Tess lingered behind the Ewoks just enough so that they couldn't see her following. The cute little furry creatures trotted along, singing something in their alien language as they walked—it almost made Tess forget that they had her friends tied to sticks like animals. As much as she hated most of the other rebels, she wished they were here so it wouldn't be all up to her to save them like this.

The Ewoks lived in trees, where they had constructed various levels and ramps leading up to a camp high above the ground. Tess exhaled, looking up at the structure. There was no way she could get up the ramps undetected. Ramps were one-way—there was no place to duck and cover if she were to be spotted—and the last thing she needed right now was her own hands and feet tied to a long branch.

It became clear to Tess that her only choice was to find a place to climb—again. She looked down at her hand. Her knuckles were cracked and bleeding a little from where she rammed into the tree, but she had been focusing her energy on healing it as Luke had taught her and it felt much better. Nothing seemed to be broken.

Once the Ewoks were all at least three levels up on the ramps, Tess Naberrie began to scope out her tree of choice. She was hoping for one like the last—covered in vines that provided hand and foot hold in every direction.

After a few moments of searching which included disturbing piles of human remains, Tess managed to find a tree that was not quite a mess of vines but definitely had a climbable amount of branches. The only problem was that the first branch was incredibly high. At least, it was a problem until Tess remembered how to Force-jump. Being Force-grounded, she sometimes forgot she was special sometimes.

Tess' scratched-up fingers clung to the lowest branch. She carefully pulled herself up and then proceeded to the next branch. The higher she went, the denser the branches became. Searching for a branch was not a problem anymore, but ducking under them and climbing over them became a more time-consuming one.

Finally, Tess reached the level where her friends and most of the Ewoks were—with even more human remains than on ground level. She was pretty sure Ewoks didn't eat humans but she wasn't about to underestimate the alien creatures. She watched them, hidden by the branches of Endor's trees. If the hut-like structure she was next to had some sort of window, she could climb in, but she had no such luck. Once again, Tess nearly felt the need to smack herself in the forehead for forgetting what she had and what she could do.

Luke's lightsaber was still attached to her belt. Both excited and nervous, Tess ignited the lightsaber and plunged in right into the wall. She quickly carved a hole big enough to crawl through and pushed the wall in. Her crawl became more of a tumble when her foot caught on a branch and she rolled forward, knocking over a table-like structure with a rock on it.

Tess froze—hoping she didn't alert anyone to her presence. She could hear the festivities of her friends' capture going on outside. She hoped that was loud enough to muffle the noise she made.

The hut she was in was connected to two separate ones. The one on the left lead to a main deck where most of the Ewoks and her friends were as far as Tess' ears could tell, and the right seemed to lead to more huts and decks. She hoped the Ewoks hid her friends' weapons somewhere nearby, because Tess didn't really come up with a plan and blasters would definitely help get the attention of the human-eating fur balls.

Tess was halfway into a room when she heard something from the adjoining one. She held her breath. Was that a human voice? It sounded like it.

"Damn this thing…"

Tess recognized the voice immediately. It was Leia! As if their Force connection suddenly ignited, Leia dropped what appeared to be a busted comlink that she was working on. She turned her head and met eyes with Tess'.

"You're okay!" Tess exclaimed with relief, running forward to hug her sister. Leia hugged Tess back tightly, and then pulled away to look the girl over.

"Are you alright?" asked the princess. "How did you get separated from the squad?" Leia noticed her sister's hands and wrapped them in one of the cloths the Ewoks had given her to wash her face—she hadn't used that particular one so it was clean.

"We were looking for you," Tess explained. "Luke came back alone, and when you weren't with him and he saw that you hadn't come back first, we went out looking for you. With Chewie, Han, and the droids. The squad is going to meet us at the shield generator."

Tess couldn't help but notice her sister's change of clothes. Leia was wearing what appeared to be a long-sleeved white jumpsuit with under a brown short-sleeved dress, complete with matching lace-up boots. Her hair was even taken down from the crown of braids so that most of it fell loose around her back and shoulders, save a braid woven like a headband from one side to the other.

