Chapter 11

Location: Planet Zeltros, Blue Palm Hotel and Resort

For Sabine things were quiet. The people today were the same as they usually were, nothing out of the ordinary had really made itself apparent. Well nothing was different except for the roving pairs of Imperial troops all over the beach.

But these troops were different. Sabine had never before seen anything like them in all her time in the Academy or with the crew of the Ghost. For one thing these troopers weren't wearing the normal bleak white armor of the average Stormtrooper grunt. Each set of armor was, on close inspection, very much taken from those of Scout Troopers. But that was the end of the similarities between them. This armor was matte black, with a different make-up from that of the more common Scout Troopers. They were also more heavily armed and better equipped than the average Stormtrooper, with each carrying an E-11 Blaster Rifle with the stock fully extended and ready for use. In addition to this weapon they had a DH-17 Heavy Blaster Pistol in a black leather holster on their right thighs with several thermal detonators, concussion grenades, or flash bangs on their belts with an ammo bandolier across their chests. On top of these modern deadly weapons these Imperials also seemed to know the value of a blade, as each had a combat knife holstered on their shoulders. Each one also had a compact jetpack on their backs, allowing for an incredibly flexible unit of troopers.

It took a few hours for word to reach Sabine as to what they were but she found out eventually. As she was waiting on an order of drinks at the walk-up bar on her section of beach she heard their bar-tender talking about their Imperial friends.

"Hey girls," he called over, signaling the other Zeltron, Human, and Twi'lek beach waitresses, "Finally found out what those Imps around actually are. Storm Commandoes."

"Storm Commandoes?" Sabine asked, "What're they?"

"An elite unit," the older Zeltron responded, "Made up of the best of the Empire's troops. These guys here are under the command of Captain Andru Tarkin, our distinguished guest."

He said that part with quite a lot of distaste, not even the Zeltron held any love for the Empire.

"An elite unit huh?" Sabine asked, "What've they done recently?"

"No one knows, probably because no one's ever gotten away from these guys."

The Empire's stepping up their game, Sabine mused, pursing her lips tightly as she thought about this revelation.

"Order up," one of the other bar tenders, the one there to fill out the waitresses' orders, called out, "Sabine it's all yours."

"Thanks Geo," she responded, picking up the large silver tray with a bottle of wine and a pair of glasses.

Sabine walked out of the covered thatch hut and back into the sunny morning. Things so far were actually kind of slow. Not too many people were out and about, either sleeping in or sleeping off their own hangovers. In fact this was Sabine's second order for the day, which was a bit of a bummer because that meant she didn't get the tips she would on a busy day. However this was a secondary concern for Sabine, what she was expecting to happen at any moment on the other hand was an issue.

Sabine was on edge, Kanan had said that all the signs had occurred that signaled an attack was coming. She didn't know whether or not to believe it, the Clone Wars had been before her time, and the Imperial Academy hadn't told her about tactics used in that war aside from the obvious. For all she knew Kanan was mistaken and the impacts had just been shattered meteorites. Right now, however, there was just no way to tell and there was nothing she could do now but do her job.

Looking at her order chart she saw that it was meant for a first class gazebo in an isolated part of Couples Cove, a private adults only beach where only couples with a rented gazebo were allowed to be. It was a short walk along a paved trail to the private beach which she was shocked to see had a pair of Imperial Storm Commandoes guarding the entrance.

"Hold it," the Commando wearing a red shoulder pauldron ordered her and then brought his hand to his ear, waited a moment and then said to her, "Go on miss."

"Thank you," Sabine responded quietly, and walked out onto the sand to see that the beach itself was bare aside from a palm trees, with the thatched gazebos underneath groups of palms.

There were a few gazebos occupied, but one had at least four of those Imperial Storm Commandoes around it. Unfortunately the name on the sign above the gazebo door was the one on her order. She was going right towards what could only have been Captain Andru Tarkin himself, the most guarded Imperial on the planet.

