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Padmé sighed and looked at herself in the mirror. She had styled her hair simply, putting it all in a bun. Her outfit consisted of a plain pale blue dress covered by a royal blue robe. The large hood was pulled over her head, shadowing her face. She looked just like any other Naboo handmaiden.

Sola had been talking with Jar Jar, who was rather obliging. As Sola had put it, he was more than happy to have any handmaiden with Sola's recommendation. Padmé had smiled, knowing that the Gungan was unaware it was actually her.

Ryoo and Pooja were playing outside as Padmé and Sola exited the house and walked towards the speeder waiting for them. Their father sat in the pilot seat while their mother sat beside him. Sola and Padmé settled in behind their parents while Darred watched the girls in the backyard.

The speeder was on its way toward Theed when Sola turned to Padmé. "Are—are you positive about this?"

Padmé nodded. "Yes, Sola,"

"I still don't like this," her father said, shaking his head slightly. "Padmé, even in your disguise, are you sure no one will recognize you, not even Senator Binks?"

"I have gone into disguise numerous times, Dad," Padmé sighed and explained for the fifth time. "Not once has anyone ever recognized me,"

The rest of the trip was spent in silence. Two hours later, they finally arrived at the spaceport. Padmé disembarked and gave her family hugs and kisses before turning towards a ship that was guarded by Naboo royal guards. Jar Jar stood at the landing ramp, waiting silently with his typical grin on his face.

"Here we go," Padmé muttered as she walked towards the Gungan senator.

Palpatine had told the admiral that he was not to be disturbed. He was meditating in order to calm himself, and in order to find his missing apprentice.

It had been four days since his arrival at Outpost 37752. In that time, they had discovered no significant leads on Death Squadron. The fleet was scheduled to patrol the Raioballo Sector, but no other Imperial outposts, garrisons, or bases had received any indication that the squadron entered the sector.

Through the Force there was also no indication as to the fleet's location. Vader's Force signature vanished the instant his rage had died.

Sighing, Palpatine contemplated the situation. The only option left was to enter the Raioballo Sector and investigate it personally, which was a definite possibility. He did not normally dirty himself and waste his time doing such menial tasks, but this was far too important to leave to foolish Imperial officers.

"I've lost track of what ship we're on," Marrax laughed.

Ress chuckled as well. "It seems everyone is in need of Little One's services, sir,"

"Yes, indeed," Marrax sighed. The two remained quiet for a while before Marrax's curiosity got the best of him. "If you don't mind me asking, how did you get separated from the rest of the 501st? I mean, they're Vader's Fist, and they do fly with us, but they're an army unit."

"I requested the transfer, sir," Ress responded. "I couldn't bear to be there anymore. It brought back too many memories of the Clone Wars."

"Where you lost so many of your brothers?" Marrax supposed.

Ress nodded. "Yes, I did lose many of my brothers in that war."

Marrax watched the clone for a short while. He got the impression that Ress wasn't telling him the entire truth about his reasons for transferring, but that was his own private business anyway; Marrax needn't pester him about it. Instead, he changed the subject to Lord Vader once again.

"All right, so Lo should be finished in the engineering division by now, right?" he asked Ress.

"Yes, sir," Ress nodded again. "If he isn't the chief engineer will contact us in five minutes,"

Suddenly, Marrax's comlink chimed. "This is Ens. Mothezsh."

"Sir, Lt. Lo has gone missing!" a frantic voice said.

"What?" Marrax shot to his feet, as well as Ress. "What do you mean he's gone missing? How long has he been missing?"

"At least half an hour, sir," the voice answered. "He was supposed to be working with Lt. Gent, but when the latter arrived on the area that needed repair it was already fixed and the lieutenant was gone!"

"When was that?"

"Ten minutes ago, sir. Lt. Lo was assigned to repair the system ten minutes before that,"

"Does the chief engineer know about this?"

"Yes, sir, he told me to inform you. The captain is already aware of the situation as well."

"What action has been taken to find him?"

"Security is searching for him, sir, but the captain requests your presence in the briefing room,"

"I'm on my way," Marrax said before cutting the connection and motioning for Ress to follow.

The two ran to the briefing room and immediately saw the chief engineer, Commander Klivian, and the captain of the Devastator, the ship on which they were currently staying.

