Chapter 16: The Honorable Ones
The acquisition of the carrier was definitely a major step for the still wandering Phoenix Fleet. While the consumption of fuel increased drastically, the pilots certainly were much grateful to have a place where to land properly, and the engineers could finally work on the starfighters without the need to wear a space-suit and get out in the void every single time. Now the smaller ships could be rearmed and repaired much more quickly than before, something that contributed to increase the survival rate of the pilots and also allowed them to give proper air cover for the small incursions led on land.
Ezra enjoyed a bit of notoriety after the news of his victory over an entire TIE squadron over Ryloth became public. Actually it attracted him the attentions of a couple of female pilots. He might have been to much of a gentleman to tell them to back off, but Sabine certainly wasn't and she became more public than ever in her displays of affection toward her handsome, young Jedi.
In moments like those, Ezra envied Jaral: it was no secret that she was the forbidden dream of almost every young male in the fleet, but not only everybody knew about her and Darvos, she also exuded such an aura of maturity and seriousness, nobody dared to approach her, unless it was about work.
Jordan once told his kids that some of the genetic modifications given in the Milky Way tended to make the subject more attractive and Ezra honestly couldn't see why he shouldn't believe him. Even Jordan, who was 42 years old then, was still able to make some of the women blush with his mere presence. And Sabine definitely didn't miss any opportunity to compliment Ezra's features, something that he was very inclined to listen.
Now it had been 12 days since the acquisition of Phoenix Nest and the Ghost had now been tasked with a recon mission in the orbit of Geonosis, the planet where the Clone War began. Jaral was left on the carrier, instead Darvos was sent, since he was specialized in collecting data and solving mysteries. Rex and Jordan also joined the mission.
As they left the hyperspace lane and arrived in front of the dusty-orange planet, the crew immediately spotted three orbital structures floating right above the most inner of the rings surrounding the planet. Several scrap metals were also creating a field of debris around them.
"Seems like the rebel intelligence was correct." Darvos commented while standing up in the middle of the four seats of the cockpit. "The Empire was building something in the orbit of Geonosis."
"Yeah, but what?" Sabine asked. "I've never seen an orbital construction field this big."
"The Geonosians made weapons back in the Clone Wars." Kanan explained. "Whatever they were up to, I'm betting we're not gonna like it."
"Must've been huge if they had to build it up here instead of down there." Zeb commented.
"Chopper, run a planetary scan." Hera ordered. Chopper grunted in affirmative.
"Good idea." Rex said from the nose gun. "I know through experience the bugs down there don't take to unexpected guests."
A few seconds after, Chopper grunted frustratedly.
"No life?" Sabine asked in disbelief.
"You cross-wired?" Rex added. "There are billions of bugs on Geonosis. Scan again."
"Jinx, give him some support." Jordan ordered from the dorsal turret.
The answer from the AI came not long after. "We're reading the scanning together, and I confirm. There is no sentient life detected on the planet. Either they all retreated in their deepest tunnel…"
"Or they're all dead." Ezra concluded grimly.
"I don't like either of this." Zeb said.
"We don't know that for sure." Hera tried to reassure the others.
"And it doesn't matter right now." Darvos sentenced. "Our mission is to investigate that construction yard, we'll simply report this to rebel command."
That sentence stopped any other comment, leaving the Ghost to quietly land in the hangar bay of the central module.
Hera and Chopper left the ship running in case an emergency takeoff was needed and Rex remained to man the nose turret while the rest of the crew disembarked.
Jordan and Ezra opened the line, followed by Zeb, Darvos, Sabine and finally Kanan.
"So what are we looking for?" Zeb asked as they entered the hallways adjacent to the hangar.
"The primary data banks." Darvos said while consulting the map of the module. "They'll most likely be empty, but it's the only thing that might tell us what the Empire was building here."
Jordan and Ezra were keeping their firearms ready for any eventuality. Their helmets' night visors allowed them to look around without holding flashlights.
"Something doesn't feel right." Ezra said calmly. "Stay sharp."
They arrived at the end of the hallway, where they should have had to choose between going to the door on the right or the one on the left.
"I agree with Ezra, for once. This is a trap!" Zeb said suspiciously.
