Author's Note: It took me a long time, but I've finally managed it. LongLiveTheClones, here at last is your treat. I hope it's everything you wanted.

The Worst Mission Assumption

Lok, Outer Rim Territories

"Think they're still after us?"

"Why don't you take a kriffing look?"

Ignoring the sarcasm, Ro peered around the edge of the boulder.

Green plasma bolts immediately came at her from the ridge and with a yelp, she ducked back behind cover, black chips of lava rock flying in every direction.

Wren, sitting behind his own boulder, glanced over at Ro as he piled grenades before him. "Well?" he drawled. "They still after us?"

"I have no clue," Ro told him, brushing grit off of her bantha-hide jacket. "But they're for truly still shooting at us."

"Jedi scum!" A male voice drifted through the winding passages of the lava. "Come out, so we can shoot you like the dog you are!"

"He's quite the negotiator. What's your think, Cookie? Wanna go out there and get shot?"

"I didn't fraggin' hear him invite me to the party," Wren said caustically.

"What's creeped up your craw?"

"How about the fekking fact that we wouldn't be having this effing conversation if you'd let me blow the kriffing base."

"Mono unfair! I did let you blow up their base."

"While the crinking pirates weren't kriffing in it!"

"You can't just blow something up while someone's still in it. Then you'd be blowing someone up, not something."

Wren banged the back of his head against his boulder, muttering unflattering verbs under his breath.

Ro, observing this behavior, said, "I sense you are frustrated."

"You fekking think?"

"Jedi! You have one minute to surrender! If you do not, we will kill you!"

Ro and Wren exchanged a look. "I thought he said we were going to be shot if we surrendered."

"Clearly Nym is a man of indisputable effing logic. Maybe you and he should have a kriffing sit-down and talk some fraggin' nonsense together."

"Hmmm." She thought about it for a moment, while listening to Nym's pirate gang advance across the lava field. The black lava reflected the sun to a burning intensity and the rock beneath Ro was almost hot enough to blister. But it was impossible to move across the lava quietly and the outcroppings made for some excellent cover. So long as they weren't being shot to cutting fragments.

"Whatcha doing?" Ro asked in a singsong voice. Despite her casual attitude, she had her lightsabers out and at the ready.

Nym had not taken kindly to the loss of his base and the Feeorin pirate captain didn't strike Ro as the blustering kind. He'd keep his promise and host a public execution for the entertainment of his Lok Revenants, should she and Wren fall into his hands. If, of course, the pirates didn't get carried away in their enthusiasm and killed them both during the chase.

"I'm bundling ammo," Wren said as he rolled lengths of mesh tape around two thermal grenades and a flash-bang.

Ro wrinkled her forehead in thought, cocking her head to listen to the approaching footsteps. At least six members of the Revenants must be advancing across the open lava, no doubt under careful cover of their comrades' blasters. "Why?"

"Thirty seconds, Jedi!" Nym warned gleefully.

"I'm exercising my Sithspit-given right to share my karking bad mood," Wren told her and stood and threw the bundle of grenades in one fluid motion, before falling back behind cover.

Before Ro could protest she heard several shouted orders, the whine of blasters and then an enormous kaboom! Even behind her boulder, Ro was flung onto her stomach by the pressure wave. The breath rushed out of her all at once, leaving her gasping. Shards of lava, as sharp of flechettes, cut through her clothes, leaving behind small rivulets of blood. Her ears rang; her head pounded. When she dared to open her eyes, bright spots danced and obscured her vision.

A vice-like grip took hold of her arm and Ro was jerked onto her feet with teeth-rattling force. A male voice - Wren's? - shouted at her, but she couldn't make out the words past the ringing in her ears.

If I keep this up, she thought irreverently, I'll be needing a hearing enhancer before I'm thirty. Make it glittery and I'll be bombad stellar trendy.

As if in response to her befuddled musings, the ringing in her ears abruptly ceased and sound rushed back with a clarity that was almost painful.

Behind her, there were shouts: some were orders, but most were howls of pain and rage. The Force vibrated and shuddered around her, as if Ro were inside a thunder drum during the devotional ceremony to Am-Shak, god of thunder.

"Move, cheeka," Wren growled and tugged on her arm to emphasize the order, almost causing Ro to fall flat on her face.

"I'm moving! I'm moving!"

A green plasma bolt hit the lava an inch next to Ro's right foot. She dared a quick look over her shoulder and saw the Lok Revenents were hot on their trail, Nym in the lead. The Feeorin's blue skin was riddled with small puncture wounds and the thick tendrils hanging from his head streamed back as he ran. His face was a frozen mask of rage.

