So, I'm running off six hours of sleep. I have no idea how I'm even functioning right now. But, I have been reading a Star Wars book called Lost Stars. If you look carefully, you might find a reference to a character in said book, who is also from a certain planet that many of us know quite well.

Also, does anyone have ideas for the name of what is currently known as the Bridger Household? PM me or leave it in the reviews if you do.

I rubbed my temples, trying to dispel the headache that I was getting because of this shabla information about a shootout en masse on Corellia via the New Republic Holonet. Cameras were showing several riot-control vehicles and civilian speeders firing back and forth. Officers were using blasters set to stun. Rioters were trying to kill via any means. Ezra looked over the holo and groaned.

"You know, Kallus can give us an update on how the war is going. You don't have to watch the Holonet for it."

"I know. But it's kinda funny to see how… saturated it is," I responded. "They get so many details wrong."

"I suppose it's easy to pick apart newscasting about a topic you're well versed in," Ezra deadpanned.

"You're not wrong. It is rather easy, especially when the topic of discussion is your… expertise."

"You're saying your expertise is sending bad guys to their rewards?"

"Considering how well we do it? I'd say we have a special talent for it."

"Do you think it's hereditary?"

"Yeah. Actually, no… well, maybe…. " I said. Ezra laughed.

"And there's a selection of three answers to choose from. Never say you don't answer questions thoroughly," he responded jovially. I tried to scowl and wound up smiling. Ah, light humor.

"You know, Mandalorian… for lack of a better word, superstition, says that the combative capability of your parents is passed down to you, through the will of the gods," I stated. Ezra cocked an eyebrow.

"You believe this?"

"No. But, I think there might be a grain of truth."

"What, that you can inherit fighting skills from your parents?"

"Not necessarily. I think that you might be able to inherit certain traits that can give you an advantage in combat, but you have to be taught proper fighting skills. Like inheriting the Force, for one."

"Ah."

Ezra took a sip of caf. I grabbed my cup off the table and walked over to an easel, picking up a paintbrush and quickly dipped it in pink and swiped it across the canvas.

"Pink. You're conflicted?"

My expression betrayed my surprise. Hastily, I rearranged my features. "Yes. I am. I want to help suppress the riot on Corellia, but…"

"You don't want to endanger Mira," Ezra guessed. I nodded.

"Wait, Mira?"

"Our baby."

"How do you know our child is a girl?"

"I can sense it."

My eyebrows attempted to escape my face. Ezra laughed at my expression. I shot him a withering look. He remained annoyingly unwithered. We held each other's gaze for roughly five minutes before Ezra looked back out over the autumn landscape. The fields were now a beautiful gold and lovely as anything that any Deep Core poet has written. (Their war poetry leaves a lot to be desired, however, with all their talk of courageous charges against impossible odds and a magical victory. Impossible odds are impossible for a reason; that's why attacking in another direction was invented. (Some call attacking in another directing 'retreating.' I call them crazy.))

"You know, if someone had said that this was in the future for us when we first met, I'd have said they were crazy," I murmured, walking up to the glass. "And then kicked them."

"What do you say now?" Ezra asked. It was a loaded statement, I knew.

"I don't…. really know," I said. "I think I admitted the fact that I loved you to myself about two years after you joined the Ghost. I just… one day, I woke up and I realized you were my best friend and knew more about me than anyone else, and it kinda scared me but I wasn't entirely scared, you know? It was… comforting, too, knowing that someone as loving and cute and as…. I don't know, as…." I struggled for the right word. "As…"

"Me-like?" Ezra suggested.

"Yeah! You were cute and funny and brave so utterly you and I woke up and realized you were my best friend. And right around that point, I stopped feeling like you were my little brother or something."

Ezra smiled. "We seemed like our own little family on the Ghost, didn't we? Hera was Mom, Kanan was Dad, and Zeb was that one weird uncle."

It was quiet for the next thirty seconds. "You know, I once heard Hera refer to us as the kids," I said quietly. "I never forgot it."

"I heard that too," Ezra said. "I asked her about it. She just said that we were like her kids."

A simple explanation, but it ran so much deeper, didn't it? "I'm not sure that's the entire reason."

"Neither am I, but Hera's incredibly tight-lipped about the subject."

"I guess that comes with the territory of being a general. Or a former general."

"Touche."

Another long bit of silence.

"Oh! Did I tell you? I got a job as a martial arts teacher," I said. Ezra looked at me quizzically.

"Where?"

"Here, at Lothal Combat University. Several kids are becoming interested in the Galactic Civil War, so we're going to try a more hands-on approach, with combat simulations to teach tactics and soldiering and such. You could probably start up a CQC program if you wanted, or you could help me teach."

"I thought you had a job at the LDC."

"I quit."

"Oh. Huh. Hey, is Rex going to be helping?"

"No. He's on Kamino, working with the Kaminoans and his friend Cody to fix the clone's rapid aging. Well, that's what he told me, at least," I explained. "Truth to be told, I'd like to invite him to get a job here."

"He'd probably work the kids to death," Ezra said lightly.

