Disclaimer: Joss, WB, UPN et al. own Buffy. George Lucas, LucasArts, LucasFilm etc. own Star Wars and everything else. Raven made Jedi Knight II.

Title: Keeping True To Ones Self

Author: Paradigm Shifter

Rating: PG-13.

Feedback: Since this is going on Tenhawk's XanderZone, why not borrow a line? It's the Coin of the Realm... kind of like salt at one point...

Notes:

Continuity: Xander the Jedi, Sunnydale Jedi, any others that get bunged in the middle, 'To Learn of the Past' and any other side-pieces. And the 'Dark Forces' computer game.

Rating: PG right now. May go up. I'll see.
The Comms Engineer spoke, "We have received a transmission from Princess Organa, General."

Jan Dodonna nodded, and turned toward the viewscreen that covered most of one wall of the hidden facility that he was currently standing in. "Put it up, son."

Princess Leia Organa's face appeared on the screen amidst a burst of static. "General Dodonna. We are in position to receive the plans, as you requested. I will transmit them via narrow-burst when they are in our possession."

Jan Dodonna nodded and smiled at the obviously nervous young Senator. "Thank you, Princess. Alderaan has finally decided to join, then?"

Princess Leia shook her head. "No, General. But I cannot stand by as the Emperor destroys everything the Senate fought so hard to achieve." She paused. "How certain are you of your agents? We have had several of Alderaan's security and intelligence agents uncovered as the Emperor's minions..."

Dodonna frowned. That the Emperor posted agents on a planet known not to support any sort of military whatsoever was troubling. Then he smiled, attempting to put the Princesses mind at ease. "Have no fear, Princess, I trust these men with my life, and more. As should you..."

Dodonna knew about Xander's past, and what he had done when Anakin turned to the Dark Side. Arguably the greatest Jedi ever discovered turned his back on the Force to protect those he cared about. Padme and her handmaidens lived today only because of Xander's self-sacrificing nature. Leia, and her unknowing brother lived only because of him. Many owed him their lives, and would never know it.

Leia looked surprised at the rebuke, but took it as intended. "Very well, general. I will wait for the transmission... until I contact you again..." she nodded to him, smiled and reached forward to cut the transmission.

Jan Dodonna looked at the now blank viewscreen. "I hope this works."
Luke Skywalker toiled under the unforgiving Twin suns of Tatooine. His uncle, while a bit of a slave driver, meant well, and Luke knew it. It was only a couple of days before the Jawas would come on their monthly sales trip, after having spent the past couple of weeks in the desert, searching for scrap and other potentially useful equipment that they could sell second hand to the underpaid and often desperate Moisture farmers of Tatooine.

Luke looked up, shading his eyes from the Sun's despite his darkened goggles. His uncle stood on the ridgeline, looking down at him.

"Luke!" He called as he slid-walked down the side of the dune. "I need to talk to you!"

"What?" yelled back the sandy blond boy. "Uncle Owen? What did I do now?"

Owen reached Luke, and smiled fondly at him. "You're not in trouble, Luke. I just need you to make a run to Toshi Station for some parts."

"Can it wait till tomorrow?" asked Luke, "I was going down there to meet Camie, Fixer and the others..."

Owen shook his head. "It can't wait. I need the part this evening. And anyway, I need you to stay here to check out any new droids we might get from the Jawas... they cut a hard bargain, but it might be the only hope for extra hands we have for a while..."

Luke pulled a face. "I hope this wont mean I have to put off my application to the Academy again?" he asked with a too hopeful voice.

Owen shook his head. "I just need you here a few more seasons, Luke... you can apply next year."

Luke turned away, nodding, but muttering sullenly, "That's what you said last year..."

"What was that?"

Luke turned around again, a beatific smile on his face. "Nothing!" he declared brightly, "nothing at all!"

Owen Lars shook his head again, and turned away. There was a lot that needed to be done before the Jawas arrived.
Kyle succeeded in ducking round a corner just in time to avoid being seen by a patrol. "I hate this... this facility has more damned security that Coruscant!"

He peeked round the corner at the retreating backs of the Stormtrooper's, and checked the charge on his pistol again. He had liberated a Stormie grade rifle when he was discovered by a lone trooper, but didn't want to use it unless the proverbial brown stuff hit the extractor. It was not quiet. And quiet was what Kyle most needed to be for the next few standard hours. Discovery... proper discovery; wouldn't be fatal. It would be much more unpleasant... involving a little 'chat' with Vader and some of the Emperor's Torture droids.

