"You have to find her," Embrey implored, looking only to Elena as she continued. "She is a sweet, wonderful little girl, and she means everything to Wil, to her family. Please, Master..."

Mand watched Elena as she carefully considered Embrey's plea, then let go of a short sigh before responding.

"You're allowed to take orders from me, aren't you?"

Embrey nodded. "Of course, Master Rys'tihn."

"Take a team back to Dantooine. Go through every square meter of that home, look for any clues that could help us figure out where she is or who might have taken her. We did leave rather quickly to get Horatio and Wil here," she paused briefly, glancing at Mand for her agreement, "so maybe there's something we missed."

Embrey plainly hesitated a brief moment before she bowed obediently and left almost as quickly as she had arrived. The whole exchange had piqued Mand's interest; the young woman had been so earnestly concerned for Wil and for the other Sheridans, but how did Elena know her? Thankfully, Elena anticipated her questions and wasted little time in explaining.

"Embrey Noh," she preempted Mand as they watched her leave the facility, "a Rys'tihn covert agent. She works for Wil's brother Malin, usually within the Retreat...which was why I was surprised to see her here. But..."

"...it sounds like she and Wil are close," Mand softly finished for her.

A flash of genuine worry swept across Elena's face, but she was quick to correct it before she agreed with a short nod. Mand could appreciate Elena's anxiety; Wil was her nephew, after all, and he had practically grown up as one of her own children, in the care of his late mother's family from the age of two. Wil had recently taken on more responsibilities as a Ghost Heir in training of sorts, learning from his brother Malin and his cousin Garran about intelligence gathering, evasion techniques, and close combat. All were skills he had clearly relied upon just hours ago as he fought some mysterious assailant, but as Elena had mentioned before, the timing seemed so strange. Wil had to have known what was about to happen and who he was going up against to have sent out his distress signal the way he had. He must have known he was going to need all the help he could get to protect his sister Jewel...but they all had been too late.

Elena disrupted Mand's thoughts with a similar progression. "...did you know about the girl?"

"No," Mand breathed sadly. "I had no idea."

"Wil never said anything about her to me. But the agents knew."

"That's their job, Elena, to gather intel," Mand countered. "If Horatio had wanted us to know about her, he or Wil would have told us. I'm sure he just wanted to keep his daughter safe."

Though Elena hadn't responded aloud, Mand only had to read her expression to know that they both shared the same thought, and both felt equally guilty for it.

He wanted to, but he couldn't.

A long silence stretched between them, communicating a mutual understanding that required nothing verbal. They had both been through similar struggles with their own children, so they were acutely aware that they were in no position to righteously judge Horatio for his failure. He had retreated to the edge of the galaxy, presumably, to avoid an event just like this, yet it had found him anyway. It was always the worst anxiety to endure, knowing young, innocent children were cruelly targeted on their parents' behalf...

"I'm...going to send a report to Paneau," Elena concluded softly as she turned to leave. "If they're able to stabilize Wil here, I want to get him home as soon as we can."

Mand nodded, sending her friend on her way. "I don't blame you."

Alone again with just the bacta tanks, their medical droid operator, and their lone occupant, Mand let go of a weary sigh, uncertainty eating at her the longer she considered the ineffectual position she and her fellow Jedi were in. They had only arrived on Dantooine just as Horatio and Wil had both nearly succumbed to their wounds, and none of the four had any idea, or any warning, that they would be discovering such a dire scene. If only they had been able to arrive just minutes earlier, perhaps they could have intercepted the Sheridans' attacker and rescued Jewel before he had disappeared with her...

A sudden, rough gurgling sound echoed through the previously silent chamber, and Mand looked up just in time to see Horatio's body convulse, his arms straining against the tank's suspension harness above him. His face was hidden behind a curtain of bubbles escaping from his breath mask over his nose and mouth as he struggled, and in her shock, Mand couldn't get the order out fast enough.

"Bring him out of there," she demanded of the medical droid, "now!"

