I own nothing except a few characters and the plot.
TROOPS: NEW YORK
A Spectre Returns
WILD SPACE
A fleet of warships had gathered in an uncharted area of Wild Space. The ships were all painted jet black, but there was no mistaking their shape. Star Destroyers. Not Imperial or Republic, but the First Order Fleet. On the bridge of the largest ship, the reportedly pirated Imperial-II Class Finalizer once commanded by Titus stood General Armitage Hux. Besides him stood the Sith Lord Darth Caedus. The two men turned to face an officer who stood behind them.
"Lord Sidious wishes to speak with Lord Caedus in private."
"He probably heard something about your mother." Hux said sarcastically.
"You realize Lord Sidious is the only reason I haven't ended your life yet." Caedus snapped and left to his chambers. Within a minute, Darth Sidious's hologram appeared.
"Lord Caedus, there has been another disturbance in The Force. The Jedi who thwarted my attempts to alter time years before you were born has returned and joined forces with your twin sister and traitorous grandfather. Ezra Bridger must be eliminated at any cost and if possible eliminate the rest of the Jedi on Earth."
"It will be done." Sidious ended the transmission before seeing the look of worry come over Caedus's face.
NEW YORK
Admiral Piett had taken Ezra and Chopper down to Floyd Bennet Field Soon after they arrived, they were joined by Josh and Landon whp had convinced Tevin to bring them down. Not that Tevin needed any convincing after Klinger presented yet another false family emergency letter to him.
"Why are we here?" Ezra asked. Chopper said something in response.
"Per Master Skywalker's recollection of his past encounters with you and your rebel cell. He said that technically this belongs to you. The person who brought it to Earth was a homicide victim a few months ago because some bigot who is now serving a life sentence in ADX Florence so they can't contact their biggoted followers ever again or be recruited by the First Order had a problem with a human and a Twi'lek having a kid." Tevin explained as they passed a blue and grey ship with red tailfins which was sitting in a row of light freighters..
"What ship is that?" Ezra asked.
"It belonged to Jedi Master Khayman before his death at the hands of our deposed Emperor who is now attempting to recreate his old Empire despite three senior commanders seeing it as a waste of time. We are considering giving this ship to the Jedi Order since it has an attached shuttlecraft." Piett explained.
"The YT-1300 belongs to me although it can serve as a State Department ship in a pinch or be used to discreetly land troops somewhere when sending a fleet of Star Destroyers is not politically correct." Tevin said as the group passed a second ship.
"Is that the Ghost?" Ezra asked in shock as they came upon the third ship.
"Indeed it is. The closest thing we found to a crew onboard when we had to move it here was the C1. Master Kenobi suggested we bring it to the office instead of letting it wander the city." Tevin said as he stopped to open the Ghost's hatch.
"What was the pilot's name?" Ezra asked.
"Jacen Syndulla. According to the droid, he inherited both the ship and the droid from his mother. There was a father, just not in the kid's life I heard." Tevin paused while Ezra absorbed the information he was being given.
"The father died before the kid was born. He was my Jedi Master."
"I believe his name was Jarrus." Piett said as they entered the ship. Ezra looked around to make note of anything that had been added or removed. In the cockpit, Josh was about to press a button but Ezra slapped his hand away.
"Don't touch anything or Chopper gets to shock you. For all you know, you could activate the self-destruct cycle."
"I guess I know something I can have Radar do for you." Josh said.
"You're going to make him an internet dating profile? Obi-Wan is still ducking calls from that one woman who saw one of the ones that were made for him." Tevin said.
"Those were made by Master Skywalker, not me. I actually saw that woman. She tried to buy shoes off of Landon then returned the next day saying the shoes broke when she tried squeezing her hoof into them and that her date stood her up."
"No receipt and a voided warranty." Landon added.
"Elephants tend to do that." Tevin facepalmed as Ezra became lost in thought.
"We were called the Spectres. There were six of us at the core. Hera was our leader. She was pregnant with Jacen when we freed Lothal. Kanan died when the Governor at the time destroyed a fuel depot. Sabine was a Mandaloriian and handled our explosives. She loved blowing things up and painting everything. Zeb was the brute strength. He could take on an entire squad of Stormtroopers by himself. Chopper and me rounded out the main crew. We also had AP-5, an old tactical droid from the Clone Wars who was reassigned as an inventory droid when Chop found him. Rex, a retired Clone Trooper Captain. He served with Master Skywalker during the war. I don't think he was ever told the truth about what really happened to him after the war. Kallus was our one-time Imperial nemesis. Zeb helped to convince him to switch sides. He's the one who put Jabba down as an alias for me. I guess most of his information became questionable after Thrawn exposed him as a rebel spy. The Admiral might know more about that. They replaced the family I lost when Stormtroopers took my parents away and I was put out on the street with nothing." Ezra turned his back to everyone and hung his head trying to hold back tears. Landon put an arm around Ezra.
