I'm finally back, everyone! I spent a few weeks on a vacation, havin' fun and all that. But now I am back and ready to pump out more chapters!

I also have a new story ready that I am picking up from an awesome author called WorldsWorthWords. Go check him out!

And as always, please leave a review.

As dawn neared, the forested frontier was… filled with mosquitos.

Calvin wished he had the stormtroopers' armor, or just some bug repellant, because these things were annoying. Same whine, same bite, and same feeling. Plus, he didn't know if these things were poisonous or not, which just added to his dilemma.

He had followed Hobbes' captors for miles, stopping when they stopped and resuming when they continued. They appeared to be heading towards a gigantic, steep hill that bordered the next valley over. Probably where the troopers' base was located.

He had repeatedly thought about attacking with the cover of night, but had decided against it when a second squad of soldiers numbering exactly twelve linked up with the first. And with the sun lighting up the forest, it was now too late for him to change his mind.

However, there was one perk to the sunrise. As the stormtroopers and Calvin trudged on, the sun began to fully show itself, leading to the mosquito creatures to seemingly disappear.

Still, he was already covered with bug bites, and they itched terribly.

Half an hour later, the imperials arrived at the entrance of a steep pass that they had been heading to since they had raided his and Hobbes' camp. The pass, Calvin guessed, led to some sort of base in the bordering valley. He began to follow, sneaking out from behind a big boulder when he suddenly spied something further up in the pass.

"Crud!" He whispered angrily, ducking back behind the boulder.

Guarding the entrance were two large towers on either side near the middle of the pass that guarded an electric gate. They both had a laser cannon on top, their twelve-foot circular energy disks ready to send a powerful ion bolt towards any sort of intruder. At the bottom of both towers were several K-X security droids. They would easily spot him should he attempt to sneak past them. There was no foliage. No hiding places to use around the towers.

Calvin stopped to think for a few minutes, reviewing his options.

Going back without rescuing Hobbes was simply abandonment; he almost gagged at the thought. Going left or right in either direction might lead to another pass, but chances were that any entrance into the valley was heavily guarded.

Then, Calvin looked up. The hills around the valley were steep, and he could see dozens of probe droids guarding them, but he would be able to get a good vantage point. It seemed to be the only choice he had.

"Welp," he decided, "time to climb." And with that, he sneakily made his way to the foot of one of the hills.

The climb was tough and tiring. Rocks, trees and large, wide patches of thorny bushes slowed his advance, and an hour had passed by the time Calvin had gotten halfway. The probe droids above him also didn't have much of a movement pattern of any sort. That made it much more difficult to predict the paths that they would take, and it was very challenging to avoid detection.

Finally, as the sun reached its zenith, an utterly exhausted and sleep-deprived Calvin clawed his way up to the top, stopping to rest under the cover of a thick stand of pine trees growing by the side of a small bluff.

"Should've snuck through the pass…" he muttered.

As he rested, a peculiar sound reached his ears that was blocked by the hills beforehand. Rushing water? A waterfall? He pulled himself to his feet, and carefully crawled through tall grass to the top of the miniature ridge. A shocking sight unfolded before him when he took a peek.

Before him lay a secret imperial facility stretching over half of the valley. A reservoir of water on the higher level was being held back by a thick, hydroelectric dam that most likely powered the entire complex. Huge streams of water gushed out of carefully adjusted holes at the top, and made their way into a river that ran through the middle of the entire valley. A landing pad and several garrison barracks lay on the far side, and a large complex of buildings was situated on both sides of the river. Hundreds of stormtroopers, droids, officers, and the jet black stormtroopers were everywhere.

"Oh, Crud," He squeaked.

Hobbes' consciousness returned just an hour earlier.

He felt himself being carried by his arms, his feet carelessly left dragging on the floor. His vision swam, and a throbbing headache made him wince. Slowly, he cracked open his eyes.

He was being dragged along a metallic corridor by two of those stygian-armored stormtroopers. The hallway's design was definitely imperial, which probably meant that he had been carried to these guys' base. He didn't know what time it was, or how far he had been carried. For all he knew, it could have been days.

And what about Calvin? Where was he? Hobbes figured that they either found him in his hammock, or, more optimistically, never even saw him when they raided the camp.

