Force Smuggler - That's a good sort of "Not good", right?!
The rhythm of the Zeta shuttle's repulsors shifted as it dropped clear from the Chimaera's outer bay, joined by the added overlay of mechanical vibration as the servos folded down the wings for flight.
Lieutenant Vane snapped her tactical goggles over her eyes, then tugged her combat helmet back in place, and tightened the strap beneath her chin. Behind her, the men and women of her assault platoon were doing exactly the same thing.
The Empire always had more urgent priorities than providing the Army with a combat visor that could be raised and lowered without removing soldiers' headgear, but she supposed the arrangement worked well enough. The Imperial Army didn't hide their faces like Stormtroopers. Goggles were strapped around the outside of the helmet for parade and riding in the back of vehicles, swapped into place only when you were getting ready to do things like jumping into mud and shooting blaster-bolts at Rebel scum.
By the time she was done adjusting her headgear, the visor had powered up, the big viewpane lit with holographic information.
She turned and looked round at the shuttle's troop bay, and the soldiers of her platoon, the coloured pattern of their ID glyphs jostling in her viewspace - the ordinary troopers of the light infantry squads, each armed with a long-barrelled repeater exactly like her own, the bulky cooling-jacket angled up against the left arm; the snipers with their slender T-28s, the massive Merr-Sonn Thunderbolts and power backpacks of the heavy-weapons detail, sergeants with their stubby, triple-barrelled TL-50s.
The four E-HWB crews each had a collective ID sigil, Aurek, Besh, Cresh, Dorn, and shared the components of their big weapons out between them - one man carrying the gun itself, another hefting the folded tripod and power cable, an additional pair of troopers serving as ammunition carriers to lug the bulky box of the massive power unit around between them. Not the easiest weapons to deploy, but easily the best firepower you can move about on foot. A four-man crew could carry an E-WHB just about anywhere.
Well, a four-man crew of Army conscripts straight out of basic training could. She'd enjoyed watching Stormtroopers training with the big blasters once. The plastic-packaged fuzzball-food had needed a full nine-man squad to carry each one around and set it up, on a flat parade-ground. She'd heard the Rebels mounted the ones they captured on repulsor-sleds, which was an insult to the whole idea of go-anywhere infantry mobility.
In contrast, she'd hauled her guns out of shuttles under fire, over jungle trails, through trench-lines and up the 'lifts of urban skytowers. In training, anyway. With officers like Covell and Thrawn above her, actual combat was rarely that demanding.
She shifted her attention to the big man who called himself Vess Kogo, looking somehow both absurd and reassuring with his long vibroax and his casual sense of command authority.
"Do you think this plan's going to work, sir?"
"I'm sure the Grand Admiral knows what he's doing," Kogo answered, shrugging slightly. "That's what makes this fun."
(O) (O) (O)
The two of them hadn't realised they were going to make out while they rode the turbolift down to the main corridor, and for a silent moment as their gazes met and their smiles danced, they almost thought about showing a little more restraint than usual - but of course they did it, anyway, leaving both of them grinning breathlessly, and Lowie doing his best impression of ignoring them.
"Thanks."
A smile, hands on each other's jawline. "You too."
Shaggy forearms folded, Lowie offered a growled insinuation in Shyriiwook that the two of them might want to find a room.
"Yeah, well. We're sort of trying to stop my brother and Kyp Durron stealing it off us."
Then the turbolift halted and the doors slid open, and the Wookiee loped past them into the main corridor, towards the distant song of lightsabers.
For a moment, there was a music of blaster-bolts being deflected, blades' thrum shifting pitch as they sliced through chassis parts. From the quiet buzz that followed, Anakin guessed the sparring droids hadn't lasted very long.
"Do you want to explain what's going on here?" Tahiri asked, as they stepped out. "I mean, why is Jacen an Imperial? But more importantly, why's he trying to steal our bedroom?"
"Uhh." Anakin scrubbed his face with the heels of his hands. "Jacen's trying to steal the ship - he must want the time-travel navigation system Jaina set up, though I have no idea what he wants to do with it…"
"Why would he do that?" Tahiri frowned.
