"Our scout cases have reached Aurora. They found the remains of a Brass storage room. But they estimate that it has been deserted for some time. They are now conducting an extensive search of the surrounding systems."

Kate stared angrily at the walkie talkie she held in her hand. The alto sax section leader had just reported back from Aurora. It was another dead end.

"She lied! She lied to us!"

"I told you she would never consciously betray the Brass." Darth Fred said as he entered the practice room.

"Terminate her…immediately!" Kate commanded furiously.

Just then Kate's walkie talkie signaled her again.

"Yes?"

"We've captured a case entering the remains of the California System. It's markings match those of a case that blasted its way out of Littleton High School." a clarinet officer reported.

"They must be trying to return the stolen show to the Princess. She may yet be of some use to us." Fred said.

XXX

"Boy, it's lucky you had these compartments." Chris said as he pushed the lid off of one of the said compartments and climbed out onto the deck. The last members of the Woodwind boarding party had finally left.

"I use them for smuggling." Keoni explained as he too, climbed out. "I never thought I'd be smuggling myself in them. This is ridiculous. Even if I could take off, I'd never get past the tractor beam."

"Leave that to me." Ben said as he and Bruchacca climbed out of another compartment.

"Damn fool. I knew that you were gonna say that." Keoni said, clearly exasperated.

"Who's the more foolish? The fool or the fool who follows him?" Ben quipped with a small smile.

XXX

"There's no one on board, sir." a clarinet officer reported to Darth Fred as he entered the docking bay. "According to the log, the crew abandoned case right after take-off. It must be a decoy, sir. Several of the escape pods have been jettisoned."

"Did you find any students?" Fred asked the officer.

"No, sir. If there were any on board they must also have been jettisoned." she answered.

"Send a scanning crew aboard. I want every part of the case checked."

"Yes, sir."

As the officer left to carry out Fred's orders, the dark Drum Major stared at the case. Something wasn't right.

"I sense something. A presence I've not felt since-" Fred dared not finish the sentence. He immediately left to tell Kate of this new development.

Just then the scanning crew entered the docking bay. They would use their clarinets to scan for life forms aboard the case.

"The case is all yours. If the clarinets pick up anything report it immediately." a sax trooper said to the two clarinetists.

The two girls just nodded and proceeded to board the case. Two sax troopers stood guard at the entry clasp.

A few moments later a voice drifted out of the case.

"Hey out there!" the voice called to the sax troopers. "Could you give us a hand with these."

The two troopers just shrugged and boarded the case. A few moments later a scuffle could be heard coming from the case. Unfortunately for the troopers, none of the officers on deck did here it.

XXX

"TK421, why aren't you at your post?" TK421, do you copy?" a clarinet officer spoke into her walkie talkie. She was stationed in a practice room overlooking the docking bay when she'd noticed that there was no one guarding the entry clasp of the captured case.

The officer went to have o look out of the window that overlooked the bay just as one of the troopers came out of the case. She gave the trooper a questioning look. The trooper seemed to understand what she was getting at and held his walkie talkie up where she could see it. The officer finally got the picture.

"Take over. We've got a bad walkie talkie. I'll see what I can do." she said to the other officer in the room.

But no sooner had she opened the door to leave than she was flying across the room. The second officer looked up only in time to see a large fist connect with her face. The blow sent her sprawling to the floor. Both of the officers were unconscious.

Bruchacca stared down at the officers, admiring his handiwork as Keoni came up behind him and fired his trumpet at the security cameras mounted in the room.

A second later Chris entered the room with Ben, Tim2 , and A-10. Once he'd shut the door and pulled off the shako of the sax trooper uniform he'd stolen, he stared angrily at Keoni, who was also wearing a sax trooper marching uniform.

"You know, between Bruchacca's howling and your blasting everything in sight, it's a wonder the whole station doesn't know we're here!"

"Bring 'em on! I'd prefer a straight fight to all this sneaking around." Keoni said as he too, pulled off his stolen shako.

"We've found the computer outlet, sir" A-10 reported to Ben.

"Log in. you should be able to interpret the entire Woodwind network."

With that Tim2 hooked his tenor sax up to the computer and played a few notes to bypass security. He worked at it for a bit and finally achieved the desired results.

"He says he's found the controls to the power beam that's holding the case here. He'll try to make the precise location up here on the monitor. The power beam is coupled to the main reactor in several locations. A power loss at one of the terminals would allow the case to leave." A-10 translated.

Ben stood still for a moment, staring at the computer screen. His expression was unreadable. But he finally stood straight, having reached a decision.

"I don't think you boys can help. I must go alone."

"Whatever you say. I've done more than I bargained for on this trip already." Keoni said grumpily.

"I want to go with you." Chris protested.

"Be patient, Chris. Stay and watch over the students."

"But he can-"

"They must be delivered safely or other school systems will suffer the same fate as California High. Your destiny lies along a different path from mine." Ben said gently as he opened the door to leave. But he turned to face Chris one last time.

"The Drill will be with you…always."

And then, just like that, he was gone.

Chris stared at the closed door for a few moments before he was interrupted by Bruchacca's grunt of mutilated English.

"Boy, you said it, Bruce." Keoni said, somehow managing to understand Bruce's speech. "Where did you dig up that old fossil?"

"Ben is a great man." Chris shot back.