Taking a deep breath she watched the Imperial Storm Commandoes watched her closely. She couldn't make out the expressions behind their dark visors and black helmets but unlike normal Stormtroopers these ones did intimidate her. As she stepped foot on the wooden steps onto the elevated gazebo and let out a sigh of relief upon what she saw.

A single individual, a blonde haired woman wearing a rather skimpy bikini was on the plush circular lounge was all she saw. This woman was a bit older than her, probably in her twenties, and could only be described as drop-dead gorgeous. But for some reason she looked familiar.

Is this Tarkin? Sabine thought to herself.

"Ah, our drinks are here," she said pleasantly, "Please," the woman said calmly, motioning for her to put the tray down on a nearby table.

"There you are ma'am," Sabine said, putting on her usual pleasant smile, despite how uncomfortable she felt being here, "Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"No thank you dear," the woman said, "My husband will be along shortly, we'll see then."

"Very well," Sabine responded, nodding and bowing and started backing away with the tray in hand.

"Madam Tarkin! Get down!" one of the Storm Commandoes yelled all of a sudden as Sabine was about to turn back to the main area.

Sabine turned around as several other Storm Commandoes emerged with weapons brought to bear. Instead of being pointed at her they were pointed at the beach. Looking back at the beach she saw a group of eight figures, almost skeletal, but their eyes glowed white, and they had weapons and were moving rapidly onto the white sands towards the beach gazebo. These, she now saw, were the Droid Commandoes that Kanan had spoken of last night. And true to fashion these droids immediately starting blasting.

Red bolts slashed through the air as the droids advanced, aiming right towards anything that moved. But first and foremost were the Storm Commandoes, who returned fire instantly. Their rifles were tucked in tight, perfectly controlled and well-aimed. Red bolts lanced out at the targets as blaster fire completely enveloped the once pristine beach.

"Stay back!" a commando ordered Sabine and pulled her back, placing himself between the droids and her, and wrapped an arm behind him and pushed her back against the gazebo where another commando was ushering the blonde haired woman out, "Go with them!"

Sabine rolled her eyes at him, but obeyed since all she was holding was a metal tray, not the best choice of weapons. The commando who'd ordered her back then rejoined the battle, just as one of the commandoes was struck by a blaster bolt and launched him back. The droids were now closing on them, barely twenty meters between them. They droids now appeared to display more athleticism than any other she'd ever seen. They jumped, rolling and twisting to avoid the blasts as the Imperial commandoes had to do the same thing, although with much less finesse.

She saw one droid close with a pair of Imperials, the droid landed in between them, throwing a punch that the one on her right dodged by ducking under while the second one grabbed the droid around the waist, lifting the light-weight foe and slung it around and smashed its head right into a palm tree. But another two droids leapt upon the two troopers and landed on one, pinning him to the ground and brought its blaster down to aim at the commando and fired into his chest. The second man was more aware, and when the droid landed on him he rolled back, kicking it up and away, and rolled to his left and fired his E-11 into the droid's head as it got to its feet alarmingly quickly. But he had to dodge a blaster bolt from the first droid who turned its E-5 on him and fired into the sand. He fired back, striking it in the chest, but the blasts were taken in stride by the formidable droid but it gave him enough time to fire again, this time hitting it right in the nose.

This had happened right in front of her in the space of less than fifteen seconds. Before she could really see anything else two more droids appeared to her right, firing their blasters right at her. She brought her large tray up like a shield, ducking down behind it, feeling the heavy powerful blows of the particle bolts striking her protection. But it wasn't going to be all that effective much longer, as there were several orange glowing spots from every spot that was getting hit. So she looked over and decided it was about time to get involved.

Good thing she decided, because the droids attacked her and the other woman next to her who just cowered behind her bodyguard who was backing away, doing his best to keep her safe. The commando pushed her down behind a palm tree and kneeled next to her. But then the commando called out to her.

"Get down!" the man said, and pointed over at the droids.