"I think you've made them mad," she shouted to Wren.

"Like they kriffing weren't before."

More green blaster fire came at them from behind.

A delicate spire of frozen lava and sulfur shattered as it was hit. Ro's right hand flashed out, her lightsaber already lit. The lava shards hit the blade with a sizzle-crack that made Ro wince. Pure, concentrated plasma could cut through almost anything, but she didn't want to put that to the test while under fire. With Wren still pulling her along at a break-neck speed by her left arm, Ro twisted about as far as she could, deflecting as many of the incoming blaster bolts as was possible.

But Nym's pirate gang were quick and they knew the lava fields far better than she or Wren did. They ducked and weaved in and out of cover, keeping her and Wren in their rangefinders, but not risking a close confrontation.

Wren suddenly veered right, no doubt trying to take advantage of the many looming sulfur spires in that direction.

But it felt wrong. A single brush of the Force, like the touch of a ghostly feather against her right cheek, turned her attention to the left.

"Left!" Ro shouted.

Wren didn't look back. He didn't even slow down, but simply kept pulling her after him, further up the dead volcano.

"Wren!" she yelled and grabbed his wrist with her imprisoned hand, trying to tug him into the opposite direction. "Left!"

He turned his head fractionally and she could see herself and the barren landscape reflected in the T-shaped visor of his helmet.

"There's no fekking cover..." he started, but she cut him off with a violent jerk of her arm.

"Left!" she practically screamed into his face.

"Frag it," he snarled and broke left.

A green shot of plasma burst a thin wall of black lava just where Wren's head had been a second earlier. Wren didn't even seem to notice.

"Switch," he ordered and before Ro had time to think, Wren pivoted on his heel. She pushed aside fear and irritation and concentrated on the moment, allowing her body to respond automatically to his movements. She turned with him and switched their positions so that she was leading, her hand still clamped around his wrist and he was following her, running backwards, Deece up and aimed at the pursuing pirates.

"Kriffing suck laser, bishwags."

She couldn't look back - the maze of lava and sulfur formations was closing in - but she heard screams, felt the acidic touch of pain through the Force as two, then three of the pirates fell to Wren's deadly accuracy. Whereas she had been trying to simply slow them down, Wren wasn't taking any chances. His ruthlessness never ceased to surprise her, but the cool, pragmatic part of her acknowledged that he was in the right on this one, even as the ferocity he radiated as he gunned down their pursuers made her quiver inside.

Later.

Ro abruptly let go of Wren's wrist and grabbed him by the back of his armor, pulling his head down.

"Fek." He tried to struggle for just an instant; just long enough for his brain to register the thick arch of petrified sulfur curving no more than a breadth over his bucket. The arch was broad, surrounded on both sides by the sheer walls of the volcano and the hole through which they'd slipped was narrow. Ro hoped it would slow Nym and his gang down, as they would have to go through the opening one by one.

Behind her, Wren cursed again. "I lost line of sight."

"Good," she wheezed.

He spun to face forwards, wrenching himself out of her hold as he did so. "How the fek is that any effing good?" He didn't sound the least out of breath, but then, Wren didn't have to breathe in Lok's sulfur heavy air. Ro was seriously beginning to envy him his kit.

"We can't spy them," she said, "they can't ogle us."

A low pressure whoomp-whoomp came from behind them.

Ro looked back, but the arch through which they'd escaped was already hidden from view by several bends in the growing maze of the lava field.

"Effing E-Web," Wren identified without slowing down. "Shik will blow through the rock in two minutes flat." He skidded to a sudden halt.

Ro was so surprised by the move, that she actually kept running for three more steps before coming to a halt herself. "What are you doing? Cookie, we need to skedooch in mono tick-tock beats."

He holstered his blaster and unslung the longer rifle from his back. "We can't outrun them," he told her calmly. "They know the territory and they have the numbers. The advantage is clearly theirs. We need to cut down their numbers; find the higher ground and attack from there in an ambush." He began to stare up at the steep slopes of the dead volcano, looking for adequate ground from which to launch his attack.

The matter of factness of his tone was eerie, considering the thoughtless brutality with which he'd gunned the pirates down earlier.

Like he doesn't even have to think of what to do. As if the answers are already there in his head, ready and waiting to be used.

Ro glanced up at the slopes as well. Lok had many dead volcanos, but this one must have erupted with unusual force. There were deep fissures and twisting canyons everywhere; ridges and embankments where the ground beneath had buckled or been shoved together by monumental strength. There were no doubt plenty of places to hide up there, but going up no more felt like a good think than running right had. Nor was remaining here. Ro's toes curled in her boots as a tickling sensation ran up and down her soles.

