Marco fitfully awoke, his eyelids heavy, and immediately wished he were still asleep. He groaned as he rolled over from his back onto his side, trying to find a position that was more comfortable, but he felt slightly dizzy, and as he flipped over onto his other side, no direction he faced felt better. He turned over onto his stomach and wiggled his arms under the pillow, hoping that would be less uncomfortable. Something cold and hard beneath the pillow bumped his wrist and his fingers almost instinctively wrapped around it. It was his lightsaber.

Kit Fisto's lightsaber.

Master...

Marco's eyes clenched shut harder, his teeth grit together, his fingers squeezing the lightsaber hilt as if he were trying to snap it in two.

The blanket covering him flew off as Marco tossed it roughly aside, sitting up quickly, no longer sleepy, and hopping to his feet.

The cabin door slid open, revealing Star carrying a bottle of water. "Good morning, Marco!" she said cheerfully. "Oh, you're up! How does your leg feel this morning?"

Marco felt dizzy again. He almost thought he might pass out, so he sat down on the bunk again. "I...uh...good morning, Star. My leg..." His mind felt fuzzy, and he found it hard to form a complete thought. "...my leg feels...okay, I guess."

Star came over and sat down beside him. "How come you got your lightsaber there?" she asked, pointing to the weapon in his hand.

"Huh?" Marco looked at it, wondering why the hand he was holding it with ached. "I...had it under my pillow...and I...didn't want to forget it."

Star gave him a quizzical look, confused by his broken sentences. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I just..." He put a hand to his temple. "I woke up with a bad headache."

Star offered the bottle in her hand to him. "Here, drink some water." He did, and slowly sucked down about half the contents. "You'll probably feel better after some breakfast."

"Yeah..." Marco wiped his mouth and handed the bottle back to Star. "Probably. Thanks, Star."

"No problem. C'mon, let's get you something to eat."

Marco put his arm around Star. "Okay..."

She looked at him again as he leaned his head on her shoulder. "Marco? You okay?" she asked once more.

"I'm fine. It's just...it's been a rough couple of days, you know..." He took a deep breath. "It's just...makes me feel...better...you being here."

Star smiled and returned Marco's half-hug, and they quietly sat for a few moments, just thankful for the fact that, after all they'd been through, they were still together.

A red-cloaked Imperial guard slowly entered Palpatine's private office and addressed the Emperor. "Lord Sideous, the one who's presence you requested has arrived."

From behind his desk, Sidious smiled. "Good...send her in."

The guard bowed and strode out of the office. A moment later, another being entered the room, clad in a dark tunic with a black cloak. The being's hands were concealed by leather gloves, and a black helmet hid its face. Though its feet were clad in heavy boots, it's footsteps were light and nearly silent. It knelt down in front of the Emperor, a synthetic voice emitting from the helmet. "My Lord. I have come as you've requested."

Sidious stood from his desk chair and strolled casually around to the one kneeling before him. For a moment, he just stared, scrutinizing his compatriot. "Do you know why you are here?"

"No."

Sidious squinted. "Address your Master with the proper respect."

"I don't know why I'm here, my Lord." The reply was dripping was sarcasm.

Sidious did not have time to reprimand such arrogance, so he ignored it. "I am sure you know that my new apprentice, Lord Vader, has been tasked with hunting down the remaining Jedi and is currently searching for a team of inquisitors to aid him."

"Yes, my Lord. I did know that, my Lord. I thought I was to be a part of that team of inquisitors, my Lord."

"Alright, that's enough. Indeed, you will be. But I have a very special task that I need completed, and I want you to personally oversee it's completion." Sidious took a step back to his desk, reached over and activated the holoprojector. It produced the images of a pair of teenagers, floating in the air above the desk. "I want you to hunt down and execute these two Padawans."

The inquisitor shifted slightly. "Padawans? That's it? Waste of my skills if you ask me."

Sidious narrowed his eyes. "Do not question my orders. If your talents live up to my expectations, this should be quite an easy assignment." He switched off the holoprojector and removed the data card, which he handed to the inquisitor. Then Sidious pointed toward the door. "Now go. Do not show your face here again until your assignment is complete."