Sabine responded as cleanly and precisely as ever. Only one droid was attacking her, and was right in front of her. It attacked with a jumping twirl of a kick and Sabine ducked and spun behind it, grabbing the handle on her tray and swung it like a blade, smacking of the droid across the face. But it swung a back-handed slap that Sabine saw coming, spinning on her heel in the sand and blocked the powerful blow which put a dent into her already damaged tray. She then spun her tray again, smacking the droid's blaster away as it pointed at her, having it go off into the air. The droid then tried grabbing her around the neck but Sabine sidestepped, and swung her tray up at the right leg, damaging the knee joint and once more swung overhand like a hammer and pummeled the droid over and over again.

Once sparks began flying and the droid ceased to be a threat Sabine looked at her mangled silver tray. The chromed finish was gone, with dents, bends, and burns showing how much this little piece of metal had saved her life. She looked back to see that the Imperial commando was still struggling against the other droid. His E-11 had been swatted away, resting on the sand a few feet away. The man was jostling with the commando droid, who he'd freed from its blaster. So the droid was simply looking to kill him with its bare claws. But the Imperial still had one weapon left. As the droid held it with one hand around his neck and the other on the Imperial's arm as he tried fighting back by punching at the droid's head to jack up its circuits.

However before Sabine could go to help him, the man used his other hand to draw the combat knife on his shoulder plate and stabbed down, breaking into the right eye of the droid and drove home the blade, further damaging the droid and let go. With his foe disorientated the commando then drew the DH-17 on his thigh and blew the head clean off by jamming the heavy blaster pistol at the joint of the neck and metal head. With this final foe the commando wasted no time, grabbing his E-11 and sweeping the area.

Sabine now noticed that blaster fire was now erupting all over the island, explosions were shaking the resort building's top levels she saw, smoke and fire blowing out windows and sending debris falling down to the ground from hundreds of feet in the air. Already smoke was starting to rise from across the resort as a real battle had now erupted. But then, a shadow fell over Sabine, and she turned and looked up.

Hovering over her, blaster cannons blazing was an orange four armed craft. The four mechanical arms moved in a waving motion as it hovered and fired down at the beach she was on. Around her several Storm Commandoes fired their blasters at the craft to no effect, and the assault ship took notice. Unfortunately the gazebo in front of her was struck before she could move to get away, and she was launched into the air, landing in a heap with flaming bits of debris falling around her, sprinkling the once pristine beach with bits of wood, thatch, and metal. But the Force was with this young Rebel today, as one of the craft's blaster cannons aimed down at her and the other Storm Commandoes were now falling back in a protective ring around their charge. Then a yellow flaming box-like craft, slightly smaller than this squid ship, smacked right into it. Both craft were propelled by the momentum of the smaller one into the shallow water where flame and sparks from both craft showed just how devastating the collision had been.

"Whoa!" a familiar voice cried out as a sudden crashing noise caught Sabine's attention. It came from above, and from above came Ezra, who fell with palm leaves tangled amongst his limbs as he smacked into the ground. Right behind was Chopper, beeping and chirping in victory as he landed next to Ezra with his centerline rocket.

"Ezra!"

With a huge smile on her face Sabine ran over to them. Chopper saw her, turned to face her and used his arms and pivoted downward as if taking a bow.

"Yes thank you Chop, I owe ya."

"What do you mean him?" Ezra groaned, "I'm to one who had to fight them off!"

"Them?" Sabine asked, "What's going on?"

"What does it look like?" Ezra cried out as he got up, "We're being attacked!"

"Not us," Sabine replied, looking back at the Storm Commandoes who were now rushing with the blonde woman back to the hotel, "They're here for that Tarkin and they're killing anyone who gets in their way!"

At that moment another pair of squid-like craft soared overhead, raining down fire into the resort and the hotel itself. The three of them knew this wasn't over, Kanan Zeb and Hera were still in there and the danger to innocent lives was still ever present. They had to get in there.

