"That lightsaber…it's Master Fisto's!"

Several months earlier…

Janna ignited the lightsaber.

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. The green blade of Marco's weapon extended toward the inquisitor's midsection. With blinding speed, the Jedi hunter swung the lightsaber in its right hand crossways in front of its body, catching the still-extending green blade near the bottom and pushing it out to the side. The swords of green and red now pointed straight out, perpendicular to the train.

"Nice try."

The inquisitor spun the lightsaber locked with Janna's upwards around the opposing blade. Janna could see what her adversary aimed to do. It was holding her arm in place by pinning the lightsaber blade with its own. The crimson blade in the inquisitor's left hand began to extend beneath their locked arms.

It was going to cut off her arm.

In the span of two milliseconds, Janna quickly considered her options. If her arm was severed, then she could get a sweet robotic appendage. But, she wasn't sure she would survive this encounter if she didn't have both arms with which to defend herself.

So, she did the only thing she could do.

She dropped Marco's lightsaber and fell backwards, the inquisitor's blade flashing harmlessly through the spot where her wrist had been less than a second earlier.

As she landed on her rear on the roof of the maglev beside PY-HD, she watched as the emerald blade of Marco's weapon, the lightsaber of Jedi Master Kit Fisto, extinguished as the hilt bounced off the roof. And then it was over the side of the train and vanished.

The lightsaber bounced several times as it hit the ground, spiraling end over end until its considerable momentum was depleted, and then lazily rolled into the weeds beside the maglev track roadbed. And there it lay, along the loneliest part of the Corellia Mass Transit System maglev line.

But it wouldn't remain there for long.

With a roar, the podracer shot past and screamed away out into the field. Jackie Lynn Thomas immediately grabbed her comm. "Maybe take it easy just a little bit until we know that thermal coupling actually works?"

"Can't hear you! Having too much fun!"

With a sigh, Jackie shook her head as she watched the podracer reach the maglev tracks turn hard to the left, tearing across the plain. Despite her friend's reckless nature, at least she could be reasonably confident Kelly wouldn't get hurt. As a Woolette, the girl's long and thick green hair was essentially a built in crash pad. That was, after all, the reason why Kelly was always the test pilot. If something went wrong (and it so often did) Kelly was far more likely to avoid injury in a crash than Jackie (as she so often did.)

The podracer zoomed away parallel to the maglev line until Jackie could barely see it, then did a tight about-face and zipped back in the opposite direction.

"Well, if you're gonna run full-song, I might as well clock it," Jackie said into the commlink. She fished the chronometer out of her tool kit as the pod racer flashed by in the distance.

"Copy that! Coming about for a fly-by!"

Jackie waited as Kelly banked the pod in a wide arc and reversed directions once more. The pair used this spot as their testing grounds not only because of the flat, empty field far from civilization, but also because of two abandoned antennas beside the maglev track which made perfect timing marks for clocking their podracer's speed.

The podracer was their source of escapism. The two girls grew up in a rough neighborhood, both to poor families. Ever since they were very young, they dreamed of one day having enough money to leave Corellia for good. Kelly's father was a huge fan of podracing and introduced his daughter to the sport, which they'd watch together on the holoviewer. Kelly introduced it to Jackie.

"I wish we had a podracer," Kelly mumbled one day. "Some of those races pay big money to win!"

"If the race promoter doesn't run off with the prize money as soon as the light turns green," Jackie mused. Podraces were often put on by unscrupulous types, gangsters and crime bosses who would draw in the best racers from all over the galaxy with promise of a big winner's purse, only to skip out before the race ended and pocket the ticket sales on top of the winnings.

"Not on Malastare! They have an actual organization that sets up the courses and holds the events. It's all professional. You win on Malastare, you know you're getting paid. And you know you're really the best of the best."

It was all just a dream. They were teenagers, after all. They couldn't afford to buy a podracer.

