If there were a silver lining to sustaining an injury via lightsaber, it was the instant cauterization of the wound caused by the blade. While still extremely painful, perhaps even more so than being cut by a knife or a metal sword as the plasma burned nerve endings, the wound would not bleed so much as a drop. Marco had saved himself from bleeding out on Moraband by (accidentally) amputating his own leg with his lightsaber. Now Star had lost an arm, but thanks to the weapon that removed the limb, she did not bleed out, and she was still alive.

Janna did all she could. With great care and a gentle touch, she sterilized the burned tissue at the end of Star's served arm, as well as the scar on Marco's face, using a clean rag to apply sterilization solution. She wrapped Star's arm in gauze to keep the wound clean until Tom returned, pulled off Marco's soaked hoodie, and wrapped both Jedi with blankets to stave off the chill sustained from the cold stream.

And then, with nothing left she could do without more medical supplies, Janna hooked up the monitoring equipment to her friends and sat down on the floor where she could see the readouts on the screen. All she could do now was monitor her friends' heart rate and breathing and hope they could hold out until Tom returned.

Captain Ordonia was tired. Hauling her friends out of the stream and dragging them back to the ship had been exhausting, and she needed to rest. "I know you guys are tough," Janna whispered to the unconscious Padawans. "You just gotta hold out a while longer. Tom is gonna get supplies…" She took a deep breath, feeling winded. "…And then I promise I'll fix you."


SF-437 handed his scope to Rosado, and the Security Officer set it to heat scanning mode. Aiming the viewfinder at the YV-560 he had helped pursue for so long, he passed the scope over the ship. It was cold aside from the electrical power generator, the engines clearly having not been operated recently. The only other heat signatures on board belonged to 3 human-shaped figures, two laying flat, one of which was raised a meter off the deck, likely on a bunk, the third sitting against a bulkhead. They were all still.

"We should still have the element of surprise." Rosado lowered the scope from his face and handed it back to the stormtrooper. Taking a deep breath, he pulled out the puck-shaped device Rasticore had given him. Hurrying from the bushes running at a crouch, he activated the device and hurled it into the open boarding ramp of the light freighter before quickly returning to cover.


Janna had nearly dozed off when she was suddenly snapped back to attention by the sound of several sharp collisions with the metal deck. The first clack! she thought was a footstep, assuming Tom's return. But as soon as she heard the second, softer clack followed by three more in quick succession, she knew that wasn't the case. Figuring it was an explosive, she shielded her face with her arms and waited for the inevitable explosion to rip the Raventalon to shreds, but it never came.

Must have been a dud! Janna thought as she scrambled to her feet, drawing her DC-17 and hurrying for the cabin door. But as soon as the door slid aside, the immediate danger became apparent. The interior of the ship was filling with a visible blue gas. Not a dud! Gas!

Trying to hold her breath, Janna sprinted through the ship, down through the hold to the boarding ramp. As she expected it would, the gas grew heavier in the air as she drew closer to the exit and the device that expelled its gaseous contents. She hoped she'd be able to find said device and pitch it off the ship, but the blue-tinged gas hung so heavy in the air in the cargo hold that she could barely see where she was going. Her lungs screamed for air. Janna needed to get outside now. She sprinted for the boarding ramp and made it about halfway down, frantically sucking in breath, when a blaster shot pinged off the ramp in front of her feet.

"Whoa!" She blindly fired off a few shots into the forest, not sure where the shot came from. Two more shots tore from the trees, forcing Janna to take a few steps back up the ramp.


Rosado grabbed the stormtrooper's blaster and yanked it down as SF-437 prepared to fire on Captain Ordonia again. "Stun! I said stun!" he whisper-yelled.

Despite his compatriot being completely covered by armor, Rosado could tell the trooper didn't agree.

"…Yes, Sir." The stormtrooper changed the setting of its blaster rifle back to stun and continued firing.


Janna was stuck. She was hoping to jump off the side of the boarding ramp and find cover underneath, but she couldn't get far enough down to squeeze past the edge of the ship's hull on either side without being hit. In fact, the incoming fire kept forcing her to step backwards, back into the cloud of blue-tinged gas filling the inside of the ship. It wasn't long before she found herself holding her breath again.

Karabast! I'm pinned down! Now what do I do? She fired off a few more blind shots, but she was so far up the ramp that the hull of the ship blocked her firing line, and she could only hit the ground just beyond the end of the ramp.

She couldn't hold her breath any longer. She needed to breathe. But she couldn't move far enough away from the gas to get a clean breath without being shot.

Finally, Janna could hold out no longer. She sucked in a reluctant gulp of air and immediately felt herself becoming woozy. Sinking to one knee, it rapidly became difficult to even remain upright, Janna's eyelids fluttering as she struggled to keep them open.

It was no use. Janna slumped forward flat on the deck, her blaster pistol slipping from her fingers as she lost consciousness.


"No return fire. Enemy appears to be neutralized."

"Give me the scope again."

The stormtrooper handed over the scope and Rosado checked the viewfinder, aiming the sight at the top of the boarding ramp. The heat signatures showed the motionless form of a human, passed out on the deck.

"Yup. She's out," Rosado said, once again returning the scope to its owner. He picked up his gas mask from the base of a nearby tree where he'd left it and strapped it to his face over his nose and mouth. "Let's go."

They crossed the clearing and hurried up the boarding ramp into the cargo hold of the Raventalon. Rosado stopped where he found Janna lying on the deck.

