"Inej hasn't checked in yet," General Kir-Bataar told Nina as they strode towards the communications offices, worry etched into every line of her face. "If you hear any transmission come in-"

They slipped inside an office, and there was a ding! as one did exactly that.

"Never mind." Tamar shook her head, and glanced at Wylan. He'd taken a job in communications recently - Jesper had been the one to recommend him. Nina didn't know why a Rebellion general was listening to the word of a smuggler she'd just met, but desperate times called for desperate measures, she supposed. And Jesper had Inej to vouch for him. Tamar trusted Inej with her life. "Who was that?"

Wylan had gone curiously pale, but he said evenly, "A message from Jesper. I asked him if he'd heard from Inej or Kaz, but he says no."

"No?" Tamar wrinkled her brow. "They were due to arrive hours ago."

Fear tightened Nina's throat. She stretched out through the Force for her friend's familiar signature, but found nothing. Either she was too far away, or. . .

"Do you think they ran into trouble?" She swallowed. "Do you think they-"

"No," Tamar said, narrowing her eyes. "I may not have the Force, but I know Inej. She's alive. And planning something," she added. "If her behaviour seems irregular, it always means she's planning something."

"But what?" Nina said, just as Wylan's comm unit lit up again with an incoming transmission.

It was Inej's voice that was patched through. ". . .Ghafa, requesting General Kir-Bataar, over."

"Copy that, Inej." Tamar was over there and speaking into the comlink before the rest of them could even react. "Where are you?"

"Kaz and I ran into some Imperial trouble while on the scouting mission," Nina's friend replied, "and we took refuge on a planet Kaz knew of. We no longer have a functioning ship, but I think this might be a solid candidate for the new base we're looking for."

Nina couldn't decipher the array of emotions that ran over Tamar's face at that, but the General's voice was even as she said, "Copy that. We'll send a team to pick you up and scout out the terrain. Transmit your coordinates."

"Transmitting coordinates now."

"See you soon, Inej," Tamar said seriously as the coordinates flashed onto the comlink's screen. "May the Force be with you."


Wylan was only slightly surprised that General Kir-Bataar saw fit to send him and Jesper as the scouting and retrieval team she'd promised Inej. By this point, the mismatched crew Inej had assembled for the trip to Eadu seemed fated to stick together - and the Force was overly fond of throwing him and Jesper into each other's paths as well. Technically, Nina and Kuwei were also on the nondescript old freighter they'd commissioned trip, but they were in the back of the ship doing Jedi stuff - there'd been a lot of yelps on Kuwei's behalf - so it was only Jesper and Wylan in the cockpit.

"So. . ." Wylan began, then started again when Jesper glanced over at him, eyebrow raised. "Do you know about this planet Kaz and Inej landed on?"

Jesper snorted. "If it's the planet I think it is, then crashed is probably a better way of putting it. The electrical storms in the upper atmosphere are nasty."

"Electrical storms?!" Wylan near shrieked. "Inej didn't mentioned that!"

"I mean, I could be wrong," Jesper said cheerfully, the slightest tinge of sarcasm to his voice. "Kaz could have another smuggler's hideout in the Monsua Nebula that I don't know about." He flashed Wylan a grin. "But I don't think that's very likely, do you?"

Wylan huffed a laugh. "Perhaps not. But still. . ." He bit his lip. "Electrical storms?"

Jesper was flicking a few switches on the console as he assured him, "I've gotten through them before. I can get through them again."

Wylan's breath hissed out between his teeth. "Phew. I was worried there for a second."

"You're still worried."

"I'm still worried!"

Jesper laughed."Don't worry, lordling. We're not going to fall from the sky in flames, lost all power, lightning coursing through the metal of the ship and reaching to stop our hearts-"

"Shut up." But Wylan was laughing too. He accidentally clutched the datapad in his lap tighter as he did, which soon sobered him up.

Unfortunately, Jesper noticed. "Something wrong?"

He should say no. He just claim he was fine, that he just wasn't feeling well - perhaps he was afraid of heights? That had always garnered sympathy from his father's high-ranking Imperial friends, but he didn't think it would work on Jesper.

"Wylan." Jesper turned away from the controls altogether then, away from the hypnotising swirl of hyperspace. "Is something bothering you?"

Wylan decided to tell the truth.

He held out the datapad. "My father sent me a message earlier."

Jesper took the datapad warily. "Your father? As in, the Imperial merchant-lord-person who helped fund that Death Star?"

Wylan nodded.

Jesper swore. "Force, Wylan - weren't you going to report this? Or just ignore it, maybe? I get why you didn't reply: they could track the signal. . ."

"I need you to read it for me."

Jesper blinked. "What?"

"I need you to read it to me. I can't read Basic - it's one of the things that my father. . . alienated. . . me for - so I don't know what's in it. But whatever it is, it has to be bad." He rubbed his forehead and tugged on his hair. "I know it'll be nothing good, but I want. . ." He trailed off.

"You want to know anyway," Jesper finished. Wylan nodded, tugging at his hair more.

Jesper's hand flew out to catch his wrist; Wylan froze, cheeks flushing. "Don't do that," Jesper chided. "You'll pull all your hair out. And I like your hair."

Wylan blinked, blushing even harder.

But the embarrassment didn't last long; as Jesper's eyes flitted across the text that scrolled across the screen, his face became exponentially more grave, and Wylan became exponentially more anxious.

"What does it say?"

Jesper pinched his lips together and shook his head. "I don't know if you should listen; it sounds like a pile of bantha poodoo to me-"

"What. Does. It. Say." Wylan didn't know where the hardness in his voice had come from but he was shaking. Shaking from head to toe. He clenched his fists to try and make it less evident.