He truly hoped it was the latter.

Looking up, he saw a heavy durasteel door at the end of the corridor. Two more of those scary dark troopers flanked the sides of the door, and panic flared up in him at the thought of being interrogated. Was that what the room was for?

The troopers stopped a few meters shy of the doors, and one of the soldiers carrying him addressed the other two that were guarding them. When he (or she… or it) did, Hobbes was surprised by the garbled, electronic sounds of untranslatable gibberish that came out of the figure's helmet.

They have voice scramblers. He realized. These guys must be pretty important. Maybe the Empire's special operations?

One of the soldiers guarding the doors, as soon as he finished the conversation with the trooper dragging him, took what looked like a USB stick out and slid it into a slot. The USB-thing beeped in the affirmative, and a green light appeared on it as the doors slid open.

As soon as Hobbes was carried through the entrance, he deduced that this was some sort of executive's office. The room was spacious with a wall of glass on the far side. Craning his neck as far as he could, he managed to make out a room below filled with imperial officers manning consoles and cameras and talking into headsets.

A chair and a large command console with dozens upon dozens of buttons, switches, and other doodads was firmly ensconced in front of Hobbes, overlooking the room below. As he watched, the chair swiveled to reveal a clean-shaven man with brown hair, perhaps of middle age, dressed in a white uniform and black boots.

Hobbes despised him the moment he saw him.

"So," the man began with a superior smirk, "you're the creature that was found skulking around in our forest." He had a British accent, which Hobbes thought was strange, and he could see that the man possessed an obvious disdain for other races and species; a trait that many imperials shared.

"And you're the idiot who owns this place, I presume," Hobbes bit back. He held his head high and gave a slight snarl, baring his fangs.

The man's infuriating smik transformed into a curious smile, and he got up from his chair. "Please, call me Soron."

"It's obvious that you are from the rebellion; your possessions confirmed that," he said, stopping mere feet in front of the tiger. "And since your sad little base was recently found, one could suspect that you are looking for a hidden location to set up a new one?"

"You're very perceptive," Hobbes sarcastically muttered. "And somehow, you still haven't discovered our fleet."

"You are correct," Soron agreed, much to the tiger's surprise. "How has a meager fleet comprised of barely a couple dozen ships managed to single handedly not only evade capture, but destroy our impenetrable, impregnable fortress of a moon-sized battlestation as well?"

"Because we're smarter than you," Hobbes simply answered, delivering a smirk of his own.

"I politely disagree," Soron said, unfazed. "The problem lies not in that we are not as intelligent as you, but that you have an advantage over us: your rebel comrades are much more suited to ways such as assassination, hit and run tactics, and guerilla warfare. None of which our soldiers know how to defend against."

"Yeah," Hobbes chuckled. "The empire is so big, it can't control every single planet and hyperspace route in the galaxy. We just slip right through your guys' fingers and you never even knew we were there."

"See, that's what I admire about you scum," Soron admitted. "You have mastered the art of running and hiding, coming out of nowhere without warning and vanishing like ghosts in the fog. And until now, your tactics have worked splendidly."

He motioned to the jet-black troopers on either side of Hobbes. "Do you know who these soldiers are?"

"No, but to be honest, I have been dying to find out," Hobbes admitted.

A chuckle escaped his lips. "Dying. What a perfect way of saying it."

"...How so?"

"Well," Soron smirked, "the black-armored soldiers you have been seeing all through this facility are called Death Troopers. Elite special operations soldiers who are the empire's answer to your little rebellion. They do specialize in guerilla warfare, assassination. Fighting fire with fire, so to speak."

"And you think that they'll defeat us," Hobbes asked, "when they have no idea where we are either?"

"They don't have to know where you are," the imperial responded. "All they have to do is wait for you to try something. Something like… assassinating a high-ranking officer, or perhaps attempting a coaxium heist. As soon as you try something, they will respond with discipline and coordination unrivaled by any other asset the empire has."

"They will capture or kill you, and take whatever information they can get. Then, using the intel discovered by them, we will begin to understand where, when, and how you operate."

"And just how are you gonna make sure that your Death Troopers will get to where the assassination or the attack is happening in time?" Hobbes asked, sneering. "If you have these guys just stationed around willy-nilly, and we go for a target that happens to not be covered by them, they'll be of as much use as your regular good-for-nothing stormtroopers."

