A/N: Okay, yet another chapter. I'm really pumping them out aren't I.

Okay, for this chapter I'm going to try something different. I have the next chapter written at this point and I will publish it as soon as I get ten reviews for this chapter. If not, I will be posting it this weekend.

Well anyway onto the story.

Disclaimer: Star Wars is owned by Disney and LucasFilm.


Chapter 4

The boy, it was the boy he needed to kill. The man told him it was the boy who was responsible, the one who did this to him, why he was here, why he burned.

The woman lied, said it wasn't his fault, tried to keep his rage suppressed. The man could be trusted, he directed him, the woman lied, she tried to stop him.

But it was the boy now he knew, he was the one who needed to die, the boy the die, he must kill the boy.


"I'm telling you, Zeb that guy is the most obnoxious person in the galaxy." Ezra ranted to Zeb as they both sat in their bunk.

Zeb, who had heard this line of thought at least three times already, just mumbled response, which is all Ezra seemed to care about. Zeb knew he was just venting his frustration at his little trip with Dral and Sabine. Zeb knew, along with anyone who spent more than an hour with Ezra and Sabine, that Ezra was nursing a flame for the young Mandalorian. Dral had apparently picked this up as well and had made a habit of torturing the poor kid with flirting with Sabine and outright brining up the subject.

Now Zeb was known to do this to the kid from time to time, but that was different. Zeb was allowed to make fun of him, Dral was not. Making am mental note to talk to the Mandalorain when he got the chance, Zeb found himself wondering about the bounty hunter.

Mostly he just wondered why they were even working with him. Kanan and Hera both told him that it was because they needed to have someone who knew what it was like to hunt someone rather than right them. Zeb supposed that made sense, but that didn't mean they needed Dral, they could of contracted any number of bounty hunters to help with the job. While they'd probably never be able to afford someone like Boba Fett or Bossk, there were still tons of hunters available with good reputation's for hire. He would of even of settled for the hunter's they had encountered working for the Zann Consortium, but he did not trust Dral.

Dral's appearance and attitude did not lend itself to confidence. The way he spoke and acted made him seem just a few steps above a common thug. Then there was how he looked, Zeb wouldn't judge a person how they looked, but Dral looked almost a decade older than he actually was. Stress was the only thing Zeb could think of that aged a person that quickly, and that made him wonder what he was up to that would cause that level of stress.

"I was almost glad when that thing showed up." Ezra said snapping Zeb out of his thoughts.

"Ezra, I've heard the story already, I know the guy is scum. Just stay away from hum until he's done here."

Ezra snorted "You really think he can stop that thing just because he has a giant fire extinguisher?"

"No, but Kanan and Hera think we need to do something and this is best plan we have."

"It's the only plan Zeb!" Ezra said, his voice rising in volume.

"That's why it's the best."

Snorting again Ezra continued "So it's either no idea or a bad idea?"

"Pretty much." sighed Zeb.


"I swear to all that his holy, I'm going to scrap you as soon as I get paid for this job, I'll be able to afford a new ship, a nice one, one that doesn't drop the cargo when someone sneezes."

Sabine could hear him ranting and raving from inside his ship while she and Hera did some upkeep on the Ghost.

"That guy is not right in the head." Hera said as she worked, not bothering to look up.

Sabine was certain Hera was more correct in this thought than she knew. The little incident on the ship earlier made Sabine sure Dral was suffering from PTSD, which she knew could screw up any plan they might have. It wasn't uncommon for soldier's to develop PTSD, and she didn't hold it against anyone and truly didn't wish it on anyone, but if left untreated or unaddressed , as it apparently it was with Dral, it could lead to a whole world of issues. Self destructive tendencies and potentially unstable or even violent tendencies.

She wasn't entirely sure if she should tell the rest of the crew of the Ghost. She didn't owe Dral anything, but she felt like betraying him, another Mandalorian, no matter how crass he was, felt oddly like turning on a distant family member.

But the crew had been her family for a long time now, and he was hunting her father. She'd have to tell at least Hera and Kanan, Ezra and Zeb might not act the most level headed if confronted with the information.

"Hera." she began, pausing to try and find the right words to convey what she was thinking. "Dral, I think he might be...well he might not be the most stable person."

At this, Hera actully stopped her work and looked at Sabine. "What do you mean by that? What did you see?"

Shifting on her feet, never comfortable in situation like this, she thought for a moment how much to tell. "When I went to get him earlier, after we got back, he was having some kind of... I don't know episode while he was asleep, he was sweating and mumbling to himself. When I woke him up...he didn't seem like he knew where he was, like he thought he was being attacked." she left out the part where he attacked her. After the whole incident with Tyber, she didn't want to give them any reason to think she couldn't take care of herself.