Jesper said quietly, "He says he wants to defect."

Silence fell in the cockpit.

"What?" Wylan croaked.

Jesper's eyes flicked down to the screen when he couldn't hold Wylan's gaze any longer. "He says that he knows you were involved in the destruction of the Death Star - your codes were used to access Eadu - and having seen what the Empire was willing to do to the people who funded the project, he wishes to defect to the organisation that seems to be more morally sound. Also that he missed you," Jesper added. "You and your mother."

"He killed my mother." Wylan was panting now. "He killed her."

Jesper held up his hands, the datapad falling into his lap. "Hey, I'm just reading what he wrote. He says. . ." At this, Jesper swallowed. "He says he wants you to meet him at the Van Eck estate on Naboo with any Rebellion representatives you can persuade to come. He says he wants to divert a large chunk of the money he makes from the Empire away into the Rebellion's coffers - surreptitiously, of course, so the Emperor doesn't get suspicious."

Pain prickled in Wylan's palms; he uncurled his fists to see that he'd clenched them so hard red crescents were left where his fingernails had dug in. He didn't know what to say.

"Oh."

Jesper narrowed his eyes and folded his arms at that. "Oh? Can the trap be more obvious?" He ticked the reasons off on his fingers. "He's asking you to meet him at a location he controls, to bring other Rebels, and he just admitted that the Empire knows you're with the Rebellion! They probably had him set up this trap! And if not," Jesper's voice softened, then. "If not, even if your father is sincere, then they're likely watching him anyway. They'll spot you immediately if you try to make contact with him."

"I know." Wylan's breathing was steadying now, but his heart was still racing. "I know, damn it!"

He shouted the last words louder than he'd meant to. Jesper looked startled.

"I know," Wylan said, "that my father is bad news. I'm almost certain this message is insincere, or a trap of some sort. He had my mother murdered, Jesper." Jesper flinched at that. "I could never prove it for certain, but I know that when she went through menopause, having only given him me as a potential heir, he had her murdered so he could marry a girl barely older than I am.

"But he is my father," Wylan whispered. He leaned his face upwards as tears slid free from his eyes. "I want to love him. I want him to love me." He was openly crying now. "I want this so much. And if it's all a trap, if he betrays me. . ." He took a deep breath. "Then I want that opportunity for closure, too."

Jesper had just opened his mouth to say something, his expression thoughtful, when an alarm beeped behind him. Startled, he glanced over at the console.

"We're coming up on our destination," he said. Wylan hurriedly tried to wipe away his tears. "We should probably talk about this later; who knows how many Imps we'll find here." Wylan nodded his agreement as Jesper took a handle of the controls. "Reverting to realspace in three, two, one. . ."

The streaks around them became stars again as they hurtled into space above a planet with a pinkish-red atmosphere. Wylan gaped at it for a moment - were those the lightning storms Jesper had mentioned? - then his awe turned to terror.

"Jesper," he said slowly, then his voice became a shriek, "Jesper!" He pointed out of the viewport. "What is that?"

Jesper followed his gaze, to the hunk of metal he was pointing to. "Karabast," he swore. "Is that-"

"It's a lambda shuttle," Wylan said grimly. It was clearly in no shape to fly; it gave out no power or life readings, the hull was scorched and charred by lightning, and it had lost a wing, a door, and two repulsors.

"The one Inej and Kaz were flying?" Jesper asked. The fear in his voice implied he already knew the answer.

"I don't see how it could be anything else."

Jesper's brow furrowed. "Try to raise them on the comms," he said.

Wylan did. "There's no answer."

Jesper swore again. "Then I suppose we'll have to go down to the surface and see if they made it."

Wylan felt queasy - from the ruined ship, from the message - but he wouldn't let that shake his resolve. He wouldn't let anything shake his resolve. "I suppose we will."


"I am never," Wylan swore, "ever, flying through that atmosphere again."

"Well isn't that a shame, lordling," a rasping voice said. Wylan glanced behind him, past the ramp of the ship, to see Kaz limping towards them. Inej had already overtaken him, running at full pelt towards them. "Because this is where we're planning on setting up a new base."

"Technically, we have to scout out the place first," Nina drawled, holding up a hand to block the light as she and Kuwei descended the ramp. Kuwei's brown eyes were wide, staring - he seemed peculiarly and utterly out of his depth. Wylan empathised with him.

Inej missed Nina's sarcasm - missed it, or ignored it. "You have no idea." She shook her head. "This place is perfect. There's freshwater, plenty of shelter and food sources, even caves to hide rations in if things get hairy! And there's a difficult atmosphere which TIE fighters can't penetrate. And the Empire won't be looking at it anymore - not since we ejected the ship into the atmosphere and let it be annihilated. They'll think we perished in the storms when they see it." She laughed to herself - a breathless laugh, full of delight, hope, and a smidgeon of relief. "I can't believe our luck."

"Oh," Jesper said, grinning, "so you did intend to destroy your transport? We saw that on the way in; Wylan got a little nervous."

Wylan gritted his teeth. "You were nervous as well, Jesper." He didn't know whether to laugh or scream when his voice came out annoyingly petulant.

"Nervous or not," Inej said. The beaming smile hadn't faded from her face; she was practically bouncing on the soles of her feet, "we did it. We have a base!" She turned her gaze back to the ship they'd brought.

Nina seemed to read her mind. She shifted her stance and folded her arms. "So this is where Matthias comes in handy," she mused. "We could use some heavy lifting."