She grabbed Wren's elbow. "We need to keep moving."

Wren shook her off and began to move towards the volcano's wall. "Just shut up and follow, cheeka."

Ro hissed, grabbed a broken off piece of lava rock and threw it at the back of his head. The shard bounced off the plastoid with a dull ping and Wren whirled about, one hand instinctively going to the back of his head. "What the gfersh..." he snarled.

"We don't have time for this!" she yelled. "So would you for the sake of gooey crumblebuns just this once not assume that you're the master of all things fighty? I was outrunning pirates before you hit double-digit age."

"So what's your fekking plan, cheeka?" he demanded. Another whoomp echoed through the twisting pathways of the maze and in the distance, a yellow dust cloud rose into the equally yellow-tinged sky.

Nym just planted his boot through the door, she thought and once more grabbed Wren's elbows. "We run," she told him and did just that.

"Vape it," he snarled, but followed her, perhaps realizing they'd already spent too much time arguing to implement his plan.

They ran, at times having to leap over cracks in the rock wide enough to swallow them whole or duck beneath low-hanging archways. Ro soon lost all sense of direction. She couldn't even be sure how close their pursuers were; echoes bounced off of the smooth, black lava and came back to them distorted and from seemingly every direction at once.

Wren kept easy pace with her. The trooper had the longer legs, but he didn't seem interested in outpacing her and taking the lead. Either he was as disoriented as she was and unwilling to lead them into a dead end or he actually thought she did have a plan.

She didn't.

Ro had a feeling.

The Force led her through the lava maze with no logic she could detect, but she never questioned its guiding hand. Ro trusted the Force blindly, for it had never lead her wrong.

A chasm opened up in the lava before them and when Ro felt the slight pressure of the Force on the top of her head, all she did was swallow once before bracing herself.

"Jump!"

"Are you barvy?" He was already slowing down, reaching for his ascension cable. "We can't make that."

"Never said we had to," she informed him cheerfully and tripped him.

Wren had good reflexes. Even as he cursed her to all Nine Hells he tried to regain his footing and almost succeeded. But you didn't stand a chance when dealing with someone who could anticipate your reflexes. Ro had fallen a step back and now she thrust her right foot in-between his legs, shoving her clasped hands into the small of his back at the same time.

Wren hit the ground shoulder first, rolling as he did so. Rolling right over the edge of the gorge.

With a shriek of delight, Ro jumped after her partner.

Wren tried to scrabble for a purchase on the edge of the chasm, but his efforts were fouled by his blaster and the frail nature of the lava rock. Even as his fingers closed around a small outcropping, he could feel the rock crumbling in his grip.

Above him, he could hear the mad, delighted cry of the Jedi.

I'm going to kriffing kill her, he thought and then there was nothing around him but empty air.

Training and the need to survive was strong enough to beat down the fear of imminent demise. He grappled for the ascension cable, trying to get out a line, but he was falling too fast and the gorge just wasn't that deep. It was futile. The ground was rushing ever closer and Wren had only one option. He twisted and curled, trying to distribute his weight so as to protect his neck and most important limbs. He could survive a broken arm, but a broken leg or neck and he was finished. At the moment, he didn't particularly care if Ro made it too.

The impact was jarring.

Wren's teeth snapped closed on his tongue and blood flooded his mouth. He felt his bones bend...But not break.

Instead, Wren felt the ground give way beneath him.

He rolled onto his stomach and pushed himself up with his hands, feeling them sink down as he did so.

Incredulous, he stared. What he'd landed on was not the highly polished black lava, but rock that was grey and porous. Though his inner instincts screamed at him to get moving, he picked up a piece of the grey rock. It was extraordinarily light and he could crush it into powder with the slightest application of pressure.

"Lava ash."

He looked up to see Ro getting to her feet. Around her was a roughly humanoid imprint in the ash and she was covered from head to toe in a light grey powdering.

"Stellar stuff, ain't it?" She grimaced as she rotated the shoulder she had dislocated back on Gaftikar.

Wren was up on his feet and taking a swing at her before she'd completed the sentence. "You. Bitch."

Ro squeaked and leaped out of his range. "Cookie..."

"Did you know this was here?" he wanted to know. "Did you fekking know this was going to be here when you kriffing pushed me over the edge?" The blood pounding through his veins almost obscured her answer.

