Picard placed a hand on his first officer's shoulder, "We will need time to affect the proper repairs," he said, "many members of Worf's security teams and the Consular guards may pay for that time with their lives."

"I understand sir," Riker snapped to attention, "Request permission to stay behind and command the holding action here in the saucer section."

"Request denied Commander, you will move to the battle bridge and oversee the evacuation of sickbay," Picards face softened and he placed a hand on the back of his command chair, "this is my duty Number One."

"I understand sir," Riker nearly choked on the words.

Princess Leia rushed forward and threw her arms around the Captain briefly, "thank you Captain," she paused, stepped back, and looked up at him, "there is still hope; that the droids will somehow find general Kenobi on the planet below and that he will return the plans to the alliance."

R2D2 and C-3PO trudged wearily along a rocky arroyo under the blazing suns of Tatooine.

"What a forsaken place this is!" Threepio exclaimed.

Artoo warbled softly in reply.

Both droids fought their way across the sand and loose rock. They left a twin trail of footprints and triangular marks left by Artoo's three wheeled feet.

"We seem to be made to suffer," Threepio moaned, "It's our lot in life."

Artoo warbled but puttered along doggedly his gears whined in protest at the sand and heat.

The mechanical duo topped another rise and came to a fork in the rough trail.

Artoo began to angle off to the right down a rocky arroyo.

"Where are you going?" Threepio asked.

Artoo warbled at him briefly.

"Well, I'm not going that way, it's much too rocky." Threepio turned to the left, "this way is much easier."

Artoo hooted at him and scooted towards the small canyon again.

"Don't get technical with me you nearsighted scrap pile," Threepio turned and kicked Artoo's metal casing, "you'll be malfunctioning in a day."

Artoo honked angrily then squealed as Threepio began to trudge off into the sand dunes.

"And don't let me catch you following me, begging for help, because you won't get it."

Artoo squealed in protest, tootled in resignation and headed off on his own humming an old maintenance ditty that calmed his logic circuits when he was busy or facing an unfamiliar situation.

Data clambered out of the access panel leading to main engineering from one of the hundreds of maintenance passageways criss-crossing the superstructure of the Enterprise.

The normally tidy engineering section was a shambles, with wounded lying in corridors, emergency lights at a minimum, and repair crews ripping apart panels by portable lights.

"Geordi!" Data called over the chaos.

"Data, over here!"

He found the chief engineer with one arm in a sling, working feverishly to store up the matter/anti-matter containment system. The battle damage had reduced it to battery backups only.

"Geordi, you have been injured, do you require medical attention?" Data asked.

"What?" Geordi glanced at his friend for a moment, "No, no. This is nothing, but you didn't come all the way down here to ask about that. What is it?"

Data followed the chief engineer around the main warp drive, holding his tool kit and helping him as they spoke.

"Captain Picard ordered me to help you restore power in the next few minutes--"

Laforge laughed grimly, "--yeah, we'll do our best."

Data took his good arm, "Geordi, I don't think you understand, we're about to be boarded."

"Oh no, are you serious?"

Data nodded, "Yes Geordi I am."

We need to replace a whole slew of power couplings, but first, I need you to help Ensign Gomez switch out the isolinear chip boards. Most of them were fried and nobody can shuffle those things like you can." He pointed to the young Ensign laboriously scanning the old chips with a tricorder. She found a bad one, shuffled through a box of replacement chips and replaced it before moving on to the next one.

"I will get right on it Geordi," Data strode over to Ensign Gomez and took over, replacing the chips with blinding speed and accuracy. His enhanced tactile senses meant that he could tell the chips apart by touch.

"Thanks Data," Lieutenant Commander Laforge turned to his engineering crew, "Listen up people, power generation has priority. We can replace burned out relays later. Johnson, double check the plasma injectors, I don't want a disaster when we fire up the reactor. Gomez, let Lt. Commander Data handle the Isolinear chips, I want you to work on the coolant system and make sure we won't have any leaks. Let's go people, I want auxiliary power back in half and hour. The sooner we get power the easier it will be to get the wounded to sickbay and we can quit working in the dark. Remember where you are folks, this is the Enterprise!"

A ragged cheer went up from main engineering in response to Laforge's impromptu speech.

'The best damned crew in Starfleet!' Geordi thought.

"Status Commander?" Lt. Hija asked the blue holographic image of a stormtrooper on the Devastator's bridge.

"We are ready to breech in four separate areas on the dorsal surface sir."

Lt. Hija looked up at Captain Praji and Lord Vader standing above his station.

"Good," Vader said, "your orders are simple Commander: Seize the vessel, destroy all resistance, find the stolen information, but bring me the passengers alive." With a swirl of his cloak the Sith Lord left the bridge; his stormtrooper escort fell into step behind him.

Captain Praji leaned in close to his subordinate, "there have been enough unforeseen events here Lieutenant, this operation had better go smoothly from now on."

Lt. Hija nodded towards the retreating form of Lord Vader, "I assure you Captain that there will be no one to stop us this time."

RT-312 leaped through the hole made by the breech team recklessly, right on the heels of the flash charge thrown in by his partner. Miraculously, it seemed to work. Rebels shouted and tried to avert their eyes, giving him the split second he needed to land in a crouch and fire off a few bursts from his EP-11 assault blaster at the cluster of shapes huddled at the end of the dim hallway.

His partner, the second trooper through the hole in the ceiling wasn't so lucky. He caught a lengthy red beam of coherent energy and fell with a groan to the carpeted deck.

"Carpet?" RT-312's mind boggled for a moment but he did not stop firing to think about it. He hammered away at the rebels as more and more of his teammates struggled to enter.

The initial breach was the most dangerous moment. They had to secure a few rooms or corridors in order to get some breathing room or each trooper would be under fire as soon as he came through.

'Move forward!' he shouted. No one outside his Squad's TACNET could hear his voice. He switched off his external speakers and he did not key the throat mike to broadcast his voice over the platoon net. All of them could hear the platoon Sergeant yammering away from breach number two to the Lieutenant preparing to begin the assault over at breech three.

To the rebels in the hallway, their bone white armored attackers moving in silent precision seemed like an inhuman, robotic horde had descended on them. But unlike some misbegotten army of cybernetic drones, these attackers could think, feel, and adapt. And they would never quit, not until the last rebel lay dead at their feet.

"The hallway is unlit, switch to infrared targeting!"

Details RT-312 hadn't noticed leaped out at him; half the rebels were wearing different uniforms from the others. Some were the standard consular guards, and the others were a mix of humans and aliens in an odd one piece jumpsuit with a shiny insignia on the left side of their chest.

"Huh, that's weird," he thought as he dropped one with a blaster bolt through the heart, "makes a good target though."