Hello! I'm back! Sorry about this chapter not being very action-filled, like the last one. I'm not very sure about this chapter, so please do not hesitate to point out flaws or things that don't make sense or if something just doesn't feel natural. The next chapter will have quite some action (hopefully). Also, just so you guys know, I won't be able to work on any fanfiction for the next 2 1/2 weeks, because of an upcoming trip. Expect the next chapter somewhere in the first half of February.

With that said, happy reading!

"No."

Hobbes looked up, his eyebrows rising. "What? What do you mean?"

"We mean 'No,' pilot," Bren Derlin, head of Rebel security, repeated. Around him stood much of the rest of Rebel high command. Leia, standing sort of off to the side, Mon Mothma, looking at him in a sympathetic 'I'm-sorry-but-we-can't,' sort of way, Admiral Ackbar, his Mon-Calamari face presenting no expression that Hobbes could decipher, Nowar Jebel, looking at him sternly. All of them were standing on the bridge of Home One, the Rebel Alliance Fleet's flagship, commanded by Admiral Ackbar. Around them sat communications operators, ship's systems' controllers, and officers, all chattering and communicating with each other in muted tones. Behind him and a step to his right was Lando, there to help convince Rebel command to authorize another rescue mission. So far, no dice.

"But, Ma'am," Hobbes said politely, focusing on Mon Mothma, "Calvin's my best friend, and he has considerable skill that has helped the Rebellion many-"

"I understand your need to rescue Calvin, Pilot Hobbes," Mon Mothma interrupted. "Even we in high command have heard of Calvin risking everything to break you out of the facility on Tanka, which not many others, even if they were close friends, would have done. And it is only obvious that now, with the roles switched, you want to do everything that you can to rescue him in return."

Hobbes waited, hopeful.

"But there is such a thing as responsibility," Mon Mothma went on, "and we all have it. Leia and I have talked about this mission, and she also desperately wishes to save Calvin. But with the evacuation from Hoth, the Rebel network is still in disarray, and we need everyone we can to help before the Empire takes advantage of our confusion. Leia, Calrissian, and you, I'm afraid, are all responsible as well for the safety of the Alliance."

If we don't rescue Calvin, there will be no Alliance! Hobbes screamed in his head, wishing that he could say it.

"I agreed with Leia on the rescue mission on Coruscant, but now that it's failed…" Mon Mothma touched a hand to her forehead. "I'm sorry, Hobbes, but now that we know where Calvin is being held, the chances of a successful rescue are far too low to make up for the men that we could possibly lose. And Leia is part of Alliance High Command- not to mention one of my dearest friends- it would be a terrible blow to the Rebellion if she were lost while saving Calvin."

"And in terms of logistical and supply matters, there's not much we can do," Nower Jebel said. "The Empire has been on the offensive ever since the evacuation from Hoth. Their presence is putting pressure on our contacts and informants everywhere. We need every ship, weapon, and fighter that we can get, and, as unpleasant as it is to say, your friend just is not enough of a concern for us to devote resources in getting him back. He knows nothing that could pose a serious risk to the security of the Rebel Alliance."

"I'm sorry, Hobbes," Leia said, her eyes displaying her genuine regret. "I wish I could, but I can't abandon the rest of command, and I will not forsake the tens of thousands of people for which I am responsible."

"But you can abandon them for Han?" Hobbes asked, incensed. Leia looked up sharply, but before she could say anything, Bren Derlin broke in.

"Han Solo isn't trapped in the Keilo-Three Black Site," he said, his voice steely. "There is no way into that prison or out of it. Both of you are dismissed."

Holding in a sigh, Hobbes forced himself to nod, offered a weak salute, and turned around, a fire of anger and despair in his gut. He walked five paces, then stopped and turned around. "What if we go by ourselves?"

"To Keilo-3?" Derlin asked.

"I'm afraid that won't be possible," Admiral Ackbar said. "You are a Rebel pilot, and as Mon Mothma said, you carry the responsibility of helping to protect the Alliance. You are part of the Allied fleet, and as such, you will be given a new gunner and will be assigned to new missions."