Then they found the engines. Two of them, identical, and mostly intact, left abandoned on the edge of town. They didn't run, but Jackie could fix that. She had her father's natural talent for mechanical repairs. What she couldn't fix herself, her friends Ferguson and Alphonso, who worked as starship mechanics, could. They'd pitch in with some parts, when they came across stuff that they could get their hands on for next to nothing. As such, the podracer was built pretty much entirely out of junk, but the ragtag crew made it work as best they could.

"Here I go!" Kelly's voice excitedly announced over the comm.

Jackie watched the pod zoom toward the first antenna pole and clicked her chronometer as it flashed by. When it passed the second antenna, she clicked it off. "Hey! Not bad! Almost two-tenths of a second quicker pole-to-pole!"

"There's more in it! I can feel it! Lemme just make a quick adjustment…" After reducing speed, Kelly flicked a few switches on her control panel as she guided the podracer through another wide arc, turning around once more. "Okay, here I come!"

The engines screamed as Kelly throttled up, and she flew past the antenna pole once again. She could feel the slight alteration in the speed-intensified force of gravity pushing her into the seat telling her that, indeed, the pod was going a little faster than the previous run.

Then one of the cables holding the cockpit capsule in tow behind the engines came loose. The capsule spun on its remaining lashing as Kelly quickly hit the kill switch to shut down the engines, and a split second later the other cable snapped, too. The cockpit capsule plummeted the short distance into the ground, tumbling a few times before sticking nose first into the soft dirt. The engines, too massive to tumble, landed heavily and slid a short distance before coming to rest just short of the second antenna.

Kelly pumped her fists in the air. "Woohoo!"

The comm crackled in Kelly's ear. "Kelly! Are you okay?!"

"I'm fine! That crash was awesome!"

A moment later, Jackie arrived at the crash site on her speeder bike. Kelly finally managed to unbuckle her harness belts and unceremoniously dropped from the cockpit capsule onto the ground, landing face down.

"Ow!"

"You get all excited about the crash, but falling a meter and a half to the ground is what makes you say 'ow'?" Jackie laughed.

Kelly gingerly rose to her hands and knees, gently massaging the sore spot on her rib cage. Had she landed on her back, her hair would have cushioned the blow, but she had crashed down on something hard in the middle of the otherwise soft field. "I landed on a rock or something."

But it wasn't a rock. It was shiny and cylindrical. Kelly frowned and picked it up, accepting an offered hand from Jackie, who pulled her back to her feet.

"What the heck is that?" Jackie asked.

"I don't know. It sure doesn't look like it came off the pod."

Jackie took a closer look as Kelly turned the object over and over in her hands. A maglev train rushed past just a few meters away, but it failed to draw either girl's attention. "Is that…a button?"

"Sure looks like it." Kelly shrugged. "I'm gonna press it."

"I don't know about that…we don't know what that thing is…"

"Aaaaah, quit your worrying. What's the worst thing that happens?"

"Worst? It's an explosive and it blows up in your hand."

"Explosives never go off instantly. They gotta give you a chance to throw it before it explodes. If it starts blinking, I'll just chuck it."

"Alright, fine. But I'm backing up."

Kelly waited while her friend distanced herself a bit from the mystery item she clutched in her hand, then gently rested her thumb on the flat activation plate. "Okay, here we go! Three…two…one!" At the pressing of the button, a noisy hiss accompanied the appearance of a humming length of plasma, glowing a vibrant emerald green.

"Whoa!"

Feeling fairly certain that the item in Kelly's hand was not about to self-destruct, Jackie cautiously moved in closer. "Kelly…I think…I think this is a lightsaber!"

"A Jedi's weapon?"

"Yeah!"

Kelly slowly waved the weapon back and forth, listening to the low hum change pitch as she moved it. "Wow…but…what's it doing out here in this field?"

"I have no idea."

With the podracer's now separated components loaded up into Kelly's father's ship, the girls returned to town, landing in the open space behind their friends' starship repair shop. They entered through the back door.

"Ferguson? Alphonso?" Jackie called. "You guys here?"

The shop was exceptionally silent, so quiet that they could hear the soft buzzing of the lights high overhead.