Hera thought for a moment before speaking "Thanks for telling me this Sabine, I'll talk to Kanan about it, but don't tell Zeb and Ezra anything just yet." Sabine nodded at this, she wasn't planning on telling them anything yet anyway.

Closing the panel they were working on, Hera went to find Kanan.

In the distance Sabine heard Dral swear again, clearly frustrated at his own trouble with his ship.


Kanan didn't like the sound of what Hera had told him. They kept getting caught up with people they were better off leaving alone, and now they had a potentially unstable bounty hunter.

But the problem with JV-FR13 outweighed any desire to avoid working with an emotionally disturbed man. From what Sabine had told Hera, he may be emotionally unstable, but as long as he didn't show any signs of violent out lashing, he was still willing to work with him, so long as it wasn't on a long term base.

"Hera, why do we keep running into people we'd be better off just staying away from?"

"That's our life love, we get to deal with the dregs of the galaxy."

Kanan sighed and knew she was joking, but also knew she was pretty well on the ball.


His hand started to shake as he worked on the ship's engine. He knew what it meant, the tremor always came before the flashback's came. It was weird that the physical reaction came before the memory.

His vision went into tunnels and he could hear the deep rumbling laugh, the one that haunted his dream. He needed his medication.

Jumping to his feet Dral ran as fast as could to the cockpit and started going through the medical kit under the co-pilots seat. Finding at bottle rolling around the bottom of the box, he popped the cap off and fished one of the pills out and crammed it in his mouth, slowing it dry.

The tremors lessoned and the laughter faded as he sat in the pilot's chair. His breathing started to slow down, he hadn't even noticed that it had increased to the point it had. Taking deep breaths he leaned back in the chair, inhaling through his nose and exhaling through his mouth.

As his heart rate dropped back down to normal levels, Dral raised his hand to eye level to examine them for the tremors. They had faded, and he let out a deep sigh of relief, glad to of suppressed the incident this time.

Hunching over he continued to look at his hands, and set his face into the palms of hands.


"In light of the killing spree's committed by "The Shape", Imperial authorities are bringing in expert's to deal with the killer. Our sources say" the news feed said before Ezra cut it off. He didn't want hear how the Empire planned to deal with JV-FR13. He wondered if they even knew what he was, in the chaos of the entire events around his escape, the loss of the data and the facility, Ezra thought that maybe they didn't truly know what they were dealing with. This also made him wonder that if they did, they would of been able to deal with it better.

Come to think of it, he didn't think that even the doctor who made him really truly knew what he had made, after all in the brief encounter they had with him, he said it lacked higher brain functions, but what Ezra had seen, that didn't seem wholly correct. Granted it didn't seem extremely intelligent, it had made some clear and planned actions. The time it intentionally destroyed the control panel at the facility rang in his mind.

Ezra wanted the creature dealt with, but he seriously doubted shooting it with a fire extinguisher would work. Granted it had been frozen on the trip from Kamino to Lothol, so that idea at least had merits, but Ezra was sure he felt something more to it than just and biological weapon. The ghost of the voice that came every time it was near, Ezra was certain there was some sort of force element to his existence.

That may be how it could even be alive, he'd heard Kanan and Hera talk about how all its mismatched genetic code didn't match make sense, how it shouldn't of even be alive. Could some sort of force aspect to it allow it to survive what had killed who knew how many test subject before it?

He'd have to bring it up to Kanan, see what he thought about it.


Later that night Ezra had the dream again. JV-FR13 chasing him, catching him, and it's face being Tyber Zann's. Again he woke up covered in cold sweat, and punched the steel wall next to his bunk.

Zeb stirred but didn't wake, for which Ezra was grateful, he didn't want to talk to anyone about this right now, let alone Zeb. Of everyone on the ship, Zeb may be the one Ezra felt like he could confided in the least. It wasn't anything to do with trust, he trusted him with his life, but Kanan and Hera had a more "father/mother" feeling, where as Zeb felt like a big brother, or maybe and Uncle. Sabine was easier to relate to, and she understood him better than anyone else except Kanan, they were close in age and she knew what it was like to be his age, which was something everyone over twenty complete forgot about.

Lying back down in his bunk, he closed his eyes but didn't fall asleep. He was scared to fall asleep again, each time the dream came it was more intense and more realistic. He wasn't sure how much longer he could deal with this before he cracked.