"Well, what about-" Lando began to say.

"Captain Calrissian, you are responsible for piloting the Millennium Falcon in Han Solo's absence, and as such, we need you with the fleet just like we need Hobbes," Ackbar stopped him. "I strongly advise you both to put the idea out of your heads. A lone attack on the prison would undoubtedly equal suicide."

"You are dismissed, men," Jebel told them.

Fuming inside, Hobbes nodded again, saluted again, and uttered a brief, "Yes, sir," same as Lando. They both turned around, and a few seconds later, the door to the meeting room slid shut behind him, leaving them in the spacious white hallway outside.

"Well, Ferrik," Lando muttered. "What now?"

Hobbes stopped to think. What would they do now? Of course, he wouldn't give up on rescuing Calvin, no matter what high command told him. If it came down to it, he would take his Y-wing, and go to the black site himself. But if he were to do that, then he would have to know what the place looked like and what kind of security it had. He would have to know the best way in, what equipment he would need, where Calvin would be.

He would need to know everything, which meant that he would need to study the ISB datapad and whatever they had gotten out of the imperial that he had captured. But how to get to it? The datapad, he knew, was somewhere on Home One- the Rebel flagship that they were on right now. It was most likely in the intelligence room, which was kept under tight lock and key. And the notes from the ISB assistant supervisor's interrogation would be… well, he had no idea where those were. If he were caught stealing either of those things, it could put him up against a charge of insubordination. He could at least try and find information on Keilo-Three…

With a start, he realized that Lando was saying his name.

"-Hobbes, you in there?" he asked.

"Uh, yeah," Hobbes nodded. "I was thinking that we could get information from that ISB datapad to make a plan."

"You know that command isn't going to let us anywhere near it," Lando said.

"Yeah, I know," Hobbes nodded, sighing. "How about we look up Keilo-Three in the database and see what comes up? We can stop by at the medical bay and say hello to Chewie on the way there. He should be well on his way to full recovery."

"Sounds like a plan."

As Hobbes and Lando entered Chewie's medical room, the wookie turned at their footsteps. He was wrapped up in white bedsheets with light-blue pillows beneath his head, and had a few straw-like hoses hooked up to him. One of them was filled with blood- a transfusion to make up for the lost blood that he had lost when the explosion's debris had sliced him up. He was in one of many beds in the medbay, with each one given some privacy by the two walls separating it from the other rooms around it. Dozens of other patients were occupying them, having been injured in missions or battles.

Chewie let out a growl of greeting.

"Good to see you too, Chewie!" Hobbes grinned. "You feeling better?

"Much better," Chewie responded in his native language. "How are Leia and 3po?"

"They're alright," Hobbes said. "My own blaster wound still stings a bit, but it's almost healed. How long are they gonna keep you here?"

"Another week," Chewie said, his expression clearly unhappy. Most people couldn't make out the different expressions of a wookie very well, but after spending years around Chewie, Hobbes noticed it. "Man, that sucks," he said. "I'm sorry about going back for the ISB guy. We all probably would have made it out fine if it weren't for me."

"Don't worry about it. Without that supervisor, I hear, we would have no idea where Calvin is," Chewie pointed out. "Are they going to put together another rescue mission?"

Hobbes sighed at that, and Lando said, "We just talked to Mon Mothma and the others about it. They say that Calvin's not important enough to spend resources on rescuing him."

Chewie growled rather sharply at that. "They said that?!"

"Well, they weren't so callous about it," Lando said, "but they made it clear that wherever Calvin is, it's secure enough that it wouldn't make sense to try and get him back."

That comment, unbeknownst to Lando, started some gears in Hobbes' head spinning. The main reason, it seemed, that high command didn't want to rescue Calvin was because the gain from doing so would not come close to making up for the cost and the effort that would go into a mission. But what if he could tip the scales?

Of course, there was a very straightforward way to accomplish that: Reveal the DART, and how Calvin had built it. Command might try and harness the power of it to take down the Empire, but at least they would try and get Calvin out of the prison to keep the Empire from learning about its existence. Perhaps, if he talked to them, they might even agree to refrain from using it, although that seemed a bit far-fetched. The Rebellion, small and desperate to keep up the fight, would need every weapon that it could get its hands on.

