Ezra sat slumped over the dejarik table, his finger tracing the lines across its checkerboard pattern. Repetition helped his mind focus when everything else felt numb.

Barely a half hour before they broke out of hyperspace, Ezra had worked up enough courage to leave his cabin and try to talk to Tseebo. Most of the time had been spent by Tseebo staring off into nothing, but when he finally snapped out of it, Tseebo shared less of a conversation with Ezra and more of an encyclopedic info dump. Ezra's hesitant question about his parents was met with a vague "Mira and Ephraim Bridger, Imperial prisoners." After the shock deadened and thoughts actually moved through Ezra's brain again, he didn't have time to ask clarifying questions before Hera entered and took Tseebo away.

Now he'd never know the truth about his parents. But they were alive; after seven whole years they had—

"Bored already?" a smooth voice asked, startling Ezra out of his thoughts. Lando Calrissian slid onto the opposite end of the couch and spread his arms along the back like he owned it. "We've only just started our adventure!"

Ezra would've explained how anything involving the Empire left a bad taste in his mouth if he felt Lando was someone to be trusted. But there was something… slippery about the man. Ezra didn't need prickling palms to tell him that.

"Once the captain returns, it's nothing but smooth sailing to the Akujii System!" Lando assured him.

Except Ezra couldn't help thinking something even more important had slipped right out of his grasp with the delivery of Tseebo. He pushed himself to his feet and shuffled for the door, mumbling, "Yeah, I'll go check on that."

The cockpit angled into view at the end of Ezra's slow walk, and he found Kix occupying the co-pilot's chair, talking to Chopper.

"—and the Y-wing prototypes were why I wanted to be a pilot when I was a cadet!"

In the aisle between the seats, Chopper waved his arms in the most animated way Ezra had ever seen. Neither noticed the boy slumping into one of the two back chairs.

The astromech actually came off looking friendly until a transmission crackled through the comms, startling all three in the cockpit.

"Chopper! Start jump calculations now to anywhere! Preferably away from hyperspace lanes—and it better be done by the time I dock!"

Chopper's flat dome spun around before the rest of him did, and he flew to the wall port to plug in. Kix was half out of his seat already, staring out the transparisteel in the direction of the Star Destroyer. Even Ezra sat up a little straighter.

"Did something go wrong?" he asked.

Kix hopped into the pilot's chair. "Let's hope not. Don't see any TIEs after her, but they always were slow to react." The stars spun as Kix angled the Ghost away from the Destroyer, facing the empty dock in Hera's direction. The sound of the auxiliary ship sliding home prompted Ezra to run to the main cabin. Lando sat properly on the couch now as an orange jumpsuit descended the ladder.

"We're leaving!" Hera shouted. She hit the floor and shot out of the room, lekku lashing, leaving behind passengers on the upper level.

Ezra approached the ladder as a foot indecisively poked in and out of the room, never quite reaching the first rung.

"Easy, careful," a soft voice said.

Tseebo inched down the ladder, both feet finding each rung, and Lando didn't wait to meet the second passenger before hurrying out of the main room, shouting, "He-RA!"

The last passenger, a girl in an unmistakable Imperial uniform, followed Hera's lead, running for the cockpit the moment she touched the floor, totally ignoring Ezra shouting after her. He had no choice but to follow everyone else—because had an Imperial actually pulled the same stunt he had, stowing away in the Phantom?—leaving Tseebo to stand in the main cabin, staring into space.

"Captain," Lando's strained voice echoed into the corridor as he leaned into the cockpit, "if the cargo is here, how do we get paid?!"

"There's your payment!" Hera said, tossing the datacard toward him. Ezra skidded into the cockpit in time to see the stars in the viewport streak to blue. "But if I were you, I'd move those credits out of retractable range fast."

Lando dashed from the cockpit, no doubt on the hunt for a datapad. In contrast, Hera relaxed, slumping in her chair now that they sailed safely through hyperspace.