The Force told him? I don't know. Anakin tried to think of a reason that made sense. but most of them were things he didn't want to think about. "I'm guessing he knows something that we don't," he sighed. "Honestly, though? Jaina's the one I'm worried about…"
(O) (O) (O)
She tumbled through the hatchway from the Inquisitors' ship into the docking corridor of a nondescript civilian freighter, stumbling through a disorienting quarter-twist as she switched from the deck-gravity of one ship to the other, and what had looked like a run of plating sloped up almost at right angles on one side suddenly became a flat deck underneath her hands and knees.
She picked herself up and jogged down the passage, past the scattered wreckage of some combat droids, turned aft and found the engineering console, and plugged the short-range military comm that had been stored in her civilian jacket. Lights activated on the housing, confirming that the transciever was active and logged in.
She cycled through the subroutines, using half-remembered civilian codes that were no part of her Imperial training. The comm headset looped around her neck would have talked her through the whole thing if she needed guidance.
"Jaina?"
That was her brother's voice - Jacen, calling from somewhere forward in the ship. She vaguely recognized her name.
I'm at the engineroom console, she thought but didn't say. The lie would give away her mission, and her position.
"You go back and look for her, Jace." Kyp's voice. "Lee and I can handle everything up here. Besides, the Grand Admiral's already arrived with the triangular cavalry."
"Your kid brother really has a useless little ship," the Twi'lek muttered. "From what everyone was saying, I thought this place would be some kind of flying dance-lounge, even if the engines and controls were basic. Not a scruffy teenage bedroom with a hyperdrive."
She shut the words out, her emotions mute beneath her Imperial conditioning. She had her orders. Following them was simple.
(O) (O) (O)
"Jaina?" Jacen's voice sang out from the open hatch between the frigate and the Yavin Turtle - he sounded strangely vulnerable, reminding Anakin of the times he'd lost his way on their childhood expeditions into the war-damaged areas of uptown Coruscant.
"Hey, swerve by the other hatch?" Alma Rar called out. "I can't figure out how to unlock us from the frigate from up here."
Fiver, Anakin realised. The droid must have overridden the docking release mechanism, and Imperial cruisers weren't designed to let suspicious little freighters get away that easily.
Tahiri and Lowie followed him back into the Turtle. They were moving quietly - Aunt Mara had done her best to teach him the necessary footwork skills, and Lowie was use to stalking quarry in the Kashyyyk jungle, though of the three of them, Tahiri, tucked inside the middle of the group, was the only one who felt much like a natural infiltrator.
Then a tall, black-cloaked man with short blond hair stalked into view at the other end of the corridor, caught sight of the three of them, and spun sharply on his feet.
"Hey, Jasa." Anakin did his best to look like the sympathetic kid brother, even if he felt he'd just been caught raiding the Wookiee-ookiee jar. "I'm not sure why we're even arguing here..."
"Seriously," Tahiri added. "You know I don't mind being tied up and interrogated for a few days, and it was fun to watch Anakin being used as a half-naked punchbag. We don't hold grudges - we just don't know why you felt the need..."
Lowie interjected a confused growl, reminding Anakin that the Wookiee had been tied up and interrogated by the Imperials as well.
But Jacen simply frowned, dark eyes regarding them in silence - and Anakin knew that there was something that he didn't fully understand driving the emotions that rose strong inside his brother, unspoken needs and instincts straining his self-control.
"So, what?" Anakin asked. "You want to abandon the three of us in the past, is that it?"
"That's not very nice," Tahiri interjected. "Do we make too much noise, or something?"
That was probably as good an explanation as any.
Anakin exhaled. "I'm honestly not sure I can let you kidnap Jaya, or steal my ship."
But Jacen simply flicked his cloak off his shoulder, levelled his dark eyes at them, and drew his weapon from his belt, holding it out in a forward-thrust horizontal guard, one-handed. The lightsaber ignited, the blade bright, pure white.