"I..." She hesitated and that was all the answer he needed.

"I should fraggin' shoot you where you stand," he growled and his fingers itched to do just that.

Ro's lips tightened into a thin line and she quickly glanced up. They must have dropped at least ten meters and even with the ash cushioning their fall, Wren could feel bruises forming where he'd taken the force of the impact.

"We have to delay this discussion," Ro told him. "Nym's on the close."

He was half-tempted to shoot her anyway - perhaps in the leg - and leave her for Nym. He pulled in a sharp breath and shouldered his blaster rifle. With a snarl, he drove his fist into the nearest rock wall. It too was made out of the compacted ash and gave far too easily, but it was enough to - momentarily - disperse the worst of his rage. Wordlessly, he turned his back on her.

"Where to?" he asked in a growl.

"West," she said quietly.

Never looking at her, Wren began to jog westward. It was impossible to run on the ash. Though compressed to solidity by millennia of pressure, the stuff gave easily beneath his weight and with every step he sank past his ankle into the ground. Then the ash field petered out into one of the dead rivers that were so common to Lok.

He saw where Ro wanted them to head almost immediately. Rising high on either side of the dead river were steep walls of rock - not black lava this time, but rock of a reddish-brown, streaked with layers of sulfur. The rock walls rose to a height of perhaps fifteen meters and were riddled with a series of openings, some of which might have been caves. Wren took a few seconds to scan their surroundings, then picked a likely spot. He didn't have time to run sensor readings to calculate the depth of the opening. Nym wouldn't be fooled long by their apparent disappearance.

"You got another fekking brilliant idea to get us up there?" he asked without turning to face Ro.

"No." She didn't try to come up beside him, but remained behind and slightly to the left of him. Not that it mattered. He could still see her crestfallen expression clearly thanks to the wrap-around vision of his HUD.

Pointedly getting his ascension cable, he attached it to the rifle and let loose a line. The grappling hook bit deeply into the rock and Wren gave it a savage tug, letting some of his anger bleed into the gesture. But the rock held.

He began to climb; Ro waiting until he was halfway to his chosen cave before following. She climbed well, a fact he was not in the mood to note with any charity.

The cave was no more than six meters deep; adequate for cover and no one could come at them from the rear. There was no source of water, but they still had enough of their own. Lok's harsh sun filtered through the entrance, illuminating the first three meters of the cave. That was fine. Wren didn't plan on moving any deeper than that. It might take Nym a while to realize that they'd 'jumped' the gorge, rather than circumvent it, but the pirate leader would eventually figure the trick out. For one, the depressions they'd left in the lava ash were unmistakable. That Nym might give up the pursuit was an option Wren didn't even consider. Nym loathed the Trade Federation and was therefore a sometime ally of the GAR, but the pirate had no love for the Republic either and by law, he was a wanted criminal. Besides, Nym was noted for his vindictive streak and he wasn't about to forgive and forget the loss of his base by two Republic agents. He had to make them pay, if only to save face before his crew.

"Cozy." Ro was looking about the cave curiously, as if expecting a dancing troop of Ewoks to burst out of the cracks at any moment.

Wren pushed past her and once more unslung his DC-15A. He knelt at the entrance of the cave, quickly checking over the blaster rifle while sweeping the terrain before them. There were three directions from which Nym could come at them: left, right and straight ahead, if the Lok Revenants took the chance to rappel down the rock wall opposite their cave. Personally, Wren didn't think Nym would take the chance. His people would be exposed rappelling down. Wren wouldn't even have to aim for the bodies. There were enough overhangs he could shoot to pieces and bury the climbers beneath. That left the dead river as Nym's only possible approach route and Wren's vantage point allowed him to see in either direction for a klick at least. The Revenants wouldn't be able to ambush them.

"So you're never going to talk with me again?" Ro wondered aloud.

Wren flipped the safety, checked the barrel was clear of ash and unlocked the safety again.

Ro blew out a breath, her bangs fluttering out of her eyes. "'Kay, so I should have given a one tick warning before sending you on the defenestration, but you weren't listening to me."

Wren unclipped the tripod, settled the blaster rifle atop and lay down on his belly. He adjusted the rangefinder, watching the numbers on the wind speed change. Unpredictable. He'd have to keep an eye on that.

"Cookie?"

"Defenestration," Wren informed her tartly, "is for when you throw someone out of a fekking window."

Silence.

Ro settled herself cross-legged next to him, running her fingers over the silk band of her holo-locket. "Artee's going to do a pick-up round soon," she told him. "He's mono quick-speed on the evac."