Ezra honed in on the dark haired girl who'd sunk into one of the back seats. "Why'd you bring back an Imperial?"

Kix's attention snapped back at that, but his gaze landing on the stranger sitting behind his chair seemed more curious than suspicious.

"She needed a ride," Hera said and spun toward them. "She knows a planet with a rebel presence that's frequented by spacers; we'll get a crew and a safe place for your… friend. As long as the destination Chopper picked doesn't take us three years to get to."

Chopper whined his way out of the cockpit with arms waving at such abuse.

"This whole thing seems like a trap," Ezra said, a little amazed he had to be the one to tell this to a captain. While he'd never been the victim of a trap in his life, he was certainly cognizant of the signs. It all boiled down to common sense, really.

"It's not," the girl spoke up, looking—if anything—amused by his worry. "I've been waiting a long time for an opportunity to get away. This just happened to be it. My name's Sabine Wren."

Ezra folded his arms across his chest before flopping into the only available seat. "I'm Jabba."

"Kix," the man said with something between a wave and a salute.

Sabine smiled at him. "Nice bun."

"Thanks, I get that a lot."

Ezra rolled his eyes at how easily an enemy spy wheedled into everyone's favor. Was he really the only one cut out for spacefaring?

…

The lower levels of the Imperial Security Bureau headquarters lacked any windows to the outside world of Coruscant. All Agent Kallus could tell time by was how many cups of caf he'd had that day, because the chronometer projected onto the wall moved far too slowly in his opinion to be working.

He skimmed through the latest report on his desk, a successful mission by Agent Siwyndl that earned her a promotion—a mission that was supposed to be his before Siwyndl snatched it right out from under him. Kallus tossed the 'pad across his desk before he'd even reached the halfway point—Siwyndl was always long winded when weaving fiction—and instead fetched himself a fresh cup of caf.

He returned to find the holoterminal on his desk blinking. Setting aside his cup, a quick sweep of his uniform and his blond hair to make sure everything was in order, and Kallus accepted the call.

An average naval officer flickered into focus. "If I'm put on hold one more time, I'm going after those rebels myself!"

"Not to worry, Commander," Kallus said after a glance to his rank plate. "What is your situation?"

"A civilian crew that was supposed to deliver personnel to us captured my ship's xenolinguist! And they made off with the cargo, too. Someone from the Imperial Information Office."

Luckily Kallus wasn't still holding his caf, or else the floor would be wearing it. The amount of intel stored in the implants of workers within the IIO could severely hinder the Empire if it wound up in the wrong hands. Maps, blueprints, schedules, logistics, prototypes; the entire inner workings of the Empire just on display for whoever asked the right question.

He found his desk chair. "Start from the beginning—don't leave out any detail."

…

Maketh waited in the main hangar bay, arms crossed and foot tapping. With Empire Day less than a week away, she had to oversee the TIE production and parade setup. She didn't have time to play tour guide to a Grand Inquisitor who couldn't even arrive on schedule! Beyond the celebration preparations and the missing inquisitor, she just learned earlier that day that their newest medic was also absent—which was extra report writing and oversight delegation Maketh didn't need right now. If everything could just go back to normal, she'd be grateful.

The flight tower's announcement of an incoming ship echoed in the bay and Maketh stood a little straighter when the distinct silhouette of a Sentinel-class landing craft materialized through the clouds.

It skimmed elegantly into the bay and filled the empty space with its cooldown hissing. While Maketh had gotten a good look at the Grand Inquisitor during their one and only holocall, seeing him descend the boarding ramp in his dark armor and deep red facial markings sent a shiver down her spine. He wasn't anything like she was used to interacting with at all. She certainly didn't expect him to be so tall—but maybe that was just due to his extra-long forehead.

He stopped the moment he reached the ground and took a deep breath. His eyes were still just as startling.

"Yes," he almost hummed. "I sense it already."

"Sense what?" Maketh asked, plucking up the courage to approach him. "Your subordinate?"