"It's okay. Just don't blame these guys for something someone else did. The Empire was responsible for my dad dying when I was a baby. He was covering a shift for someone at his firehouse when The Towers were attacked. He went in, but never made it out."
"I want Loomis to have a chat with Ezra for my own peace of mind. He has PTSD written all over him. I just want to make sure, and if I ever catch Klinger trying to run a death in the family hoax past Ezra, I will have him working with potatoes for the rest of the year and maybe even into next year too so he has no time to come up with these stories." Tevin whispered to Piett.
"If it is any comfort to him, whoever gave those orders on his parents may have died at either Yavin or Endor. But given what I know about PTSD, it is a good call. He has tried one or two of those on me as well. I believe it was a cousin who died in a factory explosion on some planet. I wonder if Coruscant might still have a copy of his ISB file despite the information becoming extremely suspect." Piett whispered back.
A few days later, an archived copy of Ezra's ISB file found its way to Piett's desk along with files on the other Spectres and their known allies. Piett had also obtained the files on Ezra's parents just for his own interest.
"I wonder if Ezra's opened up about this to Landon yet." Tevin said as he read the files.
"That's a good question. Hopefully I can get a good answer for you." Ben Loomis said as he entered the office.
"I take it you got my email." Tevin said to his unit's resident psychiatrist.
"Unlike certain elected officials, I don't delete my emails unless they're clearly spam or illegally destroy the servers they're hosted on. So yes, I got it and I am eager to meet Ezra whenever you can get him away from the McKnight's shoe store which I will not get into the details of. Is that the file I was told may or may not exist?"
"The largely discredited because the agent who compiled it defected ISB file on Ezra Bridger? Yes it is. Along with a number of other ISB files relating to Ezra." Tevin replied.
"As soon as you can get him here, I can see him." Ben said taking the files from Piett before he left.
Gary McKnight sat in the store with his back to the door. The only person who had been in the store besides him was a woman who stormed out after being called a rhino. He ignored the person walking in until they spoke.
"Gary McKnight?"
"Yes." Gary turned around to face a man he had never seen before wearing army fatigues.
"Name's Carter. Army Intelligence. I want to talk to you about the two guests you've had at your house for the past week. A young male and a droid."
"They spend more time with my grandson then they do with me. Major Carter was it." Gary said misreading the man's rank insignia in purpose.
"It's Colonel. Colonel Perkins, and I can't talk to your grandson because that other boy is always with him. I'm hoping you're current on all your business taxes, McKnight. It would be a shame for you to hear about something happening to your grandson while you're serving time for tax evasion."
"Really, Colonel Thompson? At least that's what Josh, his dad, and General Felth told me your name was. I didn't know the CIA was able to waste resources on non-starter investigations for the IRS or that the Army cared about the dealings of a small shoe store." Gary said causing Thompson to flinch. Unbeknownst to Thompson, Gary had secretly dialed Michael's cell number.
"You realize you just comitted treason by exposing my true idenity. I can shoot you where you stand for that. Treason is a Death Penalty offense." Thompson said and turned around to face Gary with his pistol in his hand.
"I think you'll be leaving real soon. Like right about now." Gary said as a group of Death Troopers stormed in followed by Tevin and Michael. Thompson fired off a single round at Gary which missed and went into the wall thanks to Michael before going down in a hail of blaster fire from the troopers. Tevin kicked the pistol away from Thompson's body as a trooper fired a single shot into the CIA man's head.
"Did you hear what he said?" Gary asked.
"Every word was recorded by Kelsey for the inquiry that's sure to come. As for the IRS, not worth my time or my energy." Michael said.
"He was also warned to stay away from here." One of the troopers asked Tevin something.
"Boss, what do you want done with this trash?" Tevin asked Michael referring to Thompson's body.
"Do they still dump John Does on Hart Island?"
"I think so."
"There you go. Have his papers mailed to the CIA along with the tape and a detailed report of what he did that I personally want to sign. Make sure Wanda knows about this too. I don't want her yelling at me later. Also, run his prints for my own curiousity." Michael said.
"I have a crime scene kit in my truck. Take his prints, get that bullet out of your wall, and get his gun to our lab so we can find out if he's carried out any summary executions that no one knows about yet. It shouldn't take me that long to clean your store up." Tevin said to Gary.
"That's okay, I think I need to check on Landon." Gary replied abd turned to leave before Tevin stopped him.
"Before I forget, thank you. I didn't know asking you to take Ezra and Chopper in was going to lead to this. Part of me thinks Ezra is opening himself up to Landon. They have a shared experience who knows where that will take them. Josh told me everything about what happened when they brought Ezra and Chopper here."