"Staaaaar! Marcoooooo!"

"Marcoooo? Staaaar!"

Tom's vocal chords were beginning to ache from yelling out his friends' names. He wondered if straining his voice was even worth the effort, because to his own ears, his voice was becoming lost in the sounds of the pouring rain.

"Star!"

"Marco!"

He and Janna had already walked all the way to Zakaras hoping to find their friends there, sitting in the cantina eating soup, but the Padawans were nowhere to be found. When they weren't in the cantina, the smugglers asked the Gotal at the market stand where they normally purchased their foodstuffs if he had seen them.

"They left before the rain started," the Gotal told them as he huddled under his awning. "Headed right for that path into the woods where you lot always go." He narrowed his eyes at them. "Where exactly is it that you four always disappear to?"

The smugglers chose not to volunteer any information and turned back toward the Raventalon.

"I'm really worried, Janna," Tom said. "They're just gone. What if they've been captured or something? We'd never have the slightest idea where to start looking, and-"

"Lucy, calm down. We'll find them." She turned away. "Though, I have to admit, I'm starting to worry, too."

They continued their trek back toward the ship.

"Stupid magnetic mountains," Tom muttered. "Pony could have scanned for lifeforms and found them by now."

"We could have just called them," Janna reminded him.

"Oh, yeah." The Demonicite kicked at a rock. "…Stupid magnetic mountains..."

Janna shook her head and cupped her hands around her mouth. "STAAAAAAR! MARCOOOOOO!"

"STAAAAAAR! MARCOOOOOO!"

Star pried open her eyelids, feeling as though they had stuck shut.

Marco had fainted, slumping over onto the steep creek bank. Star felt as though she were nearing a similar fate. The adrenaline from the duel against the inquisitor had worn off, and now her body was going into shock. She trembled from head to toe, desperately trying to remain conscious.

"STAAAAAAAR!"

"MARCOOOOO!"

The sounds of her friends' voices echoed over the rain. "Ja...Janna? T-Tom?" Star tried to move, but her legs would not budge. She had lost all feeling in her lower extremities and could not even feel the cold water of the stream flowing past her.

"STAR! MARCO!"

She wanted to call out, signal her presence to her friends, but she couldn't move, and her vocal chords could only produce the tiniest of squeaks. "Janna..."

"Where could they be?" Tom wondered aloud.

Janna shook her head. "I don't know, Lucy. I really don't know."

Come on, guys...there's gotta be something to give you a clue we're here. What happened to all the stormtroopers? If Marco defeated them all, they should be pretty easy to see, right?

But what Star didn't realize was that the Imperial soldiers had driven Marco off the main walking path, and when he defeated them, their stark-white armor was so deep into the woods that it had all become hidden from view by trees and surrounding brush.

Come on, guys...Find us!

Janna sighed. "Come on...let's get out of the rain."

Tom was offended. "We can't just give up!"

"We're not giving up. We're just regrouping. Maybe there's a way we can boost the output of the life form scanner to overcome the magnetism of the mountains or something. But..." Janna looked around the dark and rain-drenched woods. "...I honestly don't think they're here."

Tom's trio of hard eyes fell soft. "Do...do you think they were captured?"

Janna shook her head again. "I don't know. Maybe if we wait for the rain to stop, we can find something to clue us in on what happened to them. Here in the woods or in town. But I doubt we'll find them now."

Tom sighed. "Yeah...you're right. We should go."

And they pointed their boots toward home.

Star could sense her friends' presence. And she could feel them slowly growing further away.

No! Come back!

But they didn't. She could hear Tom calling out again as they left, but with diminished vigor.

"Star! Marcooo!"

"We're...here! Right...here!" she croaked.

But the teenage smugglers couldn't hear her.

A flash of lightning was accompanied by an almost immediate crash of thunder.

"Come...back..."

Again, Star desperately tried to stand, but only succeeded in falling over into the water. She heard Tom call out again, his voice carried away by the rain. No! No! I have to...!

But she couldn't. Star was too weak to even raise herself up out of the shallow water. All she could manage was to turn over on her back to raise her nose and mouth above the surface.

I have to...I have to...

Her eye lids drooped again. She could feel the beckoning of sleep. Or, more accurately, unconsciousness. Star knew in her gut that this was her only chance. If Tom and Janna didn't find them now, she and Marco would surely die.

Closing her eyes, Star steadied her panicked breathing. Deep, calming breaths filled her lungs with oxygen. Raising her left hand, she allowed her consciousness to drift into the Force. She could still sense Tom and Janna, further away, but clearly present just down the path. She concentrated on the latter.

Then, shortly thereafter, Star succumbed to her injuries, and lost consciousness.