"An astute observation," Soron said. "And to reduce the chances of that happening, we'll have the Death Troopers stationed at only the most likely places where you will actually attempt something."

"...like guarding the high-ranking officers and valuable vaults," Hobbes realized aloud after a moment.

"Exactly. Perhaps you are not as ignorant as one would think after all."

Silence filled the room for a few seconds as the two enemies both stared at each other.

"So what are you gonna do now?" Hobbes asked at last. "Torture me? Kill me?"

The man smiled. "Torturing you until you give up what you know is the first option, but I'll make you a deal."

"...Okay," Hobbes decided, curious. "Shoot."

"Tell me the location of your terrorist fleet, and how many more of your ilk are hiding in the woods, and we won't torture you to death. You'll get a spacious cell, good food, and you'll work well until we send you off to help the empire elsewhere."

Silence.

Then, Hobbes laughed. It was spiteful. Bitter. "You think I would just betray my friends to spare myself a little pain?" he asked.

"Not a little," the man corrected, smiling eerily, "a lot."

He turned to the death troopers. "Take him to a cell. I'll oversee his torture myself after I've taken care of some other troubles."

Several minutes later, Hobbes was in a cramped prison cell with a cot on one side and a toilet in the corner. Not exactly comfortable, but still, it was better than being in a torture chamber.

The thought sent shivers through him. Princess Leia had told him about the empire's IT-O droid, which they had used on her to try and extract the rebel base's location, and he did not want to relive her experience. The notion of him being interrogated by such a terror-inducing robot made his heartbeat rise, and he looked for a way out of the cell.

There was an air vent high up on the wall, but there was a grate on it. It would have been too small for him anyway. The door was also a no-go. It was made out of secure durasteel, so no way could he break it. The only way to open it was via one of those USB security sticks, judging from the mechanical sockets on both the inside of the cell and outside. And he didn't have a USB stick.

Could he count on any outside help? There was Calvin, he decided. If he wasn't locked up as well, he could maybe find a way to infiltrate the base and find him.

But there was nothing else that Hobbes could do at the moment except wait… and hope that Calvin could find him.

But was his friend even alive? A tear fell out of his eye at the thought.

No! Calvin was alive, and he would find him!

He was sure of it.

Meanwhile, Calvin had made progress. After scouting the top of the hill out for several minutes, he had finally discovered a way to get down. He had found an elevator that went from the top of the large hill straight down to the floor of the valley, situated almost two hundred yards below him.

Probably how they send people up and down the hill, he thought as he looked at the small, square building. It had a hallway that he would have to enter and walk through to get to the actual elevator doors, which were situated at the tunnel's end.

But just as he was about to enter, the hallway's doors began to open. Calvin frantically dived behind a small boulder bordering the dirt path that led to the elevator, and just in time, too.

Several white-armored stormtroopers exited the doors, chatting with each other, and Calvin managed to catch some snippets of the conversation.

"Hey, didja hear about the new prisoner?" a trooper asked.

"Yeah, yeah. Rumors are, he's from the Rebellion." another answered.

"Is he human?" a third one asked. "I heard something about him looking like an apex hunter, or something. Orange fur, too."

"I dunno about the apex hunter part, but definitely orange fur. Not human."

"He'd better be in a cell by now."

"Don't worry. He is. That inferior scum probably…"

The soldiers' voices faded as they disappeared around a corner, but Calvin had gotten all he needed. They were definitely talking about Hobbes! And he was in a prison cell.

He turned back to open the hallway's doors when a thought occurred to him. If he used the elevator and got to the bottom, the chances were likely that he'd run into more stormtroopers, who would alert the complex, which would find him and capture or kill him.

Not a very delightful train of thought, he decided, and started to look around for another way to get down.

As he walked to the building's side, something caught his eye. A door was located on the side, and he could see… something written on it in aurebesh. Perhaps a different way down?

He decided to find out, and slowly made his way onto the thin, dangerous trail that led to the door. Inching along, he happened to glance at the fifty foot drop that awaited him should he become careless. He tried to stay as close to the elevator wall as possible, but even there his footsteps caused dirt and pebbles to dislodge and fall.