Maybe he could find a way to make the cost of a rescue mission so cheap, that rescuing Calvin would be a no-brainer. Thinking about it, it seemed even more ridiculous. Wherever Calvin was, it seemed, someone would need some serious equipment to break in and out with a prisoner- something that would mean diverting resources.

Suddenly, he seemed stuck. He couldn't reduce the resources, and if he could, it would most likely take him quite a while to find a way. And he couldn't tell anyone about the DART, either, lest they decided to abuse it for their (or the Rebellion's) own gain.

But what about Leia? She was the one person from command who he was well-acquainted with. It could be that, if he told her, she would just see the possibility of striking at the Empire, but a part of him didn't think so. She might understand how terrible unleashing the DART's otherworldly abilities would be on the galaxy, and she would listen to him, at least, because they both knew each other on a personal level.

Of course, Leia wouldn't be very happy with him. Scratch that; she would definitely be mad- no, furious with him for never having said anything. But he could trust her a lot more to do the right thing, simply because he knew the kind of person that she was: understanding, smart, able to see the whole picture of something.

'But what about Calvin, resisting interrogation so keep our secret safe? Wouldn't I betray him if I just give our secret away? He didn't want the DART falling into anyone's hands, period.'

'It won't fall into anyone's hands,' another part of him argued 'because Leia won't tell anyone. She'll be mad, but she won't tell anyone.'

"...well, we are still trying to find a way to rescue Calvin," Lando was saying, "but we don't have many options."

"Let me know if I can help," Chewie said. "I might not be able to do much for the week, but I'll gladly volunteer my bowcaster if it helps."

"Thanks, Chewie," Hobbes said, smiling faintly. Inwardly, his mind was thoroughly divided in whether or not to talk to Leia, but he said, "You're a good friend. I'll promise you that when it's time to get Han back, I'll be ready to help."

"Thank you, Hobbes," Chewie said. "And thank you for visiting me."

Nodding, Hobbes turned and began walking towards the exit of the medical bay, Lando close behind him. As they stepped out, Lando said, "Should we go and see what Keilo-Three looks like?"

"Change of plans," Hobbes said. His mind was quickly re-orienting itself, eliminating possible solutions until he finally made his decision. "You can go and see, if you want, but I need to talk to Leia."

The most difficult part, Hobbes found out, was walking up to Leia and saying anything in the first place.

She was in a meeting with some intelligence analysts, so Hobbes waited outside of the room for the meeting to end. Once it did, he stepped in, and a chill streamed through him like ice water. Fear of what Leia would think if he told her spiked up in his heart, and he stopped in the door-frame. He was on the verge of forgetting the whole idea, and would have, too, if Leia hadn't asked, "Hobbes, what is it?"

"I have to… I have to tell you something," he forced out.

"What do you have to say?" Leia asked, looking up from her datapad.

"It's a long story," Hobbes said.

And then he told her. It became much easier with every word. He told her how he and Calvin were from another universe, pointing out that no other creature like him existed in the galaxy; he explained how they had gotten to her universe, how they had found Luke on Tatooine, and how they had met Han Solo. He continued, talking about how they found her, joined the Rebellion, and revealed that he and Calvin had been working on the DART since Hoth; he elaborated on what the DART was, and how it could help them get home; he told Leia everything, how it worked, why they needed kyber and coaxium, how the Empire had already discovered its existence. And through it all, she didn't speak a word.

And when he was finished, for a full minute she sat there, in perfect silence.

Then she said, "Why?"

"Why did we come here?" Hobbes asked. "Uh, like I said-"

"No, why didn't you tell me?" Leia asked him, still shocked. "Why didn't you tell Luke, or Han?"

"Because I was afraid that you might use the DART against the Empire," Hobbes said. "I mean, you do want to do everything to help the Rebellion, so if you heard of this very powerful, reality-bending machine, well… I didn't know what you'd do."