Sabine was the first to rise on the ship the next day. With everyone else still asleep she walked down the ramp of the Ghost to head outside. She loved getting up early to watch the sun rise, she found the colors inspiring, and enjoy the fresh air, the air on Lothol always seemed cleaner in the morning.

This time of the year, it was always cold in the morning and the ground wet. Her sleep wear didn't offer much insulation against the cold, she only stayed out for a few minutes.

The sunrise was as spectacular as always, but her feet were wet and she was starting to shiver. Turning to head back into the Ghost and make her breakfast when she heard it.

It sounded like a familiar whimpering sound coming from Dral's ship. She wanted to ignore it and just go back inside, but she knew that it wasn't in her nature to do so. And against he own wishes, she walked over to Dral's ship.

It didn't take her long to find the source of the noise. Dral was in his underwear hunkered under his ship in the fetal position shivering in the cold. But despite the low temperature, he was covered head to toe in sweat again, like when she found him on the ship.

"Dral." she said not really wanting to try and address him, but she could leave him out here like this. It didn't matter, he didn't acknowledge her.

"Dral!" she said with more force this time. Still no response. Reaching out she put her hand on his shoulder to get his attention.

Before she could say his name again he reached up and grabbed it with an extreme amount of force. He looked up at her, his eyes wide again with fear. This time however he didn't pull a knife on her or grab her throat. He seemed to get a hold of himself fairly quickly once he was awake.

He seemed to come to himself fairly quickly, looking down at the wrist he was holding and quickly letting go like he had been burned.

Not even saying a word to her, he ran up the ramp of his ship and went inside.

This was not normal behavior. That was the second time in two days that he had such incident. Pondering what she should do, she looked to the Ghost then to Dral's ship.

Sighing, she muttered "I'm going to regret this." and walked up the ramp to Dral's ship.


This was bad, this was the second time in two days he had such sever episodes. He didn't even remember leaving his ship last night, or stripping down. And the girl had found him both times, he had done a good job keeping this issue under wraps, if it got out then he would never get another job, no one would ever hire him.

The clanging on the door didn't immediately register at first, he was to engrossed in his own thoughts then he heard the voice of the girl "Dral, you are going to either have to talk to me about this or Kanan and Hera, and if it's them, you can kiss that payday good bye."

Cursing Dral opened the door and let her in.

"I see you dressed up for me." she said to him with a clearly false joking tone. He of course hadn't dressed at all from how she found him. Grunting grabbed a shirt a pulled it on,

"Dral, that's the second time I've found you like that, you wanna say anything that might make me more comfortable working with you?"

He shifted on his feet a little and said "I've got some issues."

Sabine raised her eyebrow at this comment, that much was obvious. "Is this something that is going to affect how well you work Dral? If it is then we need to know."

Dral grunted and paced for a moment "It only happens when I'm asleep, so long as I'm awake I'm fine."

Sabine considered herself good at picking up lies, not as good as Kanan for obvious reasons, but good enough. She didn't sense any true deception in Dral, but that didn't put her totally at ease, Dral was a Mandalorian and a Bounty Hunter, she was willing to beat he was a skilled liar when he needed to be.

But she had already told Hera what she felt and their wasn't anything new to report on him. She would peruse this line of thought much further, he was still clearly highly aggravated and she didn't want to push her luck with him.

"Well, Dral on another note, you need a shower, you smelt bad when I meet you and you haven't exactly been doing anything to improve it." she said with a faint smile, hoping the joke would calm him down. Well half joke, as much as he was sweating he was starting to smell really bad.

He smirked and grunted at this "Tell that to this hunk of junk." he said kicking the wall of his ship "Last month I took and the entire refresher section dropped out and fell five-hundred feet to the ground, haven't been able to replace it."

Sabine smiled at this, but didn't really believe him, she had never heard of and entire section of a ship falling out on it's own, even in the most poorly maintained ships.

"Don't believe me?" he said, the ghost of smirk on his face, as he walked to a door and hit the control panel. The door hissed open and lead to...nothing. Sabine looked in and down and the saw the grass on the ground. Well that least explained how he got outside, if he's been sleep walking he could of easily fallen out.

Then it hit her "Does that mean you haven't bathed for a month?" he noise crinkling at the thought.

"Yup." he said nonchalantly.

"That is foul. You can use ours, if you want."

Before he could response, she heard Zeb calling her name. Running down the ramp back out side, she found Zeb looking for her.

"Sabine come inside, quick on the holonet. You ain't gonna believe this."

"What? Is it 'The Shape?'" her stomach dropping, like it did every time he came up.

"No, it's about Zann!"


A/N: Okay that's chapter, 4. Now if you want the next chapter quicker, make sure to review, otherwise it will be out this weekend.