Beneath the helmet, the inquisitor scowled. "Yes, my Lord," it said begrudgingly.

And the inquisitor left the office, thinking Star Butterfly and Marco Diaz...what could possibly be so special about those two twerps that Sidious wants *me* to kill them?

Tom steered the speeder bike into the Raventalon's hiding spot, hopping off as it slowed to a stop. Star was sitting on the boarding ramp with Pony Head, watching Marco pace back and forth from one side of the abandoned off-loading bay to the other. It had been three rotations since Marco had been shot in the leg, and, at Star's instruction, he had been alternating between resting his leg and walking on it to rehabilitate it. In between, Star would use what Force-healing techniques she had learned to help speed up the healing.

"Hey, Marco!" Tom called as he walked the speeder bike toward the boarding ramp. "Looks like you're walking a lot better! Doesn't look like you're limping at all."

Marco jogged over to the others, seemingly completely back to normal save for the patch on his trouser leg. "Yeah! My leg feels great! Thanks to Star, anyway." He smiled at her.

"Pssshh," she scoffed, waving her arm in denial. "I barely did anything. A blaster wound to the leg really isn't that hard to heal."

"Oh, I don't know. I think your Force-healing really made the difference."

"Oh...well, thanks, Marco." Star blushed slightly and looked away. PY-HD made a sarcastic sounding series of beeps that no one seemed to pay any attention to.

Marco addressed Tom again. "So, how'd it go? Were you successful?"

"I think so. The first part was easy." Tom let go of the speeder bike and it hovered in place as he fished into the pocket of his leather jacket and produced a pair of commlinks. "A commlink for each of you."

"Sweet!" Marco said, taking his.

Tom handed Star hers. "I thought you'd probably like this one." It was the same as Marco's but it was lavender in color and had a reflective polished surface.

"Ooh, sparkley!"

"As for the other part- Hey, where's Janna?"

"Right here." Janna suddenly appeared at the top of the boarding ramp, missing her hat and jacket and wiping her hands on a rag. "Tom, guess what? I finally got around to replacing that leaking thermal seal."

"That's great! Only took you four months to get around to it."

Janna strolled down to the others. "Well, I finally had the time, you know, since we're stuck here." She tossed the rag aside. "Speaking of which, how'd it go?"

"It went pretty well, I think." He pulled his datapad from the bag he wore over his shoulder. "The results, though, are uh..." He tapped the datapad. "Well, I made diagrams. Let's go in and put them up on the holo so we can all see."

"Sounds good." Janna headed back up the ramp, and her four companions followed, with Tom bringing up the rear as he walked the speeder bike back inside.

"Can we get snacks for the holo viewing?" Marco asked.

"Ooooh." Star rubbed her belly. "Snacks sound good. I'm hungry."

"You're always hungry."

Star put her arm around Marco's shoulders as they walked. "It's a gift."

They chuckled as Janna stopped at the top of the ramp and waited for the two Jedi and PY-HD to pass. When Tom came up with the speeder bike, she whispered to him, pointing over her shoulder at Star and Marco. "I'm not just imagining things, right?"

"Oh, no, I noticed it, too. Those two are totally head-over-heels for each other."

Janna looked back at them as they disappeared around a corner en route to the galley. "If we weren't in such dire straights, I'd really have some fun messing with them."

Tom sighed as he pushed the speeder bike off to the side and locked it down. "Not that I'm encouraging you to screw with our friends who, may I remind you, are not allowed to have feelings for anyone, let alone each other, because they're Jedi, but when has any kind of danger ever stopped you from messing with anyone?"

Janna grinned evilly. "You make some good points, Lucy." And she scurried off in pursuit of her friends before her copilot had a chance to say anything else.

Tom roughly wiped his hand down his face in frustration. "I really shouldn't have said that."

Tom removed the data card from his datapad and held it out. "Here you go, Pony." The astromech came forward toward him and allowed Tom to insert the disk into a slot just below its domed head. A moment later, the holoprojector beside its radar eye illuminated and the crew lounge of the Raventalon was filled with a holographic map of the Coruscanti sky, complete with ships that glided back and forth in their patrol grids.

