path, impossibly treacherous before, was now completely clear. Thrawn had been right. He knew exactly when to go.

Clutching the child in his arms closer to his chest, Ezra ran for safety.


For a long moment, there was silence, the chatter of the Stormtrooper's ceased, their weapons held firm and ready to fire, but they weren't looking at their potential target. Instead, the soldiers were looking at the Sith Lord who stood still and unreadable in the middle of the room, surrounded by the mess of fallen machinery and dead troopers crushed by the diversion Ezra had created. Without being able to see their faces it was difficult to know for certain, but from the way some of them stood, it was obvious to Thrawn that they were not just looking to him for orders.

There was a sense of uncertainty in many of their body stances, a quiet tremor of confusion in the slight unsteadiness of some of their weapons. Certainly, not all of them had heard of the Jedi General Anakin Skywalker. Some of them were likely too young to have even been alive during the Clone Wars. But Vader's first Legion were elite warriors, handpicked by Vader himself from the 501st, which had once, long ago, been the Clone Trooper legion commanded by Anakin Skywalker himself. Any of these men who had learned the history of the prestigious legion they served would have learned of the Jedi hero that once led them, and based on how these Stormtroopers reacted, it was clear that many of them knew the history well.

A thing Vader was likely keenly aware of.

In the distance, Thrawn could see a swift shadow dart between the conveyors and machines, and again a bit further on, and once again as it disappeared through the trap door in the floor. A faint smile pulled at the corner of his lips as relief unleashed the tension that had strained his chest, and Thrawn refocused his attention on Vader, confident and determined of his course now that the children were safe. No matter what happened next, his mission had been a success.

"Anakin Skywalker is dead," Vader finally said, his voice deep and cold and commanding as if attempting to will the thought into the hearts and minds of all who heard him, but the Chiss just drew up taller, his hand lingering on the blaster at his hip.

"So I have been told," Thrawn said equally coldly, and from the way Vader drew up, from the way the Stormtroopers looked to the Sith Lord, it had been taken as the challenge he had intended. "But I knew Anakin Skywalker, and it will take more than a cape and a mask to fool me."

With that, it was done. Vader had been neatly placed in a box, and there were only two ways out, one of which Thrawn was certain he would not take, leaving him only with the path the Admiral had intended. He and Obi-Wan had spoken about the secrecy surrounding Vader's identity, but for as much as the renegade Sith Lord considered the motivations for such a thing, he had never once considered that to Thrawn, such secrecy was a devastating weapon that could be brought to bear.

The expressionless mask never turned away from the Admiral, but the hand at Vader's side closed into a tight, shaking fist, and all at once, every Stormtrooper standing in the room dropped their weapons, the soldiers dropping to their knees as they clawed helplessly at their throats. Some tore off their helmets in a futile attempt to get air into their lungs, their faces becoming darker with each passing moment with stopped blood flow and lack of oxygen. A hard, tight frown touched Thrawn's lips as Vader's men died one by one, their bodies falling still to the ground. These deaths were necessary, carefully planned and orchestrated the moment they had entered the factor and began their search, but these soldiers, Imperial soldiers so like the ones he had served with for so many years, were not deaths that Thrawn took any satisfaction in.

"The Emperor suspected you of treason," Vader growled when the last of the Stormtroopers lay dead. "It seems his suspicions were correct."

"Were they?" Thrawn asked with a tilt of his head as he observed the Sith Lord. "I traveled here to combat an alien threat encroaching upon Imperial space. The same as you, I suspect."

"I came to investigate a disturbance the Emperor sensed!" Vader snarled. "What I find here is you, in a foreign military's uniform, and Darth Lumis contenting himself on petty harassment of my ship." Vader pointed an accusing finger at the Chiss. "I do not believe this to be a coincidence."

"What you found here," Thrawn said calmly, "were the Grysk, a hostile species that have plagued the Unknown Regions for some time. Just as I found them on Batuu."

"Your attempts to change the subject will not work, Commander," Vader said, his voice biting even through the distortion of the mask, and a tight smile touched Thrawn's lips. Commander. The rank Thrawn had once presented himself as to General Skywalker so long ago. It was a deception, made in order to undersell himself as a threat to an unknown other, but now, it served as a verbal confirmation of Vader's identity.

The undertone of humor Thrawn found at the situation was not shared by Vader.

"Do you find this amusing?!" Vader snapped, and the smile faded from Thrawn's lips as calm once again settled over him.

"No," Thrawn quickly answered. "I am not changing the subject. The Grysk are a real and serious threat. I have engaged them before and I know what they are capable of. It is not an accident you were led to this place. Perhaps it was their presence that the Emperor sensed."

For a moment, Vader was silent save for the rhythmic sound of his breathing, the imposing Sith standing still, surrounded by the bodies of his own men. Then, with a snarl of anger, he took a step forward, his hand clenched at his side.

"I see no threat here," Vader snarled. "They died as easily as anyone else."