Wren wasn't about to trust his life to a clanker. He scanned the dead river through the rangefinder, checking for heat signatures. Worthless. The ground had absorbed too much of Lok's primary's warmth for the rangefinder to distinguish between sentient heat signatures and the surrounding terrain.

Ro seemed incapable of taking the hint. She paused a beat, as if waiting for an answer, then suddenly burst out: "I'm still not used to this partnership deal. I mean, I've always wanted a partner, 'cause it gets so bombad boring all on your onesome in the ship, though Artee can crack a good holovid scene meltdown. But I suppose," she bowed her head, running a hand through her mass of half platinum blond, half purple hair. "I suppose we both aren't so used to sharing thoughts and explanations. Too much time logged on the lonesome chrono maybe."

She waited for him to comment, but when he remained silent she sighed. "'Kay, then. Guess I'll start the sharing feast. I trust the Force. When it says jump, I get giddy with ticklish anticipation of a wild ride. It's never led me wrong, so when it points the proverbial finger, I follow, even if I can't see the end goal. The Force guides me, Cookie and I think...I think you can trust it, too. Or maybe trust my interpretation of a sitch every once in a rotation. I'm not total shiny material after all."

The wind picked up, blasting through the funnel the dead river had cut through the rock. Wren made the necessary adjustments and checked for electronic interference. The comm channels in his HUD were all open, but there was so much static filtering through that communications were almost useless. Ro had sent the evac call to the Mockingbird in Binary code. If the astromech was worth its faulty circuits, it should be able to pick up the orders through the static.

Ro sighed again and slumped a little. "You're that mad at me?"

He was angry at her. She'd kriffing pushed him down a cliff.

He took a deep breath, trying to regain his calm and push down the rush of adrenaline that had taken hold of him. Wren would be the first to admit that his sense of morality was not just skewed, but also minimal. At least, according to the civvy standards he'd been able to learn. But though it galled him, Wren knew when to admit that...someone else was right. As an ARC, he had been bred and trained to be more independent than any other class of trooper. He was meant to work alone, which was one reason why being demoted to a regular grunt had been such torture. Constantly being surrounded by others, always having to fit in with the command structure, having to follow orders and nothing else had been maddening and went against his very nature. Joining up with Ro, Wren had shed about three million pieces of unnecessary baggage. But that didn't mean he was back to being a lone operator. Teamwork, he knew, required more than one person leading and the other following. At least, that's what his flash-training told him. As far as personal experience went, he was in unchartered territory.

He shifted slightly on his belly. Perhaps it was time to practice some of that 'giving a little' Shiv had proposed.

"Ro."

She perked up instantly at the sound of his voice. "Yeah?"

He checked the wind indicator again. "Sound travels far in a funnel like this. So shut the fek up before you lead Nym to our doorstep."

She beamed at him. "Gotcha, partner."

More than two hours passed and Ro's enthusiasm was definitely flagging. Wren's patience wasn't doing much better.

"Where's that fekking droid?"

Ro nibbled on a piece of dried muja fruit, back pressed against the side of the cave's opening. "Lava must be making it hard to ping lifesigns. He'll be here."

Wren snorted. He was still lying on his stomach at the cave entrance, blaster rifle at the ready. He hadn't moved much in the interim, except to carefully stretch his limbs every half hour, no doubt to keep from cramping up. "You sure he's not just cowering under the control board?" he asked sardonically. Wren made no bones about his low opinion of her astromech.

Ro clucked her tongue in disapproval, but said nothing more. They'd given up on total silence about fifteen minutes ago. Ro could still sense the presence of the Lok Revenants out there in the maze of lava rock, but as far as she could tell, they weren't closing in. Either they had no idea where she and Wren had gone, or they were discussing strategy.

Wren thought it was the latter and had decided it was time to change their own approach. It was never good to just wait for the enemy to come at you. It gave the pirates too much room for initiative. Ro had to agree on that score.

"Next time I see that fekker Kaes, I'm stuffing his Intel where the kriffing sun won't reach."

Ro clapped a hand over her mouth to hide a snicker. "You just don't like that he beat you at sabaac."

"He effing cheated."

"He's a smuggler, Cookie. Course he played double-bluff. But Intel was on the pinpoint."

Wren grunted. "Even a blind nuna finds a fraggin' crumb."

Fascinated as always by his vocabulary, Ro asked, "Where'd you hear that one?"

"How the gfersh should I know?"

Which was Wren's charming way of telling her the subject was closed. She offered him a handful of the dried fruit. "Want some?"

