34: A Capital Start

Ayumu sat silently in the midst of the main bunker on Endor, doing her damndest to meditate. It was something Nochichi had never quite taught her; a calm spirit was not an asset for a Sith, it seemed. "Get it together," she whispered to herself. It become something of a mantra lately. "Get it together, get it together…"

Soldiers and technicians scurried all about, seeing to this and that in preparation for the imminent Rebel attack. Not even the Guardsmen were safe from doing a little work. "Man," Garus grumbled nearby, "When was the last time I had to read a tactical display? I don't remember half this stuff."

"It's like I'm back on Delnor," Tarvis complained.

"I met someone who went to the Academy there," Ayumu commented.

He looked up from his work. "Really? Would I know them?"

The Sithling hesitated. "Uh, no… she was on a… different career path."

Tarvis would have inquired further, but she had resumed trying to meditate.


"Ha! I knew it!" Tomo punched her friend's arm and, meeting rock-hard Valerian muscle, sprang back to wring her hand. "I knew you'd come back!"

Yomi sighed mightily, snapping one of the Silver Rose's external access panels in to place. "It's not like you can just release me. Other Valerians would spit on me if I stopped protecting you, even if you said you did."

"Yeah," Tomo leaned against the shining hull and crossed her arms. "Swearing the debt on the spot like that was pretty rash of you. Now you're stuck with me!"

"Wha… you're the rash one! I never figured out why you took that shot for me anyway... you didn't even know me!"

The smaller woman looked at her sincerely. "I saw my chance."

"To do what? Feh, there's no point in asking you that question."

"That's right," Tomo said proudly. "Oh, look, it's van Buskirk! Do you think he's here to spit on you?"

"He doesn't know I almost…" Yomi turned on her heel and smiled in greeting. "Captain van Buskirk, it's good to see you!" She held out her hand, but the other was having none of that; the traditional Valerian greeting left her sitting on the deck rubbing her head.

"Sorry," he said merrily, unfazed by his own knock to the head, "I forget to tone it down for ladies sometimes."

"That's okay," Yomi replied, rising unsteadily. Surprisingly, her partner helped her up and stood by silently. Perhaps the Corellian had multiple personalities…? Tomo's mental state was a mystery she'd never unraveled in all their years of working together. "What's up, though? You don't usually come by this way."

"Oh, I just thought I'd pay you a visit. I'm still impressed by your showing at the Victory Dinner… did you keep the Spirit Ribbon you got?"

"Well, I…"

"She has it framed," Tomo supplied helpfully. The taller woman thwacked her a good one, but her smile didn't fade. "It's the peak of her career!"

Van Buskirk had a healthy laugh at that, slapping Yomi's back almost hard enough to bowl them both over. You couldn't really hold it against him, though… at 350 pounds of muscle, he was only slightly above average for his cohort, and their bonding was something frightful to behold. "Well, hey, listen. The Prof's got my boys and these little commando twerps going in to blow the base on Endor, and she sent us out to get a few of the smuggler ships to escort the shuttle. I'd feel a lot better with a Valerian on our back."

Yomi opened her mouth to refuse, but then cast a glance at Tomo. For once, she wasn't immediately putting in her oar, but rather waiting for Yomi's decision. There were so many reasons not to, but… "Okay," Yomi finally said. "We'll do it."

"He-eey!" van Buskirk boomed, "That's what I wanted to hear!" He moved in for a traditional Valerian farewell, but at her terrified look, settled for a hug. As if that were somehow less bone-crushing.


"Why are you so uncomfortable?" Chiyo asked.

The newly-promoted Major Kagura turned away from the towering viewports of the Mon Remonda's main concourse. The light-gray Major's uniform made her look taller, sharper and more competent than Chiyo had ever seen. Come to think of it, she hadn't even seen the woman in uniform since they'd first met. "Do I look uncomfortable?"

"No, but you are." Chiyo stood next to her, smoothing the front of her Jedi robes down. "In fact, I think you were more at ease when we were getting shot at on SRS-174."

"Where, now?"

"The forest planet we crashed on."

"Oh, so that's what it was called. Yeah, getting shot at, I can deal with. But now I'll have to tell other people to go out and get shot at, too."