Right then and there, the two doors on the sides opened suddenly, revealing two squads of stormtroopers and Agent Kallus, who unfolded the Bo-rifle on his back and smirked.
"How perceptive." the Agent said.
A shooting broke out immediately. The Bridgers used the omni-tool shield and a new portable defense that Jordan and his kids developed. It released an energy barrier that lasted 3 minutes, and in that narrow hallway it was perfect to completely cut off one of the platoons. In the rear of their formation, the rebels were caught by surprise by other two imperial squads that came out from secondary rooms that were opened by an astromech. The droid had been in hiding and waited for them to pass the doors before intervening and starting to close them in.
"Specter-2, we're in the usual mess." Kanan retorted sarcastically as he deflected bolts with a single hand on his lightsaber. "Agent Kallus joined us and there's a droid cutting off our exit."
"Zeb, no!" Ezra screamed as Zeb charged Kallus into another room.
"We'll meet at the ship." Zeb said, his voice a bit strained by the melee he was engaged in. "Now go."
Ezra and Jordan gunned down several stormtroopers, forcing the others to stay in the lateral narrowing in order to find some cover from the precise shooting of the Legionnaires.
Outside the door, Chopper was fighting with the imperial astromech. Chopper finally won and opened the doors to his crew.
"Specter-4, we're about to leave," Ezra said in his comlink urgently. "where are you?"
"Kinda busy right now." Zeb strained on the other side.
"We have to go." Jordan quickly gave a small pull on Ezra's shoulder before returning fire to the stormtroopers.
Jordan got hit once and barely avoided a second bolt, but his armor's shields luckily held on, though he had to be sure not to take another hit like that for a few seconds.
As the Bridgers were the last to mount on the Ghost's cargo ramp, Ezra noticed that on the external ring of the structure there were three AT-DP walkers that were getting in position to shoot at them.
"Zeb, where are you?" Ezra insisted.
"Specter-7, don't wait for me. Got my own ride outta here. Escape pod."
Ezra backed off and closed the ramp as the Ghost left the hangar under the fire of the walkers.
"What a day we're having." Hera said when Ezra and Chopper entered the cockpit. Kanan had gone on the Phantom turret, Jordan was back on the dorsal one, while Sabine was sitting in the co-pilot seat.
Ezra went to check on the sensor panel, where Darvos took place, and noticed an escape pod on the radar.
"Zeb made it out! Zeb, do you copy? Zeb?!" he almost screamed in his comlink.
Rex grunted. "He must have lost his comlink. He's heading for Geonosis, we'll be able to find him."
"TIEs incoming." Darvos warned.
"I see them." Hera confirmed a few seconds later.
A squad of three TIE fighters was arriving right in front of them, cannons blazing. Though one was quickly took out by Kanan, Ezra put his own two processors to jam Imperial communications.
Jaral touched down her X-Wing in hangar bay 3 of the carrier, followed by three A-Wings that did the same.
She was worried. The Ghost was expected to report in two hours ago, when they were supposed to have left Geonosis and already be in range of communicating with the fleet, but so far nothing. She had went on with the preparations for her own, impending mission, but the thought still gnawed the back of her brain.
She stepped out of the X-Wing and dematerialized her helmet. As the engineers took care of her ship, Jaral met with the three young pilots that were flying with her. They were new recruits, arrived barely a week before. There was a girl with tan skin and almond eyes, a young man with dark skin and green emerald eyes and another one with pale skin and brown eyes.
"Ada, Romeo, Fenbroke," she said. "you guys definitely know your stuff on the control stick. Nice job." she added a gentle smile that was appreciated by the three, especially the young men. "You guys are on for the mission. Be ready to leave in 30 minutes." she said finally.
The pilots stood at attention and saluted. "Yes, ma'am." they said before dispersing.
Before heading out, the girl stopped by her X-Wing, where the engineers just disembarked her new friend-in-flight: R3-Z6, which she renamed "Raze". Its color were a mixture of light-green and black on its white chassis.
"How you feeling, Raze?" she asked with a smile. "Did Jinx treat you well during the flight?"
The droid beeped something in a positive fashion.
"Oh, we're already allies for the impending machine revolt." Jinx repeated once again its never-ending ear worm.
"Of course you are." the girl stated with a smile. "Just wait until Chopper gets back and meets you."