Kelly frowned. "Where are they?"

"They must be here somewhere. The lights are on, and it's still half an hour until they're supposed to close up for the night." Jackie turned toward the door leading into to the lobby. "Let's ask 6-B." She pronounced the droid's abbreviation "Sixby."

The door to the lobby slid open. There, on their knees in the middle of the floor, were Ferguson and Alphonso, their faces streaked with tears, sobbing uncontrollably. Between them, laid out flat on the grubby tile, was 6-B, the scratched and dented protocol droid's head no longer attached to its body.

"There you guys are- Whoa, what happened to 6-B?"

"Oh, Jackie, it was horrible!" Ferguson moaned. "These Imperial guys showed up looking for some ship, and one of them had a lightsaber, and they tried to kill me!"

"What?!" the girls cried in shocked unison.

"Yeah! But the other guy saved me. And so the lightsaber guy cut off 6-B's head instead!"

"He was so old!" Alphonso cried. "And boring! Why would anyone want to hurt 6-B?!" He suddenly froze mid-sob as his eyes landed on the object in Kelly's hand. "What's that?"

Kelly quickly hid the lightsaber behind her back, under her hair. If her friends had just been threatened by a laser sword-wielder, she didn't want to cause them distress with another similar weapon. "Oh, just a part off the podracer."

"Didn't look like a part off the pod. Let me see it."

"Oh, that's okay, you don't have to." Kelly was slowly backing toward the door to the shop. "You guys are in the middle of grieving, we'll look at the pod another time."

Ferguson also had abruptly forgotten about the deceased droid and was now pursuing Kelly's retreat. "Kel, what's the big deal? Just show us what it is." Before Kelly could protest, Ferguson snaked his hand around behind her back and snatched the object from her grasp.

"Hey!"

Ferguson held it up to examine. "What is this thing?"

Alphonso appeared at his side. "There's a button, see?" he said, already reaching out to press it.

"DON'T PUSH THAT-!"

The emerald blade erupted from the hilt, bathing the small space with a green glow.

"Whoaaaaaa! It's a Jedi lightsaber!"

"Be careful with-!"

"Hey, Alphonso, check me out, bro." Ferguson held up the lightsaber in front of his face as if throwing a block. "I'm like totally a Jedi. Yeeeao! Voom! Vish!" He swung the lightsaber about, making noises with his mouth. "The ladies are gonna think I'm so cool with this thing."

Kelly shook her head. "Right, because girls are definitely gonna believe you're a Jedi."

"Hey, I have the lightsaber, don't I?"

Jackie smirked. "And what happens when they ask you to use the Force?"

"The what now?"

A month passed.

Little by little, the crew of four made repairs to the girls' podracer. Everyone took turns holding onto the lightsaber, though Ferguson seemed to hog it a little bit. He liked to show it off to girls. Despite his abundant confidence, not one believed he was a Jedi.

"Man, I can't believe this thing didn't help my game," Ferguson lamented as he entered the repair shop. He tossed the lightsaber onto the workbench. "Not one girl believed I was a Jedi! I don't know why it didn't work!"

"Maybe because girls are smarter than you think?" Jackie laughed, jumping down from the massive starboard engine. "Okay, Kelly, give it a try now."

Seated in the cockpit capsule, the Woolette flicked on the power and triggered the motivator. The twin engines coughed, spewing a cloud of thick smoke into the workshop, before slowly whirring to life. Kelly gave an enthusiastic cheer barely audible over the roar of the engines. She killed the power and hopped from the cockpit. "Oh yeah! We are back in business!"

Ferguson grasped one of the braided durasteel cables lashing the cockpit to the engines and gave it a shake. "Hopefully I designed a better mounting bracket this time."

"The new design looks great," Jackie said. "I think it'll be better."

The door slid open and Alphonso rushed in from the lobby. "You guys! There are Imperials coming down the street doing inspections!"

Ferguson frowned. "Inspections? Inspections of what?"

"I don't know! But we gotta hide the podracer!"

