Through a set of macrobinoculars, Buff Frog watched as the cargo shuttle gently touched down at the Imperial facility. The landing pad sat just beyond the security fence and its one and only gate. Eddie would put his plan into action any minute now, and Buff Frog…did not like it.

It was not that he thought it was a bad plan; quite the contrary, in fact. He actually considered Eddie's plan to be rather brilliant. His issue lay with the fact that the bulk of the plan would be carried out by Eddie himself, alone. Buff Frog hated sending others into danger without he himself being present to lead them. Never a general to lead from the safety of a base or command post, Buff Frog would never ask any of his subordinates to put themselves in peril that he himself was not also willing to risk.

But this mission called for stealth. Buff Frog was very skilled in the art of armed combat, but stealth was not his strong suit. He was simply too buff. So unfortunately, the execution of the plan would have to fall to someone more suited to the task.

Eddie, on the other hand, excelled at being quiet and unseen, when he could manage to keep his rather talkative mouth shut, that is.

The security gate opened. It, like the fence, was electrified. The electrical field could be disabled, as the rebels had done during their previous raids, but doing so required several minutes spent crouched right beside the gate, doable under the cover of darkness, but not so during the day.

Two pairs of stormtroopers marched through the gate, escorting three pairs of Mewman prisoners. The paired Mewmans carried large crates between them, crates which could have been much more easily moved on repulsors, but of course, that would make it too easy on the prisoners. They carried them up the ramp into the waiting cargo shuttle under the watchful eyes of the stormtroopers.

Which meant that there were no eyes at all watching the gate. No eyes, of course, except Buff Frog's.

Through his scopes, the general could see Eddie, just for a few fleeting seconds, dart from the far end of the security fence crawling on his hands and knees, zip around the gate, and disappear.

The prisoners and their escorts returned, and the gate was closed. Buff Frog continued his observation, waiting for a full five minutes. He could not see much of the ground inside the fence, but he could see the far inside corner on the gated end. There, a small, leafy plant had appeared, as if it had sprouted and grown to full size in mere minutes.

When no alarm had been raised and the Imperial troopers seemed to have returned to their normal duties, Buff Frog lowered the macrobinoculars, trading them for his commlink. The message he conveyed was brief: "He is in."


A chime alerted Toffee to a visitor outside his office.

"Enter."

The door slid aside, revealing Mina Loveberry, her helmet tucked under her arm. She marched up to Toffee's desk, saluting the Moff in a way which was meant to be sincere, but appeared mocking. "Commander Loveberry, here to provide a post-mission report, SIR!"

Toffee leaned back in his chair, tenting his fingers. "Yes, I was informed you had returned. I hope your mission was successful. For your sake."

If this worried or intimidated Mina, her expression showed no evidence of such. "I regret to inform you that our objective was only partially completed."

"Partially?"

"Padawan Diaz has been executed, Sir. But…Butterfly escaped."

For a moment, Toffee said nothing, his blank stare doing little to reveal his feelings on the results of the mission. When he did speak, Loveberry was surprised. "I had assumed as much. But it matters not."

"It…it doesn't?"

"No." Toffee swiveled his chair away from Mina, facing the empty wall. "Commander, do you know why the veritable princess and her adolescent friends infiltrated the facility on Anaxes?"

"Uhhhhhhhhhhhno."

"They stole a ship. A stealth ship. Why do you suppose a group of children would require a ship with a cloaking device?"

"To get somewhere without being seen, obviously, but I'm guessing you meant specifically."

Toffee spun back to face her once more. "To get here, Commander. Past our blockade."

"So you think-?"

"I do not assume anything. I know. Now that Diaz has met his end, Princess Butterfly will want more than ever to return to her home planet, to ensure that her friends' efforts are not for naught. She will return, Commander. Rest assured."

"But what's to keep her from escaping again?"

"Because escape will no longer be a part of her plan. When she returns, she will expect to defeat us. And she will find herself trapped."

"Ahhh, I gotcha, Moff! She'll be out for blood, so to speak!"

"Indeed. So I expect you and your troops to be prepared to capture her and destroy all other opposition."

Mina struck an enthusiastic salute. "You can count on me, Sir!"

"Then you are dismissed, Commander."


Eddie knew he would fall asleep. He always did when he impersonated a plant for longer than twenty minutes or so. Lavabo had modified his commlink, removing the chime and replacing it with a tiny oscillating servo which would cause the device to vibrate.

At the appointed hour, Buff Frog sent a call signal to Eddie's commlink, and the plant-man was stirred from sleep.

"Oop! Time to go!" he whispered to himself. Poking his head up from between the leafy camouflage sprouting from his limbs just enough to see, Eddie waited for the patrol he suspected would be coming. He was correct: a pair of stormtroopers marched toward him side-by-side. Before they came close enough to see him, however, they turned, following the perimeter of the security fence. When they disappeared around the corner of the building, Eddie began counting in his head.

They reappeared his in sight line on the other side of the building at a count of one hundred sixteen. He had just under two minutes to complete his task before he would be caught.

Plenty of time.