"Didn't you before? I thought you were in charge of Princess Kaori's personal guard."

"That was different."

"How?"

"It just was. Now there's gonna be a big mess of snot-nosed little privates depending on me to put them where they won't get shot. And they will get shot, nothin' I can do about it. And I'll have no choice but to keep flingin' 'em out there, protecting my own precious hide because I'm the damn officer…"

The girl laid a hand on her arm. "But you're up to it."

"That's right. Someone has to be, I guess."

Chiyo leaned against the viewport and looked up at her. "I always admired your strength, Ms. Kagura. In fact, I used to be scared of you."

Kagura blinked. "Really?"

"It was after you shot those stormtroopers…"

"Wait, which? You just described half of my adult life."

Chiyo half-smiled. "Any case will do. It was just… You were always so cold and merciless to them, and I wondered how you could do such awful things and still be a good person…" her eyes slid sideways towards the stars, "But then I got to thinking about what a mess the galaxy would be if good people weren't able to do awful things."

"Mm." Kagura clasped her hands behind her back. "I'm in charge of the ground mission on Endor. We'll have to disable the Death Star's shield before the fleet can move in."

"Really? That's… wow… that's quite a responsibility."

"We'd love to have you along. Since none of us here can order you around anymore, I thought I'd ask."

Chiyo pushed off of the wall and considered. "Well, it seems to be where I can do the most good. I'd be honored."

"Tomo and Yomi're along, too. Heck, it'll be like old times!"

"But the Silver Rose doesn't have stealth gear…"

"It does now. You should have seen Yomi when we told her; she just about had an aneurism."


Of course, no matter how advanced, stealth gear isn't proof against every manner of detection. The shuttle and its three escorts dropped towards Endor's far side like stones, not daring to even light their engines until repulsors became necessary to keep them from slamming into the ground like so many overripe melons. Devices mimicking natural distortion and presenting false data would hopefully fool any scan that fell on them by blind luck.

None did, but their arrival did not go unnoticed.

Ayumu sat high in a tree, watching the streaks of their atmospheric entry cut through the twilight. She ran a lighter under her bared forearm absently; absorbing the heat was a calming mental exercise.

"Ms. Chiyo," she murmured, "Kagura, Tomo… and a presence I haven't felt since…" She stood gracefully and passed cold hands over the lightsabers at her hips. This was going to be an unpleasant night.


The shuttle and its escorts made a small cluster amid the towering trees. A light touch on the part of the pilots had kept them from plowing into any of the largest; odds were, the ships would have come out the worse for their encounter. Night fell fully as the men unpacked and assembled.

"Okay, gang," Kagura sat on the shuttle's skid and addressed the assembled soldiery quietly. The smattering of smugglers stood in their midst uneasily, most of whom would stay to guard the ships. "Our spy got us this key-card and it should open the bunker right up. Now, this is the only one we have, so whoever carries it has to be very careful. I shouldn't be the one, 'cause the Imps will be gunning for me."

Tomo rushed forward and held out her hand. "I'll carry it," she said heroically.

Kagura put the card in her hand, but kept a grip on it and searched the smuggler's eyes carefully. After a few seconds, she pulled it back and said, "Hey, Kitamura, come and take this."

Captain Kitamura came forward to accept it. As she shot a spiteful look at him, Tomo realized that she'd seen him somewhere before. "Hey. weren't you on-?"

"We can catch up later," Kagura said. "You guys all know your jobs- let's get going!"

And so they set out on foot, Kitamura's commandoes spreading out in a wide formation, the Valerians bringing up the rear along with the few smugglers that weren't waiting behind. Occasionally they would catch a glimpse of Maya, a sleek, predatory silhouette dusking through the trees, or that of his master, scarcely less threatening. Occasionally they would hear a speeder bike moan by through the trees, but the only one to get close enough to be worrisome mysteriously crashed.

"Damn, but that girl's scary," Kagura muttered.

If all went well, this would be a quick, simple mission. In theory, the Imperials weren't expecting a ground attack; they were expecting the Rebels to jump into the system and splatter against the Death Star's shield as if it were a colossal cosmic bug-zapper. If all went well, they'd catch the stormies with their pants down and seize the day easily.

Of course, all NEVER goes well.