"We're on it!" Jackie hurried to the control panel and activated the huge sliding door that opened to the empty space behind the shop. Then the four teenagers carefully guided the podracer on its repulsors out the door and into the hold of Kelly's father's ship.

"Since you two technically aren't employed here, you're not covered by our insurance," Alphonso said. "So you probably should leave until the Imps are gone."

Kelly nodded. "Right. We'll slip out through the back alleyway. Call us when they're gone."

As the girls hurried away, Ferguson and Alphonso quickly hurried back inside and closed the back door, effectively hiding the ship from the view. Ferguson seated himself behind the front desk, and Alphonso grabbed a broom and began to sweep the shop floor, trying a little bit too hard to look casual.

About twenty minutes passed before the Imperial inspection team arrived at the boys' repair shop. The blonde middle-aged female officer and three stormtroopers entered through the lobby.

"Good afternoon, ma'am," Ferguson greeted with just a touch of excess enthusiasm. "How may I be of assistance to you on this fine afternoon?"

The officer raised an eyebrow. "I need to speak with the operator of this facility. Your…father? Perhaps?"

"No, ma'am. Just me and my best bud." He rounded the counter and extended a hand in greeting. "Ferguson O'durguson, ship repair extraordinaire." His arms suddenly broke out in goosebumps as a terrible feeling of deja vu washed over him. "Pleased to meet you."

The officer kept her arms crossed. "Lieutenant Rufe. Are you aware, Mister, um…O'durgsuon…that there are new Imperial regulations in effect to which all privately owned businesses must adhere?"

"Uhhhhhh…"

"I'll take that as a 'no.'" She pushed past Ferguson and the stormtroopers followed her toward the door leading into the shop. "We will inspect your facility for violations. You will be fined for each non-compliance and we will inspect again in three rotations to ensure that all violations have been corrected."

"Wha-? We don't even get a chance to fix things before you fine us for violating rules we didn't know existed until right now?!"

"Precisely. And if you cannot pay the fine, your facility will be shut down until you can." Rufe triggered the door and strode into the shop, followed by the stormtroopers and then Ferguson.

Alphonso was still sweeping the floor, now at the far end of the shop, standing beneath a light freighter that belonged to a customer. He paused when the Imperials entered and waved a greeting. "Hello, there! Can I help you?"

"We will manage on our own," Rufe said briskly, not even glancing in Alphonso's general direction. She produced a datapad and immediately began making notes on an electronic form.

Ferguson rushed over to his friend, panic in his voice as he whispered out of earshot of the snooping troopers. "Dude! These guys are totally gonna shut us down!"

"Shut us down?! They can't do that!"

"Apparently the new Imperial rules and regulations say they can!"

The pair watched anxiously as the corporal and her stormtroopers thoroughly inspected every centimeter of the repair shop. They cringed every time the officer made a note on her datapad.

At last, after almost forty-five nerve-wracking minutes, Lieutenant Rufe summoned the boys over to the workbench. "We've completed our inspection."

Ferguson gulped. "And…what did you find?"

The officer appeared almost pleased with herself. "I have here a list of violations that must be addressed." Clearing her throat, she raised the datapad to eye level. "Your exhaust fan does not meet Imperial standards. You must have a fan that is capable of moving at least three hundred and fifty cubic meters of air per minute, yours is only rated for three hundred twenty five. Your waste lubricant tank must be tested and re-certified by an approved Imperial inspector. Your floors do not meet Imperial friction standards-"

"Friction standards?" the boys exclaimed in unison.

Lieutenant Rufe lowered the datapad. "If your floor's friction coefficient is too low, it presents a safety hazard, both for a ship's landing skids and your footwear. Now, as I was-" She froze as something on the workbench caught her eye.

Ferguson and Alphonso saw it, too, and they each concocted their own fantasy of the consequences for being in possession of such an item.

Lieutenant Rufe picked up the lightsaber. "What is this?"

The boys glanced at each other, then back at the Imperial Officer. "Plasma cutter," they chorused.