"No. Kripes, this has to be the worst mission ever."

Ro quirked both eyebrows at this non-sequitur. "This is the worst mission you've ever been on? I find that hard to grapple, Cookie. I mean, you were on Jabiim." Her voice dropped to an awe-filled whisper at the mention of that catastrophic loss to the Republic.

"Finally read my kriffing file, did you?"

"I skimmed," she admitted. She bit her lip, then asked, "I mean, it was bad on Jabiim, right? Mono bombad leagues of bad. Can't really see that comparing to little ol' us being stuck in a hole in the wall, waiting for evac or pirates."

Wren flexed his right foot, then his left. "You wouldn't understand, cheeka."

Ro felt her face harden at his casual dismissal. "That's right," she said, deliberately imitating his laconic drawl. "Little Jedi girly can't possibly hold up to the galaxy-wandering trooper's experience. After all, where's she been these past four years? Rattatak, where finding new ways to kill is the planet's number one industry. A prison in Solay, 'bout a tick away from being executed for finding a little girl's skeleton. Counseling a Seccer who just shot an eight-year old youngling. Wandering through the crime dens of the galaxy, scratching at the underbelly of civilization, trying to free slaves and having to watch most of them get dropped in an active volcano for the rebellion you incited. Nah, you're right on. I can't possibly understand pain, death, deprivation, loss, defeat or wholesale slaughter. Totally out of my range of comprehension. Guess you win the golden Twi'lek. Congrats."

Wren had turned about to face her at hearing his own drawl come from her mouth. Now he seemed frozen in honest astonishment. "Did you just get sarcastic with me?"

She gave him a look that could have iced over Mustafar. "You always assume I can't compare experiences with you. Well here's the upflash, Cookie. My life hasn't been all tooka dolls and nova lilies. Mayhaps I was never a soldier in the kinda war you're fighting, but I've been to war. I've been at war ever since I twined my first Padawan braid and I don't need you patronizing me from a pedestal. You're not the only one in this cave with some mono bad missions on record."

"That so?"

She couldn't quite identify the tone of his voice, nor the emotions that flittered across his Force-aura like agitated birds. She supposed he was thoughtful, but that was about all she could tell. Oddly enough, he wasn't in the least angry at her for the rant.

"So what was your worst mission?" he finally wanted to know.

The question took her aback. Wren had never shown an active interest in her past thus far.

"I..." She had to think about that for a moment. "It's hard to choose. I guess..." She hesitated, wondering if she really wanted to share this with him. I started it, she thought fatalistically. Might as well prove I've got the tough to walk the talk. "Solay," she finally admitted. "Friends of Master Altis asked him to help find their daughter. She'd gone missing in one of the roundups their despot king is fond of. Master Altis thought I could help."

"She's the skeleton you found?"

Ro nodded. "I tracked her by her favorite doll. Her skull was all smashed in and they didn't even have the decency to dig a grave. Just left her in the woods for the animals." She paused, then added, "She was four." Ro quickly rubbed at her eyes, not wanting to break down into tears. It had been three years since Solay, but the memory of that forlorn little skeleton and the events that came after were still hard to swallow. "The king's guard didn't like us snooping about. They ambushed Master Altis and me, took us to a prison. I never did learn where exactly." She shook her head, trying to dislodge that mystery from her mind. It didn't matter. "The cell they put me in was full to bursting. Not even enough room to sit. They'd throw food into the cell and everyone would snatch and grab like animals. I was always afraid I'd get trampled. The stench was the worst, really, because some people did get trampled or were sick and the guards weren't really 'fresher conscious." She wiped at her brow. What she didn't say, because she had no words with which to describe the experience, was how the Force had almost smothered her during those nightmare days and nights. The endless cycle of fear and pain and growing hate that had come off of the other prisoners had been enough to crack through every mental defense she'd had. She'd been bombarded by their feelings, subsumed, until the racking pain of the mind-block had shocked her back to reality. And then the whole sequence would start over again, with her slowly loosing herself in the emotional maelstrom surrounding her, until the pain in her head was enough to bring her back around.

"How long were you there?"

"It seemed like forever," she said. "But Callista later told me it was about four days. I didn't know. There were no windows and the guards came irregularly."

"You got rescued?"

She didn't think she'd ever heard him say so much without interjecting a single curse word. "Sort of. There was this one guard, the captain, who liked to come around and tell me that I'd be executed today, this hour, whatever. That they'd already killed Master Altis. Guess he finally got tired of pretending. And...I can't be sure, but I think they got orders from their king to remove any witnesses."