"Just because I want to stop the Empire doesn't mean that I want to toy around with the- the reality of our universe to do it!" Leia exclaimed. "We've known each other for years! You and Calvin have known Han and Luke for even longer! Did either of you ever stop to think that we might understand and help you if you told us?

"We just thought that it would be better not to reveal to anyone that a super dangerous machine that could break the fabric of the universe was sitting around," Hobbes explained. "We'd build the DART, keep it a secret so that the Empire couldn't learn about it from people who we told, and leave with it like it was never there! We were just trying to leave so that this universe doesn't fall apart because of us!"

"But the Empire already knows about the DART, doesn't it? They know that you and Calvin are responsible for building it! Why?"

"I don't know!" Hobbes growled. "All I know is that Calvin sent me a message through Chewie that they knew that I had the DART. And sometime after he was frozen, the Empire somehow figured out that Calvin knew about it, too. You can be sure that after Calvin sent me that message, I told absolutely no-one."

"So why are you telling me this… now?!" Leia asked, bewildered.

"Because if the Empire learns how to build the DART from Calvin, we're dead! We need to rescue him before he tells the Imperials how to build it! What good would keeping this secret be if it gets out anyway, right?"

Leia went silent, seething. Her fists were clenched, her eyes boiling with a thousand different emotions, anger and reason, oil and water, clashing against one another. Hobbes could only hope that reason won out, and that she wouldn't kill him or something. Slowly, the fury left her, and her audible breathing subsided slightly. "I can't believe this," she muttered. "I can't… I…"

"Did I tip the scales in favor of rescuing Calvin?" he asked.

"You broke the scale," Leia growled, and let out a weighted sigh. "Alright, I'll talk to high command, and-"

"You- you- you can't do that," Hobbes stopped her. "I mean, Mon Mothma and one or two people might understand, but I'm pretty sure that Nowar Jebel and most of the others will only see an opportunity to somehow strike at the Empire. I don't want anybody using the DART. And anyway, the more people who know about this, the greater the change is of word getting to the rest of the fleet. Outside of the fleet, even!"

"So what should I do?" Leia asked. "Take a ship and round up some men and let's… storm the prison together? Do you know how insane that is?!"

"Let's just make a plan," Hobbes said. "No, I haven't seen what the black site looks like. So let's get everything we have on it, round up Lando and 3po and maybe some others, and find out if there's even a way to get inside of the place. Then we'll see what we should do. But for now, we have to keep this whole thing as hush as we can."

"...Fine. I'll get everything that we know about the prison. We'll meet up later with Lando and 3po, and I'll ask Bren Derlin to help us without telling anyone. We'll need his assistance," Leia murmured. "I want you to take your machine out of the Falcon, and put it in our Coaxium vault- it's the most secure place in the whole fleet."

"Got it," Hobbes nodded. "Promise you won't tell anyone?"

"On my life," Leia said. "And Hobbes?"

"Yeah?" Hobbes asked.

"This isn't over. I am furious at you- make no mistake, and I'm furious at Calvin, too. The only reason that I'm helping you right now is to make sure that the Empire doesn't get your machine. As soon as Calvin's back, I'll give you the coaxium that you need to power it, and I want you both and your machine gone forever. Do you understand?

Hobbes nodded quietly.

"Good. Now go. I'll meet you in planning room B in two hours," Leia ordered, and, swiveling, walked out of the room, leaving Hobbes alone inside.

"Well…" he mumbled, softly. "There's that."

After a few minutes, he left as well.

Two hours later, Leia, Hobbes, Lando, 3po, and Bren Derlin were all gathered around a holotable, which showed a 3D holographic schematic of what looked like a mountain, shaded in a transparent blue, and several rectangles and lines that were shaded in yellow. One rectangle was located at the summit, where a line flowed down from the top to another, smaller rectangle, seemingly located smack in the center of the mountain. From the center, yet another line stretched out, ending at a yellow cylinder close to the side of the mountain. Confused, Hobbes studied it for a few seconds before Leia spoke.