Finally, he reached the wider, more stable spot in front of the door and took a moment to look back at the nerve-wracking path he had just taken. Then, he turned to look at the door and grinned.

Written on its surface was the word, Maintenance.

"Bingo," he whispered, and pressed the button to open the door. Inside was a small platform, no railings. And when he looked down, he saw the shaft that the elevator took from top to bottom. The bottomless view made him dizzy, and he took a few steps away from the edge to gather himself together.

Looking again, he spotted something on the platform's side. A ladder that went all the way down to the bottom. And for a second, he considered just finding another way down.

No. he realized. It might take hours, and who knows what could happen to Hobbes by then.

So, he cautiously began to climb down the ladder, nervous sweat dripping from his forehead with every step he took. The darkness of the shaft added to his anxiety, as it made it harder to discern where the ladder's next step was.

Minutes passed, and still he kept at it, fueled by the notion that if he could just keep going, sooner or later his feet would touch the ground.

Suddenly, as he was passing what he believed was the halfway point, a rumble came from the bottom of the shaft, and a surge of fear made his knuckles turn white from gripping the bars as he realized that the elevator was coming back up. Would it clip him? Scrape him off of the ladder?

Calvin realized that there was nothing he could do but press himself against the ladder as tight as he could. The elevator was coming up so fast that there was no way he could scramble back up before it reached him. Already it was a quarter way up.

He desperately flattened himself against the ladder and closed his eyes shut. Gritting his teeth, he heard the elevator's rumbling noise come closer and closer, until finally, a rush of wind flew past him and something metallic brushed against his jacket. The noise receded.

Opening his eyes, Calvin looked up and saw the elevator slowing above him as it reached the top. Letting out a sigh of relief, he resumed his climb down.

After a few more minutes, he reached another small platform that he could barely fit on, and stopped to observe his situation. Very quickly, it became clear that a new problem had arisen.

Namely, there was no way to get out of the shaft without using the elevator.

He would have to climb back up, and take the elevator down and exit through the doors that way… where he would be caught by some stormtrooper. And the entire reason Calvin had used the maintenance ladder was so that he wouldn't need to utilize the elevator.

He looked around again for another way out. There had to be something… a door or a panel or a vent…

Aha! Above the elevator doors but below him was a vent covered by a grate, not unlike the one he had used on the ship. The only difference was that this one was securely screwed into the wall. If he could get the grate off, he could crawl in and find a way to exit from there. Looking at it again, he verified that he would fit.

But the problem was that he had no solid surface to stand on as he got rid of the grate. No solid surface except for… the elevator.

Calvin looked back up and spotted the elevator coming down again. If he could jump on top of it, he could… no. The elevator might go back up with him on top, forcing him to go all the way down the ladder again, or worse, maiming or killing him.

But suppose he could get rid of the grate fast enough…

The elevator was almost down, and Calvin made up his mind. Quickly flattening himself against the wall at the last second, he felt the elevator rush past him, slowing to a halt.

Wasting no time, he jumped down on top of the elevator and drew his vibroblade. He pressed the knife against the weak bolts and used its vibration to help pry them off. The first one was off. Then the second. Then the third.

As he began to pry off the fourth bolt, a tremor passed through the elevator, and he could hear the doors close. He worked furiously, loosening the fourth bolt and yanking at the grate with all of his might. It popped off with barely any resistance and fell to the ground just as the elevator began moving up.

Not missing a second, Calvin dived into the grate as fast as he could, wriggling further and further in. Just as the last of his feet entered, the elevator passed the vent in a great rush.

Breathing heavily, he took a minute to recover from the near-deadly experience he had just lived through, before looking up again. In front of him lay nothing but darkness and uncertainty, as well as thousands of enemy personnel.

Remembering Hobbes, Calvin steeled himself and said, "Well, time to be bold!"

He began crawling. He didn't know where exactly to go, but at least the chance of being found was slim. He wriggled onwards for minutes on end through the vent, clambering over more grates that exited into the wide, large tunnel he was moving over. It seemed to lead from the elevator through the mountain's base and into the imperial facility. He stopped when he heard footsteps below him, and resumed his pace as soon as they receded.