"The other people in the cell."

"Yeah. They were all killed. Shot right there, like gooberfish in the barrel. The captain grabbed me while the rest of his men finished off the survivors. I kind of...snapped after that." The sweat was coming thick and hard now and Ro blinked the sting out of her eyes. This part was the worst to tell, but she was committed now. "I used the Force. I don't think they knew I could, mayhaps of something Master Altis told them, but they weren't prepared. I turned...everything on them. Every little bitty piece of fear, every shred of pain I could find in the Force, I took it and dumped it on them. One of the guards' hearts burst; I scared him to death. The others were crying, cowering in corners or trying to run away."

"And the captain?" Wren had by now fully turned to face her, the blaster rifle forgotten. There was no whiff of disgust coming off of him for what she'd done, only curiosity at what happened to her chief antagonizer.

"He had a seed of paranoia in him," she answered. "I made it grow until he was shooting at everything that moved, including his own people. He managed to kill one before his mind went completely and he killed himself." She felt the bile rise in her throat at the memory and she turned her face away, lest she vomit in front of him. What was worst of all, was that she'd never been able to feel much regret over the death of those guards. She hated what she'd done, despised herself for using her Force-empathy in such a manner; for tapping into the dark side in a moment of absolute despair and madness. She'd cried over her deeds and those poor dead souls left in that stinking prison. But she'd never cried for the prison captain or his men.

Wren turned back to his rifle, fiddling with the instruments. The silence stretched into something unbearable and Ro half-wondered if she hadn't scared him with her story. Master Altis, Callista and Geith had certainly been horrified when they'd found her, curled up amidst the dead and half-mad; Altis - still wonderfully alive - leaning heavily on Geith. They'd know what Ro was capable of. But knowing and seeing were two very different things.

"Gaftikar." Wren finally broke the silence. "That was my worst mission."

The admission startled Ro out of her growing depression. Wide-eyed, she turned to stare at him. "Gaftikar? For realspace? B-but you fought on Geonosis, Atraken, Jabiim, Qiilura. I assumed..." She stopped as she realized the stupidity of that sentence.

"I fought on those bloody planets." His voice had dropped back to a half-snarl and anger - hot and fast - pulsed through him, though none was directed at her. "I did something there. I had a fekking purpose; something to keep my body going, if not my damned mind. But Gaftikar?" He let out a breath that sounded like the hiss of a vine snake about to attack. "I was an effing shiny-sitter with nothing to do but sit on my arse all day and watch the civvies fek up their lives. I was...useless." The word rolled off his tongue like the vilest drop of poison. There was more beneath that assessment, but Ro sensed this was not the time to pry. If she interrupted him now, Wren might never open up to her like this again.

"I wanted it to end. I almost made it end."

Ro shivered at the thread of determination that twisted through him. She'd guessed back on Gaftikar that Wren possessed a dangerous self-destructive streak. But she'd never thought that quirk in his personality had come so close to taking him over.

"Then you arrived," he concluded, "and suddenly I wasn't useless anymore. I had a fekking purpose. A challenge."

Carefully, so as not to startle the man with the blaster, Ro reached out and touched his left ankle. "I'm glad I came to Gaftikar," she said. "Best mission ever."

Suddenly the mouth of the cave exploded with light.

Wren yelled in surprise and pain, flinching back and knocking over the blaster's tripod as he did so.

Ro threw her arms across her face, dropping the forgotten pieces of fruit as she did so. Blinded, she scrabbled backwards, deeper into the cave.

"Well isn't this adorable." Nym's voice blasted into the cave. "So sorry to interrupt your sharing time, but there's the matter of my base."

A shadow distinguished itself against the dazzling light. Ro squinted and saw several fleshy tendrils run down the head; Nym, followed by two others of his crew. Ro wondered how they'd managed to climb up to the cave, when she picked up the whisper of repulsors. Open airspeeder, she realized. Nym must have tracked back to the smoking remains of his base or a secondary stash of tech and gotten the speeder, cruising along or even over the lava maze until he picked Ro and Wren's tracks up again. If he kept the speeder to a walking pace after that, then Ro and Wren wouldn't have heard his approach over their conversation.

Ro jumped to her feet, blinking furiously against the bright spots obscuring her vision. Second time in one mission. She needed to get herself a pair of tricked-out glareshades. "You should be mono sorry," she told Nym and, ignoring the blasters aimed at her, she stomped up to the pirate, rudely poking one finger into his chest.

The Feeorin, unaccustomed to being threatened so boldly by someone who didn't even reach up to his shoulders, took a surprised step back, the heel of his boot almost slipping over the lip of the cave.