The captain, Capt. Sato, asked, "Is there any specific way in finding Lord Vader?"

Marrax and Ress exchanged glances before saying, "Your guess is as good as ours, sir. The boy is impossible to find."

Ton was about ready to beat his head into a wall. The entire fleet was in chaos. Between Lord Vader vanishing, Ensign Mothezsh and Ress being clueless as to how to find him, this blasted mouse droid beeping to get his attention, all the repairs that had to be done to fix the ships, the nebula they were stuck in, the loss of so many Imperials including the admiral, this blasted mouse droid now spinning in circles to get his attention, the issue with the emperor finding out about Vader, him being in charge of the entire fleet, and this blasted mouse droid now banging into his ankles to get his attention, he was going insane!

Finally, Ton growled and glared at the mouse droid and it backed away, beeping and squeaking timidly.

"What—do—you—want—you—piece—of—scrap?" Ton snarled.

The mouse droid was still for a moment before beeping softly and extending an arm that held a data card. Ton snatched the card and the mouse droid fled.

"Blasted droid," he muttered as he activated the card in a data pad. That same stupid mouse droid had been pestering him for days on end. He had heard from Commander Chupa-Pau that it was bothering quite a few Imperials.

His comlink chimed as he looked over a status report. Answering it, he said, "This is Captain Mentzer and you'd better have a bloody good reason for contacting me."

"Hi Captain!" a playful voice said.

Ton nearly dropped the comlink. "L-Lo! Where are you?"

"I'm on the Vengeance II right now,"

"What? How did you—what are you—why—but—what are you doing there?"

"I fixed everything so I decided to help over here,"

"Report to the nearest shuttlecraft and tell them that on my orders you are to return to the Executor,"

"What? But I—"

"Now, Little One," Ton growled.

There was silence before he heard, "Grumpy…"

And then the boy cut the connection.

Lo was bored. He had already repaired the impulse engines on the Avenger, fixed a problem with the coolant system on the Devastator, and snuck on a shuttle going to the Vengeance II just for fun. Now he had nothing to do because he was once again stuck on the Executor, locked in his room until they reached Nihoma due to his unscheduled visit to the Vengeance II.

As he sat on his cot, he heard a soft sad beeping go by his door. Walking to the door, he saw a wire that activated and deactivated the lock in his mind's eye. He immediately cocked his head to the side and the lock clicked open. He then opened his door and peeked outside to see a mouse droid slowly going down the corridor.

The mouse droid seemed to call out to him. Something about it reminded him of the others. It was almost as if Kobayashi or Kerrick were standing there rather than the droid. Slowly, almost as if he were in a trance, Lo walked towards the droid and picked it up before returning to his room and closing the door.

Little One sat down and looked at the droid carefully, tracing his fingers over the casing. He was practically mesmerized for some reason. It almost felt like the others were there with him right now… that was weird.

Suddenly, the mouse droid beeped sadly once again and Lo immediately snapped out of his daze. "What's wrong, little guy?"

The droid beeped and tweeted, still sounding sad. Little One immediately felt sorry for it. "Captain Mentzer was mean to you? He yelled at you? That's not very nice of him."

The droid agreed.

"So what's your name?"

The droid beeped again.

"You don't have a name?"

The droid twittered in the negative.

"Oh… well can I give you a name?"

The droid beeped in the affirmative.

"Okay…" Lo trailed away, thinking about what to name the poor little droid. "How about… Luke?"

The droid excitedly agreed. Lo laughed. "Okay, your name is Luke. So… do you have any data pads that I could use?"

Luke beeped in the affirmative and extended an arm, showing three vacant data pads. Lo smiled deviously and took all three, immediately tinkering with them.

"You wait and see, Luke," he said as he worked. "We'll get them back for being mean to us."

Luke asked how.

"Just wait and see. I'll do my part and you do yours and everything will work perfectly."

"What are you looking so smug about, Koby?" Jifo asked as the two sat in the lounge.

"I sent a mouse droid to Darth Vader's room. I told it that if he left it alone, it was to return to me in here." Kobayashi replied.

"Okay, so it's not here," Jifo shrugged. "Is that supposed to be a good sign?"

"It's a perfect sign," Kobayashi smiled. "It means that Vader likes it."