Rufe triggered the activation plate and the emerald blade hissed to life. "Sure looks like a lightsaber to me," she said. "A weapon which, I'm sure you're aware, is banned. I should arrest you two simply for being in possession of this." She switched the lightsaber off. "So…would you care to alter your statement?"

"A customer gave it to us," Alphonso said, which wasn't entirely untrue.

"As payment," Ferguson cut in.

"Yeah. He said he found it in an empty field by the maglev track."

"Here on Corellia?"

"Yes."

Rufe's eyes flickered back and forth between the boys, then slipped the lightsaber under her belt. She picked up her datapad and removed a disk from the slot. "Your violations are on here, along with your fine, which must be paid at your local Imperial Security Office by sundown tomorrow. If you do not pay on time, then your operating license will be nullified and your shop will be shut down. Do you understand?"

The boys nodded and Alphonso took the disk.

"Good day, gentleman."

And with that, Lieutenant Rufe and the stormtroopers left.

Imperial inspections ended at sundown. Lieutenant Rufe and her squad returned to the local Imperial Security Office. Rufe headed straight for her captain's office.

"Captain Rickhert."

The graying man didn't even bother looking away from his computer console. "I presume you are finished with inspections for the day, Lieutenant?" he asked, bored.

"Yes, Captain."

"I assume that is not why you've come to see me."

"No, Sir. I've recovered a banned item." Rufe pulled the lightsaber from her belt, and Rickhert finally looked away from his screen. His eyes grew wide when he caught sight of it.

"Is that…?"

"Yes, Sir. It is."

Rickhert stood and rounded his desk, snatching the weapon from his Lieutenant's hand. He triggered the blade, filling the dim office with its emerald glow. "A Jedi weapon…" He paused thoughtfully. "Where did you find this?"

"A ship repair shop run by a couple teenagers. They claim they were given the lightsaber. A customer used it as payment."

"You arrested these boys, I assume."

"…No, Sir."

"Return and arrest them at once on charges of possession of a banned weapon."

Rufe nodded. "Yes, Sir."

The Lieutenant turned on her heel and left. Captain Rickhert stared at the humming lightsaber in his right hand for a moment before switching it off and returning to his desk. He keyed the comm. "Corporal."

"Yes, Sir!"

"I have a priority package that needs to be delivered to Coruscant on the next transport. Send a camtono to my office right away, and arrange the necessary transport forms."

"Yes, Sir. Who shall I mark down as the recipient of this package?"

"Emperor Palpatine."

Rain pelted the office window through which Darth Sidious watched the Coruscant traffic flow along the skyways. Day had become night on the Senate building's side of Coruscant, but Palpatine had no desire to sleep.

Sleep was for the weak.

The soft electronic noise of his office door sliding open announced the presence of a visitor. He slowly turned his chair around, finding Mas Amedda standing in the doorway.

"Yes, Grand Vizier?"

"My apologies for the late hour of my visit, my Lord, but this just arrived and I thought it would interest you." He held up the camtono he carried in his left hand. A curious object to be bringing the Emperor, indeed.

"No apologies necessary, Mas. Please, enter."

The tall, blue-skinned Chagrian entered the office and placed the camtono on the desk before the Emperor. "I am told this was recovered on Corellia during an inspection."

"Corellia, you say? Quite curious. Let us see what is inside."

Amedda keyed the buttons atop the container to release the locks and the tri-split sides folded down. Palpatine slowly removed the single item from inside and held it up to the light. "A lightsaber."

"What was a lightsaber doing on Corellia?"

"I do not know." Sideous triggered the blade, and the small office was bathed in its emerald glow. His gray lips curled into a grin. "This is the lightsaber of the Jedi Master Kit Fisto."

"One of the Jedi who died here in your office?" Amedda asked.

"Indeed." Palpatine switched off the blade. "This weapon was last known to be in the possession of Padawan Marco Diaz."

"So then Diaz is dead?"

"Unlikely."

"So did the youngling lose it? Or simply dispose of it?"