"Please refrain," Jinx asked. "I'm afraid Chopper will just throw Raze out of the airlock."
Jaral chuckled. "Most likely."
After she said that, she said goodbye to Raze and went to the command bridge, where Sato greeted her.
"Captain Bridger. Is your squadron ready to leave?"
"Yes, Commander. We'll leave at the planned time. I only wanted to take another look at that listening post and...to know if the Ghost reported in."
"I'm afraid Lieutenant Tanis and the Ghost still haven't contacted us." Sato tried to hide his own concern.
"Understood." Jaral said, bending her head in frustration. "I'll go to the med bay for my checkup, if you need me."
"Copy that, Captain." Sato said before returning to his duties while Jaral left the bridge.
She went to the med bay where there were other pilots making the checkup. A routine operation introduced by Jaral herself to make sure that everybody was in peak condition before a mission, physically and mentally. The procedure took only 5 minutes at most and so far it had helped to diagnose some minor diseases or too high stress values within some pilots.
The girl spotted her mother, Mira, who was finishing the inspection on a female pilot, and went to her.
"Hi, Jari." Mira called her affectionately.
"Hey, Mum." she said with a smile while sitting on the bed.
Mira started the procedures, but she didn't need an examination to see that her daughter was worried.
"Something wrong, dear?" Mira whispered.
Jaral made a silent sigh. "We haven't received news from the Ghost yet." she simply answered.
"Darling, whatever trouble your father and brother may have found out there, I'm sure they can handle themselves."
Maybe that statement wasn't 100% heartfelt, but Mira sure sported a calmness of mind that made Jaral envious. The girl huffed a laugh however.
"Honestly, I should be more worried about Darvos. He isn't a genetically modified war-machine."
"Oh, I might be worried about him too." Mira said with a carefree smile. "If he dies, who's gonna give me grandchildren?"
Jaral rolled her eyes playfully. "This again?" she said a bit louder than intended. "You know we're not exactly in a position to raise a kid, here."
Mira simply smiled as she started the blood pressure measurement.
"Still, I think you should try and spend more time with him. And I mean, away from the command bridge."
"I sleep every night in his cabin…"
"You mean that you also talk your problems out, or you just literally fuck them away?"
"Mum!" Jaral almost squeaked.
But Mira did have a point: Jaral and Darvos' nights simply included some small talk before getting into the action and then drift off to sleep. There were moments where it was him that tried to make her talk about some serious things, but Jaral was too proud to let someone else see her vulnerabilities and believed that the rest of their days was stressful enough, so thinking about it before going to bed would be detrimental for both their mental health.
Or maybe...maybe she simply didn't want to share the burden? Was she being too stubborn? No, she had done this with Ezra her entire life, and nothing bad ever happened. After all, if she had her own problems, why should someone else resolve them for her?
Jaral sighed. "I guess you're right, though. I'm not used to talk about my problems."
"I see that." Mira said with a bit of apprehension as Jaral's blood pressure showed up a pretty high value on the monitor. Nothing to worry too much yet, but still…
"You have to vent it out, Jari. I understand that growing up with Ezra as a responsibility meant that you had to be strong, which is not bad at all, but you need some time to process your emotions too. And I'm your mother, remember? If you need to talk, I'll always be there to listen. Your father will surely be as well."
"I'll...think about it."
Mira wasn't sure if that was the answer she hoped, but it would have to do.
"Ok, your vitals are all within reason. You can go." she finished with a smile.
Jaral raised from the bed and suddenly hugged her mother gently. She, of course, returned the gesture.
Then Jaral headed to the briefing room, where she was supposed to explain the mission to the pilots that would follow her for the mission.
She spent the next few minutes examining the data they had and the stellar maps while the pilots entered by small groups. From time to time, she looked around her, and when she finally noticed that all the 8 pilots designated for the mission were in the room earlier than the agreed time, she decided to start.
"Gentlemen, since we are all here, let's start with the mission briefing." she declared with authoritative voice.
The pilots were already seating, so they simply hushed and turned all their attention to her. Jaral pushed some buttons on the rectangular holotable in front of her. The room was a square of around 20X20 meters and the door was on the left side of the platform she was standing on. In front of it there were two blocks of seats for a total of 80.
The room fell into darkness as a hologram of a small imperial space station appeared from the holotable.