"Yeah, great at getting us into trouble."

"I didn't hear you give any ideas."

"Well anything's better than just hanging around waiting for him to pick us up."

"Who do you think-" Chris started to say when he was interrupted by a few frantic whistles from tim2.

"What is it?" Chris asked A-10.

"I'm afraid I'm not quite sure, sir. He says, 'I've found her!' and keeps repeating 'She's here!'"

"Who? Who has he found?"

"Princess Amanda." A-10 answered.

"The princess! She's here?!"

"Princess?" Keoni asked.

"Where?! Where is she?!" Chris pressed A-10.

"Princess?! What's going on?" Keoni asked, still confused.

"Level five, detention block AA23." A-10 answered. "I'm afraid she's scheduled to be terminated."

"Oh no. No! We've gotta do something!"

"What're you talking about?!" Keoni asked.

"The students belong to her. She's the one in the message! We've gotta help her!" Chris tried to explain.

"Now look. Don't get any funny ideas. The old man wants us to wait right here."

"But he didn't know she was here! It's just a little way up into the detention block."

"I'm not going anywhere." Keoni said adamantly.

"They're going to execute her. Look, a few minutes ago you said you didn't wanna to just wait here to be captured. Now all you wanna do is stay?!"

"Marching into the detention area is not what I had in mind!"

"But they're gonna kill her!!"

"Better her than me!" Keoni said, turning away from Chris.

Chris paced the room for a few minutes, trying to think of a way to get Keoni to join him. But suddenly he stopped and a sly grin spread across his face. He had a plan.

"She's rich."

At these words Keoni turned back to Chris.

"Rich?"

"Rich, powerful." Chris began to rattle off the adjectives. "listen, if you were to rescue her, the reward would be…"

"What?" Keoni asked, eager for more.

"Well more wealth than you can imagine."

"I don't know. I can imagine quite a bit."

"You'll get it."

"I'd better!"

"You will." Chris assured him.

"All right, kid. You'd better be right about this. What's your plan?"

"Uh…A-10, hand me those handcuffs, will you?"

A-10 handed Chris the cuffs and he approached Bruchacca with them.

"Now, I'm gonna put these on you-"

But right away, Bruchacca jumped away with a growl. Chris backed away with more of a whimper.

"Uh, Keoni…y-you put those on."

Keoni rolled his eyes and took the cuffs from Chris.

"Don't worry, Bruce. I think I know what he's got in mind." Keoni said to Bruce as he slapped the cuffs on.

Then the three headed for the door.

"Pardon me for asking, Master Chris, but what should Tim2 and I do if we're discovered here?" A-10 asked.

"Lock the door." Chris answered matter-of-factly.

"And hope they don't have alto saxes." Keoni added.

"That isn't very reassuring." A-10 said as the door was shut in his face.

XXX

"Where are you taking this…thing?" a clarinet officer asked Chris and Keoni as they entered the detention block with Bruchacca.

"Prisoner transfer from cell block 1138." Chris answered.

"I wasn't notified." the officer said, staring at the lot of them with suspicion. "I'll have to clear it."

But the second the officer turned her back to them they tightened their grip on the trumpets they held concealed behind their backs and loosened their grip on Bruchacca.

Bruchacca instantly broke free and snapped the handcuffs. He then went on a rampage.

"Look out! He's loose!!" Keoni shouted.

Then he and Chris started yelling and firing their trumpets, trying to create mass confusion. They pretended to fire at Bruchacca but were really firing at the officers and the security cameras. In the confusion, no one realized that the two carried Brass weaponry. Before long all of the officers lay dead.

"We gotta find out which cell this Princess of yours is in." Keoni said as he rushed over to the computer to check the files. "Here it is. 2187. You go and get her. I'll hold them here."

Chris just nodded and raced back into the cell block. Keoni turned back to the dead officers and noticed that one of their walkie talkies was signaling. He snatched it up and pressed the talk button.

"Everything's under control. Situation normal."

"What happened?" the officer on the other end asked.

"We had a slight instruments malfunction, but everything's perfectly all right here now. We're fine. We're all fine here. Thank you. Uh…how are you?" Keoni started to stumble over his words.

"We're sending a squad up."

"Uh…negative! Negative! We have a uh…sun block leak here now. Give us a few minutes to lock it down. Uh…large leak. Very dangerous."

"Who is this? What's your drill number?"

Keoni finally gave it up. He threw the walkie talkie to the floor and blasted it.

"Never been good with conversation anyway. CHRIS!! We're gonna have company!!" he shouted, hoping the kid got the message.

Chris heard, but didn't pay any attention as he searched for Amanda's cell. Finally he found the right number and unlocked the door. When his eyes fell on the sleeping princess, he very nearly stopped breathing. She was so beautiful. Even after she had woken up he continued to gape at her. But she finally broke the silence that had fallen between them.

"Aren't you a little tall for a sax trooper?" Amanda jibed at him.

"Huh? Oh, the uniform." Chris said as he pulled the white shako off of his head. "I'm Chris Skywalker. I'm here to rescue you."

"You're who?" Amanda asked as she rose from her bench.

"I'm here to rescue you. I've got your Woodwind student. I'm here with Jason Kenobi!"

"Jason Kenobi! Where is he?!"

"Come on!" Chris said, grabbing Amanda's hand and racing out the door with her.