Chapter 9

The trio was on their way to docking bay 23, but they had stopped when Viran contacted them. Exar tried talking to him, Jo had the crate, which left Aang to carry Anson on his shoulder.

"Ah! Viran just contacted us, what was he gonna say?" Exar asked himself.

"Maybe we should wait for him?" Aang suggested.

"No. We have to go back to Coruscant while we still have the holocron and-" Jo cut himself off.

"And... what?"

'Well it's not really a big deal.' Jo thought as he -with one hand- reached inside his cloak and pulled out the chip that fell from Erk.

"What's that?"

"It's a computer chip I found next to Erk. It came out of him at one point during our fight so I just held on to it. Who knows what could be in here?" Jo looked up to his team and saw their unhappy faces, then continued, "I can tell by the looks on your unhappy faces that you're wondering why I didn't tell you I had this. Well simple: I could get neither the time nor the proper moment to tell you. So I knew if I implied that there was something else important, that we need to get to the Republic, I could finally tell you instead of keeping it a secret like Exar did with the existence of Erk."

"That was kind of unecessary, Jo. That was water under the bridge."

"But Jo, for all we know, it could be a tracker of sorts. I know of that kind of trap."

"Well they don't need a tracker to know Coruscant is where we'll be."

"He's got a point there." Exar said.

Aang was distracted, feeling some sort of movement in the force. 'It's literal movement.' Then Aang spun around, emitted his lightsaber, and deflected several shots that barged his way. 'This galaxy really likes attempted sneak attacks.' "Guys, take cover... And take Anson." Aang commanded, realizing he had dropped Anson when he turned to deflect.

Jo picked up Anson, and Exar covered him from fire. More blasts came their way, and Exar observed that there were two sources for the lasers. Jo and Exar reached cover, and Jo laid Anson down.

"AANG!" Jo shouted over the blaster fire and lightsaber deflections. Aang turned his head to Jo briefly, to let him know he was listening "MACROBINOCULARS!" With one of his extra arms, Aang took out the binoculars and threw them to Jo. He threw a little too high, and Jo had to jump to catch them. Jo quickly sat back down to avoid being shot when he caught them. "Exar, cover me, again." Exar ignited his lightsaber and lifted himself off the ground so he could protect Jo.

"Whatever you're going to do, do it quickly." Exar told him.

Jo looked into the macrobinoculars and looked to the sources. He saw two figures on top of a hangar bay. One was laying flat and the other was kneeling. One was covered in rags, like a Tusken Raider, and was sniping; the other was a Duros. The Duros was covered mostly; Jo could only make out a big hat and a trench coat, and that made him recoil slightly, then he smiled and started laughing. He jumped on top of the crates he was hiding behind and started waving wildly, catching the shooters' attentions.

"JO! GET DOWN!" Aang shouted.

The Duros saw Jo and put his fist up, signalling the other to stop firing. He activated boot jets and started flying over, his friend following with a jetpack. They came over and landed in the presence of the team. Aang and Exar retracted their blades, but remained on alert. "Jo?" The Duros questioned.

"Juntah?" Jo questioned back. They started getting happy and gave each other a bro-hug. "How long has it been?"

"Who knows. Years. Hey did you get new armor?"

"Yeah, it's a recent development."

*Ahem*

Jo turned to Aang and Exar. "Oh. Guys, meet Juntah Bane."

'Bane? I figured that look was familiar.' Aang then asked, "So what's going on? You guys know each other, but they were just trying to kill us."

"Oh, sorry. I guess it was a misunderstanding of sorts. We just saw you carrying our unconscious friend on your shoulders and thought you kidnapped him, so you know. Instinct."

"It was a part of a deal. He broke a rule, so he and Jo participated in a standoff. Jo won, using a stun blast, don't worry; we agreed that if Jo won, he would let us use his ship to get us back to the Republic capitol, Coruscant."

Just then, Anson started getting up behind the crates, rubbing his head.

"Well speak of my limbs, there he is." Jo said.

Anson saw the team, and his team, then sighed.

"Hello Anson. Causing trouble again? I didn't think that was a part of your errand." Juntah said.

"Trouble wasn't part of the plan." Anson said. "Nice to see you guys in good shape."

"Well I don't believe I met you." Jo said, pointing to the rag-man.

"That's Sim Lankost. He doesn't talk much. He's not silent all the time, he's just one of those snipers that likes to stay hidden a lot. It's a practice he does a lot." Juntah explained.

"Pleased to meet a friend of one of mine." Sim said, nodding his head.

"I'm Jo. The Zabrak is Exar, and the Besalisk is Aang. We're a team."

"Much like us I suppose?" Juntah compared.

"Except you're not force-sensitive." Jo replied, both of them laughing shortly after.

"It's going to be good for you guys to catch up, but we're kind of in a rush to complete an urgent mission."

"Alright. The hangar bay is right there. My ship is inside." Anson said, pointing ahead to his hangar bay.