Jogging quickly down a corridor, Kyle turned left as he reached a T-junction and pulled a keycard out of his pocket. Swiping it quietly through the reader, he tensed as the door slid open with a quiet #hiss#.

An Imperial Officer stood with his back to the door, examining a glass screen with several schematic diagrams on it.

"Perfect..." whispered Kyle. Raising his blaster pistol, he shot the Officer in the back, before stepping into the room and looking critically at the diagrams.

"Very lovely, but that is no help unless I can get a copy." He stepped neatly over the now dead body of the Imperial, and waved his hands over the keyboard as he thought for a minute.

Finally admitting defeat, he keyed his Comm. "Jan?" Kyle asked, "Jan, you there?"

A crackle of static, and Jan Ors' voice came over the Comm clearly. "I'm here, Kyle, where in the name of Alderaan's Twin Suns are you?"

"I'm stuck in the Archive room... looking at a very pretty picture of a weapon the size of a small moon... and I have no way of getting the schematics without some serious time." His voice betrayed his anxiousness.

"There isn't a lot I can do without some sort of visual, Kyle... you're on your own, I'm afraid..."

"I was afraid that you'd say something like that. Listen, Jan, I'll call you back when I want extraction. Thanks anyway."

"No problem, Kyle. Just remember, I want your handsome little rear to come back in one piece... no getting it shot off as you run away..."

"Like a need another souvenir like Chandrila... I can do without another blaster crease on my butt, thank you!"

Jan cut the Comm, but not before Kyle heard a snigger.

"Women!" he cursed, before thinking better of it, "especially women who care for you!"

Kyle looked forlornly at the console, before shrugging. "Ah... whatever. I'll try the usual method..." he unslung the E-11a rifle and fired a rapid burst into the console, watching as the plastic and transparisteel buckled under the barrage.

Looking into the charred remains, he noticed a data tape hidden inside. "Perfect! The tried and true method works again!"

"Shift Change!" called a bored voice from around the corner of the entrance. "Paulo, get you're lazy ass down to the sick bay already! You've been called for your physical for the past week!"

The Shift Change Officer rounded the corner, and Kyle smiled disarmingly at him. "Hi there!"

"Freeze, Rebel scum!"

Kyle triggered the carbine again as the Officer went for his blaster pistol, taking the man off his feet and burning great black holes in the man's chest. "I don't like the cold, sorry."

Kyle took off through a doorway he'd just noticed, seeing that it had some stairs going upwards. He keyed his Comm as he ran. "Jan! I'm coming out hot! I need some cover and a fast ride, ASAP!"

Jan's voice came back over the Comm, all business. "Right Kyle, on it."

Kyle dived through the door leading to the roof of the installation, firing off a burst at two surprised guards. White armour darkened as Kyle's blind shooting hit its targets, and the Stormtroopers fell bonelessly to the protomac of the roof.

Rolling to his feet, Kyle looked up to see the Crow landing, and threw himself at the gang-ramp. "Take off! Don't set down! I'm onboard!"

Jan heard him, and he rolled into the left bulkhead of the door as she slammed the engines into full.

Seconds later, the only proof that there had been a Rebel raid were the dead bodies and the missing Data tape...
Xander dropped into the cockpit of a TIE Fighter that was part of the cities defences. He looked critically at the instrument panel before sighing and tapping in a sequence of keystrokes that blurred his fingers for a nearly 30 seconds.

A smile blossomed as the panel lit up and the engines hummed into life. "I'm certainly glad that the Empire's engineers never found that backdoor... got to remember to thank Ezra at some point."

Xander reached up and slammed the entrance hatch shut, then slipped his helmet on and plugged in the Life-support module. "I hate these things... why didn't Palpatine use the Y-wing like was recommended by the Senate?" he answered his own question with a sneer, "Oh, I remember, he had a power trip!" He quickly drew the crash webbing over his chest and locked it in place before the TIE fell.

The docking clamp released the TIE, and it fell into the atmosphere underneath the fighter facility. The facility itself wasn't very high up, but had a few hundred feet of clearance under the TIE bays.

Easing the engines out of neutral and into flight mode, Xander let the fragile craft find its own way in the atmosphere for a few seconds, before pulling up sharply and aiming for space. He had a rendezvous with a certain Alderaanian Princess to keep.