"I believe you caught them off their guard," Thrawn said calmly, which only served to make Vader draw up taller in his indignation.

"That is irrelevant!" Vader snapped. "The Emperor sent me out here to investigate. What you haven't made clear yet is why you are here."

"It is my job to defend the Empire," Thrawn said evenly, his eyes flicking momentarily away from Vader when he heard the distant rumble of a ship in flight. His attention returned to the Sith Lord as his relief melted into hard resolve. "I came here because there is a threat."

"No," Vader said flatly. "You are here," he growled, "because Darth Lumis sensed a disturbance in the Force. The same disturbance the Emperor felt. And you," Vader spat contemptuously, "are in league with him." Thrawn said nothing, and his silence was damning. Vader scoffed with contempt. "Perhaps your battle with the rebels on Atollon didn't go so well as your report claimed."

"Perhaps the Emperor did not send you here for the reason you believe," Thrawn said coldly, the swift pivot away from Vader's accusations hitting just close enough to home to make the Sith Lord tense. "This world was devastated by your actions on our first journey here," Thrawn said, his eyes narrowing as he remembered the thoughtless Jedi, heedless of his warnings, blow up a cortosis mine, causing a chain reaction through the conductive material that went straight into the planet's core and forever altered the ecosystem of Mokivj.

"Maybe the Emperor sent you here now," Thrawn continued, a hard edge working its way into his voice, "so that you could see you are just as reckless and foolish now as you were then."

With a vicious, angry snarl, Vader thrust out his arm, his thumb and fingers squeezing together as he commanded the Dark Side to choke the life out of the Chiss and…nothing. He felt the Force, felt it snapping to do his bidding, but Thrawn remained defiant, unaffected, and for a moment, all Vader could do was stare in disbelief and a lack of understanding at how the man still managed to live. That moment of hesitation was all the time Thrawn needed to draw the weapon on his back, aim, and fire, a bolt of blue, crackling lightning shooting down toward the Sith Lord.

Vader's lightsaber flew to his hand and ignited the instant before the lightning struck him, the arching blue bolts harmlessly caught on the crimson blade, and with confirmation that the Force was obeying him, Vader swiped his hand across the air, tearing one of the several tall support machines from the ground and sending it crashing into the walkway where Thrawn stood. Perhaps he couldn't directly harm the Chiss with the Force, but certainly the mysterious protection Thrawn employed wouldn't protect him from being crushed to death.

But when the clanging screech of falling metal ended and the dust had settled, Thrawn was nowhere to be found, a thing Vader had expected, but irritated him none the less. Being difficult to kill, it seemed, was not a quality in the Chiss that faded with age.

He stood there in the silence punctuated by the thrum of his lightsaber and his heavy, ponderous respirator, feeling more than listening for the next time the vile traitor would emerge, and whipped around a second later just in time to catch the next shot fired from Thrawn's lightning gun. Through the electricity and the haze of red cast from his saber, Vader could see the Chiss quickly ducking behind the cover of another machine after he fired the weapon. Snarling with contempt and a rising satisfaction, Vader used the Force the slam the machine into the one directly behind it, hoping to catch Thrawn between them. He knew as soon as he heard the harsh sound of crushing metal that he hadn't been successful, but it didn't matter. Thrawn couldn't escape him, and this game of his was rapidly drawing to a close.

Thrawn dove out of the way of the crushing impact, rolled out into the open, and as he came up on one knee, he trained his weapon on Vader and fired, the lightning lancing out and catching harmlessly on the lightsaber, the Sith Lord having been ready and waiting for the attack. As the arcs of electricity faded, Vader drew up taller and took a menacing step forward, his posture brimming with confidence and a certain knowing, cruel smugness Thrawn was certain he'd have seen on his face. It was easy to imagine it. After all, the Jedi Anakin Skywalker had been nothing if not excessively smug in his confidence. Vader took another step forward, slower than the one before it, but Thrawn didn't move from where he knelt, his lightning gun held limply in his left and pointed at the ground, his right reaching for the blaster at his hip.

Arrogance, Thrawn thought with satisfaction as Vader took another step forward, the red lightsaber blazing in his hand and filling the air with a sharp, warning hum. And like so many things, arrogance swiftly turned confidence into over-confidence, a dangerous turn for those who did not see it, and through their shared past together, Thrawn knew that Vader did not see.

Through Anakin Skywalker, he had managed to accurately predict Darth Vader.

"That's your third shot," Vader said, as he took another slow, menacing step toward the Chiss, his voice low and infinitely amused. "If I remember correctly, you have no more charges."

He was close enough now, and Vader sliced his lightsaber down at the Chiss, the man sliding back just out of the way as he drew his blaster, the red lightsaber cutting a burning gash in the ground where Thrawn had just been. He quickly brought his lightsaber back up in front of him as Thrawn fired, intending to deflect the shot right back at the traitorous Admiral, but instead found himself staggering back, the blue bolt fired from the blaster nearly knocking the saber out of his hands.

It was…impossible.