A second blade, shorter but equally bright, thrust backwards from the hilt of the weapon, and Jacen spun onto the attack.
(O) (O) (O)
Jaina flicked back her hair, and typed another override, trying to make the Yavin Turtle's oddly-configured systems talk to the transciever properly. Did Little Brother steal this ship off Hutts or something? She could hear the buzz of laser-swords, the dance of blades and footwork.
What the kriff did that mean?
Not important now. If she'd been able to think for herself, she'd have hesitated, her loyalties conflicted, her ability to follow orders compromised. She saw the lights, and punched the switch, and the signal sang through the clear night to the receivers aboard an Imperial ship.
Somewhere far, far away, she heard the affirmative whistle of an astromech, confirming that the package had been collected.
"Thank you, Grand Admiral," she murmured softly to herself.
"Very good, Lieutenant Solo." Grand Admiral Thrawn's voice sounded clear and calm like the stars of space, punched into her headset by all the power of an Imperial command ship's hypercomm transcievers... and weird in more ways than she had the headspace to process. "Now, I suggest that you get out of there."
(O) (O) (O)
Anakin and Tahiri stumbled back through the Turtle's outer hatchway into the corridor aboard the Ravelin, their lightsabers dancing in response to the rapid, unwritten questions of Jacen's bright-bladed attack.
Anakin twisted his blade into a two-handed high guard, sweating with exertion as he caught his brother's moves, then stepping back again - every block and parry and failed attempt to regain the initiative giving him a definite sense he was simply being toyed with.
Tahiri exchanged a glance with him, a little breathless in a way that had nothing to do with making out - not exactly worried, but certainly frustrated, not enjoying the effort they were being forced to make. The two of them were right in the zone, fighting in their most intense and perfect tag-team form, but they were getting nowhere.
Jacen was more than holding his own against both of them, and although he'd always been the better duellist, Anakin was uncomfortably surprised by just how skillful he'd become. Even with Lowbacca power-fighting next to them, the three of them had been outmatched, and now the Wookiee was out of the fight, leaning heavily against the side of the corridor behind them, a slash from Jacen's blade seared across his thigh - growling at the decapitated handgrip of his lightsaber.
And Jacen just kept coming.
Anakin blocked high, Tahiri flicking her blade low. Jacen caught and parried both, forcing them to dance back a step and a half. If Kyp and Alema Rar decided to come and join the fight, they'd be seriously outmatched.
But really, Jacen didn't need the help.
Anakin grunted as his brother aimed a low kick at him, and finally found an opening, of sorts - blocking the follow-up slash in a one-handed guard, disengaging for a moment, and tugging his pistol from his belt, snapping off a stun-bolt. Beside him, Tahiri had the same idea, shooting over her blurring blade with Jaina's borrowed Gee-Tech.
Jacen simply swatted the bolts off his spinning blades, and danced away, but somehow he was attacking again without giving them a moment more to shift their feet, plucking their pistols from their hands with a gesture of his lightsaber, and sending them skittering away along the deck.
Anakin danced back, dodging a high kick as Tahiri fenced away a thrust, and Jacen doubled his efforts, trying to drive them back.
Anakin tried a low slash, as Tahiri's blade lunged in from the right. But there seemed to be no way past his brother's guard - he wanted them to know he'd beaten them, and then he'd just slam the hatch shut in their face, and leave with Jaina and the hyperdrive settings for the jump back to the future.
Jacen had a foot astride the hatchway between the two ships now, spinning his blade ahead of him to push his control forward. One more half-step, and he'd have proved his point.
A sudden blur of movement appeared in the corridor behind Jacen - a girl with a long whip of dark brown hair and a short nerfhide jacket, sprinting low, diving past his blades and twisting in mid-air as as she passed from the freighter to the frigate, shoulder skidding on the deck, her big cockpit pistol coming up in a two-handed grip she'd learnt from Mara Jade.
Jaina.
The shots slammed out towards Jacen, full-power bolts aimed just above waist-high - Jacen turned, deflecting two of them like they were insects; but they weren't aimed at him at all.