Kagura picked her way through the brush near the center of their formation, uncomfortably adjusting her thermal goggles. Something flickered across her view above her, but when she looked up there was nothing. Probably a squirrel or whatever Endor had for those…

"Oh, shit!" one of the guys up ahead yelled. "It's…!"

"Just a pinwheel!" Kitamura cut in harshly. "Keep it together!" With his curt gesture, the commandoes took cover and started scanning the surrounding area. Their nerve even seemed to pluck up when no Sith came tearing out of the sky at them, breathing fire, turning men into pumpkins or whatever it was they did.

Ayumu stood on a bough above them, frozen. She hadn't been sure before, but there was no question now. Hearing Benjiro's voice again tugged at her, not in a romantic way, but as a tie to older, happier days… she'd ordered this man not to die; would she now have to kill him? More to defer the question than anything else, she ignited both lightsabers and pressed them together.

At the light and sound, the men below turned their guns towards her. Red and purple points of light flurried down around them, making some cringe back in surprise, but most professionally drew a bead and waited for the word to fire.

"I've got her," Chiyo said in a soft but carrying voice. Ayumu extinguished her weapons and ran lightly away, the prodigy leaping up in hot pursuit. From branch to branch they flew, just as Sakaki had on that dark night so long ago… but Chiyo shut the stinging memory away before it could distract her.

Her chase turned out to be a short one. As soon as they were more-or-less out of sight of the soldiers, her sense of Ayumu seemed to vanish. Chiyo skidded to a halt and looked around uncertainly; had the other figured out how to make herself invisible to the Force, or…?

"Ysalimir!" Ayumu called gleefully, and something wooly slapped across Chiyo's forehead. The Force was gone! Stunned, the girl fell from her branch and thudded into the surprisingly hard dirt. After a second or two to regain her breath, she scrambled to her feet, grabbing at the creature clinging to her forehead. Unfortunately, its nasty little claws were dug into her scalp quite soundly.

Nearby, Ayumu landed much more gracefully, wearing one of the creatures as if it was an exceptionally ugly stole. Chiyo frantically ignited her lightsaber, noticing for the first time that the other woman was a bit bigger than her.

"Well, if ya want…" Ayumu said doubtfully, disdaining to draw her own. A rustle made Chiyo turn about; she was suddenly surrounded by darkly-armored stormtroopers wearing ysalimir cages on their backs. With at least fifteen blasters trained on her, she had no choice but to extinguish her weapon and put her hands in the air.

Everything had happened so fast! She was still trying to recover from losing contact with the Force as Ayumu gently peeled the ysalimir (by the end of its tail, naturally) off of her forehead and handed it to the stormtrooper captain. "Take her up. I'm going to deal with the others."

"Yes, ma'am."

Deal with…? A blaster dug into her back with a terse, "Move!" and a well of despair rose in Chiyo as she was led away from the coming battle.


"They're on to us already…" Kagura swallowed a curse and hit the comlink adhered to her jawline. "Kitamura, van Buskirk," she whispered, "Take Alpha and Gamma groups on the main route… I'm going on the secondary with Beta group."

Two affirmative clicks responded. Dividing their forces could be dangerous, but if they were found out too soon, there would be enough Imperials here to sweep them away no matter how closely they clustered.

As the groups plunged deeper into the jungle away from each other, she started to grow a little nervous at the continued silence. If the Imperials had known where they were going to land, would they have only sent Ayumu? Or had she sensed them on her own and come alone?

And as long as she was asking pointless questions, why had she decided to drag the smugglers along? Even though there were only four of them behind her, they sounded like a whole squad. Tomo alone sounded like a batallion, she noted with chagrin.

"Major?" the point man of Beta whispered through her com, "We have a situation up here…"

"I'm coming," she replied, breaking into a light jog. What kind of a 'situation' could there be? If it were an Imperial entanglement, she'd have been notified by blaster-fire. When she reached the front of their lose formation, Kagura was greeted with an almost amusing scene.

One of the tiny, catlike locals stood in the middle of a small clearing, facing three tall, brawny commandoes with blasters, wavering uncertainly in its implacable gaze. The creature put its paws akimbo and growled at them.