From her spot on one end of a small, curved couch, Janna looked over the map while Star and Marco noisily crunched on some Naboo Spud-Crisps beside her. Her mind was thinking up ways to awkwardly force them together just as much as it was focused on the map. "So what did you find?" she asked.

"The Republic...er, Imperial now, I guess...the Imperial Army has really tightened up its security. Every ship coming into the system must stop and be inspected before it can enter the atmosphere, and the same goes for every ship leaving," Tom explained. "More ships patrolling to make sure no one sneaks through their checkpoints, too."

"So can't Star and I just hide in the smuggler's hold?" Marco asked. "And just go through the checkpoint inspection like any other ship?"

"You're forgetting that the Raventalon was responsible for shooting down a Repu- Uh, Imperial gunship," Janna reminded him. "This ship is marked now. They've probably got orders to shoot us down the instant anyone spots us."

"Yeah," Tom agreed. "And, not that it matters, but even if we could go through the checkpoint, they'd just pick up two extras life forms on board with their scans."

Marco pursed his lips. "Oh."

"Soooooo...how do we get out then?" asked Star.

Tom started pointing to the different holograms of ships gliding slowly around the map. "The patrols always follow the same routes and they adhere to very strict timetables for where they're supposed to be when."

Marco brushed some crumbs off his hoodie. "That should make it easy to find a place where they might have a gap we can sneak through," he said.

"Well, yeah, it does..." Tom sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck. "I've already analyzed their patrol grids and..." He sighed. "They do not leave any part of surrounding space unchecked for long."

"How long we talking here?" Janna asked as she slid over a little closer to the center of the couch, forcing Star to move over a tiny bit closer to Marco.

"The best gap I was able to find is right here." Tom pointed to a small spot on the map which was highlighted in green. "These coordinates will be completely out of surveillance for about...21 seconds."

"Yikes. And that's just physical eyes on the sky," Janna reminded him, pretending to slide over once again in order to see something on the map more closely and forcing Star to move over so that she was just barely not touching Marco. "They'll pick us up on the scanners way before then."

"I know. But it's the biggest gap we have to work with."

Marco leaned forward to see the map better, which Janna noticed actually caused him to nudge up against Star. Neither made any kind of attempt to stop touching. If anything, Star appeared to lean over on him. "So how do we make it past the patrols and far enough from Coruscant's gravity well to jump to hyperspace without being detected?" He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, and then addressed Janna. "I know the planet's gravity will pull us back out of hyperspace, but is there any chance we could make a jump through that gap before gravity pulls us back into real space?"

"Maybe if this was a fighter, or if we had a lower class hyperdrive, but as it is now, I don't think we'd get more than a couple meters before we got sucked back into real space."

"And I'm guessing there's no way we could just, like, soup up the sublight engines to go faster, right?" Star asked.

"Oh, sure we could. It would be easy," Tom said, taking a seat on a chair beside PY-HD across from his friends. "If we had raw hyperfuel."

"Mm, that would be easy," Janna agreed. She leaned back on the couch and crossed her arms. "One little squirt of raw liquid coaxium into the fusion reactor and we'd probably get enough of a kick to shoot through that gap before they even had a chance to react to us on the scanner."

Star looked hopeful and rather proud of herself for coming up with a good idea. "Okay, so where on Coruscant can we get raw hyperfuel?"

"You don't. Raw coaxium is extremely unstable. It's really, really hard to store for any length of time," explained Janna.

Tom went on. "Yup. Goes from wherever its extracted directly to the refinery before it decays and, you know, explodes. Raw coaxium never gets anywhere near Coruscant."

Star leaned over and rested her head in her hands. "Well, so much for that idea."

"So much for the raw coaxium, yes..." Janna began thoughtfully. "...but maybe not the idea of souping up the sublight engines."

The expression on Janna's face caught Tom's attention: slight smile, half-closed eyes all-but concealing a gleam of inspiration. "Janna, I can practically hear the gears turning in your head. What are you thinking and how much am I not gonna like it?"

"Oh, you're gonna love it," she said slyly.

"I highly doubt that."

"Well, don't keep us in suspense here!" Star urged.

"Yeah, Janna!" Marco agreed, leaning against Star to get in Captain Ordonia's line of sight. "Fill us in!"