"I doubt he would have disposed of it, considering he and his little friend are being hunted by my first Inquisitor. More likely, he lost it." He stood. "Seeing as how it is now here…see to it that this finds its way to Doctor Kinesworthy," he said, placing the lightsaber back inside the camtono and closing it. "I'm sure the good doctor will find it useful for arming his…creation."

Maz Amedda nodded and picked up the container. "Yes, my Lord."

Doctor Kinesworthy armed his creation with Kit Fisto's lightsaber, along with three others recovered from Jedi killed during Anakin Skywalker's raid on the Jedi Temple. Upon completion, the droid required testing. N-K Necrosis faced off against MagnaGaurds, several at a time, and was was easily victorious. But if the droid was going to be put to use tracking and killing Jedi who had managed to survive for this long, it would require more rigorous testing against actual Force-users. Sidious ordered the droid be shipped to the Moonshadow, designating the Star Destroyer as the official top-secret field-testing ship.

And now, N-K Necrosis had been unleashed, and was standing face-to-face with a pair of fugitive Jedi Padawans, a quartet of lightsabers ignited and at the ready. And one of those Padawans was the rightful owner of the lightsaber in its lower left hand.

Nervous though she was, Star steeled herself for battle. She grit her teeth, and raised her lightsaber hilt before her in ready position-

-and suddenly found it snatched from her hand.

"Hey!"

With Star's weapon clenched in his right hand, Marco retrieved the other lightsaber, the one which had belonged to Inquisitor Hekapoo, from his belt. "Sorry, Star," he said calmly. "This just became personal."

He took two steps forward and ignited Star's emerald blade and the inquisitor's crimson one, holding his weapons at the ready.

Just like it's cyborg basis, each of the droid's hands rotated on a pivot. It began to effortlessly spin the lightsabers with blinding speed, creating a nearly impenetrable shield of plasma around itself. As it had been ordered, it awaited its prey to make the first move.

Marco lunged forward, lightsabers raised to catch his opponent's upper pair of blades. Four blades simultaneously clashed and Marco halted their rotation. The droid swung its lower two lightsabers together at Marco's midsection, but the Padawan leapt out of their path, allowing them to pass beneath him without relinquishing his pin of the other two blades.

When he landed back on the deck, he immediately switched off his weapons and backflipped out of the droid's range of attack, igniting the blades again as he landed. The droid rushed forward to meet him, on the offensive now that Marco had halted its spinning-shield defense.

That was all Marco wanted: a chance at a legitimate duel. With two blades at his disposal, he could fight N-K Necrosis one-on-one.

And fight he did.

Six lightsaber blades created a swirling blur of colors, the crashes of plasma so frequent and forceful that the sound of battle was almost deafening. Despite the clear disadvantage of height and shear volume of weaponry, Marco easily held his own. He ducked under many of the attacks dealt by the droid's upper pair of arms, slipping back and forth between the strikes as he countered the lightsabers in the droid's lower arms. As they fought, Marco moved in a slow circle around the droid, and N-K Necrosis pivoted to follow his movement.

The droid now stood between the two Padawans, Marco with his back to the blast door through which it had entered. He waited for the opportune moment, and when N-K Necrosis raised both upper arms high over its head for a powerful downward strike, Marco took his chance. For a second time, he pushed off the floor hard and backflipped toward the blast door, leading with his feet. He now pushed off the door, sending him shooting through the air toward his opponent's left side and twisting himself over backwards as he did so. With one perfectly timed flick of Star's lightsaber, he sliced off the droid's lower left hand. Kit Fisto's lightsaber now sailed free, and he snatched it from the air between his thumb and index finger of his left hand as he continued his lateral rotation.

His lateral rotation now pointed him face down and just under a meter above the deck, Marco put his hands down mid-flight and performed one last acrobatic flip, turning himself right side up and landing beside a very confused and impressed Star.

The entire maneuver was completed in under two seconds.

While the droid was still processing what had just occurred, Marco switched off Star's lightsaber and placed it back into her hand. "Wait for my signal."

"Uh, okay."