"Where's our Jedi?" Kagura asked, looking around impatiently. "There's kind of a language barrier, here… uh, hello?" She knelt before the creature. "We're here to help you… uh… do you understand? Let us… help you?"

The native gestured and suddenly Kagura was covered in green laser sights. The commandoes clustered in front of her and returned the favor as best they were able; one had his hovering right between the emissary's eyes. "Hold on!" Kagura cried, "Wait, we have to be diplomatic!"

"Well, say something!" the point-man gritted. The lead native held his hand in the air. "And fast!"

"Uh… uh…"

Just as the gray-furred arm was about to fall, though, something golden streaked down between them. Maya's tail lashed from side to side as the muscles in his back bunched together, a horrible snarl twisting his lips. The emissary hesitated, flinching back as the beast loosed a terrifying, full-throated roar. In the seconds of absolute silence that followed, Maya sat down and started cleaning himself.

"Well…" the emissary said in perfect Basic, "I guess you can't be all bad if you've got such a magnificent creature by your side." The soldiers stared at him blankly. "So, uh, you're here to help us, then? I think we can work something out. Now, it's probably too much to hope that the trespassers didn't hear that, so you'd better come with us."

Kagura hit her com. "Hey, Kitamura, change of plan. Kitamura…? Hey! Respond!"

Her hails were met only with static.


God had evidently not intended Valerians to be subtle creatures. Though they tried to be quiet, their column moved through the forest rather like a herd of elephants. The skulking, silent commandoes sweeping ahead of them were uniformly disgusted. "What the hell was Kurosawa thinking?" one asked quietly.

"Distraction?" another suggested.

"Cut the chatter," Kitamura snapped. Like his superior, the silence was making him nervous. Though it had been unnerving to see the Baroness again, he couldn't afford to think of her as such. That woman was only Darth Mito, an enemy, and one Chiyo-chan was hopefully dealing with.

He glanced over to van Buskirk. The Valerian officer was doing a much better job of being stealthy than his countrymen, not that it mattered much. If there were any Imperials nearby, there would be no avoiding them.

When he looked back, Ayumu was standing right in his path, barely a foot away from him. "Geh!" he yelped. "Wh-where's the Prodigy?"

"I dealt with her." Though any rational being would be terrified, Benjiro found that her calm was as infectious as ever. His hand fell to his blaster, but he knew that the Sith could kill him three times before he drew. "You can turn around, you know. I won't stop you from leaving."

"We can't," Kitamura replied, almost apologetically. His blaster slid free of its holster and leveled on her chest. "Get out of our way."

"Your hands are shaking," she observed.

"Damn it! I don't want to…!"

"Fine," van Buskirk growled, "I'll handle this, then." His fist, nearly as wide as the woman's shoulders, streaked towards her soft cheek like a comet. Entirely unconcerned, Ayumu reached up and caught his punch, glancing sadly at Kitamura as she stepped out of the short trenches her feet left in the ground.

Her delicate hand wrapped lightly around van Buskirk's middle finger, she walked around his arm and addressed both of them. "For what it's worth, it's nothing personal." Van Buskirk roared as a Force Shriek crashed through his arm, stumbling back and falling with a thunderous sound.

Kitamura fired a futile shot into her chest before another shockwave washed over him. Waves of force rattled his bones and froze his heart as the power cells of his com burst painfully against his face and his blaster blew apart in a gout of blue flame. As he pitched to the ground, she walked past him and held her hands out towards the advancing column of Valerians.

An arc of the forest before her fairly exploded into sawdust, Rebels knocked sprawling, bowcaster quarrels crumpling in midair and dropping. She closed her hands and the Shriek stopped, but the rolling crash of falling trees continued for some time after. Before her rampage could continue, though, a blaster bolt caught her in the shoulder. With a brief cry of pain, she vanished into the canopy above.

The commandoes of Alpha had finally come, laser sights scything through the foliage above, but they found nothing. "Oh, man…" one said sickly at the swath of mayhem Darth Mito left in her wake.

"Don't worry," the second-in-command said bracingly, "If it yelps like a sissy, we can kill it."

"Don't you mean if it bleeds-?"

He was interrupted by a pair of lightsabers igniting above them.


The Endoran village was spread out over about a mile in the canopies. The agile little natives had no need of ladders or bridges, part of what had hidden them from the Imperials so long. One could walk beneath a veritable feline metropolis and never know it.