Even PY-HD twittered an impatient urge.

Janna waited just a second more to keep her friends in suspense a little longer and then said, "The backup hyperdrive."

Tom lowered his eyes. "I already hate it."

"We can use the backup hyperdrive to assist the sublight engines."

Marco raised an inquisitive eyebrow. "How, exactly?"

"You guys don't know how a hyperdrive works, do you?" Janna asked of the two Padawans.

They both shook their heads.

"Okay, so..." Janna shifted position towards them on the couch and prepared for a lengthy explanation. She also made sure to give Star as little room as possible so that the blonde-haired girl would be forced to remain squished up against Marco. "It takes a lot of power to jump to hyperspace since you're basically shifting to another dimension. Inside the hyperdrive are windings of superconductive wire that create an intensely powerful electrical field. When that field is focused through the coaxium core by the hyperdrive motivator, the coaxium gives off enough radiation to power the lightspeed thrusters and accelerate the ship past the speed of light, and once you do, you shift dimensions into hyperspace. With me so far?"

Star and Marco stared at her blankly. "Uhhhhhhh..."

"Okay, so what I'm thinking is, instead of passing the supercharged electrical current through the coaxium core, what if we routed it into the fusion reactor stator?"

"Yeah, we're gonna need an explanation of that, too," Star said.

"You guys really need to get out more," Janna sighed. "The fusion reactor has a stator that rotates around the outside to draw fuel into the reactor as it burns off. The faster the stator turns, the quicker the reactor can burn fuel. The stator is spun by an electric motor, so if we feed the motor a super-high current from the windings of the backup hyperdrive..." She trailed off and waited for either Marco or Star to finish the sentence.

"...then the stator rotates more rapidly...?" Marco said slowly.

"...and then the ship goes faster?" Star finished.

"Now you're gettin' it."

"I think you're overlooking a major problem, though," said Tom. "If you start feeding that motor too much current, you'll burn it up, and the hyperdrive makes a lot of current. And the bearings that the stator spins on were only meant to spin so fast. You get that stator spinning too fast, you'll cook the bearings, too. Then we'll have no power whatsoever."

"I didn't forget about that. The stator motor I'm not worried about. It's pretty beefy, and it only has to withstand the current for probably less than 15 seconds. The bearings, though, would probably melt in that amount of time, but I figure if we're gonna route power from the hyperdrive to the fusion reactor, we can route power to the lubrication pump that feeds those bearings, too. If the pump gives more output, that'll keep the bearings cool."

Tom thought for a moment. "It's gonna be really dangerous taking the backup hyperdrive apart to do all this. That's my only other concern. You wire something wrong and suddenly the ship implodes."

Janna shrugged. "Well, the way I see it, we either die trying to escape the planet or we live long enough for them to find us and execute us." She turned back to Star and Marco. "You guys agree?"

The two Padawans, who were still leaning against one another, made eye contact. "She has a point," Star said.

"Yeah. I guess there isn't really a point being afraid of dying by escape attempt when they're probably already trying to hunt us down and kill us." Marco slowly took Star's hand. She squeezed his hand back and slowly nodded at him. Marco looked past his best friend at Janna. "Let's do it."

Janna clapped her hands together excitedly. "Alright! Let's get dangerous!"

PY-HD started beeping indignantly from across the room as the droid switched off her holoprojector and the map disappeared.

"What'd she say?" Marco asked.

"She wants to know why no one asked if she was okay with the plan."

The droid beeped again.

"Now she says 'Just kidding, my memory is backed up, I'll just download into another body if we all blow up.'" Janna frowned. "Gee, thanks Pony."

The droid chittered something that sounded like laughter and rolled out of the room. Star chuckled. "Ah, classic Pony Head."

Tom got to his feet. "Alright, Janna. What do we need to pull this off?"

"Well, I can't route all that electrical current through the Raventalon's system. It wasn't meant to take that much current and it'll probably either melt the power cables or set them on fire...or both, I guess. So we'll have to get our hands on some really heavy gauge power cable that I can hook up directly to both the backup hyperdrive and the fusion reactor."

"There's gotta be some pretty heavy cable somewhere around here," Marco said. "We are in the middle of an abandoned fuel refinery, after all."