"Oh, no, he's dead," the Inquisitor said with a carelessness that struck her almost half as much as the statement itself. "But you had Jedi here, Minister. I can feel their residual signatures."

"Jedi? But—but Jedi are a thing of the past!"

"Yes, that's what we wanted you to think," said the Inquisitor, moving out. He headed for the turbo lift doors on the far wall like he knew exactly where he was headed despite never being here before. Maketh fell in behind him, hardly matching his long stride.

"What are you going to do? Who should we contact?"

"No one. You are not to tell anyone about this. Inquisitors tie up these loose ends when it comes to Jedi, and I doubt any are left on the planet, so you have nothing to worry about," he said. Waiting for the turbolift to reach their level was long enough for Maketh to catch her breath. "I should thank you, Minister. We haven't had a lead like this in…"

The doors parted and Maketh followed this peculiarity of the Empire into the lift, hoping that the Inquisitor would conclude his business quickly and leave her to her Empire Day preparations and the normalcy of human interaction.

…

Ezra left the cockpit in favor of the main cabin. The adults had immediately given Sabine the benefit of the doubt, looking straight past her Imperial uniform and actually talking to her like a person. How dense could they be?

Hera decided Sabine would share her room, and with two bunks to every room they were hardly cramped for space, but Hera was also the captain and the most important person to incapacitate if Sabine was going to take over the ship. And Ezra was expecting it.

Tseebo at least responded to conversation now, though specific Empire-related words prompted more info-dumps of everything Tseebo had downloaded about them. Ezra attempted to navigate this conversation nightmare back on the couch, steering as hard as he could in the direction of his parents but somehow their conversation spun in circles more than anything else.

When Sabine entered the room, Ezra's impatience at Tseebo's information spouting turned to sudden shushing—to no avail. She stopped halfway through the room, hand on her hip, looking a little too comfortable in a place so new.

"So you're the kid he must've been talking about earlier," she said, "the boy with the rebel parents."

Ezra glared at Tseebo. The Rodian didn't notice; his rambling was more like background noise now. "I'm sure he's got me confused with someone else, don't you, Tseebo?"

Lando entered from the direction of the galley with a steaming cup in his hand. "Hello, I don't believe I've made your acquaintance yet," he said, offering his free hand. "The name's Lando Calrissian, entrepreneur and financier." Ezra slapped a hand to his forehead.

"Sabine Wren, xenolinguist and explosives expert," she replied just as smoothly.

"Really? You'll make a fine addition to our crew—"

"No, no she won't!" Ezra piped up from the couch. Both Lando and Sabine eyed him in the awkward silence that followed.

"Don't mind him; if you'd like a cup of caf, I could show you to the galley."

"That would be great, thanks," she said. Sabine stopped in the doorway once Lando had left and leveled her gaze on Ezra. "Hey, Jabba, if you need help with your Huttese, hit me up."

Tseebo perked up at that. Whatever he had been talking about before immediately switched to: "Huttese, while not an official language within the Lothal System, is spoken by a minority of sentients, 17% on Garel, 8% on Lothal, 3% on…"

Ezra folded his arms across his chest as there was no stopping Tseebo again, but he only had a minute to stew before Kix entered. The man didn't look the least bit on edge, and Ezra wondered how he'd managed to survive an entire war if he wasn't suspicious of the enemy.

"They're plotting our next jump now. It looks like it could take us anywhere between ten and fifteen hours," he reported, claiming the free space on the edge of the couch.

"Fifteen hours? Are we going to a different galaxy?" scoffed Ezra.

"Space is big," Kix said with an easy shrug. "Enjoy it; half the time hyperspace seems like the safest place to be."

Ezra let his arms fall. "This isn't what I expected when we first planned to go after the treasure. This entire time we've been gone from Lothal, we haven't even started in the direction of the Akujii System, and now Hera's looking to bring in even more crew. What do we need more people for? They'll just make the treasure smaller for the rest of us."