Beta group and the unfortunate smugglers were gathered around its center, as near to a safe place as there was on the whole forest moon. They could only assume that the others were lost; neither Alpha nor Gamma had responded to their repeated hails.

It was amazing how fast things had gone sour. One lousy Sith had ruined the element of surprise and swept half of their pieces off of the board, or at least cut them off from each other. Kagura sat back against a tree and addressed their emissary. "So, Wicket…"

"That's a stupid name."

"Well, if you won't give me your real one, that's what you're going by. Tell me about these invaders, Lord Wicket. What are their numbers like."

"Lord? We're a democratic society! I'm merely the elected head of a bicameral…" he shook his head. "Well, okay. There's about seventy armored guys, ten big shots, two guys in red that seem to do their own thing, that blaster-proof nutcase and two of those great thumping things with the treads and the big guns. Like houses that roll around?"

"What, you mean tanks?"

"Is that what they're called? What a dumb name…"

"I'm sure yours isn't any better. I am going to stab Matsuyama when we get back… the report said fifty-five stormtroopers and three officers. And no armor… shit. All of that, and we have just four hours to get in there and blow the thing."

"What?" Tomo yelled nearby. "Do it again!"

"Ow! Ow! Quit it, you moron!" Yomi pushed her partner off and swatted her back. "This is right! I don't know how it happened, but…"

"What are you two squawking about over there?" Kagura called irritably.

"I was just going over the hyperspace course we took… whoever plotted it screwed up." Yomi ran a finger over a mess of pencil scribblings on the back of her trusty textbook. "If I did this right… and I did," she added, shooting a nasty look at Tomo, "We only have… oh… oh, no…"

"What is it?"

"We only have an hour before the Armada gets here."

"What?" Kagura bolted to her feet. "Since when… who…?"

"God, Yomi!" Tomo smacked her partner again.

"Quit acting like it's my fault!" Yomi yelled. "This happens sometimes, even to experts! I think the guy dropped a decimal."

"Well that goddamn decimal is going to cause us a lot of trouble. What were the odds? Prime Minister Wicket! How soon will your guys be here?"

"We're ready when you are."

"As you can see, this operation is off to a capital start," she growled. She accepted a map from Wicket- it was the area surrounding the bunker, covered in helpful skull-and-crossbone marks. "Let's see if I can break the record for fastest briefing ever. Do you have the scouts looking for my other guys?"

"No," Wicket said sarcastically. "They're sitting around picking their ears."

"This could be the start of a beautiful working relationship."


The Battle of Endor would be remembered as one of the ugliest and messiest engagements in the history of space combat. The Rebels came blazing into the system, expecting to find a wide-open Death Star with its power grid shut down for recalibration… instead, they found a fully shielded superweapon and, as Yomi had predicted, half of the Imperial Navy lying in wait.

Accepted tactics flew out the window. Who could have directed anything beyond their own vessel in that maelstrom? Fleets of that size had not been assembled for hundreds of years, and never had they been crammed into such a small area of space. Too close even for metanukes; the cruisers and destroyers were reduced to gouging into each others' hulls with lasers and torpedoes as a nuclear detonation would have consigned dozens of blinded fighter pilots and smugglers to ignominious deaths plowing into this or that capital ship.

For a time, rallying around the Mon Remonda, the Rebels made headway. The alien vessel's strange beams plunged straight through shields and tore great chunks out of Star Destroyers, gliding sedately through a hail of return fire as if it were a spring rain.

Nobody screamed "It's a trap!" at the turning point; it was fairly obvious that they were expected when Endor's sun dimmed hideously. Through gaps in its spherical shell, one could observe the parts of the Death Star's solar draw moving and glimmering with newfound power.

A Rebel heavy cruiser suddenly blew apart, breaking into huge chunks that smashed smaller vessels from both sides all around it. Two minutes later, another erupted, becoming a flaming hulk that crashed vengefully against a Star Destroyer before detonating.

"Why aren't they hitting us?" the captain of the Mon Remonda asked, "We've got to be the most powerful ship in the system!"

"Yukari wants me to know I've lost," Kurosawa replied gravely. "Come on Kagura… I believe in you…"