Typically, especially in front of clients, Captain Ordonia let nothing affect her. Don't show emotion, give no discernible reaction. Normally, it wasn't hard. It was just the way she was. Tom had, after all, said she had less emotion than a droid. But Janna was deeply concerned about her Jedi friends, and it was cracking her steely resolve. The pouring rain had soaked her to the skin, and she couldn't help but shiver. She listened to Tom continue to call out to their missing friends with shrinking enthusiasm. She could hear his voice becoming strained and raspy.

"Give it up, Lucy. There's no one out hear to-"

Janna abruptly froze in her tracks. Something was pricking at the back of her neck, telling her to stop.

"-hear you..."

Tom, having advanced several steps ahead of his partner, came to a halt and turned around. He frowned at the strange expression on Janna's face. She appeared confused, possibly even pained. "Uhhh...Janna? You okay?"

She blinked. "I think...I thi- I know. I know Star is here."

"What?!"

Janna spun around, backtracking along the path. "She's here! I'm sure of it!"

The Demonicite hurried after her. "How do you know?"

"No idea! I just do!" Janna's feet accelerated to a dead run, then abruptly stopped, then turned around again and nearly crashed into Tom. Completely ignoring him, she backed up several paces. "Here. Somewhere." She scanned the woods on both sides of the path, but saw no sign of her friends. "Star?" With slow, cautious steps, Janna started into the woods in the direction of the stream. Tom, not sure what to make of his partner's actions, remained rooted to the dirt path, watching with perplexed confusion. "Star? Sta-" Something glanced off the toe of her boot. Her eyes went wide. "Oh. My. Gosh."

Tom craned his neck, trying to see past the low vegetation. "What is it?"

"It's an arm."

"An ARM?"

"And I'm almost positive it's Star's."

Tom's jaw dropped in surprise, but he quickly closed it again as a wave of nausea threatened to make him vomit.

Janna scanned the woods again, searching the darkness for some other clue. A flash of lightning revealed a gully deeper into the trees, parallel to the path. She hurried toward it, pushing past branches and shrubs until she reached the edge, looking down into the shallow creek below. Seeing nothing, she turned her eyes downstream.

And there they were.

"Tom! Get over here!" Janna ran down the bank until she reached the spot where her friends lay in the water alongside a third body. There was no sign of life amongst them, and even from this distance, she could see the burned skin at the end of the stump where Star's right arm used to be. She slid down the steep bank, her boots splashing into the shallow water below. "Star! Marco!" Dropping to her knees beside Star, Janna pressed her fingers to the side of Star's neck, feeling for the carotid artery. The teenaged smuggler's own heart pounded anxiously.

Tom appeared on the edge of the bank above. "Oh my gosh...are they...?"

Janna breathed a sigh of relief. "Star still has a pulse." She spun around to check Marco. For several painstaking seconds, she could feel nothing. Panic setting in, Janna bent over, hovering her ear just above Marco's parted lips, praying for some indication of life. The falling rain made it difficult to discern the sound of breathing, but it was there. Faint, wheezing. "Marco's breathing, but just barely." She stood. "We gotta get them back to the ship. Help me get them out of here."

"Right! Hand them up to me!" Tom lay down on his stomach to extend his reach, and Janna hoisted Star up by the midsection. The Demonicite was able to catch the princess under the armpits (just enough of Star's right arm was left attached for her to still have an armpit) and haul her up to his level. They quickly repeated the process with Marco.

"Who's that over there?" Tom asked.

Janna flipped the body over with her boot. The pure white skin and red hair were unfamiliar to her, but she did recognize the black armor, a large hole through the center. "Good riddance," she muttered. "At least Star and Marco bested you in the end." She whirled around and returned to Tom. "Imperial scum. Help me out of here, will ya?" Tom leaned down to grasp her hand and assisted her in climbing the slippery bank. "Thanks. Come on, let's go," Janna panted as she hoisted up Star into a position in which she could carry her friend. "They need help, fast."

Tom pulled Marco up onto his shoulders, holding the Jedi's arms across his chest to keep him hanging on his back. "Right behind you."

As quickly as they could carrying their unconscious and soaking wet burdens, the smugglers headed off for their ship.

From behind the same rock where he had watched the inquisitor meet her end just a short while earlier, Rosado crouched with SF-437. They watched the teenagers haul their unconscious friends from the creek and slowly start off down the dirt path. The smugglers had arrived just seconds before they did, spoiling Rosado's hope of easily completing his assignment.

"Orders, sir?" the stormtrooper asked.

Rosado didn't respond. He stood from their hiding place and made his way over to the edge of the ravine, looking down at the dead body of the inquisitor below. He carefully slid down the bank, landing in the shallow water beside his former partner.

A former Jedi. Huh. Never would have guessed, but it makes...some amount of sense.