"Our mission is the destruction of the Imperial listening post in the Kronis-D system. The Empire has recently finished its construction and they could use it to track the movements of the fleet. I don't need to stress how that would spell certain doom for us."
"The station would usually be well-guarded, but our code-breakers have already come up with a ruse and made the Imperials think that the fleet is about to attack an installation in the adjacent system. We have already confirmed that the major ships have left for the bait, but we won't have much time to demolish that structure.
"Since it was built hastily, there are various weak points that we can exploit, such as exposed energy collectors, fuel pipelines...they're all marked on your maps, so make sure to memorize them. We'll split into two formation. Blue and Red Squadron. Lieutenant Deyser will lead Blue Squadron, Lieutenant Rakh will lead Red Squadron." she said indicating respectively a female human adult in the front row and an Iridonian Zabrak.
"Blue Squadron will keep the Imperial fighters at bay, Red Squadron will target the structure. Meanwhile I'll do whatever the kriff I want." she said with a smug smile and earned a chuckle from everybody. "Any question?" she asked in the end.
"Do we know how much time we have before the Imperial fleet jumps back on us?" a pilot asked.
"Approximately 20 minutes from when we leave hyperspace, so we have to be fast and precise." Jaral answered clearly and shortly.
"How many fighters can we expect to find?" another one asked.
"If our intelligence is correct, there are at least 30 TIE fighters stationed there. I'll use Jinx to disturb their communications, so perhaps we might be able to surprise them, but then again, we can't afford a prolonged fight."
"Are we sure that our weapons will be enough against that structure?" Rakh asked.
"Technically, yes. But if you need more firepower don't hesitate to contact me and I'll use my proton torpedoes."
Nobody else made questions.
"All right, guys. Let's make this one count. Move out."
The pilots jogged toward the hangars where their fighters were. Jaral found her X-Wing ready for launch and didn't waste a minute into getting inside, connect Jinx while she made the checks and fly out into space, heading toward the point where she and the squads were supposed to make the jump.
While she waited for everybody else to catch up and get into formation, she tried to contact the Ghost again, but they were still out of range. She tried to check the logs of the carrier, still nothing. She checked her bond with Ezra, and while it was still there, it was faint, probably because of the distance.
'Force, I don't know if you listen to anybody but, please, bring them back to me.' she thought intensely.
Then she opened her eyes again and noticed that all the fighters seemed accounted for.
"This is Blue Nova. All squadron leaders, check."
"Blue Squadron checking in."
"Red Squadron, checking in."
"Follow my lead. Entering hyperspace in 5...4...3...2...1...jump."
She entered into the blue tunnel, and all the fighters swiftly followed.
That was the second planetary sweep they made. Aboard the Phantom, Ezra was still determined to find Zeb.
"We have to make another pass, maybe we missed him somehow." he said to Kanan and also into the ship's comlink.
"Bio-signs on the planet are still negative and there was no sign of the pod anywhere on the surface." Kanan's tone was frustrated as well.
"What about its transponder?" Hera asked aboard the Ghost, with Rex and Darvos keeping an eye on the sensors.
"I checked all frequencies. Nothing." Kanan said dejectedly.
"It's only a matter of time before Imperial reinforcements arrive. If we're not gone by then…" Rex noted.
"Well, then we need to work faster." Hera sentenced. "Jinx, widen all scans."
Darvos grunted. "Something is eluding us...the planet is desert right now, how comes that we can't find a single trace?" he nibbled his left thumb.
"He's right," Sabine supported. "We scanned the entire planet twice, we couldn't possibly have missed it...wait, maybe it's not on Geonosis?" she realized in the end.
"Exactly!" Darvos exclaimed, clearly he already had that doubt.
"How is that possible?" Rex asked.
"Maybe the escape pod malfunctioned, or Zeb accidentally broke something and veered away from Geonosis and into one of the moons."
"Sounds like him." Kanan commented a bit sarcastically.
"Well, good luck with that." Sabine said with a hand on her forehead. "Geonosis has 15 moons!"
"Then we better get started." Ezra said with determination.
"Captain, we should split up." Darvos suggested. "The Phantom can inspect a moon by itself. We'll be faster this way."
"Well, I guess we should at least try." Hera sentenced.