On Coruscant, everyone had boarded their ships, outside the capitol building, and were ready to take off. Rye, Erickson, Ephraim, and Calista watched everyone before they took off.

"We all ready?" Rye asked into his radio headset and heard everyone reply with either 'Aye!' or 'Everything's accounted for, sir.'

"Alright then. Let's take off." Rye said. Everyone put on extremely protective headphones on to protect their ears from the booms that came; the booms got louder as the ships, one-by-one, lifted off and ascended. The ships were high enough that the noise wasn't dangerous, so Rye and everyone else could remove their headphones.

"Now excuse us your honor," Rye said to Calista, "We've got some new-Imperial butt to kick."

"Do so with pleasure."

"No plans on doing otherwise." Ephraim said.

"Glad to hear it. Now get going, quickly."

"You heard her, let's go." Rye said as he pushed Erickson and Ephraim to their ships. "Now, may the force be with us."

Viran landed in town, near the area where he saw the team on the video. He entered the casino and stopped by a guard and asked, "Excuse me, when did you last see these three?"

"Last I saw them, they were headed to docking bay 23. Better hurry if you want to catch them."

"Alright. Thanks."

"No problem."

Viran exited the casino and quickly jumpe dinto his ship and hurried, taking off and looking for docking bay 23. He contacted Rye to inform him of the good news. An image of Rye appeared, sitting down.

"Rye, I'm on them. They're headed for docking bay 23, and I'm not far behind."

"Excellent, Viran. And you may want to hurry; the attack is commencing now."

Then, a shadow came over Viran's ship. Viran looked up and saw a gray and red Delta-class T-3c shuttle. He saw it move ahead and turn around, facing his ship.

"Viran?" Rye asked, noticing Viran's somewhat surprised face. Viran just twisted the hologram around so Rye could see. "Viran, I can't see. The hologram's range isn't that big."

"Oh, well, I just found them. And it looks like they've got a ride back to Coruscant." Viran said, seeing Jo wave at him from the shuttle.

"Alright. Hurry."

Aang had the ship open up its cargo bay doors so Viran could hop in.

"What of your ship?" Aang asked as Viran entered.

"It's got a hyperdrive, and I had it set to auto-pilot. It's going back to Coruscant." Viran said as he set coordinates to Coruscant and synced them to his fighter. His ship then closed its canopy and flew off to Coruscant. The cargo bay doors then closed. "Now, we have a battle to attend to." Viran said.

"Hold up, what?" Anson asked.

"Oh! Who might you be?" Viran asked.

Jo decided to introduce them, "Master Viran, these are new friends of ours: Juroden Bane, I've known him for a little while; Sim Lankost, good with a sniping gun and doesn't talk much; and Anson Tomas-"

"Oh I've seen him before. Maz showed me a video of you shooting him down."

...

"I stunned him down."

"Anyway, Jedi, with me." Viran nodded his head towards the back. Anson took over piloting. Viran had everyone sit down in a circle in the back, and made sure they were quiet in the conversation. "Have you kept the holocron safe?" Viran asked quietly.

"We have." Jo said, pulling the crate from behind him.

"Jo, for a second I thought you left it back on the surface, because I didn't see you carrying it any time after you beat Anson."

"It's all about misdirection." Jo said.

"Kinda cool." Exar complemented.

"Did anything else happen?"

Jo looked at Exar and Aang for their approval. They both nodded, and Jo pulled out the chip he got from Erk. "I picked this up near Erk around our battle."

Viran grabbed it before anyone else saw it and closely observed. "This is an information chip, Jo. We may gain an advantage with this. Good work."

"Gettin' some Republic work done back there?" Anson asked.

"Yeah. Kinda classified."

"But we're heading into battle, you say. I am going to need to be filled in."

"Any friend of any friend of mine is trustworthy." Jo defended.

"You see a latch on the wall behind you, the adult." Anson asked. Viran turned and saw it. "Pull that out, and there will be a holoprojector, a keyboard, and a chip slot for that chip you have."

Jo stifled a laugh. "Well, that worked."

"These guys are pretty good. They might make good allies."

"And we were all against the First Order, and we're not so fond of the new Imperial imposters. So if that's what we're up against, then we want in on it." Juntah said.

"Very well." Viran said as he put the chip into the slot of the holoprojector he had already pulled out. Then a list of information poured out onto the screen.

"Oh-ho-ho-hooo. Jackpot." Exar grinned.

"This is recent activity. Look." Aang pointed to the folder, second closest to the top. "Attack on the Republic number two."

"Open it." Jo said. Viran did so, and started reading through the info. Then his eyes widened.

"What is it?" Exar asked.

"The Republic is moving into a trap. Spying cameras caught Imperial vehicles coming from a certain direction earlier, which is the path the Republic is going to try to find them. But it was meant to seem like that."

"So the Imperial vehicles could've arrived from a different point, but didn't because they wanted to be noticed going from a different direction, which is where the said trap is going to be?" Aang asked, starting to panic.

"We need to send this to Rye, quickly."

"On it."