"Good idea, Marco." Janna stood, too. "It's getting kinda late and I'm hungry, so what do you say we make some dinner and in the morning, you two can go search around for some suitable power cable while me and Tom start taking the backup hyperdrive apart."

"Sounds like a plan to me!" Star jumped to her feet excitedly, still holding Marco's hand as she did. "Especially the dinner part. I'm starving."

"Seriously, Star." Marco shook his head with a chuckle. "Always thinking about food."

"Oh, quit it," Star laughed. "Let's go!" And she roughly dragged Marco out of the crew lounge, heading for the galley.

Janna waggled her eyebrows at Tom. "Did you see what I did there? And it seems to have worked pretty well."

Tom shook his head. "You're evil."

"Why, thank you. C'mon, I'm hungry, too."

The thin metal of the walkway clanged with every step as Star and Marco crossed it. They had started their search for some heavy gauge power cable at mid-morning and had come up empty handed in three different structures of the abandoned fuel refinery. Now they were making the trek across the bridge to check their fourth building of the day as morning became afternoon.

The walkway was narrow, and did not really allow enough space for the two Padawans to walk side-by-side, so Marco led while Star lagged a few steps behind. Her thoughts were chewing on her mind, and she was debating whether or not to say anything at all.

"Hey, Marco?"

"Yeah, Star?"

"How...how are you feeling?"

"I feel fine. My leg feels good as new."

"That's not what I meant."

Marco stopped walking and turned around, a quizzical expression on his face. "Then what do you mean?"

Star took a deep breath. "Like...emotionally?"

He shrugged. "Fine, I guess. Why wouldn't I be?"

"I mean...you..." Star fumbled over her words. "We both haven't had a chance to really...mourn...Master Fisto. I honestly thought you would have brought it up by now-"

"I'm fine."

"I mean, I know kind of a lot has been going on, but-"

"I said I'm fine, Star." Marco quickly started walking again before she had a chance to continue.

"You seem less fine now than when I brought it up..." Star whispered to herself.

Presently, they reached the end of the walkway where it met a platform that stretched in either direction around the massive industrial building it was attached to. A door leading into the building was directly in front of them.

Marco pressed the button on the activation panel, but, as Star had come to expect from their earlier exploration, the door was locked. They had gained access to the other three buildings they had already searched by lightsabering their way through the door.

Star expected Marco to cut through this door, too. What she was not expecting was for the door to suddenly bend down the center and pop out of its track, falling over into the building and hitting the floor with a crash that echoed through the vacant building filled with large pieces of silent machinery.

"Oh, look, this building was the machine shop," Marco said calmly as Star gaped in surprise. "I bet we'll find some good heavy duty power cable in here."

Star still said nothing, standing in the doorway as Marco ventured into the building, unable to process that Marco seemed to have just ripped out the door with the Force without even trying. "Uhhhhhh..."

Presently, she gained back her composure enough to catch up with her best friend. She found him crouched down beside a massive automated welding machine. "Ah, here we go. Star, check out the power cable on this thing!"

Star had to agree, it was definitely the heaviest gauge power cable they had come across: easily as big around as her neck. "Yeah, yeah, that's great," she said simply, her mind not entirely present.

Marco ignited his lightsaber and carefully severed the cable from the machine. "Aw, man. This cable weighs a ton." He traced it where it ran along the wall, paced off about two dozen meters, and then cut the cable again before returning the lightsaber to his belt. "It's definitely gonna take both of us to drag this thing all the way back to the Raventalon."

"Yeah...totally..."

As they shlepped the heavy power cable back across the bridge, Star's mind was still wandering.

Why did Marco seem like he got really annoyed when I brought up Master Fisto? And how the heck did he break down that door with the Force? I've never seen him do anything even close to that before.

The cable suddenly seemed to Marco like it had gotten a lot heavier. He turned around expecting to see it stuck on something, but found that Star had stopped, no longer assisting.

"Star? What are you doing?"

The cable fell from her hands. "Stopping."

"Why?"

"Because earlier you seemed like you were keeping something from me, and I want to know what's eating at you."