Eventually, after dozens of minutes, he spotted a light at the end of the building he was crawling through. Metallic stomping reached his ears. Another sixty seconds later, he reached the grate at the end of the vent and looked out to see what appeared to be a large vehicle depot. Scores of TIE fighters, AT-STs, and scout bikes were all neatly lined up in rows, and even more droids and stormtroopers patrolled the area.

Another building was located across from the depot, and Calvin guessed that it was one of the main buildings in the complex. There was probably some sort of computer terminal in there where he could find Hobbes.

But first he needed to cross the open vehicle yard.

He proceeded to do just that, quietly removing the grate and waiting until there were no troopers or droids in the area. Then, he let the grate fall, wincing as it clattered to the ground, and got out himself.

Dropping down to the ground, he started to cross the depot when he heard a door slide open behind him. Thinking quickly, he rolled behind a stack of crates, and peeked out.

Emerging from the building was a group of those special troopers and several officers. In the lead was a man dressed in a white uniform with a ramrod posture and a frustrated expression. His whole body radiated the aura of, 'I'm in charge.' Curious, Calvin listened in on what he was saying.

"...need that information!" he was exclaiming. "I want that orange creature hooked up to a torture chamber before the hour is up. When he is, he'll wish that he'd have told me everything as soon as he met me!"

Calvin's eyes widened at the statement, and then turned angry. They were talking about Hobbes! He listened more closely as one of the officers spoke up.

"Should we transport the creature to the torture chamber now?" he asked.

"No," The man said. "Me and my guards will take him there ourselves. I want to hear him scream."

The group began walking to the adjacent building, and Calvin was quick to follow. Keeping in cover, he shadowed the group, making sure to stay out of sight from the so-called death troopers.

He darted from crate to crate. Behind TIE fighters. Always staying out of sight. And as he crossed the halfway mark between him and the building, he was certain that he would make it.

But luck betrayed him.

As he skirted a small box a random death trooper appeared in front of him, heading towards the group of officers without spotting him, and Calvin inhaled sharply.

It was only a small gasp, but these death troopers must have had enhanced audio because the soldier whipped around and, sighting the boy, started to level his blaster rifle.

Without thinking, Calvin drew his blaster with lightning speed, raising it and pulling the trigger. The resulting shot hit the trooper in the chest, and he fell.

At the sound of blasters, the entire courtyard turned towards the six year old and a comical moment of silence ensued.

"…"

Then all hell broke loose.

Every trooper, droid, and officer opened fire, sending Calvin into a mad scramble behind a crate. As blasts ricocheted off of the side, he spotted something on the dead death trooper; grenades.

Thinking quickly, he snatched up all of them, armed several, and threw them at the enemy. The platform erupted and he used the confusion to dash after the group of officers who were escorting the man into a door. But before he could catch up, it closed.

Cursing, he leaped for cover behind the wing of a TIE fighter and looked around for an alternative escape. It didn't take long for him to once again spot another vent on the wall, just above a large crate that he could use to get to it.

Arming the rest of the grenades, he flung them at the enemy and ran as fast as he could for the vent. Explosions boomed behind him, and the sound of blasters momentarily halted. He reached the other side and used the crate to climb up to the grate. Not bothering to use finesse this time, he simply shot it open and wriggled inside, crawling further and further away from the chaos. Soon he was secure in the vents.

An alarm sounded somewhere under him, but he paid it no attention. He had to focus.

After a few minutes of crawling up slanted vents and prying open a few more grates blocking his way, Calvin reached a much higher room, and after checking for guards, blasted the grate open. He stood up on the rough, carpeted floor, and ran to a huge glass panel on the far side.

Unbeknownst to him, he had just entered the same room where Hobbes had been.

He looked down at the control room, and then at the control table in front of him. Bingo. He could use that to find Hobbes.

Sitting down on the chair, Calvin started searching for the location of Hobbes. He figured that he was most likely in a cell, in a prison. That search narrowed it down, and Calvin found the location of his best friend immediately.

Then, he noticed some sort of file at the top of the screen.

Project Blackwing.

It looked important, so he delved further into it, and what he found shocked him.

"Oh god…"

By the way, Project Blackwing is a real canon thing in Star Wars. Creeps me out, but I couldn't pass up the chance to include it. Very Spooky.

:D