The droid's servos whined and whirred as it moved to obey, seemingly in slow motion, retracting the harness cables that lifted Horatio out of the tank. He continued to jerk and strain as he left the bacta, the excess fluid being flung in every direction even as it poured off him. Mand wasted little time in grabbing a nearby blanket, covering him when the harness released and he fell back against the repulsor bed just beside the tank. The droid slowly removed Horatio's breath mask from his face, but he continued to cough and choke on the bacta that had leaked into it during his struggle. His eyes remained closed, though, even as Mand extended the Force to him to calm him, worrying her that his condition was not as good as she had hoped.

A team of medics, belatedly alerted by the medical droid, swooped in behind her and took over his care, but she refused to leave and remained at his side. She held tightly to his hand and locked her gaze on his face, awaiting the instant he began to show signs of waking. She wanted to stay close enough to do everything she could to carefully clear his mind, so he could hopefully give them the answers they so desperately sought. After several lengthy minutes, though, he remained unconscious, much to her dismay, but she maintained her vigil anyway. Though hers was the face she didn't think he'd be particularly thrilled to see after waking up, she was at least someone familiar in an unfamiliar place. With his son Wil still in surgery and his partner Wyliaa under careful observation in another room, his former partner Mand would just have to do.


"Em? ...Embrey? Embrey!"

Finally startled out of her daze by her brother's raised voice beside her, Embrey looked to him with little more than a lost expression. His was concerned as he studied her intently, searching her eyes. "...are you even here with us?"

She took in a short breath as she blinked, recognizing the collective attention of the three other covert agents on her, as well. She eventually found the strength to nod, giving them a faint, penitent smile to return them to their search of the Sheridans' home. Overprotective as always, her brother Thaylan stepped closer to her for a softer conversation as the others left.

"Look... I know you're worried about Wil," he began with care, "we all are. But this is how we help him. We find who did this. We find who took Jewel. And we make it right."

The pool of blood in the Sheridans' foyer, a mix of both Wil's and his father Horatio's, drew her gaze to it once more as her stomach tumbled. It had boot prints and drag marks all through it from the frenzy that had taken place earlier; had she not known that Horatio and Wil had both suffered substantial wounds that had clearly drained them, she would have completely lost hope for Wil altogether.

"...he shouldn't have gone alone."

Thaylan gave a sympathetic sigh, following her gaze briefly. "You're right. He shouldn't have." Though he hesitated, his progression surprised her. "But you know he wouldn't have allowed you to go with him, either."

Her jaw clenched in frustration. Thaylan of all people should know that she wasn't one to be told what she couldn't do, and she didn't need a reminder.

"Hell," he continued gruffly, rubbing the back of his neck, "he's going to kill me when he finds out that I let you leave Paneau in the first place."

Embrey snapped. "You didn't let me do anything. I have every right to be here, same as you, doing my job. He is my job."

"I know, but Em...you're not supposed to be out in the field right now. Your job is supposed to be at home."

She narrowed her eyes. "You don't outrank me. You can't order me to leave."

Thaylan agreed reluctantly, wearied by her stubbornness. "I can't, which is why I haven't yet. But you need to be careful," he continued even more softly, "please. We don't know anything about what's going on here, and I don't want you to get hurt."

The sincere concern in his voice began to temper her fury; he had always looked out for her, even moreso than her other brothers, and even going so far as to discourage her from taking her oath to the Rys'tihns when she turned eighteen...

"...I'm not breakable."

She could tell that, in the presence of other covert agents, Thaylan was withholding an eyeroll. "Em, you know what I me-"

A soft thump and a brief echo of grinding servos just to her right stole Embrey's attention, cutting off the rest of Thaylan's words. "What was that?"

She stared hard at a blank wall where the sound had come from, awaiting another sound to confirm that she hadn't simply imagined it. The rest of the team was on the far side of the home, but she knew the sound had come from just beyond the wall. Thaylan had drawn his blaster beside her, but he looked around in confusion. There were no seams or access panels nearby that she could see, so was there a door elsewhere?

Another mysterious sound filtered through to them, leading Embrey and Thaylan to follow it around the corner to a small closet door, partially hidden behind an overturned table. Embrey drew her blaster, too, as Thaylan gave a quick, shrill whistle to call the other agents back to them. The two men, Aggas and Nevo, wordlessly formed up behind them in a well-practiced stance, and the other woman, Jaka, kept watch from the hallway. With a tense nod from Thaylan, the five readied themselves for a close fight as he pressed the door release...