"Pifgah! We were in the middle of a stellar moment, you snot. A critical intersection in the cementing of our partnership."

"Ro." Wren rose to a half-crouch, empty hands in the air as Nym's guards trained their weapons on him. Outside, someone dimmed the illumination bank and Ro did indeed see an airspeeder hovering just before their cave, crammed with five more of Nym's people. All of them were armed, their blasters aimed at the cave, though Ro knew they wouldn't fire with their captain and comrades blocking the entrance. "I don't think now's the time to give the fekking pirate a lesson in manners."

She half turned towards her partner. "How's he ever going to learn otherwise?"

Nym's mottled blue skin turned a deeper indigo. "You little..." His hand flashed out to grab her by the hair. But Ro was no longer there.

The Force had warned her of Nym's attack and with an easy grace she slipped away from his hand and between Nym and the guard on his left. Startled, the guard tried to swing his blaster around, but there wasn't enough space. Ro locked the muzzle of the blaster between her elbow and forearm and slammed her booted foot down on the man's instep. The pirate grunted and Ro shifted her balance, curling her leg and booting him right in the groin. The pirate wheezed and instinctively loosened his grip on his blaster to cup his privates. Ro slammed the butt of the blaster into his face, then grabbed the weapon with both hands. "Wren!"

He was already on his feet and surging forward at Nym and the remaining guard, slamming his shoulder into the guard's belly. At her call, he turned and easily caught the blaster she threw at him. He kicked the retching guard in the face to ensure he stayed down and aimed the blaster at Nym.

"Game over, chizk."

Behind Nym, Ro ignited her two lightsabers.

Nym's flat face twisted into a smile. "I think not."

From outside the cave came the whirring of several blasters.

Ro glanced at the still hovering speeder to see that the remaining pirates had all trained their weapons on either her or Wren. By taking out the two guards, they'd also eliminated their organic shield. Nym's crew was good; their fights with the Trade Federation and the GAR had proven that. It would be simple for these men to take her and Wren down without endangering their leader.

"You're outnumbered," Nym sneered. He was unimpressed by Wren's armored hulk. "Make it easy on yourself, tube-spawn and surrender and my men will give you a quick death."

"And the Jedi?" Wren demanded.

Nym licked his pointed teeth. "She will suffer."

"Tempting," Wren drawled, "but you forgot one fardling little detail."

Nym's smile faded and his eyes narrowed.

"We might be outnumbered," Ro piped in, "but you're outgunned."

As if on cue, a piece of the sky rippled and a ship, long-necked and with curving wings, materialized; casting the canyon into deep shadow.

Nym whirled, staring at the de-cloaked ship in utter fury. "Fire!" he yelled. "Bring that bird down!"

His crew turned their blasters on the hovering ship, but before they could fire a single shot, Mockingbird bared its own teeth. Two heavy repeating-fire laser cannons dropped out from beneath the curved wings. An automated sentry gun rose from the top of the ship's cockpit. The muzzle of the sentry gun glowed crimson and a huge bolt of plasma erupted from the cannon. It was a warning shot and it hit the dead river below, but the impact wave was enough to violently rock the speeder, causing three of the pirates to tumble back down into the seats.

"I were you," Ro said cheerfully, "I'd consider practicing the age old art of waving a white piece of threads." The twin laser cannons swiveled towards Nym. "My astromech's got a nervous trigger program. Best not to delay and see how well you 'plode."

Nym swallowed. "He'd take you down as well," he growled, but Ro could sense a tremor of uncertaintybehind the bluster.

"Take the risk," Wren challenged. "I dare you."

Nym turned furious eyes on the trooper, then slowly raised his hands into the air. One by one, the Lok Revenants dropped their weapons and followed their captain's example.

"How?" Nym demanded. "You had no backup."

"Wrong," Ro chimed as she crammed in her pockets for her binders. "You assumed we had no backup. Just like you assumed we couldn't get backup without you noticing. Wrong on both accounts." She peered past Nym's broad back to grin at Wren. "How stellar sneaky of us to reveal our position with talky-talk and not tattle on Artee finding us an hour ago."

The Mockingbird began to sink to the ground, forcing the airspeeder down as well.

"Good plan," Wren admitted as he kicked the two fallen guards in warning. "Up karks, before I boot your asses down the side of the cliff."

"Our good plan," Ro agreed and snapped the binders around Nym's wrists.

Rule # 6: If you insist on making assumptions, then at the very least always assume that you are wrong.