Something shiny in his peripheral vision caught Rosado's attention. Investigating, it turned out to be two identical objects: the inquisitor's lightsabers. He picked them up and tucked them into the pocket of his rain slicker, acquired from the Mentis Mal upon his return. He turned to climb back up the bank when the reflective chrome sheen of another object in the shallow water caught his eye.

Rosado brushed away the bits of mud and gravel from the cylindrical object as he retrieved it from the water. Polished durasteel, elaborate blade guard fashioned to resemble wings, a yellow crystal in the shape of a five-pointed star affixed to a flat face at the top just below the emitter. His thumb found the activation plate at the side and he depressed it, awakening the glowing blade of emerald plasma from within. He stared at the Jedi weapon, listening to its steady hum and the tiny hisses of raindrops vaporizing on the blade.

"Sir?"

The stormtrooper's call drew Rosado back to reality and he switched the lightsaber off, tucking it into his jacket along with the others. "Come on, trooper. Let's tail them."

SF-437 assisted him in climbing back up out of the ravine, and they set off in pursuit of the teenagers, leaving the inquisitor's dead body in the hands of Takodana's local wildlife. Despite Rosado's detour into the stream, the kids hadn't yet advanced very far down the path, their slow speed attributed to the fact that only two of them were conscious. Rosado and the stormtrooper stuck to the trees at the edge of the path, using them as cover.

Eventually, the silhouette of a ship appeared out of the dark woods up ahead. Rosado could hear Captain Ordonia calling out to someone, which turned out to be a familiar-looking pink-and-blue astromech that met the teenagers at the bottom of the boarding ramp. He watched as they hurried inside.

"Now what, sir?" the trooper asked.

Rosado pondered for a moment. "I may have an idea..." He hurried back the way they had come. "Come on."

"Where are we going, Sir?"

"Into town."

The Padawans were hustled into's Tom's cabin, which by now had served as an operating room more times than either smuggler would have cared for. Star and Marco's packs, still on their backs and filled with groceries, were hastily tossed out of the way beside the door.

"Put Marco on the bunk," Janna told Tom as she gently laid Star on the floor out of the way. He did so, and they traded patients. "Get a towel or something to put under Star's head."

"Right, on it."

The Demonicite hurried out of the room as PY-HD rolled in, carrying Janna's medical supply kit in a spindly arm.

"Thanks, Pony." She threw open the case, pulling out a breathing apparatus. "Okay, first thing, make sure Marco can breathe." Janna quickly strapped the oxygen mask to Marco's face. She didn't have an oxygen tank to connect it to, but the mask had a secondary emergency function. It was equipped with a small diaphragm which helped force fresh air in and draw spent air out, assisting the lungs to do their job when the organs were unable to do the job themselves. Janna hoped it would be enough to keep Marco alive until she could figure out what was keeping him from inhaling properly on his own. An angry red burn stretched across the upper part of Marco's face and passed through his closed eye. Janna briefly surmised that he would have a really awesome scar there...assuming he survived.

Tom returned with a folded towel which he carefully positioned under Star's head. Then he joined Janna at the side of the bunk. "Why is his throat all purple?"

"Huh? Oh, I hadn't even noticed." She took a closer look, gently prodding at the tender flesh with her fingertip. "I bet that's why Marco can't breathe. It looks like he was strangled. Pony, quick, bring me a short piece of electrical conduit, size point-5."

The droid whistled and scurried away. Janna, meanwhile, fished a scalpel from her bag and passed it through an ultraviolet sterilization ray. "Look away, Lucy. This is gonna be really gross."

Tom already knew what Janna intended to do. He looked away and covered his eyes as his partner performed an emergency tracheotomy on Marco. She finished her incision just as PY-HD returned, it's spindly grasping appendage clutching a short length of narrow wiring conduit.

"Thanks, Pony."

Janna quickly sterilized the conduit and slid it into the hole she had just cut in Marco's throat. She pulled the oxygen mask from his face and leaned down to listen. Air whistled in and out of the narrow tubing, much stronger than the flow had been through Marco's mouth. She breathed a sigh of relief.

Next came the task of addressing Star's missing appendage. Janna searched her bag for a large bacta patch to cover the burn.

"Uh-oh..."

"Uh-oh? Whats uh-oh?"

"I don't have any more bacta patches. In fact...I don't have much of anything left." Janna sighed. "You're gonna have to go into town for medical supplies."

"What else do you need?"

"Just get anything you can find. Anything at all. I'll see what I can do about sterilizing their burns and making sure they're stable while you're gone."

"Right. I'll be back." Tom was already making for the door.

Janna nodded to the astromech droid. "You go, too, Pony. I don't want you going alone, Lucy. If that Imperial assassin or whatever was here, who knows what else is out there in the woods."