Ezra tried to meet Kix's eyes, but the man looked at him with a seriousness that Ezra couldn't hold. The dejarik table was a far safer object to stare at.

"We don't know what we'll come up against on this trip; it's better to have numbers than not. And I'm sure the Captain is looking for a permanent crew to carry on with once our mission is over—this ship is too big for her and Chopper alone," Kix said with the sting of sound logic on his side. "Right now, we're a skeleton crew, Ezra. Finding the treasure alive is better than risking it with minimal hands for a bigger cut."

"I didn't know you're hunting treasure!" Sabine gasped as she and Lando returned with caf, deep in their own conversation.

"We're bound for the Akujii System," said Lando with all the self-importance of someone who had started the expedition himself. Ezra pulled his collar up halfway over his face and flopped onto the dejarik table.

…

Imperial protocol of keeping detailed records was a time-consuming hassle most days but an absolute blessing in those rare instances when information needed to be compiled. Agent Kallus' hours melted into the files of the missing officer, Lieutenant Sabine Wren, which spanned all the way back to her days in the Imperial Academy. For being so young, she had an impressive collection of talents under her belt—a one-woman army if he ever saw anything like it. Possibly her being a Mandalorian had something to do with it, but her acquisition of so many languages was all her own doing.

His first order of business had been to distribute a missing notification with Wren's picture and information.

Then his attention shifted to the civilian ship. Kallus had requested all relevant surveillance of the ship from the Star Destroyer commander, but as the footage was of the entire bay, the small civilian ship itself was too grainy to pick useful details from.

It originated from Lothal, a small, out of the way system, producer of nothing extraordinary. It was another lead, however slight.

Searching through the imperial database for the number of the governor of Lothal took almost as much time as it did for the governor to answer. Just when he thought he'd been put on hold himself, the call connected with a rather fussy-looking woman in a hat that must've been compensating for something.

"If this is not an emergency, I really must call you back—"

"This is a matter of Imperial security," he interrupted. "I'm Agent Kallus of the ISB and I'm looking for the governor because there has been an intelligence breach regarding one of your personnel."

"Governor Pryce is offworld at the moment," she said, sobering. "I'm Minister Tua, filling in while she's away."

"Well, Minister, a crew that transported one of your Imperial Information Office personnel abducted both him and the officer who was to receive him. I recommend changing the non-rotating security codes, and I also require the surveillance footage of the civilian crew accepting the IIO personnel."

"Yes," the minister said, sounding like the wind had been knocked out of her. "I'll send that to your office immediately."

…

Maketh's head fell into her hands—this was the first time she was free of showing the inquisitor the specific places in the city he wanted to see, and she couldn't even enjoy settling back into the unvarying routine of her job. A missing inquisitor, a missing medic, now a missing intelligence worker? At this point, what else could go wrong?

Her office door slid aside for the Grand Inquisitor and Maketh at least tried to pull herself together and sit tall. He walked with hands behind his back, appearing quite at ease despite the death of one of his order; his composure was both chilling and distasteful.

"You've been most obliging today, Minister," he said. Between his red markings and piercing black eyes and sharp teeth, Maketh didn't quite know where to look. "I need only to send a message to my subordinates and I'll be on my way."

That was the best thing Maketh had heard all day, and she gestured to her holoterminal. "By all means!"

The Grand Inquisitor typed in a code; instead of a direct call, he programmed his message to be recorded and distributed. "Children, your Ninth Brother has fallen, cut down by a Jedi on Lothal. Disregard your missions; this takes priority. Sniff them out."

Maketh didn't even pretend to be preoccupied with the work on her monitor. When the Inquisitor sent his message, she couldn't help but intervene. "Is that it? That's nothing to go on! How do you expect anyone to find results when all you give them is a planet you don't believe the Jedi are on anymore?"

"We have different methods of operating, Minister," he said. His features were cold when he gave her a nod. "Good day."

"Grand Inquisitor, wait," she said just as the door opened for him. "There was someone… a clone medic, recently hired to assist us. He is also absent from work, but before he went missing, he asked about your Ninth Brother quite often. Every time I talked to him, in fact."

