Alright, kids, all settled? Lemmie tuck you in, Goltie, your blanket's twisted. There we go. Alright. Your Mama and I had just met. I was still working for Viidu on Ord Mantell, fighting the Separatists, and your Mama was trying to recover the shipment of blasters that Skavak...

THAT NO GOOD SON OF A HUTT!!

...had stolen when he swiped the Skylark. Ord Mantell was in the middle of a war, kids, and the bad guys had been causing problems since I was a kid no bigger 'n Lavie. Things had eventually gotten bad enough that the Republic had gotten involved, trying to push the Seps back after turning a blind eye for years. The people of Ord Mantell had been trying to defend themselves, but they were being forced out of their cities and their homes, living in tents just outside of the military forts.

Viidu had asked me to accompany your Mama, mostly to keep me out of trouble, I think, because I was still recovering from my injuries, and so we were trying to make our way to the Separatist camps and forts, because we knew that Skavak...

THAT NO GOOD SON OF A HUTT!!

...was gonna be selling the weapons soon and if we didn't catch him before he left planet, he would be long gone. So there we were, making our way from Fort Garnik out towards the Separatist outpost, and we were practically tackled by this woman and her husband who wanted our help.

You see, they'd been attacked by Seps years ago, and the bad guys had burned their house down and stolen their belongings and taken their son, who was just a kid about Maddie's age at the time. Nobody ever knew what had happened to him, and his parents were very, very sad. But then, just recently, one of the mom's friends had said that she'd seen a boy, a teenager, on one of the Separatist patrols, and she swore that it was their missing son. Said he looked just like his Daddy. So now the parents desperately wanted someone to figure out if it really was their son, and they were begging everyone they met to go help them. 'Course, me and the Captain felt sorry for them, but we were busy with our own problems. And then they said the magic word.

Credits.

How'd you get to be so smart?! Yep, they offered your Mama a decent bundle of credits to scout out the barracks of the local Sep fort, and with the added incentive, there was no way your Mama was gonna turn them down, since she already kinda wanted to help them in the first place. She warned them that the hunt for the Skylark had to take priority, but she promised that we would do everything that we could to find out if that mystery boy really was their son.

So there we were. Your Mama and I made our way through the Republic lines, around the back of the fort, since we had heard that there were some unofficial ways in and out there. We'd been forced to wade through the water at low tide, getting to the fort, and your Mama complained the whole way in about her wet boots. Then we had to kill a couple of Separatists getting in, instead of sneaking in undetected and all, and so...your Mama was just not in the best mood, you know?

So we get into the fort, and we make our way down to where the barracks are. Nobody pays us any attention, because there's tons of local citizens who were stuck there when the Seps took over, and the Seps who are off duty are drunk anyways. We get to the first room, and as luck would have it, we see a group of teenagers and one of them looks just like the picture we had, just a little older. Now, your Mama is a beautiful woman, and those boys were very impressed so when she asked that boy to come sit with her, privately, he didn't give her any trouble.

...And then she asked if his name was Paul. You'd have thought he lost his mind. His face twisted, all evil like, and he said, "I am BONECRUSHER!" He called your Mama some awful names, and I wanted to smack him right then and there, but your Mama told me to wait. Well, he didn't like that. He was angry and shouting about how he was loyal to the death and was gonna blast us both, but your Mama jumped forward right quick and twisted his blaster right out of his hand and jerked him back down to sit again.

She told him that his parents were still waiting for him, that his Mama had still believed he was alive after all these years, and that the moment they'd heard any news of him, they'd immediately promised their entire life savings if your Mama would go and find him. And that boy began to cry. He told us the truth, that his name was Paul, and that the evil Seps kept him and the other kids drugged up on stims until all they wanted to do was kill people. He was so ashamed of who he was, of what he'd done, he didn't want to go back to his parents, and he begged us for some credits to escape from Ord Mantell and start a new life.

Your Mama was being very kind and all, but you've got to understand, this is all happening in the middle of the Sep fort! Any moment, we could have a hundred bad guys pouring in on top of us! So we were kind of in a rush. She told him that she understood him not wanting his parents to see him like that, but she told him that he was just a kid, and he needed to go back to his parents and let them help him. He refused. She asked again. He refused. Again.

So..she stunned him. Kid didn't even see it coming. He just toppled forward and nearly crushed her, since even though he was only 14 or so, he was bigger than a baby gundark. Your Mama and I put his arms over our shoulders and then we all pretended to be drunk as we shuffled out of the barracks, carrying him the entire way. He woke up when we accidentally dropped him in the lake on our way out, and BOY, was he unhappy, but your Mama had had ENOUGH, so she grabbed hold of his ear and marched that young man all the way back to his parents.

Were they happy to see him?

Yeah, sweetheart. They were. They all cried. His Mama wouldn't stop hugging him. The dad tried to give us all their money, but your Mama only took enough to cover our expenses and told them to use the rest to get off planet. She told them that Paul would need all their help and love and patience, but that she was happy to help. The End.

Thanks, Dad. I liked that story.

I liked it too, kiddos. Goodnight. I love you.