Tom shook off a nervous shiver. "Right. Come on, Pony, let's hurry."

The droid bleeped an affirmative and they left the Raventalon.

Janna turned back to her patients. "Alright, you two. Let's see what we can do with you..."

Rosado instructed the stormtrooper to wait at the edge of the tree line, out of sight. He handed his Officer's hat to the trooper, hoping that it's absence and the unmarked rain slicker would hide his Imperial ties. He made his way to the cantina, where he hoped to find Rasticore. Most of the inhabitants of the village were still taking shelter from the rain and he passed only a few pedestrians, none of whom paid him any mind.

Arriving at the cantina's main entrance, he reached for the panel to open the door, but stopped. Thinking that he'd rather not directly encounter any of the town's inhabitants, Rosado circled around to the back and peaked in a window. He could see Rasticore parked in front of the sink, hard at work scrubbing dirty dishes with an annoyed scowl plastered across his face.

He rapped his knuckles on the window, and the Septarian appeared quite perplexed when he saw who was disturbing him. He stomped over to the back door, where Rosado met him.

"What're you doing here?"

"I need your help."

Rasticore laughed. "I'm done helping the Empire. I gave you the kids and my chain code is off the wanted list."

Rosado raised an eyebrow. "If your chain code is off the list, why are you still here?"

"...I actually like it here. Peaceful, you know?"

"Alright, fine. What if I hire you?"

Another amused laugh. "Hire me? For what?"

"I need to capture those two kids."

"Capture?"

"They killed the inquisitor."

"...Huh. I was wondering why it was only you here."

"Yeah. But they were hurt pretty bad during the fight. Now Lord Vader wants them captured instead of killed for some reason. Their smuggler friends took them back to their ship, and Captain Ordonia is…" He unconsciously fidgeted his leg where the girl had buried her knife some months ago. "Quite the fighter. So I'd like to hire you to help me."

"...How much ya got?"

"I...don't have any credits..."

"Goodbye." Rasticore stepped back and made to close the door.

"Wait! I can offer you this in trade!"

Rosado reached into his jacket and pulled out one of the inquisitor's lightsabers. Rasticore froze. He stepped fully through the door out into the rain, forcing Rosado to take a step back. He reached out and plucked the weapon from the Imperial Officer's hand, turning it over and examining the hilt.

"I'm sure you could get some good money for that on the black market," Rosado offered.

Rasticore ignited the crimson blade and watched the raindrops that struck it evaporate into tiny wisps of steam. He glared at Rosado. "So the Jedi are back on their ship, huh?"

"With their two friends, yes."

The bounty hunter switched off the lightsaber and tucked it into his belt where it would be concealed by his cape. Then his fingers found a pouch on the opposite side of his belt and extracted a small, flat cylinder a bit larger than a bounty puck. He dropped it into Rosado's hands. "Set this off inside their ship. It's knockout gas. It'll hang in the air for an hour or two. Once they're out, board the ship, with a gas mask, obviously, and fly their ship to..." He shrugged. "Wherever it is you take Jedi prisoners." He stepped back inside. "We're done here." And he shut the door.

Rosado stared at the device in his hand and sighed. "Okay. I guess that works."

He hurried back to TK-437 at the wood's edge, just off to the side of the dirt path.

"Sir!"

"Come on, trooper. We're heading back to their ship."

"Do we have a plan, sir?"

Rosado sighed. "Yes. We have a plan. I'll explain on the wa-" A sound pricked at the officer's ears. It sounded like the bleeps and bloops of an astromech droid's binary language. "Quick, get down!"

They dropped down into the cover of the wet vegetation, peering around a large tree. From up the path approached a familiar blue-and-pink astromech droid sporting a spike atop its dome, and the Demonicite smuggler, Lucitor.

"It's one of the Jedis' friends," Rosado whispered.

The stormtrooper held up its blaster. "Should I neutralize him, Sir?"

"N- …Set to stun."

There was an audible click as the trooper flicked his blaster's setting to stun. "Yes, Sir."

"Can that thing shut down the droid, too?"

"No. But I do have a deactivator."

"Give it here."

The stormtrooper handed the tiny pistol to Rosado and they lay in wait. It didn't take long for the Demonicite and astromech to reach them; they were hurrying. They waited until their targets were so close that they couldn't possibly miss and fired. Both shots found their marks, and the Demonicite crumpled to the ground as the droid slumped forward and shut down.

Rosado and the trooper emerged from the brush. "Let's move them off the path," Rosado said, and so they did. They laid the unconscious teenager and his droid on the ground just off the path where the vegetation would hide them from view.

Rosado sighed again. At least this teenager would not have to suffer the Empire's wrath. He wished he could say the same for the others.

"Come on. Let's go."

"Yes, Sir!"