Leia noticed that Tess was looking at her outfit and looked down at it as well, shrugging slightly.

"They made it for me," she clarified. "At first I refused it, but they insisted and getting out of that filthy outfit I've been trekking around in for days was starting to sound like a really good idea."

"How exactly did you get to be so chummy with them, anyway?" Tess asked curiously. "With Han, Luke, Chewie and the droids, they—"

Suddenly, Tess was reminded that her friends were still in trouble. As if to clarify that, the sisters heard drums sounding from the platform they were being held on.

Tess raced in that direction, with Leia close behind her even though the latter of the two didn't fully understand what was going on until they emerged from the main hut.

Leia and Tess barely saw their friends tied to sticks before they were stopped by several Ewoks with spears.

"I thought you said they liked you?" Tess questioned her sister.

"They do!" Leia snapped. She looked down at her new Ewok friends in confusion, trying to understand them. They tried to grab Tess, but Leia pushed them away from her enough for the small aliens to understand that she was a friend of Leia's. Unfortunately, it was much harder to explain that with Han, Luke, Chewie, and the droids. "But these are my friends!" the princess tried to explicate.

"They think Threepio is their God or something," Tess added.

"What?" chuckled Leia. After realizing Tess was serious, she turned to the golden droid. "Threepio, tell them they must be set free!"

Despite their attempts and Threepio's, the Ewoks continued to pile sticks under their friends. They started a small fire under Han, who helplessly tried to blow it out.

Tess suddenly turned to Leia.

"Can I be un-grounded?" she asked quickly.

"What?" Leia asked, confused.

"I'm Force-grounded—I'm not allowed to use the Force anymore," Tess rushed. "For this particular emergency, can I be ungrounded?" Leia immediately nodded.

"Threepio!" Tess called to the droid. "Get them to look at me, then translate!"

The fifteen-year-old Force-jumped onto the roof to help get the Ewoks' attention. Threepio translated as Tess spoke.

"As we have been trying to explain to you, the golden man is not our god," she explicated. "But we do have a god. A most powerful one. And he can be summoned with this device. This device shows our god's will." She pulled out the silver cylinder that formed the handle of her lightsaber, leaving it illuminated. "Perhaps we are not the ones to tell you to set our friends free—but he is."

At that, Tess threw her lightsaber up into the air as high as she could. Then, closing her eyes and concentrating harder than ever before, she felt herself grasp and illuminate the lightsaber. The green beam of light descended-blade first from the sky, slowly moving towards the deck they stood on. The Ewoks ran in fear, breaking away from their prisoners and some retreating to their huts.

The lightsaber lowered first to Luke. Tess' head hurt from concentration. Leia watched her sister intently from below the roof.

You can do it, Leia's voice told her from inside her head.

With careful precision and a bit of Luke's help, the blade of the lightsaber cut the ropes that bound Luke's feet. Next, it cut his hands. Luke Skywalker stood up unharmed and smiled proudly up at Tess.

Tess once again eyed the Ewoks that were still outside of the huts. The lightsaber hovered above Han as if pointing to him. Once again, Tess spoke and Threepio translated.

"I do believe my god is requesting that you free this one as has been done to the other," Tess suggested. Without hesitation, the Ewoks raced to set every single prisoner free.

Luke raced over to wrap Leia in a hug, and then helped Tess down from the roof just in time to see Han and the princess run into an embrace.

"That was phenomenal," Luke told his former Padawaan with a proud smile. "I was just going to float Threepio and hope that would make them think he was about to unleash his wrath, but if they actually expected him to do it I had nothing. But that—that was a show!"

"Wait, that was Tess?" Han blurted, making his way over to the two of them with Leia by his side. "I thought that was you, Luke!"

"You didn't help?" Tess questioned. Luke grinned.

"I was there if you would have needed it," he confessed. "But you didn't. That was all you."