"Are you sure you got the right code?" Tess asked her sister, hearing the princess try to open the door for the third time. The fifteen-year-old had her lightsaber drawn, blocking incoming fire from Leia's side while Han shot down anyone who reached range in front of her.

"It was the right code, but they switched it up on us," Leia muttered with defeat. "Han, the code's changed. We need Artoo."

Still blasting incoming stormtroopers, Han used his free hand to give the princess the terminal.

"Artoo, where are you?" Leia called into the device, projecting her voice over the blaster fire. "We need you in the bunker right away!"

Han shook his head with a groan.

"Let's just hope the fighters can hold out a bit longer for the shield to come down."

As more troops seemed to be approaching from the east, Tess ran over to defend the opposite side of the entrance.

"Be careful!" Leia called after her.

"Got any big life-changing should-have-told-me-a-long-time-ago reveals this time around, sis?" Tess joked.

Leia just grinned at her sister, then began a visual scan for Artoo-Deetoo. Then, Tess saw the droids coming from her side.

"We're coming!" Threepio called out, a golden beacon of non-camouflage with an Artoo unit trailing behind him. Tess pointed Artoo in the direction of the bunker controls and the fearless little droid went to work. Han squatted at his side to cover him.

"Tess, help them over there!" Leia ordered her sister. Following Leia's nod in the right direction, Tess saw a small group of rebels with a growing squad of stormtroopers surrounding them. The teenager raced forward with lightsaber in hand.

"Hey, that's the kid!" cried the first trooper that saw her. "The Jedi kid!"

"Keen observation," Tess replied smugly. She waved the lightsaber at his chest and wounded him enough to immobilize. In a flurry of adrenaline, she deflected blaster fire and fended off the stormtroopers, allowing the rebels to slowly but surely get to a safer place.

Tess almost didn't notice one stormtrooper that had a rebel in a headlock. She quickly stabbed the blade of her lightsaber into his back and the soldier fell limp on the ground. Tess helped the rebel out from under his lifeless body.

"Are you alright?" she asked. A split second after her questioned, Tess realized who the rebel was. She met eyes with the frizzy-haired woman from the armory locker room—the one who initiated the idea of stuffing Tess in a locker. Clearly, the fellow rebel was just as surprised as her savior.

"Um…thank you," the woman said sincerely. "Really… I'm—"

"Now is not the time," Tess reminded her. Her combat boots carried her back towards the bunker entrance.

Suddenly, Tess saw a stormtrooper that Han and Leia couldn't have caught. He was far to close. But before Tess could do anything about it, he popped up from behind a fallen tree and blasted Artoo. The droid shook and sputtered electrical emissions, flying back to the opposite wall.

Tess leapt forward, her heart racing with anger that she hadn't acted sooner. She sliced off the stormtrooper's head with one clean swipe of the lightsaber.

Somehow, the enemy blaster fire seemed to be getting heavier while the number of white uniforms hiding in the overgrowth appeared to be decreasing. Tess returned to the bunker.

"Is there anything else we can do?" she asked Han, blocking two blasts in her direction.

"I guess I can hotwire this thing…" the former smuggler decided reluctantly.

"I'll cover you," Leia offered.

Then, as Leia knelt in front of Han, Tess saw it again. That horrifying image of Leia that she had seen in a flash—the sound of heavy blaster fire matching the sounds at the present moment.

"Leia…please be careful!" Tess called to her sister from the other side of the bunker entrance.

"I will!" the princess promised. "Tess, go back out again—with your lightsaber you can do more damage out there—but stay close!"

Tess saw the flash of her sister again, but she shook it off and reluctantly returned to their forest battlefield. She slashed stormtrooper after stormtrooper almost absent-mindedly. Her real focus was making sure Leia and Han were still all right.

Then, Tess' lungs tightened. Down at the fallen tree where the trooper who shot Artoo was taking cover, there were now two stormtroopers with blasters ready. She raced down the incline towards them.

"I think I got it…" Han announced from the bunker. "I got it!"

Still running towards the stormtroopers, Tess called out a warning to her friends. "Leia, Han, watch out!"

But Tess didn't get there in time.

"AHH!" Leia cried out, collapsing back into Han's legs.

"Leia!" Tess screamed.

With her sister wounded, Tess was only distracted for a moment—but that moment was enough to allow two troopers to rush up beside her. One grabbed her around the waist, and the other gripper the hand that held her lightsaber.

"Get the hell off me!" Tess spat, trying to wrestle out of the stormtrooper's grasp. An Ewok appeared from a bush and started to bash one of the troopers over the head until he was shot.

"Get her on the ground!" the stormtrooper gripping her hand ordered.

Tess felt one of them kick her legs, causing her knees to buckle and sending her sprawling to the ground. The weight of the stormtrooper falling on her chest knocked the wind out of her. Then some sort of device shocked her at the wrist, causing Tess' body to convulse. She cried out in shock and pain.

"Get her up!" an imperial officer ordered. "Don't you know who that is?! Get her up!"

As soon as the two stormtroopers pulled the disarmed teenager to her feet, the imperial officer took her off their hands and held a gun to Tess' head. She refused to comply at all, so he practically had to drag Tess towards the bunker. She was well aware that even though the gun was at her head, the entire Empire knew that she was wanted alive, not dead. Just like Luke.

The imperial officer reached the bunker with Tess.

"General Solo," he called out. "Princess Leia. I do believe I have something of yours.

Tess couldn't see Leia—Han had backed her into the corner for protection. But as soon as the princess could see the imperial officer holding Tess at gunpoint, she stumbled to her feet. Han kept her back.

"You get your hands off of her!" he demanded.

"Order your people to drop your weapons, General," the officer ordered.

The imperial officer restraining Tess handed his blaster to a trooper, who fulfilled the duty of keeping the blaster at the kid's temple. The officer needed two free hands to keep Tess from getting away. He wrapped one hand around her waist and both arms. His other hand grabbed her neck so tight that Tess could barely breathe, attempting to stop her persistent attempts to head-butt him.

Suddenly, the battle seemed to stop around them. Han motioned for the remaining rebels to drop their weapons and the imperial officer got his men to cease-fire.

Tess, get down!

With her Force-guided reflex, Tess ducked without even thinking. She had stopped fighting a few moments before so the officer's grip had loosened, allowing her to slip downward out of his grasp. She literally blinked and then both the officer restraining her and the stormtrooper with the gun to her head were on the forest floor.

Tess looked towards the bunker in amazement, seeing Leia's wounded arm had not affected her blaster accuracy. The princess grinned at her success and the teenage rebel stumbled forward towards the bunker. But the princess' face changed.

"Tess!" she screamed. "Tess watch out!"

And then Tess just saw black.

Leia's heart stopped as she watched Tess collapse lifelessly on the forest floor.

"No!" the princess screamed, tears of anger falling from her eyes. "You bastards! She's a kid! She's just a kid!"

An imperial officer nearby motioned for a stormtrooper to pick up Tess' limp body.

"The blaster was set to stun, Princess Leia," the officer informed them. "You and I both know that Lord Vader wants it alive."

"She is a person, dammit!" Han snapped. "She is a fifteen-year-old kid!"

Leia could not take her eyes off Tess' face, the girl's head hanging flaccidly off the stormtrooper's arm as he began to carry her away. The princess' blood began to boil with anger. Leia had promised herself and her sister that the Empire would never get their hands on Tess again.

Now, she watched stormtroopers carry off the helplessly unconscious fifteen-year-old and Leia felt the stab of guilt far more painful than any blaster wound.