"Alright everyone," she said. "Before we get into where Calvin is and how to get to him, I need to stress that all of you in this room keep your lips sealed about this meeting and anything else that we discuss. You don't tell your friends, you don't tell your superiors, don't even say anything out loud about this after the meeting is over. Clear?"

A group of "'Clear's" came from everyone around the table.

"Alright," Leia nodded. "3po, mind taking notes?"

"Of course not, Princess Leia," 3po replied.

"Thanks. Here's the challenge." Reaching forward, she pressed a button on the holo-table controls, and the hologram zoomed out to show a planet, its dark-blue surface smooth and unchanging as a marble. "This is Keilo-Three, an ocean moon that's orbiting a gas giant in system D-6571-0, right on the border of the unknown regions. It's the only celestial body in the system with life on it, and is almost completely covered with ocean. According to the Empire, it's uninhabited."

A moment later, the hologram zoomed back in a ways, close enough to display a small island sticking out of the blue ocean surface with one of the yellow rectangles covering its area. "This here is one of a few random spots where the planet's rock floor reaches the surface. On top of it, hidden by signal jammers and protected by a garrison of TIE fighters is the Keilo-Three black site. And inside of that is where Calvin is."

"It doesn't look like much," Lando noted.

"That's because this is only the entrance," Leia said, and the image zoomed in and down. The ocean surface disappeared, and the mountain returned, revealing that the island was its summit, sticking out of the water.

"The actual prison is in the mountain," Leia said, and pointed at the first line trailing down from the entrance on the island. "There is an elevator here that leads down to around twelve thousand feet below sea level, straight into the mountain, and from there-" she traced her finger down and then across to the second line, into the cylinder- "-a tram takes you close to the side of the mountain, into the actual prison. And it's safe to say that the path is guarded by multiple security systems."

"Oh," Lando mumbled.

"Safe to say?" Hobbes asked. "How much do we know about the prison?"

"Well, your theft of the datapad certainly helped, but even that didn't hold too much information," Leia said. "We've already known about the Black Site- our recon teams scouted out the place from afar a few years back, and part of the data that Calvin extracted from the facility on Tanka actually mentioned quite a bit."

"The data stick?" Hobbes asked. "From when he broke me out?"

"Yes," Leia nodded. "The Death Trooper program was supposed to be located on a planned base on Keilo-Three. They actually began some construction in the very same spot where the prison is now before the location was changed to Tanka. It describes the general layout of the prison, the details of the entrance, the path in, the depth, some coordinates, and a few other useful tidbits."

"And there's one final problem," Derlin added, and the hologram zoomed back out to display the planet. "There are around eighty satellites, dotted around the atmosphere, evenly spaced from one another." The hologram suddenly lit up with scores of small hexagons that surrounded the planet. "Each of these satellites emits a sensor field that reaches far enough to connect with other fields. Basically, there's a giant bubble around the planet that will detect anything that passes through it."

"Jeez. The Empire doesn't spare expenses, does it?" Hobbes asked, frowning.

"But we do have a way to get through," Derlin said. "We found a request on the datapad that was filed two days ago; it came from the prison, asking that a flaw be fixed in the satellite blanket. Apparently, because the planet isn't a perfect sphere, a few of the satellites' sensor fields don't touch for about four minutes, resulting in a small, triangular gap about forty feet across. The gap opens every five hours. With a small enough ship, we can get through. It will probably take a little while for a maintenance crew to address the flaw, which gives us some time. It's not a simple thing to precisely reorient a few satellites so that they cover a perfect amount of area."

"So Calvin is in a prison cell in an undersea mountain, with the only way in being an elevator that's guarded by an entire imperial base on an ocean moon which is itself guarded by a planet-wide sensor field?" Lando asked.

"Yes."

"Oh, my," 3po murmured, recoiling slightly.

"So, are there any weaknesses?" Hobbes asked. "Tunnels, flaws in the security…"

"There might be one or two," Derlin said, "but after analyzing the data, me and Leia agreed that the best way to get in, it seems, are these right here." With a finger he pointed at three wire-thin red cylinders that appeared on the hologram, going from the rectangle that denoted the prison to the outside of the mountain. The hologram zoomed in, and Hobbes saw that the three red cylinders were pipes, emitting something from the prison into the water.