Jaina's third shot found her target, the lock-plate that controlled the airlock, triggering the Ravelin's emergency overrides - and the hatch slammed down, forcing Jacen to snap back inside the Turtle's airlock.
And then it shunted up again, as Jacen caught it, almost casually, with the Force. As his gaze shifted from the two of them to Jaina, the already-complex feelings gathered like a storm inside him were joined by others, betrayal and emotions that were even harder to interpret.
"Jaina," he said, reaching out for her with one black-gloved hand. She sat up on the deck, looking towards him, blinking in confusion.
Anakin took a half-step closer to his sister, protective and instinctive. Tahiri matched his move.
With the Force, and casual flick of one gloved wrist, Jacen slammed them both against the side wall of the corridor, holding them there with his sheer will.
And a turbostorm of lightning-bolts leapt through the space where they'd been standing, sending Jacen flipping backwards into the Yavin Turtle's corridor, his blades whirling as he threw his Force skills into deflection, landing in an elegant crouch, one knee flexed down and the fingers of one hand poised on the ground, 'saber hefted like a lance beside him. In amongst all that, he'd kept Anakin and Tahiri pinned like shadowmoths, but he'd lost his grip on the blast-door for a moment - and before he could get it back, the hatch slammed shut.
Automated protocols that had kicked in when Jaina shot the lock-plate finally took over, violently decoupling the frigate from the freighter.
Anakin collapsed to the deck, somehow aware of the complex sequence of mechanical and electronic actions that was taking place beyond the bulkhead, the patterned energies in power capacitors, magnetic locks and beam generators, the Turtle's drive systems kicking in.
Somewhere in the distant roar of engines, he thought he heard his brother's anger, and he grimaced.
What just happened…?
Anakin twisted back to his feet, raising both eyebrows at the carbon-scoring on the inside of the blast door. "Everyone all right?"
Tahiri helped him stand, as he helped her. "Just a little tanned." She punched him playfully. "You don't have to be the best Solobrat at everything, you know."
"I think so." Jaina frowned, her posture seeming oddly formal in her loose jacket and old jumpsuit, and she gave the two of them a look which was much more Imperial than usual, but which became a smile. "Anakin."
Lowie limped up and pulled them all into a Wookiee-hug, which, for a moment, made the Galaxy seem right again.
"I'm sorry about Jacen," he said.
Then someone else intruded with a feigned cough, backed up by an assertive posture in the Force.
"Don't everybody thank me all at once," Vess Kogo said, standing there with his ludicrous vibroax and an equally absurd cloak - and an amused expression, and a big backing group of Imperial soldiers; not stormtroopers, infantry uniformed in what to Anakin looked like a mismatched combination of officers' green body armour and technicians' grey coveralls, all of them carrying an impressive selection of long-barrelled assault weaponry in low-slung grips. There were even some tripod-mounted heavy blasters back along the corridor, their power boxes and jointed stands reminding Anakin irresistibly of amps, their muzzles smouldering quietly.
The disorientation of the moment was completed by recognising the officer standing next to Kogo, with a smart uniform underneath her amour and a big blaster on a shoulderstrap like the rest of them - she was the same girl he'd bluffed past on the Chimaera's hangar deck, what felt like several lifetimes ago.
And somewhere, far away, Jacen was arguing with Kyp Durron and Alema Rar, trying to blast out aboard the stolen Yavin Turtle, pursued by TIEs - spiralling crazily with the Imperial ship still attached to the freighter's docking arm, the battle-damaged ion drives struggling to compensate.
Then in a single movement the big ship came clear and disintegrated under blaster fire, and the freighter snapped round onto a new heading, and abruptly leapt to hyperspace, disappearing in a way that was somehow far more profound than just the usual distant vanishing-point of a normal jump to lightspeed.
"Did they just…?"
"I think so," Anakin nodded. Kyp was harder to keep track of, one cocky kid among a squadron of TIE Pilots, but there had been no mistaking Jacen and the distinctive Twi'lek presence of Alema Rar, together in a tumbling cockpit.
They had made the jump through time.