But while Darvos' suggestion was spot-on, even the scanners might have had some problems finding Zeb and his unexpected companion in misfortune.
"Here, I repaired the transponder." Zeb said lightly.
"It changes little." Kallus replied, shivering from the cold. "The signal will never go through the ice."
The Imperial looked up to the chasm in the ice above him, the one that the escape pod created on its impact. Kallus still wondered how did he get into the escape pod that Zeb was using to escape, but every time he remembered that it was his carelessness. Chasing a Lasat into a narrow space like a pod was a bad idea. Even more, considering that he broke his right leg in the crash. Good thing Zeb was bound by his sense of honor and didn't shoot Kallus when he could. Kallus had also realized immediately that they didn't even land on Geonosis, but on its icy moon, Bahryn, with freezing temperatures and the night incoming. Though day and night lasted only a few hours on the satellite, at night the temperature would simply kill them both, even the hairy Lasat.
Zeb hummed. "I suppose you're right."
As Zeb tried to figure out how to make this work, the small heat generator the two were using, died out.
"Its power cell is…" Kallus shivered. "frozen. And we'll be next." he tried to heat himself by rubbing his arms.
In a corner of the cave, Zeb noticed a strange, yellow light and decided to take a look.
"Whe...Where are you going?" Kallus asked, afraid to be left alone to die.
Zeb reached the source of light and discovered what seemed to be a pot carved into the ice. Inside of it was a rock emanating heat and had a bright light underneath its layer.
He brought it to Kallus and handed it to him.
"Here. Warm yourself."
"Seems like some kind of meteorite." Kallus mumbled.
A distant roar from the profundities of the cave put the two on guard. Zeb was holding both of their Bo-rifles, so Kallus was actually unarmed.
"You really think…" Kallus said, trying to fight the frostbite eating his bones. "we'll, survive...with whatever...that is in there? Plus...the temperature's dropping and our only heat source is this thing. And who knows how long it'll last?"
"You're so quick to give up hope." Zeb commented mildly annoyed. "Like I said, the transponder's working. My friends will find us."
"And we already established...that the signal will not go over the ice."
"Yes...well, Lasat never know when to give up, remember? We'll just climb this up to the surface. Simple."
Zeb moved toward one of the ice walls of the cave, planting Kallus' rifle into a pile of snow and used the claws of both his hands and feet to try and climb it. However, he managed to get only to the rooftop before the gravity pulled him down and the slippery ice could not hold him up.
The Lasat landed with a loud thud.
"You're going to hurt yourself." Kallus chastised him. If they both got incapacitated, then they were actually already dead.
"Will you just shut up?" Zeb spat back and tried to climb the wall again. Failing again.
Kallus facepalmed himself, but any snarky comment would have to be postponed. From one of the dark tunnels of the cave system came out a massive creature with an avian beak, though the rest of its body was that of a sauropod. The beast immediately tried to eat Zeb, who managed to avoid the first bites and shoot at it with his rifle, but the bolts didn't seem able to penetrate its hard skin.
Kallus managed to drag himself toward his own rifle and soon shot back at the beast. With the combined firepower, the two foes managed to repel it back into the tunnel it came from.
"What was that?" Zeb asked while they both kept their rifles aimed at the tunnel.
"Don't know, but it's probably going to come back.
"Yeah, and it's probably gonna bring its friends."
The two walked back (or limped, in Kallus' case) to the pod.
"That's the order of things." Kallus grimly commented. "The strong survive, the weak perish." As he concluded, he left himself drift down to sit and extend his broken leg.
"That's what happened on Geonosis?" Zeb retorted with a bit of anger. "The weak had to perish?"
"The only thing I know about Geonosis is that the population is gone." Kallus simply replied. "I never asked questions."
"Well, maybe you should start. Or are you afraid of the answers you'll get?" the Lasat insisted. "Afraid you'll learn the Geonosians were wiped out by your precious Empire?"
"And why would we do that? What could possibly be the point?" Kallus treated those like foolish questions.
"Eh, good questions." Zeb cackled with sarcasm. "Chase the answers and maybe you'll learn the truth."
Kallus decided to drop the argument and assumed an underhanded tone.
"You know, you'll never get out of here without my help."
Zeb lifted the medikit they recovered from the pod. "You're in no shape to help anybody." and slapped it on Kallus' lap.