"Head up to the cockpit and prepare the ship for takeoff. I'll be there in a minute."

"Yes, Sir!"


Large drops of water dripping from a branch overhead onto Tom's cheek roused the Demonicite from his unconsciousness. Rain was still falling, the pattering of raindrops on the leaves of the plants just above his face grating to the ear. He slowly sat up, holding his temple with a headache. Looking all around, he found himself just off the walking path, and could make out a building or two in Zakaras through the trees.

"Ugh…what happened?" One minute he'd been running down the walking path with PY-HD, and then...?

And speaking of the droid…

"Pony?" he called. The astromech was nowhere to be found. He slowly got to his feet. "Pony Head?" He spotted the droid laying over beneath the leaves of the vegetation around him. "Pony Head!"

Tom hauled PY-HD back onto its feet. It had been deactivated. He toggled the switch on its back to initiate a reboot sequence, and after a few seconds, the astromech began twittering frantically. "Pony Head, what happened?"

The droid bleeped and blooped through a sequence of binary language so fast that Tom could barely keep up.

"Hang on, we were ambushed and shot? By who?"

PY-HD said it hadn't seen. Tom frowned. "I don't get it. Who would attack- …us… Whoever attacked Star and Marco would." Tom practically sprinted back to the path, turning away from Zakaras and racing back toward the Raventalon, with PY-HD hot on his tail.


Security Officer Rosado carried Janna's unconscious form into the galley and locked her inside. Then he checked the cabin where he'd seen the other two heat signatures. The two young Jedi were still unconscious, hooked up to medical monitoring equipment which told him they were still alive. After sealing the cabin door from the outside, he made his way up to the cockpit. A blue mist filled the ship's interior. Just as Rasticore had said, the gas was heavy, and dissipated very slowly.

SF-437 had the ship just about ready for takeoff by the time Rosado made it to the bridge. "Nearly ready for departure, Sir."

"Good. I'll…make contact with Lord Vader again." The very idea gave Rosado a pang of anxiety. He found the ship's transmitter on the control panel and input the Imperial frequency. Soon he was again face-to-holographic face with Darth Vader.

"Security Officer Rosado. I do hope you have good news."

"Yes, Lord Vader, Sir. We have captured the two Jedi as you requested. We filled the interior of their ship with knockout gas and immobilized them and their friend, Captain Ordonia. We were…planning on flying this ship…uh, their ship…to the rendezvous to ensure everyone aboard remains unconscious."

Vader nodded. "Very good. I will transmit coordinates for a rendezvous." And without another word, the holoprojector blinked out.

A moment later, a green indicator light slowly strobed on the control panel. Rosado tapped a few command buttons on the copilot console. "We have received a transmission from the Star Destroyer Moonshadow. Moonshadow…Moonshadow? Why does that sound familiar…? Oh, well. Let's get going. Who knows how long they'll stay out, and I really don't want to have to fight that girl, Ordonia."

"You worry about her more than the Jedi?"

"The way she fights, you'd almost think she was the Jedi. And she stabbed me in the leg."

The stormtrooper said no more. He throttled up the engines and slowly maneuvered the YV-560 up out of the trees.


Before the Raventalon even came into view, PY-HD could detect the whirring of the engines. It told Tom as much.

"What?!"

"Beep boop. Beep-beep blip zorp!"

Tom poured on the speed, sprinting as fast as his legs would carry him. "Go! Go!"

PY-HD matched his speed, Demonicite and astromech tearing through the woods toward their ship. As they reached the clearing and the Raventalon came into view, the boarding ramp retracted.

"No!"

A moment later, the ship rose up off the ground, sending its camouflage of large tree branches tumbling off the hull. Tom and PY-HD were forced to turn and sprint for cover as the area was pelted with falling timbers. Then they watched in horror as the Raventalon zoomed over their heads and disappeared into the gray and rainy Takodana sky.

For a moment, Tom just stood slack-jawed, staring at the last place in the clouds he had seen the ship. He didn't even know what to say.

PY-HD did. In its binary language, it bleeped an an exclamatory, "WHAT THE HEY?! SOMEBODY STOLE OUR SHIP! And, you know, our friends, too."

Tom just stared. "…What do we do now?"


The Raventalon left Takodanna's upper atmosphere and SF-437 pointed the ship toward the hyperspace lane. Rosado manually programmed the navicomputer with the coordinates provided by Vader.

"We're all set to make the jump to hyperspace."

"Yes, Sir."

Rosado was riddled with guilt. I can't believe I'm turning kids over to Vader…I can only imagine what he wants them for…

"Excuse me, Sir, but I will need your assistance."

The stormtrooper's voice snapped Rosado from his thoughts. "Hmm? What is it, trooper?"

"The hyperdrive, Sir. It has twin activation levers. They must be actuated in sync."

"Oh, uh, sure. I don't fly, so…just show me what you want me to do."

The stormtrooper pointed out the hyperdrive levers. "These, sir. Just push yours when I count to three."

Rosado nodded and grasped the lever. "Alright. Whenever you're ready."

"Yes, Sir. One…two…three."

Rosado pushed his lever forward as the stormtrooper did the same. The stars stretched into streaks of white outside the viewport, which gave way to the swirling colors of hyperspace. Rosado leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. Hyperspace made him dizzy, and he already had a headache.

"Let me know when we get there."

"Will do, Sir."