Thrawn fired a second shot, but Vader was ready this time, and when he sliced his saber across the air to intercept the strange blaster fire, he stood his ground, his tight grip on his weapon allowing him to keep hold of the hilt even as the failed deflection knocked his blade off center. He looked down at Thrawn, fury coursing through him, and saw, too late, that the lightning gun in his hand was raised and pointed right at his chest.

The weapon flashed, a bolt of blue lightning shot forward, and his saber, knocked back from the impact of the previous shot, couldn't be brought to bear in time. Fresh pain surged through Vader as electricity coursed through his body and his mechanical limbs, each wire and conductor and node attached to him amplifying the current as sensors and cybernetics shorted out. He felt his respirator hitch as his legs buckled and he collapsed to the ground, leaving him looking up through the eye lenses of his mask, the view red and static with the interference from the electricity as he wheezed through the tubes of his non-functioning respirator.

A minute later, Thrawn came into view, and impotent rage surged through the Sith Lord as he looked up into that calm, expressionless face, the lightning gun that had undone him held in a relaxed grip.

"This one has five," Thrawn said evenly, and with that, the Chiss turned and left, leaving the Sith Lord to howl in rage at an empty room.


It had been twelve minutes, and Ezra was starting to have regrets.

Nobody would blame him if he returned without Thrawn. There was risk inherent in everything they did, and with Vader involved, that risk increased tenfold. At least. He did the right thing, escaping with the two children that sat huddled together in the copilot's seat beside him, trembling and sniffling and so very, very afraid. There was nothing else he could have done.

But Ezra knew better. He ran instead of giving his all to help. It's why he was brought, Thrawn had said. Because anyone else would have stayed behind to help, would have given their all to fight. And even if it was Thrawn, an Imperial monster who had murdered so many good people in the name of the Empire's tyranny, Ezra couldn't shake the guilt as he looked at the little girls beside him.

The faces of all those who have died lingered before him. Sato and Dodanna, Hera's father and Agent Kallus, Zeb and even Chopper, all lost to the man he had abandoned to face Vader alone. It was justice, he told himself weakly, but looking at those two children who had been stolen from their families, he couldn't believe it. Nobody who was willing to face a Sith Lord alone to save helpless children could have been all bad. Kanan would have known that, and Kanan would have stayed.

But that was why Thrawn had brought him, not Kanan.

Nobody would blame him. But Ezra knew the truth, and that was the worst thing of all.

The two girls suddenly tensed, two glowing pairs of red eyes swiftly looking out the viewport at…nothing. A wry smirk touched Ezra's lips. They were Force sensitive, he knew. He could feel that much. But it was becoming increasingly clear that they saw the future, a thing that was confirmed three seconds later when the Lambda's sensors alerted him to an incoming ship.

Ezra threw up the shields, his hand hovering over the lever that would jump them into hyperspace, the navigational system already primed, the coordinates already entered. They could make the jump at a moment's notice, if the incoming ship wasn't so friendly as he hoped.

The image of Vader's curved winged TIE Advanced appeared clearly on the sensor display, followed quickly by a ping on the com, and relief flooded through Ezra, a slight smile coming to his lips as he saw the starfighter in the distance as it rapidly approached, and slowed when it became visible enough to see clearly.

Memory, Ezra thought wryly as he quickly primed the docking hatch and the magnetic sealers on the bottom of the ship, was a far greater weapon than he realized.

The girls shot out of the copilot's seat and dashed into the back of the ship just as he heard the hiss of the opening hatch. Ezra followed after them, entering the back just in time to see Thrawn climb up, the man so dusty and dirty he looked more gray than blue, but didn't seem any worse for wear as the girls slammed into him, clinging to his leg and climbing up to clasp him tightly around the waist, heedless of how filthy they were becoming as dirt smudged their grinning, weary faces.

It was unthinkable, Ezra thought as he watched the man collapse on one of the seats, the girls talking over each other as they nestled against the Admiral. Even with all the losses they had faced, maybe the rebellion had a chance of success after all.

"Is he dead?" Ezra asked, and closing his eyes, Thrawn shook his head.

"I have further use of him," Thrawn muttered quietly, looking down at the children as they clutched his hands, the excitement of their previous conversation swiftly evaporating before the wave of exhaustion that the relief of safety brought. Ezra thought to remind Thrawn that maybe – just maybe – letting a man as dangerous as Vader live was a bad idea, before he stopped himself. Maybe the opportunity didn't present itself. Maybe it did, and he decided not to take it. Regardless of what happened down there, just this once, as he looked at the two girls swiftly fall asleep against the Imperial that turned traitor to save them, Ezra decided to give Thrawn the benefit of the doubt.

"Are we ready to depart?" Thrawn asked quietly.

"Yeah," Ezra said, flashing a swift, tight smile at the Admiral and the sleeping girls as he turned back toward the cockpit, his fingers tapping a control on the wall to release the magnetic seal holding the TIE to the hull. "Let's get you guys home."