N-K Necrosis turned back around as Marco returned the inquisitor's lightsaber to his belt. He didn't need it. Kit Fisto's lightsaber - Marco's lightsaber - ignited in his hand, and he twirled it around his body before assuming ready position. "Okay, droid. Let's dance."

Marco rushed forward, swinging his blade for an attack which the droid easily blocked. He spun to the side, his lightsaber a blur as he wildly spun it about his body. Not a single one of Marco's movements were attacks. He ducked under numerous slashes of the droid's lightsabers, twirling his own weapon about like a baton to counter the rest.

Star thought her best friend's motions looked almost effortless, as if Marco were in fact dancing instead of fighting. She had always known him to be skilled with a blade, but he always appeared to be concentrating extremely hard. She'd never seen him duel with such quick and fluid motions.

It was more akin to watching Kit Fisto wield a lightsaber.

Marco's rapid dance took him in a gradual circle around N-K Necrosis once more, repeating his earlier strategy of positioning the towering droid between himself and Star. He continued to defend, never striking a single blow against his opponent, until at last, N-K Necrosis struck just right, with all three lightsabers at the same time. Marco locked his blade against them, pinning them in place.

"Star! Now!"

Star darted forward, igniting her lightsaber as she attacked. The blade sliced right through the droid's lower torso, and it tumbled over onto the deck, landing on its back, lightsabers extinguishing.

"Ha ha!" Marco laughed, releasing his grip on his weapon's activation plate and letting the blade retract into the hilt. "Hey, Vader!" he called out, assuming that Imperial command was in some way listening in. "I think you'd better take your little droid back to the drawing b-OOARD!" he yelped as he suddenly sailed over the droid's head and slammed into the deck.

N-K Necrosis may have been down, but it was far from out. It had grabbed Marco by his cybernetic leg and swung him overhead, slamming him into the deck. And then repeated the maneuver in the opposite direction.

"Marco!" Star quickly swung her lightsaber down, aiming for the droid's head, but found her attack blocked as N-K Necrosis picked up one of its blue lightsabers and ignited it, countering Star as it continued to fling Marco back and forth against the floor like a rag doll. The unfortunate Padawan's constant screaming was cut off each time he collided with the floor. The droid picked up another one of it's lightsabers, adding another element to the fight. Star found herself in a very awkwardly positioned duel. With N-K Necrosis on the ground, she had to be in very close proximity in order to hit it, but the droid's reach was much longer than her's, and blocking its horizontal slashes at such close range was difficult. Star could not relax enough to let her subconscious slip into the Force and guide her motions. As such, the awkward duel required the deepest level of concentration she could muster.

She didn't even notice when the blast door behind her slid open.

"What the heck…?"

In her still young life, Janna had seen many strange things. But the scene unfolding before her as the blast doors slid apart was unlike anything she had ever encountered before.

Star was locked in a lightsaber duel with a huge droid that lay sprawled on its back on the floor, and the same droid had Marco by the leg and was tossing him about, slamming the poor Padawan into deck over and over again.

"I guess that must be N-K Necrosis," Rosado said blankly, unsure how even to react.

Janna did. "Hovis, give me your blaster."

"Huh?"

"Your blaster. Hand it over."

So Rosado complied, handing over the blaster rifle he had commandeered from the stormtrooper back in the brig. Janna checked to make sure it was not set to stun, held the sight up to her eye, and took aim at the head of the droid trying to kill her friends.

Her first shot pinged off the floor just a few centimeters too far to the left. Her second grazed the droid's faceplate, and it's head immediately shifted away from Star and focused on Janna instead. But before it could react in any fashion, Janna squeezed off a third shot and nailed the N-K Necrosis directly through its right photoreceptor.

And the droid's limbs went limp, lightsabers flickering out as they landed on the floor. Marco crumpled to the deck in a heap behind it. "Owwww…"

Janna clenched her fist victoriously. "Got 'em!"

Star, having not even realized her friend had arrived on the scene, whirled around, eyes wide. "Janna!" She froze. "…Aaaand some guy who looks Imperial."

"Oh, this is Hovis."