"Come on!" Sabine yelled out, grabbing Ezra's arm and yanked him along behind her. Both of them snatched up an E-5 Blaster Rifle from the destroyed Droid Commandoes as they ran up the trail, intent on finding their friends.

Five Minutes Ago

Ezra was on edge, but he at least felt safe here. Being hundreds of feet above the ground and by himself put him somewhat at ease. However his worry for himself was replaced by worry for his friends, in particular Sabine. He knew she was by herself and effectively defenseless right in the line of fire if something came out of the water guns blazing. Every time he wasn't cleaning windows he was on the small catwalk of his cleaning barge with binos to his eyes, looking out at the water.

His eyes were always looking for anything that wasn't normal, whether it was a bunch of commando droids or ships or odd-looking sea creatures. Today only Zeb was off, so the rest of them were still having to do their jobs despite the constant worry. As Ezra was looking out towards the clear blue sea he was brought back to the needs to do his job, which was just hit the buttons on the washer control panel. He jumped back onto the main deck and hit the control button for a specific cleaning from a more stubborn dirty spot. But he noticed something a noise, like a whooshing noise similar to Chopper's rocket.

Ezra chanced a moment to look down right as the noise reached his barge. He looked up to see thre figures flying away towards the top of the building a hundred or so feet above him. But he also saw a figure falling towards him. He was too surprised to do anything as the figure fell right into the upper works of his barge, grasping onto one of the support bars and spun around it before landing right on the catwalk. He took notice of the lithe female figure wearing a dark red set of clothes, with a red hood covering her head and a sash over her face. She was on the catwalk above him with a dark metal bow-like device with a pink energy coursing through the "string". Also on her back was a scabbard with a mean looking short sword in it with a black hilt.

Then the bowstring was drawn and a line of pink energy particles was aiming right at him.

"Sorry kid, nothing personal," the woman smirked.

But before anything could happen one of the water jets activated above her, and she rapidly dodged a jet of soapy water slamming into the spot where she had been standing. This caught her off-guard, as the Dathomiri woman hadn't been expecting resistance from a window washer. But this gave Ezra enough time to go grab onto a durasteel pipe that had been there since he'd arrived that was about lightsaber length. It was no blaster but it would have to do.

However Chopper, at the controls of the automated water jets, was doing most of the heavy lifting of throwing off their attacker. Several jets fired at the athletic woman who dodged each blast with flips, spins, ducks, and cartwheels. It was almost Jedi-like in the timing of her reflexes.

"Let's see you dodge this," Ezra confidently smirked as he charged at her, jumping up and slashing down with his makeshift weapon.

The woman avoided the blow by lifting her bow up to block it, the clashing of metal on metal sounding out with a clang before she ripped her arms to the right, throwing Ezra that way before switching weapons and drawing her sword and attacked. Ezra was lucky he'd been training, or he wouldn't have had the reflexes to jump over the slash from his left and bring his weapon back up on his right to counter the next rapid attack. The smack of metal on metal hurt his hands, even through his gloves.

However, before he could push back, he sensed the movement of the water nozzles and ducking as Chopper fired off another jet of water that struck their collective foe in the back, throwing her forward into the wall where there were several lockers full of cleaning and maintenance supplies. The Dathomiri was quite surprised but never had a chance to recover as Ezra was right on top of her, swinging down with his length of metal pipe. She blocked the blow, and Ezra reeled back again, swinging down at her again, but rolled to the side. The pipe smacked against metal floor and the Night Sister kicked right into Ezra's arms, knocking the pipe free from his grasp and then kicked him in the gut and then in the chest in a rapid one-two-three punch that sent the young Padawan sprawling across the deck.

Now she went in for the kill. With a loud war cry the witch jumped into the air, sword poised to stab Ezra through the heart. But she didn't expect to be stopped in her tracks cold by a sudden cold grasp as if the air itself halted all movement. She didn't see the boy with his arms held up, eyes closed in complete focus. Ezra had somehow channeled the Force into hold his foe totally stationary, as if he knew how to do it all along. But he didn't waste time thinking about it.