"The entire prison is powered by a geothermal plant to stop the prison from freezing," Derlin explained. "It's surprisingly cold in the middle of a mountain, so a lot of heat is drawn from the planet's energy to power lights, electrical systems, the heating vents, and so on. But there is often a lot of excess energy, which is the reason for these three pipes here. They expel excess heat into the ocean through special one-way grates."

"Pretty cool," Hobbes said. "Until the grates break."

"They're designed to withstand the immense pressure of the deep," Derlin said. "And there's undoubtedly some sort of failsafe that stops the water if the grates do fail. The idea that we had was that we'd take a Mon Cala submarine, and-"

"A submarine?" Hobbes asked, surprised. "We have a submarine in the fleet?"

"It's for search-and-rescue," Leia said. "It's rather antique- designed around a hundred years ago by Coruscanti standards. But if we can make some quick modifications, it's good enough to get us down there and into the pipes. We'd transport it on a ship and drop it off just outside of the scanners of the base on the island. We'd dive down, attach to the pipe, go in, and somehow get to Calvin. That last bit is the part that we have to figure out. How do we get out of the pipe? How do we keep the element of surprise for long enough? How do we evade the guards in the prison?"

"Thermal Imaging," Lando said. "We'll use it to find out where the pipe is closest to the prison, and drill through."

"It would make a lot of noise," Hobbes said. "Is there any particular spot that we know of where the pipe is visible from the inside of the prison?"

"The plans from the data acquired in the Tanka facility says that the pipe would sort of be half-visible from the electrical room to make it easier to check it," Derlin said. "So if we used a thermal to find the electrical room (provided that the pipe actually does go by it), you could cut through with torches and get inside."

"Say, that's an idea," Hobbes nodded, when a lightbulb went off in his head. "And then, since we have control of the electrical room, we could somehow EMP the prison! With the blackout, we could sneak past the guards to Calvin's cell, slice through, grab him, and escape back through the pipe!"

"That might actually be possible, provided we have a strong enough EMP. The blackout wouldn't last forever, though," Leia said. "We also need to address the problem of getting air-fried alive."

"What?" 3po asked, suddenly terrified.

"The pipe expels a lot of heat- the Imperial estimate puts it at around 60 to 70 degrees standard. Humans die at around 40. And also, if we use any kind of thermal imagery, the heat from the pipe would block out everything else."

"Heat resistant clothing?" Hobbes asked.

"Enough to withstand 70 degrees standard?" Lando asked, skeptical.

"Here's an idea," Leia said. "If we blocked the grate with the submarine, the pipe would get hotter and hotter, right?"

"The heat would be trapped, yes," Derlin nodded.

"The empire would have something to notice the rise in temperature, and the most likely reason for the change would be a spike in the geothermal energy plant," Leia reasoned. "They would temporarily shut off the plant, wait a while for the spike to pass, and switch to some reserve power source in the process- backup generators."

"So, we wait for the vent to cool enough after they shut down the pipe, and then use it when it's not hot enough to fry us to get into the electrical room," Hobbes said. "We'll rig an EMP, go loud, use night vision goggles or something-or-other to see, and sneak to Calvin's cell… Say, how do we figure out which cell Calvin is in?"

"Thermal Imaging," Lando said, again. "Just look for a tiny person."

"And if it's a really small species?" Leia asked.

"Well, I'm pretty sure that Calvin's best friend could identify him pretty well, right Hobbes?" Lando asked.

"Hopefully," Hobbes shrugged. "We'd need rather strong thermal imagery, though. And quite a few other important tools."

"Hey, what happened to not wanting to divert important resources to rescue Calvin?" Lando asked.

"The situation's changed," Leia said, giving Hobbes a small, sideways glare. "Don't ask what changed- I will never tell you."

"Alright, fine," Lando held up his arms. "As long as we have the green light to go get Calvin back."