"What are you babbling about?"

"What your sister-in-law said," Kobayashi explained. "About the Super Force Teddy thing?"

"You—you didn't actually make a teddy bear with a Force Imprint did you?" Jifo stuttered.

Kobayashi laughed. "No! But I did give him a Force Imprint… it was the droid. I sent it after everyone for this entire time in the nebula."

"Wait—that's the droid that kept ramming into my ankles while I was at my post yesterday?"

"Yep,"

Jifo gawked at his friend. "I don't know if I should hit you now or later."

"Hey, I was doing it to help!"

"That thing was bloody annoying!"

Suddenly the door to the lounge opened to reveal the very mouse droid in question. It rolled in and bumped against Kobayashi, beeping loudly and quickly as if it were excited.

Kobayashi took the data pad that it held out to him and activated the screen. On it was an order from Captain Mentzer.

"That's odd," Kobayashi commented as he read the order. "Apparently Capt. Mentzer wants me to give an order of a change of coordinates to the navigation team."

"That's what it says?" Jifo asked.

Koby nodded. "Yep; I'd better get to the bridge."

Kobayashi exited the lounge, turning left and walking towards the turbolift. After entering the dull grey lift, he pressed the button for Deck 85.

He wondered why the captain wanted a change of coordinates, but he didn't bother asking as he entered the bridge. Instead, he walked straight towards the small depression that held men working at their posts. In the left depression towards the rear sat Moeema's navigation team.

"I've got a change of coordinates for you from the captain," Kobayashi said to Moeema overseeing the men. "He says plot in a new course for the fleet; the grid coordinates are O-17."

Moeema quirked an eyebrow and looked at the data pad suspiciously, but then she followed out the orders. Kobayashi left the bridge and returned to the lounge on Deck 75, settling down on the couch once more.

Jifo, who had almost fallen asleep waiting for his friend, jumped awake and asked, "So did you follow with the captain's orders?"

"Of course I did," Kobayashi leaned his head back to stare at the ceiling. "I just wonder why he wanted us to change directions."

"It's not really going to matter as long as we're in this nebula anyway," Jifo responded.

Kobayashi shrugged. "I guess so,"

Ton sat in the tactical room on Deck 84. The room was rather spacious, with a large, circular holographic projector sitting in the center. Information consoles bordered three of the four walls and navigation charts speckled the area surrounding the holographic projector.

As he looked about the room, he sighed contently and closed his eyes. He couldn't wait to get to Nihoma; at least he could take a breath of fresh air from all the insanity of what had been happening. Only in Death Squadron could one get grey hairs within a matter of weeks.

"Capt. Mentzer," Cdr. Chupa-Pau said as he entered the room. "Why did you change the coordinates?"

"What?" Ton's eyes popped open. "I didn't order a change in coordinates! Where are we going?"

"The new course is taking us to Naboo, sir,"

"Naboo?"

"I presume you did not order that, sir,"

"No! Get us back on course!"

"Yes, sir,"

The commander bowed in acknowledgement and left the room, leaving Ton standing and irritated. Who in the blazes changed it…?

Ton immediately contacted the ensign who had been supervising the navigation crew. Upon asking who ordered for a change of coordinates, the ensign replied that Lt Cdr. Norhek had authorized it under a message from Lt. Beillane, who had apparently been following Ton's orders.

He called Lt. Beillane to the tactical room.

"You summoned for me, sir?" the lieutenant said as he entered.

"Why did you change the coordinates, lieutenant?" Ton demanded.

"I—but sir, a droid came with a data pad that held an order from you!" Lt. Beillane stuttered, taken aback.

"What—I didn't send a droid with anything!"

"But then who…?"

Both officers paused before growling, "Little One,"

Lo laughed as Luke beeped excitedly, telling him of everything that happened. Apparently Captain Mentzer was rather annoyed and Kobayashi was livid. Thankfully, Lo's door was locked so when Kobayashi came banging to his quarters, Lo innocently replied that he couldn't open the door.

Luke now informed him that with that extra delay, they would be arriving at Nihoma in a week and a half. The whole idea was just too funny.

Lo giggled some more before sighing and leaning against the wall. At least that little joke had kept the headache and stomachache at bay for a while.

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