A thoughtful hum echoed from him. "A clone and a Jedi, like a duo straight out of the past. I assume the administration office here retained his records? I'll pick up this clone's file on my way out."

He left Maketh in the peace of her own office to finally return to her mounting—normal—tasks.

…

"You should think about catching some sleep before we arrive," Kix advised on his way out of the main room.

If Ezra's mind had been functioning at the moment, he would've been able to recall exactly how long he'd been awake. But anything that happened earlier than him boarding the Ghost was a little fuzzy at the moment, exacerbated by the frustration of a failing conversation. Talking with Tseebo was… well, like herding loth-cats, and Ezra had been at it for well over an hour.

"The loth-cat's dun-colored coat is unique among tooka varieties and is well suited for wilderness camouflage…" Tseebo recited, not pausing his description of Lothal fauna since Ezra accidentally mentioned "loth-rat" five minutes earlier.

An inorganic laugh echoed from the corridor before Chopper rolled into the room wearing Sabine's imperial hat on his antenna. He spun around in the middle of the cabin as if modeling it for Ezra, beeping his glee.

"Lookin' good," Sabine said, following the droid. "You could pass for me." Chopper saluted her with a spindly arm and rolled away wearing his prize, chirping what he knew of the Imperial anthem.

"Recruiting?" Ezra croaked. It was a bad idea to start anything, but his mind had long since shut off.

Sabine's patience, similarly, had eroded hours ago, and she cast an irritated look in his direction. Now at least it was a little harder to tell her Imperial status since she removed her brown jacket with her rank; she was down to the black shirt underneath and her uniform pants with the ridiculous pokey pockets. Her gaze cut into him. "Jabba, let's get something straight—I don't owe you my life story or my reasons for doing anything. Just know that the decision to work for the Empire was made for me, and after being stationed on a Star Destroyer, I couldn't exactly walk away. But I can take the information that I gathered in the Empire and share it with people who want to bring them down, which is what I'm doing."

Ezra winced. He'd never once thought there was such a thing as Imperials unhappy with working for the Empire. Sure, the things the Empire did were terrible, but he just assumed there were people out there who enjoyed bullying.

"I'm… I'm Ezra, by the way," he admitted, because he certainly wasn't going to apologize.

"…And thus the loth-cat is considered the most difficult tooka variety to domesticate," Tseebo concluded before sinking into his thousand-meter stare.

Ezra breathed a sigh of relief. "Finally, he's done."

"Just ask him pertinent questions and he won't ramble like that," Sabine said.

"I'm asking him exactly what I want to know!"

"You have to use the proper words," she said, looking at him as if he were dumb. While Ezra could only respond with a stink eye, Sabine crouched on the other side of the dejarik table across from Tseebo. "Okay, what do you want to find out?"

"He says my parents are in prison but he won't say where."

"Location coordinates of Ezra's parents."

Tseebo sat up straighter. "Classified."

"Lucky for you," Sabine said in Ezra's direction before clearing her throat. "Lieutenant Wren, Sabine; Clearance Alpha-three."

"Workstation?" demanded Tseebo, eyes glazed over as if the implant was really doing the talking and Tseebo was just its mouthpiece.

Sabine quirked a brow. "The ISD Harbinger."

"Clearance declined; information restricted to Lothal Imperial personnel only."

Sabine started. "What?!"

"Yep," Ezra intoned. "Lucky me."

"Hey! Jabba, this doesn't happen for your average prisoner. The empire doesn't hide just anybody behind a classification wall. What did your parents do to get locked up and the key thrown away?"

"No life stories, remember?" Ezra shot back. All of Sabine's interest receded behind a stony expression.