Eddie waited until the stormtroopers had circled the building once more. This time, once they had passed by, he stealthily followed them, a dozen paces behind, crawling in silence on all fours. As they rounded the backside of the building, where the security fence was the closest to the outer wall of the facility, he slowed his crawl, stopping approximately at the midpoint. When the patrolling troopers disappeared around the far corner, Eddie sprang into action.

Standing up to full height, Eddie reached beneath his shirt and retrieved two small items which he had stuck to his chest with tape. Arming both explosive devices, he stuck one to the security fence, and the other directly opposite on the wall of the building. Then he hurried along the wall in the direction the stormtroopers had gone, checked to make sure the coast was clear, and then darted out across the open compound until he reached the corner of the fence, now directly adjacent to where he had started.

Resuming his camouflage, Eddie retrieved one last item which had been taped to his chest: the detonator. His thumb shadowed the activator as he waited, carefully watching for the troopers to circle the building again.

He didn't have long to wait.

The troopers marched down the narrow pathway between the rear of the building and the security fence, just as they had countless times before, not realizing it would be their last trip around the base. As they reached the point at which the explosives had been mounted, Eddie pressed the trigger.

The stormtroopers vanished in the ensuing ball of fire as a pair of simultaneous explosions shredded identical holes in the security fence and the rear wall of the building. Eddie chuckled to himself as the alarm began to blare. His plan had so far gone off without a hitch, and his role in said plan was complete. Now all he had to do was wait.


The double explosion was the signal to attack. A band of Mewni resistance fighters, lead by Buff Frog and Sir Lavabo, charged from the tree line and filed in through the hole in the fence. One team flooded the compound, while the other continued straight on into the building.

The battle did not last long. Despite the fact that the Mewmans were armed with only blaster pistols and numbered only about two dozen, they still outnumbered the stormtroopers stationed at the facility, half of which had been asleep in their barracks. The Imperial troopers were quickly disposed of, and the three officers in charge were captured and secured in the command center.

Lavabo led the captive Mewman workers through the hole in the fence to safety, many of them weeping with joy and relief as he severed the loose binders around their ankles. As expected, they numbered nearly fifty.

"Quickly now!" his voice boomed above the crowd of workers. "To the woods! We must disappear!"

The rebels quickly secured the base, hard-wiring the all-clear broadcast signal to command and disabling the comms. Others scrounged for weapons, but there was not much to be had. As they had discovered on their previous raids, the Imperials did not keep much in the way of weaponry at these small manufacturing plants. Supposedly, this was an effort to keep the captives from obtaining any means of fighting back. Aside from the blaster rifles the defeated stormtroopers had been carrying, and some small pistols carried by the officers, they were only able to recover an additional two blaster rifles and a few thermal detonators. There was, however, a decent amount of ammunition on hand to power the commandeered artillery.

With the compound secured and the prisoners evacuated, Eddie made his way to the hole he had blasted in the wall, now guarded by a pair of Mewman fighters. They allowed him through and he found himself in the center of the production floor. Various electric tools hung from retractable cables above row after row of work benches, their surfaces covered with smaller hand tools and unfinished components. Buff Frog was examining one of these products, slowly turning it over in his hand.

"Hullo, General!" Eddie greeted.

Buff Frog was startled, but hid it well. He had been so deep in thought he had not heard Eddie approach. "Oh! Eddie! I commend you for brilliant plan. Worked perfectly. We sustained zero casualties, and all prisoners have been set free."

"Thank you, General! Wha'cha looking at there?"

Buff Frog held up the component. It was not large, appearing to be a small panel of some kind. Despite the simple shape, some quite intricate grooving adorned its edges, as if to tesselate with something else. "No idea." He turned in the direction of the command center. "But I intend to find out. Come, Eddie."

The previous raids had utilized the arrival of the cargo shuttle and subsequent opening of the security gates as a means of attack. In both instances, the cargo had already been loaded when the attack commenced, and the shuttle hastily departed before it could be captured. The commanding officers had also had ample time to escape. Little if any evidence of what the prisoners were being forced to produce could be found, and those freed could only say, "They wouldn't tell us what it was," when asked. Here, there were examples of finished product, but it all raised far more questions than answers.

But why guess at the purpose of the components when the commanding officers had been captured?

Eddie followed as the General led him to the far end of the building, past a line of larger, taller machinery and through a door leading off the production floor. This end of the facility was the Imperial barracks, providing living quarters for the stormtrooper guards and officers. Between the barracks and the work floor was the command center; it wasn't large, but it didn't need to be. Three Mewman rebels held three Imperial officers at blaster point, the officers kneeling on the floor, fingers laced behind their heads.

"Who is commanding officer here?" Buff Frog asked.

"I am," said the officer in the middle, visibly shaken and intimidated by the towering Frog Man.

"What is name?"

"C-Captain Armani Gris."

Buff Frog thrust the half-finished component under the Captain's nose. "What is this? What do you make here?"

The man blinked at it. "I…I don't know."

Armani found himself abruptly rising off the floor as Buff Frog grabbed him by the collar of his uniform and effortlessly hauled him up to his eye level. "What do you mean, you don't know?" Buff Frog said in a low voice. "You are in charge here, yes? How can you not know what the slaves you drive are making?"