Marco lowered his eyes. "I told you before, I'm fine," he replied curtly.

Star stepped over the cable laying on the bridge and positioned herself right in Marco's face. "Marco, you're my best friend. In all the years we've known each other, there have never been ANY secrets between us. I KNOW something is bothering you. You know how I know? Because you're a very polite guy and you interrupted me while I was talking twice. TWICE! You have literally never done that before. Oh, not to mention, then you blew that door off with the Force and you are never that good at using the Force to do anything!"

As Star went on, Marco's expression morphed from annoyed to vaguely impressed, to rather embarrassed.

Star took a deep breath and calmed herself. "I know something is bothering you, and I know it's about Kit. You should know by now that you can tell me anything, so please..." She gently rested her hand on Marco's shoulder and looked into his eyes. "Please, just talk to me."

Marco sighed in defeat. "I'm sorry, Star...you're right. We've never kept anything from each other-" Aside from that one really, really big thing you just won't talk to her about! You know, how you're in love with her?!

Seriously, me? Now is not the time for that.

Fine. But if not now, you're gonna have to do it eventually.

"Marco?"

"Huh?"

"You, uh, kinda stopped mid-sentence there."

"Did I? What was the last thing I said?"

"You said 'We've never kept anything from each other.'"

Aside from that one- "Oh, right." Marco sighed again and slid underneath the railing, sitting down on the bridge so that his legs dangled off the side. He rested his arms on the horizontal center bar of the railing and leaned his head on his hands.

"Oh...okay." Star sat down beside him and mimicked his position. "So...?"

"Alright, here's the thing. I wasn't thinking about Master Fisto because, like you said, a lot was going on and it wasn't exactly a good time to break down in sorrow because it probably would have gotten us killed."

"Right, right, right."

"But then...yesterday morning, when I woke up..." Marco took the lightsaber from his belt and held the hilt in his hands. "I had this under my pillow, and when I touched it, and I remembered that I hadn't thought about Kit at all since he..." Marco closed his eyes. "...saved us." A tear escaped his left eye and snaked it's way down his cheek. "But...I didn't think about Kit. I couldn't even picture him in my mind. All I could see...was that traitorous slime Palpatine."

Star watched as more tears began flowing down Marco's face. His voice cracked as he went on, choking on sobs.

"It was Palpatine himself that murdered Kit. Not clones following orders, he did it himself. Palpatine killed my friend." He stared at his lightsaber again, squeezing the hilt so hard that his knuckles turned white. "My insides felt like they were on fire. It hurt...so badly...And I thought to myself...that it would feel so good...if I took this lightsaber and rammed it through Palpatine's heart!" he cried.

Marco's cheeks were soaked with tears. He spoke through clenched teeth. It made Star's heart ache to see her best friend in so much pain.

"I was this close...I jumped out of bed...I was ready to take off running, I was gonna run until I reached the Senate. And I wouldn't stop until I had killed that traitor."

Star swallowed hard, choking back her own emotion. "What stopped you?"

And suddenly, Marco's jaw slackened. His expression softened. He looked at Star, his brown eyes shimmering with moisture. "...You did."

"Me?"

"You walked in...and it was almost like...I forgot to be angry. The pain in my guts...the burning desire to kill Palpatine...just..." he gave his hand a wave. "...disappeared."

For several moments, the only sound was Marco sniffling as they stared out into nothingness. Otherwise, the two friends were surrounded by the deafening silence of the abandoned section of Coruscant's industrial sector.

"Why?"

Marco locked eyes with Star again. "What?"

"Why did me coming in...make the pain stop?"

Because you love her! Because her very presence calms you and helps you focus! Because she's your best friend and the single best thing in your life! SAY SOMETHING, IDIOT!

"Because...because you're my best friend, and..." Marco's throat felt as though it were suddenly filled with sand. Try as he may, he could not form words.

He felt a hand on his. Star was resting her arm on the railing, gently covering the back of his hand.

Marco found his voice again, but changed the subject. "I've never felt so much anger before. It was really scary, feeling so angry that I was about to let it drive my actions. So I've been avoiding thinking about Kit...which is really hard to do when I have his lightsaber on my belt all the time...because I don't want to feel like that again.