...to reveal a grimy, orange-paneled R2 unit that retreated further into the shadows at being discovered. It gave a sad, timid whine as its dome nervously turned back and forth, but it made no aggressive moves, only remained in place. The agents all stood perplexed.

"...a droid?"

"The Sheridans don't have a droid..."

"How'd it get in here?"

Thaylan took charge, though, addressing the droid directly. "What are you doing here? Identify yourself."

The droid beeped and chirped carefully, and only Nevo could translate. "He said he's B3-X4, and he followed someone here."

"Well, technically, so did we," Jaka said as she stepped closer to the group. "Who'd he follow?"

B3-X4 hesitated a lengthy moment before responding, and Nevo's translation was almost unnecessary. "He won't say."

Thaylan's grip tightened on his blaster. "I don't like this."

Aggas shook his head. "We can't impound a droid, we don't have the resources out here."

"What if it belongs to the Sheridans' attacker?"

The agents continued to argue with each other what their next move should be, but something about the droid's designation seemed to resonate with Embrey, stirring a feeling of familiarity from deep within her memory...

"Wait a minute," she halted their discussion with a wave of her hand, peering at the droid curiously. "...Bex?"

An affirmative albeit surprised beep from the astromech earned an equally puzzled look from Nevo. "You know this droid, Em?"

"I know of him," she corrected Nevo. "He was Recero Sheridan's droid. Horatio's sister."

Bex agreed, and spurted more blips and whistles. "He said Recero died a long time ago, but he's been looking for her son for the past few years."

Embrey sighed with frustration, desperate for any helpful information. "She had two sons. Who did you follow here?"

Again Bex hesitated, his dome turning back and forth as if searching for an escape, but Embrey refused to relent. Another string of beeps and chirps left Nevo reluctant to relay the droid's response. "He still won't tell us, but...he did say he got a scan of a ship that left just before the Jedi arrived."

"The man who took Jewel," Aggas affirmed.

But Embrey needed proof. "Show me."

Bex wasted little time in spinning his projector into position, lighting up the small closet he still occupied with a light blue glow as he displayed the ship in the air above him. Embrey studied it intently, somewhat disappointed that the Sheridans' attacker hadn't stolen one of their ships instead. They could have easily tracked him that way, but instead, they were left with only one small clue, a very common-looking, nondescript ship that could have come from anywhere, gone anywhere...

"It looks Corellian."

"No, it's far too sleek. Nubian?"

"Maybe Kuat."

"We can figure out its make later," Embrey interrupted shortly, feeling her anxiety rising. "We need to get this scan to the Jedi, now."

"No way," Thaylan immediately countered. "We're handling this search, not them."

Embrey shook her head. "Maybe this is somehow tied to Horatio's past, and they may know something we don't. Maybe Master Natiyr or Master Rys'tihn can identify the ship; we won't know unless we take it to them. We are not cutting them out of this, Thaylan," she concluded with a slight tremor in her voice, "...they are the only reason that Wil and Horatio are still alive."

Only after a long, pensive moment did Thaylan give a reluctant sigh, ceding his previous stance. "Nevo, you and Embrey take Bex back to the remote facility. Let us know if the Jedi have any input. Aggas, Jaka, and I will continue the search here. We'll keep you updated."

Getting nods of agreement from the others, Thaylan looked to Embrey directly, his gaze as intense as his voice. "And Em...I want you to stay there, with Wil, please."

Though they had just established mere minutes ago that she was not under any actual obligation to follow Thaylan's orders...Embrey agreed with a small nod, appreciative of his willingness to accept her demands. Her stomach tumbled again at the thought of finally seeing Wil since he had been injured, though she lightly placed a hand atop it to calm it. She could tolerate being benched for the moment, as long as there was progress being made. And if she were honest with herself, she wanted nothing more than to be at Wil's side when he awoke, if he awoke, and Thaylan's mandate would allow her to do just that.