"He didn't tell us! He gave us schematics for what they wanted made and told us to make as many as possible, but never told us what the components are for!"

"'He?' Who, 'he'?"

"Moff Toffee!"

Buff Frog roughly dropped Armani to the floor, the man landing on his back staring up at the huge amphibian.

"He-he-he said every production facility here on Mewni would make something different, components that would all be assembled by his finish team at the Air Base!"

Buff Frog scowled and left the room. Eddie waved a pleasant farewell before following.

"Is mystery," Buff Frog said softly to his compatriot. It was clear he was perplexed, and he looked uneasy.

"Does it really matter what they're making at these facilities?" Eddie asked as he kept pace with Buff Frog's long stride, trying to ease the general's anxiety.

"Maybe. Maybe not. Level of secrecy worries me. If even base commander does not know…"

Eddie nodded. "I reckon I see what you mean. What could be so important the Moff doesn't even want his own people to know what they're making?"

Buff Frog did not have the answer. But he had a sinking feeling in his stomach that he would find out soon enough.


Tom rose from a fitful night of what barely counted as sleep. With both Star and Marco no longer aboard the Raventalon, he'd slept in his own bunk in his own cabin for the first time in ages, and he just could not get comfortable. Perhaps he was just worried about Star, or was afraid to fall asleep in case she came back. He had actually considered not sleeping there at all, just in case Star returned looking for a place to sleep. But something in his gut told him that would not be an issue.

Worst of all, it felt strange to be alone. He'd been sharing a bunk with Janna purely out of necessity for almost as long as Star and Marco had been residents of the Raventalon. It had been very awkward at first, and Janna had enjoyed making him uncomfortable, but over time, she'd lost interest, and he'd grown accustomed to sleeping beside her. Now, in the wake of Marco's death, he wanted more than ever to have Janna sleeping beside him. He didn't want to be alone. But Janna had directed him back to his cabin, flatly stating that no one would be using it and he could sleep there.

It rather hurt his feelings.

Tom groggily slid his feet to the floor, dressed himself, and headed out into the galley, where he found Janna, Rosado, and PY-HD quietly sitting around the table. They looked up at him as he entered. The humans looked exhausted.

"Star isn't back, is she?" Tom asked. His friends all silently shook their heads. "You guys look like you didn't sleep well, either."

"Nope," Janna said, raising a steaming cup to her lips. "Caf's on the cook top."

Rosado gestured to his own cup. "Have some. It helps."

Tom poured some into a cup and sat down beside Rosado. For awhile, the galley fell into silence, broken only by the sounds of caf-sipping and soft servo-clicking from PY-HD.

"I feel guilty," Tom muttered under his breath to no one in particular.

Janna frowned. "What for?"

He shrugged. "I guess…because…I don't know. I guess I felt like we were supposed to be keeping them safe. Now Marco is gone and Star is…also gone but different."

"I kinda feel bad about that, too," Rosado whispered softly.

"They spent far more time protecting us than the other way around," Janna said. "And nothing any of us could have done would have saved Marco."

Tom stared blankly into his caf. "That…does not make me feel better."

PY-HD gave a concurrent bleep.

Silence returned. No one said a word, even long after they'd all finished their caf. No one seemed to want to be the first to rise from the table.

The chiming of Janna's commlink made them jump. The Captain quickly accepted the transmission.

"Star?" she asked hopefully.

"Not quite," replied an unfamiliar but gentle male voice. "Your friend is here. And she is safe."

Janna looked up at Tom and Rosado, and they met her with equally confused expressions. "Who is this?"

"I am sending you a set of coordinates. You can pick her up there."

And then the connection was severed. The commlink tweeted, indicating a received data transmission. Janna turned her attention back to her companions, speechless.

"So, uh…" Rosado stammered. "Who…? Who was that?"

Janna could only shrug. "I have absolutely no idea."

"Think this is some kind of trap?" Tom asked.

"I don't know what to think about that." Janna stood, and sighed deeply. "Well, let's go get her."

Hello, readers. Two notes for you.

1. If you haven't visited your account settings recently, you may not have seen that email alert notifications must now be manually turned on, and they default to "off" again after six months. Why, I have no idea. So if you wish to receive chapter updates for this and any other stories you may follow, make sure you go into your account settings and turn them on...and then, I don't know, set a reminder in your phone to turn them on *again* six months from now.

2. I've been dreading it, and it finally happened: A Star Wars universe detail that I fabricated for this fanfic was contradicted after the fact by a new canonical Star Wars media. If you haven't seen it (and, if you haven't, why haven't you? It's fantastic) Tales of the Jedi confirmed that Qui-Gon Jinn was, in fact, born on Coruscant. At the time I wrote Chapter 24, Qui-Gon Jinn had no canonically confirmed homeworld. Unfortunately, I am far too deep into writing this story to change the detail *I* included, that being that Qui-Gon Jinn is a Mewman, so, for the purposes of this fanfic, we're just going to have to ignore that one single line of dialogue.