"That's why I got a little...testy...before. I didn't want to start thinking about Kit and start getting angry again." He sighed. "I'm sorry that I snapped at you."

"It's okay."

They sat in silence again for a few moments more.

"Marco?"

"Yeah?"

"How do you feel now?"

Marco sniffled and wiped his face off once more. "What kind of question is that?" he said with a small chuckle.

"I mean...you were just telling me about how angry you were...but did you feel that way when you were talking about it?"

"Huh...no, not really. Upset, obviously." He brushed the tears off his cheeks. "But not really angry like I was." He met Star's eyes again. "Probably because you're here."

Star gave him a small smile. "Well...you know...I may not have ever been crazy about the idea of becoming a Jedi, but...I did really like Master Fisto. He was a lot less...stuffy...than a lot of the other council members. And he was pretty cool."

Another big tear slid down Marco's cheek, but this time it was accompanied by a little smile. "Yeah...he sure was."

"I know you miss him...I miss him, too."

"Yeah...I miss him a lot."

"If you feel okay now...it's just the two of us here...why don't we take a moment...and just...get it out of our systems? You know...pay our respects?"

Marco turned over his left hand to take Star's in his. "I'd like that." He passed Kit's lightsaber over from his other hand, taking it so that he and Star held it together between them. "You, uh...you start," Marco whispered.

Star took a deep breath, feeling more than a little choked up. "Master Fisto was the only council member who seemed like he could follow all the Jedi's rules and still managed to have fun, and for that, he had my respect. Master, wherever you are, thank you for all the time you spent hanging out with two dumb teenagers. We both learned an awful lot from you, because...you believed in both of us."

Star wiped a tear from her eye and turned to her best friend. "Marco?"

Marco sniffled, his chest convulsing as he tried to breathe past the emotions clogging his windpipe. "Master Fisto...Kit...you were my hero. I thought you were the coolest guy in the galaxy, and I wanted to be just like you. Thank you for believing in me...in both of us...even when others didn't...including ourselves. And..." Marco squeezed his eyes shut as if in pain. "...thanks for being a great friend."

For a moment, they said nothing more. Then they raised Kit's lightsaber together and Star pressed the activation plate. The emerald blade hissed to life, pointed toward the heavens.

"We promise we will not let your sacrifice be in vain," Star said. "We will carry your memory and your wise teachings with us always."

Marco nodded, his emotions holding any words he could possibly say hostage in his throat.

"Farewell, Master Fisto," Star choked out. "May the Force be with you." And then she extinguished the blade.

Tears flowing freely, Marco sobbed. Star released her grip on the lightsaber and Marco pulled it to his chest. Then she wrapped her arms around him and held him tightly, resting her head on his shoulder as tears ran down over the hearts on her cheeks.

It was quite some time before both Padawans regained their composure, and even then they did not separate, choosing instead to continue drawing comfort from each other.

Eventually, the sun began to sink low in the sky, and Star was beginning to get hungry. "We probably should be getting this power cable back to the ship. Tom and Janna will be wondering where we are."

Marco nodded. "Yeah...you're right."

They reluctantly stood up from under the railing, picked up the heavy power cable, and resumed their task of dragging it back to the Raventalon.

"Heh heh heh." Several hundred yards away, the inquisitor lowered the binoculars, grinning beneath the mask.

"Gotcha."

Star Wars discussion:

Let's talk about hyperspace travel.

Legends continuity has a great, in-depth explanation of how hyperspace travel works. Unfortunately, it does not include any mention of the one canonical aspect of hyperspace travel: hyperfuel, better known as the focus of Solo: A Star Wars Story, coaxium.

So what am I, a humble fanfiction author, to do when faced with two conflicting ideologies? Well, I am not *just* a humble fanfiction author. I'm also an auto mechanic. So, I fabricated my own explanation of how a hyperdrive works by combining the Legends and Canon aspects of hyperspace travel along with some mechanical and electrical stuff that I thought sounded plausible based on what I had to work with from the Legends and Canon hyperspace explanation. I was pretty happy with what I came up with, and I hope ya'll are cool with it, too.

On a completely different subject, I actually teared up a little writing Marco and Star in so much emotional pain at the end there.