"Chopper now!" he cried out.

Right on cue, the grumpy astromech charged every nozzle at his disposal beyond its safety lines and aimed them right at their foe and with a smartass chirp let fly. A tidal wave of pressurized water sent the red-clothed woman flying out of sight. Not only did they get her off of the platform the blast had sent her through the window in front of them and flooded the room she was launched into. Ezra was soaking wet, but alive and let his head fall back against the metal plates.

Then a loud series of thuds got his attention before a single series of blasts nearby enough he felt the heat drove him to action. Scrambling to his feet he ran to the catwalk and looked out at what could only have been described as a battlefield. Smoke and orange explosions blossomed every which way. Red blaster fire went back and forth as Imperials and droids duked it out below him. Around him squid-like craft larger than his mere cleaning barge rose from the water and settled over the resort, blasting away at any building that suited them. He recognized the screams of the frightened fleeing civilians who hid and ran from the onslaught that was mostly concentrated along the beaches for the most part. But then it hit him.

"Sabine!" Ezra cried out and ran into the command cupola and sat own behind the controls and put it into manual.

Chopper immediately began chirping and grumbling at him.

"We have to get Sabine out of there. She's right in the line of fire!"

Chopper agreed with him but as Ezra piloted the slow platform towards the beach and began descending Chopper also voiced the problem with his plan.

"I don't know how I know, but I just do. Trust me!"

Chopper put his arms against his sides and grumbled back.

"Yes you can trust me with flying the platform!"

However they'd forgotten one tiny little detail in their little plan. The energy bow armed Night Sister they'd just beaten off was not dead, and didn't want them getting away. Pulling herself from the wreckage of the room the woman yanked out her weapon, saw the bright yellow craft escaping towards the beach, pulled back the string and let fly a rapid series of long pink bolts. The projectiles sailed straight and true and cut into the rear repulsorlift drives of the platform, exploding in a ball of fire and made the craft careen towards the beach.

Chopper was the first to notice the problem and rushed over and pushed Ezra out of the way of the controls and took over himself. Ezra protested of course.

"What're you doing?!" he yelled and then saw that Chopper was aiming them right at one of the squid ships on a slim section of beach, "Are you trying to kill us?!"

Chopper just beeped back once and then rolled out of the cupola.

"I hope you know what you're doing!" Ezra cried out as he grabbed onto Chopper right before the droid activated his rocket booster and flew off of the platform while it was still falling.

They managed to do it none-too-soon, as a split second after they jumped off their cleaning platform smashed headlong into the ship that Chopper had aimed at, destroying it as planned. But the extra weight Ezra put onto Chopper's booster was too much, and he was covered n soapy water so it was just a matter of Murphy's Law that Ezra slipped off, falling through a palm tree and flat onto the not-so-soft sand below. It hurt of course, but all that pained disappeared when he saw Sabine, dirty and covered in soot in her work bikini rush over to him completely unharmed.

"Ezra!" she called out to him as Chopper landed gracefully next to him.

Ezra was glad they were in a battle and other things were on their minds, because he must have let out the biggest sigh of relief he'd ever had. Unfortunately, the day was still young.

Well I'm very proud of this one. Hope you guys like it, I know it's been a while but I've had a lot on my plate recently. A little prick I work with walked out so I had to work his shifts on top of mine with family over at my place. But at least working five ten hour days in a row (our busiest where I work) meant I'm getting a nice paycheck tomorrow. Well my point is sorry it took so long, hope you guys had a great Christmas (If Christmas offends you…well fuck you).

I'll now work on getting Agents of the Empire updated next, followed by Operation TIDAL FURY. If you haven't read those please do I'm really proud of them. And on my Operation TIDAL FURY update I'll be making a special announcement so stay tuned for that.

Next Chapter Preview: Kanan meets some old enemies and you know the saying enemy of my enemy? Yeah it applies in Star Wars.