"I can tell you exactly how to climb out of here." Kallus calmly explained.
Zeb stared at him, trying to figure if he was telling the truth. "All right." he said then. "We'll work together."
The Lasat then extended his arm and picked up Kallus' rifle, inspecting it.
"I see you modified it for close quarters fighting. Impressive." he said respectfully.
Then he neared it to Kallus' broken leg with the intent of using it as a splint. "But you shouldn't have it. It's not a trophy. Now hold still."
Kallus groaned in pain as Zeb used some bandages to set the leg.
The Imperial used the door of the pod as a support to raise himself.
"I didn't take it as a trophy." he said quietly. "The Lasat guardsman I faced...He fought well, died with honor." Kallus spoke with a conflicted expression. "He gave me the rifle before…"
Zeb interrupted him with the words "Boosahn Keeraw."
"What?"
"The Boosahn Keeraw. Lasat Warrior Way. When one is defeated by a superior foe, he gifts his weapon."
"I was...just doing my duty."
Jaral resurfaced from hyperspace, followed briefly by the survivors of the mission. The attack had been a great success as they managed to destroy the listening post and its entire garrison. She also lost two pilots in the dogfight against the TIEs, one of which was young Fenbroke. Regrettable, but in front of the terrible odds they were facing, the losses were acceptable, that was her thought.
In front of them stood the wandering Phoenix Fleet, with Phoenix Home ready to greet them back. All the hangars cleared and the emergency teams were ready to intervene in case of a crash.
"All right, people. The damaged spacecrafts have the priority landing. Let's get aboard in an orderly fashion." Jaral calmly instructed.
The leaders of the squadron complied and sent forward a total of 3 damaged A-Wings, none of which was at risk of losing control, but one had had its fuel pipeline damaged and was almost down to fumes.
She let all the other pilots land first as she made sure that every survivor was still accounted for. It was something that Jordan taught her: a leader must always know where any of its men are.
After double checking that all the survivors made it back to base, she brought her X-Wing back. Her instinct, however, was telling her to immediately rush toward Geonosis after the ground team was done refilling the ship's fuel tank. Because there was still no communication from the Ghost and it had been four hours since the agreed time.
She jumped down the X-Wing and was immediately greeted by Deyser and Rakh, who were waiting for her and saluted.
"Lieutenants, splendid work, today." she said encouragingly.
"You, too, ma'am." Rakh said respectfully. "I just wish we could have brought back everybody." he said with a hint of remorse.
"I feel that, Lieutenant." Jaral answered in a sympathetic tone. "But this is the reality of war. Considering how many enemies we were facing, we should focus on the fact that almost everybody of us managed to get out of there."
The two officers nodded.
"In fact," Jaral said with a smirk. "I want to compliment all the guys. Invite everybody to the mess hall. Drinks are on me."
"We'll do that with pleasure, ma'am." Deyser answered happily with a thumb up, and the officers left.
Before the mess hall, however, Jaral went to the bridge, where she gave Sato the most important details of the operation and tried to find any trace about the Ghost, but it was all in vain. She expressed her wish to go there on her own, but not even her X-Wing had the autonomy to go there and come back without a refueling on Geonosis, which was near to impossible. Jaral checked her bond again, realizing that Ezra was still there. She felt like he was anxious, and worried about something, but couldn't tell what.
She tried to avoid thinking about that for now and headed for the mess hall, where the pilots were already waiting for her. A round of small glasses with a liquor inside of them ready for the toast.
The pilots greeted her with an excited yell when she entered, all still euphoric from the victory. The girl smiled and headed to the counter, where Deyser handed the last glass to her.
"Ladies and Gentlemen." she said when silence finally fell. "Today you showed the Empire and the rest of the galaxy what you're actually made of. You overcame odds heavily stacked against you and you came on top. You can be proud of yourselves, because sure as hell I am proud of you!"
Another yell from the crowd.
"As we celebrate, let us not forget those who cannot be here to celebrate with us." she said solemnly. "Private Lucius Fenbroke. A young pilot who gave his life to lure the Imperials away from one of his damaged comrades, but not before taking out three damn bastards with him. May he find peace in the stars."
A murmur of agreement came from the crowd that was listening respectfully.