"Well, you've reached a dead end and he won't give up the location of the prison, so by default it's probably one of the maximum security prisons where the inmates do hard labor, because the Empire likes to keep those off the map. But by all means, continue getting information about the planet's weather from him," Sabine quipped, pushing herself to her feet. Her glower was the last thing Ezra saw before she stomped off for the sleeping cabins, leaving Ezra to fume at her general unhelpfulness.

…

More empty caf cups collected. Kallus' shift had ended three hours earlier, but he still occupied his desk, staring at the monitor. Already he had connected the Imperial code given to the civilian auxiliary transport with the footage of a light freighter landing outside the Lothal Imperial Complex. The freighter, with its discernable markings, was now wanted. The green female Twi'lek, while he couldn't get a precise picture of her features, was clearly the pilot—was now wanted. Kallus couldn't find enough on the boy who appeared in the Lothal footage to issue anything on him, but Lieutenant Sabine Wren's ID picture had already been spread across the Empire. Like any good Imperial, however, Kallus expected the lieutenant to try her best to escape at the earliest opportunity.

Or at least, he did until a half hour ago.

Kallus rewound the surveillance footage from the Star Destroyer for the upteenth time. And for the upteenth time, he cursed the lax standards of Imperial security because the grainy, subpar quality of the recording wouldn't have been a problem if all Destroyers were required to update their technology every few years. He couldn't zoom in and he certainly couldn't enhance; Wren, the Twi'lek pilot, and the Rodian remained frustratingly tiny.

But something about it didn't seem like any hostage situation Kallus had ever studied, not even among the ridiculously polite society of the Nirrm. While the commander remained convinced his prized—and only—xenolinguist was captured right out from under him, Kallus couldn't help thinking of that one page in Wren's file, her known associates, Ketsu Onyo, who deserted years ago from the Imperial Academy. It was circumstantial at best, but it stuck out to Kallus that Wren hadn't been the one to alert the Academy of Onyo's disappearance. Records showed she complied with the investigation that followed, but Wren claimed she'd been unaware of Onyo's desire to desert.

"Where could you possibly go with a member of Imperial Information?" he asked himself.

Coruscant had an Imperial Information Office of its own, staffed round the clock by workers with identical implants as the Lothal Rodian, an endless source of relevant knowledge. By now, Kallus had their number to their office memorized, and he plugged that into his holoterminal.

A human promptly appeared in blue. "Oh, Agent Kallus, what is it you need?"

"The location of all known rebel cells, starting from Raxus and moving outward."

"Compiling that information could take hours!" Anything not instantly answerable was entirely too long for people whose minds worked at computer speeds.

"Then prioritize the cells with the most recent activity, by their proximity to Raxus."

The human looked no more eager by this task, either. "Yes, Agent. We'll report our results."

What else could a civilian pilot need with both intel personnel and an Imperial officer if not to benefit the Empire's enemies?

…

Ezra told himself he wasn't that tired, and he'd probably only need to sleep a couple hours. The moment he hit his bunk, curled up with his backpack safely in his arms, he was out until a pounding on his door brought him back to the waking world.

Still half wrapped in his blanket, Ezra opened the door to squint through bleary eyes at a man who was far too responsive for whatever this hour was.

"Morning!" said Kix, entirely too loudly. "Feel like exploring?"

"I've already seen the ship," Ezra said around a yawn.

"Not the Ghost, the city! We landed. Captain Syndulla said as long as we stay within a mile of the spaceport, we can go wherever we want."

Ezra stumbled out of his blanket to charge into the empty cockpit. The view of a time-worn duracrete wall met him.

"Where are we? Where's everyone?" Ezra asked. He hurried back down the corridor of silent rooms to grab his backpack from his own cabin.

"Well, Lando went off on his own, the Captain and Sabine took Tseebo to see about grabbing a meeting with the rebellion, and Chopper? Who knows, really."

"Do we know when they'll be back?"

"Captain said she'd call over our commlink. Until then, we're free to explore."

A.N. I know updates are generally once a month, and even though I've got most of chapter 5 written (where everyone else finally enters the story!), I'm shelving this fic for awhile to work on projects that are more important to me.