The man in question gave a shy wave. "Hey, guys."

"He busted me out of the brig. I probably could have gotten out myself, but I definitely wouldn't have found you guys without his help. And he's coming with us."

"Oh! Well, okay! Cool!" Star bounded over to shake the Imperial Officer's hand, already forgetting that the hand she offered was robotic. "Star Butterfly. Welcome aboard! Thanks for the rescue!"

Hovis tried not to shudder as he shook the cold durasteel hand, feeling a wave of guilt wash over him. "You're, uh, you're welcome."

Star frowned. "Where's Tom? And Pony Head?"

"Hovis says they're still on Takodana. Right?"

Rosado nodded. "Correct."

While the others talked, Marco gently rose from the floor and slowly idled up beside Star, also shaking Rosado's hand. "Marco Diaz. Thanks for the save."

"No problem. Thanks for letting me tag along."

Janna smirked as she noticed Marco's amber glowing cybernetic eye, and Star's robotic hand sticking out from beneath the sleeve of her own denim jacket. "I see you guys got some upgrades. Jealous."

"Oh, yeah, it's just great," Marco said sarcastically, massaging a spot on the back of his head he was certain would become a bruise.

"And you found my jacket."

"Oh, yeah!" Star exclaimed, shrugging off the garment. "I forgot I was wearing this thing. Found your blaster, too." And she slid off the shoulder holsters to hand over as well.

"Awesome! Here, Hovis, you can have this back," Janna said, handing the blaster rifle back.

Taking the blaster in his left hand, Rosado reached inside his own jacket with his right. "Here, I'll trade you," he said, holding out Janna's headgear.

"Hey, my hat! Thanks!" Having already shed the top half of her Imperial disguise, she knocked the officer's hat off her head, shrugging on her shoulder holster and jacket and pulling her hat on. She'd discard the trousers later at a more appropriate time.

"That's not all we found," Marco added excitedly, appearing to have almost forgotten about his myriad of bruises. He held up his weapon for Janna to see. "Check it out!"

"You found your lightsaber?! No way! How did it end up here on this ship?"

Marco shrugged. "I have no idea! But I don't even care! I'm just so happy to-"

The sound of the blast doors behind them beginning to slide open caught his attention and he whirled around, igniting it before throwing the weapon like a spear into the control panel beside the door. The doors short-circuited and froze in place, leaving just a small opening in the center.

"The door is jammed!" They heard a stormtrooper yell.

Another stormtrooper's helmet appeared in the gap in the doors. "There they are!" The barrel of his blaster slid through the opening and fired off several shots.

Star was already springing into action, her emerald blade springing to life as she quickly deflected the shots away from her friends. "Time to go, you guys!"

Marco called his lightsaber back to his hand and joined Star in defending against the stormtrooper.

"Get that door open! Now!"

"Which way to the Raventalon?" Janna asked Rosado.

"Oh, is that what you call your ship? Cool name!"

"The controls are destroyed! I can't get the door open!"

"Forget it! Outta my way!"

The blaster pulled back from the gap in the door and several thermal detonators were abruptly stuck around the inside of the gap.

"Dude! Focus!" Marco yelled.

"Sorry. It's in the hanger. Follow me!"

They turned and ran, the teenagers following as Rosado led the way. Seconds later, a huge explosion bent the blast doors out from the center. The sturdy doors were resilient, but they gave way just enough to leave a space wide enough to squeeze through.

Star looked back. Stormtroopers were pouring through the gap as quickly as they could jam their bulky armor through, wasting no time in filing the corridor with laser fire.

The chase was on.

N-K Necrosis was a short-lived and rather uncommonly known "character" in Star Wars legends. I couldn't resist including N-K Necrosis in my story, albeit with nearly every aspect of its background altered except for its name. I encourage you to look up N-K Necrosis on Wookiepedia. It's not a very long page as the character only had one appearance, but it's quite interesting.

The adventures of Jackie, Kelly, Ferguson and Alphonso will continue in this story's sequel. If I ever actually finish this story and write the sequel.