"This is Lieutenant Needa calling the unidentified TIE that has just launched. Stand down your drives and surrender or we will be forced to fire upon you." The emotionless message from the leader of the air superiority wing that had been flying round the city cut through the clear Comm and almost made Xander jump. He frowned.

"Any relation of Captain Needa?" He asked after engaging a voice scrambler to disguise his speech. His voice came over his earpiece far deeper than his natural one.

"I repeat, unauthorised TIE; stand down and disengage your engines!"

Xander flicked a switch, and the energy in his lasers began to trickle into the engines, making the TIE Fighter leap forward from the sudden burst of power.

"We will be forced to fire upon you if you do not cut your engines and stand down!"

"Tough." Xander spat over the Comm. "Come and get me!" he checked the charge in the laser banks, they were going down as the capacitors were no longer being charged, but there was more than enough to take care of the three TIE's that were chasing him. While manoeuvrable in the void of space, the hexagonal wings of a TIE fighter made them hard to turn in atmosphere. However, their impressive vertical manoeuvring ability remained.

The Empire truly believed in 'what cannot be hit cannot be killed'. Pity they never taught the pilots that... as most never survived their first dogfight. Unfortunately for the TIE's, they had no shields and as such were extremely vulnerable to any sort of attack. If the pilots used their manoeuvrability they would be a force to reckon with. Any TIE pilot who survived more than six months of field assignment could be counted upon to survive almost anything.

"Fifteen clicks..." muttered Xander, "just fifteen clicks."

Pulling back hard on the flight yoke, Xander completed the first half of a loop to point him straight at the three chasing TIE's.

As the first opened up with twin-linked laser blasts, the other two did not. "Tell your men you want the Kill, Needa? That will cost you..." Xander jinked sideways, feeling the ship complain as the hexagonal wings were forced against the atmosphere, before snap-rolling 90 degrees and flying off at a new angle.

Xander kept up the verbal barrage. Distraction was how he would manage to escape this. "Not so easy, is it Needa? What, you got dumped in a TIE because you couldn't suck up to Vader?"

An angry scream was exactly the response Xander wanted. He grinned. Imps never did manage to hold their tempers.

Aiming the TIE back at the blue above him, Xander drained the final charge of his lasers to the engines. He couldn't take three in a dogfight if limited by atmospheric rules.

The TIE rocked as laser fire cut close, superheating the air nearby and causing the buffeting. "Too close, too close!" Xander hissed, before sending the ship into a crazy spiral that ground him into the corner of his seat and strained the crash webbing.

Green laser blasts covered the viewport for a fraction of a second, before the chasers gave up firing at the difficult target. But still they remained in chase.

"Don't even know why you're chasing me, do you Needa?" Xander asked suddenly, "I bet they won't tell you even if you go back successful..."

"I will not talk to a traitor of the Empire!"

Xander snarled down the Comm in response to that. "Traitor to the Empire?! The Empire betrayed everything the Republic worked so hard to build! One man with delusions of grandeur destroyed a loyal and respected Government that had stood for thousands of years! You call me a traitor to your little Emperor, well; he betrayed or murdered any who spoke against him! He is the Traitor!"

"I shall put your head on a pike in honour of the man you have just slandered!" Needa raged over the Comm, "the Emperor saved us from the stagnation of the Republic!"

Xander cut the transmission. "Yeah, yeah, keep telling yourself that, Needy... it wont make it true..." the bile in his voice surprised even him.

The Rebel Comm he had in his ear crackled to life a few seconds later.

"Agent Harris, I presume you are in that first TIE?"

Xander rolled his eyes. "No, I'm flapping my arms and flying out here by myself!" he snorted. "Of course I'm in the bloody lead TIE!" he screamed down at the radio operator and just as quickly hid his helmeted face with one gloved hand. "Oh, man, Giles... you have a lot to answer for!"

"Do you wish us to dispatch an escort for you to eradicate the three followers?"

Xander spared a quick glance in his Radar. "Nah..." he drawled, "I can take 'em!"

A scuffle was heard on the other end of the Comm. Kyle's voice came over instead of the operator. "Take care, Xand... Needa's not playing with a full deck after all those taunts."

"He wasn't anyway." Xander snapped back as he bounced out of the atmosphere. "I've got to go, Kyle... see you when I've given these guys a gravity express trip back to the surface."

Xander twisted the yoke and brought the TIE around in a lazy arc that would advertise his intentions to the chasers. "Come on, guys... come and play."