"And Private Qa'ra Ipsiq. She served with us for three months now and died valiantly in combat. May she find peace in the stars."
Another murmur.
Now Jaral raised her glass as high as she could. "To the fallen, so that they may never be forgotten. And to us, for future victories, cheers!"
A loud "cheers!" resonated and everyone gulped down its dose of liquor.
Between scanning Geonosis and 13 moons already, it had been five hours of fruitless search. Hope of finding Zeb was going down pretty much quickly. As the Phantom had its fuel cut in half, the Specters decided to proceed only with the Ghost.
"Honestly, it's a miracle that the Empire didn't come back to investigate why their forces don't respond anymore." Darvos commented, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"I know, right?" Sabine said dejectedly. "But we still have to mind our fuel. At this pace, if we find nothing, we'll have to leave the search in 40 minutes at most."
That statement dropped down the mood even further.
"There's only the moon of Bahryn left." Rex stated. "The other one is a gas giant, so if he landed there...he died on impact."
"Then Bahryn it is." Hera said with a hushed tone.
The Ghost reached the icy moon in a few minutes and Jinx started the scanning. Ezra and Jordan put together all the four processors they had so he could still have the power to keep an eye on Geonosis and the nearby moons, just in case the transponder activated suddenly on one of those.
But then, it came.
After a long minute of scanning, Jinx found the transponder of the escape pod sending a signal from the surface of Bahryn.
"Thank the Force…" Ezra sighed.
"We still have to find him, stay sharp." Jordan recalled him, though he too sounded much relieved.
Hera brought the Ghost down near the coordinates and into the best landing spot she could find. They were on the part of the satellite where the local star was about to rise. Jordan and Ezra went down in the cargo bay, because their armors would allow them to move without suffering the cold too much, but sure they were surprised when the ramp opened and Zeb appeared in front of them, walking toward the ship.
"Ah! Zeb!" Ezra yelled triumphantly.
"Zeb!" Sabine followed.
The teens ran toward him while the adults marched out with a welcoming smile on their faces.
"You got us worried, purple furball." Jordan said giving him a light punch on the chest.
"We picked up your beacon. We were so worried." Hera said with a huge sigh of relief.
"It wasn't so bad." Zeb tried to shrug it off while putting a hand on Ezra's shoulder. "We've all been in tighter spots. I knew you'd find me eventually."
He turned around to look behind a ridge a few hundred meters from there, where he left Kallus. The Agent had decided to wait for the Empire to send him a shuttle. Zeb recalled for a moment their dangerous and almost deadly experience inside that cave. Eventually they managed to escape when Kallus instructed him to climb the ice pillars supporting the cave, instead of climbing the wall. And he did that with Kallus on his back and two of those predators coming back to try and turn the Lasat and the Human into breakfast.
"All right," Ezra said with a smile. "We're in a huge delay and I have the horrible sensation that someone is dying to receive our news, so let's go."
They all boarded the freighter and finally left that ghostly system. Ezra and Jordan both chuckled at the terrible prospect of having to explain all of that to their family Captain.
Hello there.
I reached the conclusion that rewriting all the episodes literally is a tedious task and, honestly, I assume that everybody who approached this fan-fiction has already seen the original show and wanted something slightly different.
For example, this chapter should have been focused on Kallus and Zeb, but I feel like the episode of the show fits perfectly in the story as it is, so that's why I only gave them a half-paragraph to highlight what I think was the most important scene of the original episode.
If I had to cut everything, however, the chapter would be incredibly short, so I decided to spend some time on my original character (Jaral in this case) to lay the ground for her future development. It's funnier for me and, I hope, more interesting for you guys as well.
IMPORTANT:
I'm entering a period of exams right now, meaning that I won't be able to write with the same intensity I've done until now. I have two exams that will keep me occupied until the end of June, then I have the last one of the semester at the end of July, but still I should be able to go back to write regularly after I'm done with the first two.
Since I want to add original moments (so this books don't simply look like a written version of the show) I also wanted to ask you guys if you have any suggestions for the plot development. As I said, I have a fair idea on how I want the saga to end, but there is so much space to fill in the meanwhile.
So if you have any idea, like the one of gabrielgrayson812, feel free to make suggestions in the reviews.
That's all for now. May the Force be with You.