"But he'd do a good job, at least," I responded. "He trained the Commandos."

"No kidding."

"Really."

"I wasn't denying it."

I walked back to the couch and dropped onto it. "So, anything happening in the Force?"

"Not really. I've been talking with Luke about his new Jedi Order. It seems like he's doing fine. He's hounding me to help, though."

"You could set up a offshoot on Lothal," I suggested. Ezra nodded.

"Yeah, I could do-" Ezra's sentence was cut short as he abruptly stopped moving and put one hand to his head.

"Ezra?" I asked. He started to fall forward. I caught him as he started to shudder. "Ezra!"

He didn't respond. Instead, he continued to convulse. I'll admit, I panicked a little bit. I laid him down on the couch, unsure of what to do next. Slowly, though, he began to stop shuddering.

"S-Sabine?" he said, quietly. "Luke is in danger."

"How so?" I responded, keeping my voice just as quiet as Ezra's.

"I saw it. I saw the future. The Jedi are… they're doomed. The Empire is rebuilding in Unknown Space. They're going to take over the galaxy. We have to be ready, Sabine."

"You're sure?"

"Yes. I am."

"Hang on. I'm going to make a few calls. I've got an idea."

"What's your idea?"

"A bastion."

"What do you mean?"

"Like a hideaway. A self-sufficient fortress. My father came up with the idea and my mother improved it a small bit. We built one under our home on Krownest. It'll be the perfect hideout of any resistance. We can run messages through the tower, too."

"You mean our house?"

"Not for long. I… well, I drew up some plans for a house."

"Really? Let me see."

I dashed over to the bedroom and grabbed a datapad, bringing it back to the living room. The diagram showed a square house with a circular hole in the center, roughly thirty-three yards in diameter. The house (three-quarters of a mile by three-quarters of a mile) would sit on a property a mile wide and a mile long, which would be huge for one family, so the house was going to be shared amongst the Specters and anyone else who Ezra and I deemed worthy. So far, the list included Zeb and Kallus, who had declined for Lira San but promised to visit, and Hera and Jacen, who had enthusiastically accepted the offer and left the capital world of the New Republic. (I think it was Coruscant or Byss or something like that.) The indoors, despite being massive, were pretty simple: lodging on the west and east sides, living areas south, staircases to the northwest, southwest, southeast and northeast, work areas, gym, hangar bay (yup) and anything else, aside from gardens. The gardens were outside. In the circle, there was a large training yard that could have some transparisteel slid over it in the event of bad weather. The house was also made from some rather nice materials, like Banshoon Oak wood. Very expensive. The only downside was the cost. 1,400,000 credits for materials, 100,000 for workers, 20,000-100,000 for the machines to build it.

Or, if you can't do this math very quickly, allow me to do so: 1,520,000-1,600,000 credits. Lots of money. Of course, most of my paintings were selling for 100,000-150,000 credits, so I did have the money saved up. About twenty million credits were stored up in the Bridger family coffers. (Oh yeah, I changed my name from Sabine Wren to Sabine Wren Bridger. If you don't like the change, fight me.) A friend of mine, a former Imperial officer named Berisse that graduated from the former Imp academy on Lothal, had even dropped a suggestion to mount phoenixes on flags and hang them on either side of the entrance, with hidden spotlights to illuminate them during the night.

"That's… impressive," Ezra said. "You could split the top floor above the Great Hall, so people can look down onto it."

"Good idea. What about the training yards? Are they up to your Jedi standards?"

"Yeah, I think so. If not, we can probably refit it."

"Okay, good. I just kinda designed this is my spare time," I said, a bit slyly. "Then I put more time into it, and, I made this."

"You'd do well as an architect," Ezra commented. "We should build this. Make a real house."

"You really want to do that?"

"Yup."

"You're sure."

"Mm-hmm."

"Absolutely sure."

"Yes."

"Well, I'll send the plans in and ask for a build crew. Do you have anything specific you want in the house?"

"I think your plans are perfect," Ezra said. "Just like you."

"Aww, thank you." I kissed Ezra quickly. He held my kiss and quickly turned it into something more.

One half hour later, I had displayed my love for Ezra in a blaze of passion, placed one call and passed along one datapad, which now contained a full readout of the new Bridger household. Construction would be going on for three months or more. Very quick for such a large house. Hera had slipped me a bit of information about the riots on Corellia and the Siege of Cardia, and how riot troopers were having particular difficulty in the capital of Corellia trying to suppress a squad of Imp troops and a poisoned-knife-flinging lunatic that had access to heavy weapons. I had half a mind to grab a rocket launcher, fly over to Corellia, and blow them sky-high before I was told that someone had already done that.

Well, kudos to them, but I warned them to check the ruins. My gut told me that Josh was still alive, and I wanted him delivered to me in binders and shot through the legs, then ejected from an airlock out into the cold expanse of space and left to suffocate and/or bleed out in space, eventually de-orbiting and burning up in the atmosphere of some planet, never to be seen again.

Oh, sorry. Too brutal?