"What happens if we are discovered?" Hobbes asked. "Well, all the doors would close and lock, and all prisoners would probably be counted. The airspace around and above the prison would then be swarming with TIE fighters, which is the part that we're most worried about. Then, all guards would start a methodical search until they found the infiltrator… that's our best guess, anyway."

Hobbes frowned. This whole thing looked incredibly rickety, and he didn't like how little they had to go off of. How many guards were there? Where were the cells located? What did the security on the doors look like? How many cameras were there? How long after a lockdown before the TIE fighters swarmed the airspace? They knew very little.

"So if we went with this plan, we would need a thermal scanner, cutting torches, and an EMP charge," Lando said. "We can get that, right?

"Yes," Leia said.

"We can't take the Falcon on this mission, can we?" Hobbes asked.

"The Millenium Falcon would be too wide to slip through the gap," Derlin said. "We can use any of our fighters, because they're not strong enough to carry a submersible on their underbellies. We could use something like a U-wing or a Sheathapede; I know that we have one of the latter stowed away in the Prolific."

"So, to recapitulate," Hobbes said, "we take a small ship and a submersible through the timed gap in the sensor field, drop off the sub, use it to get to the heating pipe, obstruct it and wait for the Imperials to shut it off, get in, break into the electrical room, EMP the place, sneak to Calvin's cell, grab him, go all the way back to the sub before the blackout ends, and go back to the surface for extraction. Did I get all that right?"

"Yep," Derlin said. "In a nutshell, at least. We still have to figure out a lot of the details, but for now, we can see what equipment we can get, the best ship to use, take a look at the submersible…"

"A good starting point," Leia agreed. "I'll go round up a ship and some crew. Derlin, start figuring out the equipment and the necessary measurements that we need to know. The size of the pipe, the EMP power level needed to cause a blackout, and such. 3po can assist you. Lando and Hobbes, I want you two to attend to your normal onboard tasks. You'll help later to modify the submersible and the ship that will transport it."

"Cool," Hobbes nodded. "I guess that's it for now?"

"I'll come and get you all when we meet again, later," Leia said. "The meeting is adjourned for now, and remember: Tell no-one."

Meanwhile…

Calvin knew what would happen. He knew where he was being taken, and so did the three death troopers escorting him. Fear threatened to overcome him, and he did his best to push it down.

He knew that the empire could, under no circumstances, get their hands on the DART. It would mean an arms race between the infinitely many universes, each one in a race to become a Space-Time-traveling one. He did his utmost to calm down, taking deep, deep breaths and imagining Hobbes, Leia, and Chewie preparing to rescue him. He knew that they wouldn't stop searching, and they would find out where he was eventually. It was up to him to hold out until they could.

Of course, he had told Hobbes to just take the DART and get back home… to not wait for him.

But would Hobbes have listened to that? In retrospect, it was a pretty silly thing to do- Hobbes wouldn't ever abandon him just like that.

Walking through the gray, bland hallways and flanked by death troopers, Calvin took in what details he could. He had been walking for around two minutes, he noted, and there were closed security doors at every turn and every doorway that looked pretty unbreakable. The whole prison probably had a lockdown system that locked all of them, splitting the hallways into compartments that could be cleared out one by one in the event of a break-in. He had been taken from his cell, and was escorted through a cylindrical cell area with two sections- an outer part, lined with prison cells, and a tall tower from which the guards could look in every direction at the prisoners. Now he was in another section with hallways and doors. Cameras watched every inch of space. Looking up, he saw circular metal pipes mounted on the ceiling, snaking in accordance with the layout of the hallways. The same boring Imperial whitewash.

The troopers stopped at a door on the side of the hallway, pressed a button to open it, and shoved him through. He landed on his hands and knees, and quickly got up, trying to look strong. The troopers closed the door behind him, and grabbed him by the shoulders so that he couldn't move.

The room was rather empty for a torture chamber, which was what Calvin thought they were taking him out of his cell for. Gray walls, a black, polished floor… The room was square in nature, and not very big. Only two other people were in the room; a tall, lanky imperial in a gray suit, and someone behind him. Suddenly the gray man moved, and Calvin saw Amela Va'ata, analyzing a datapad. Looking up, the ends of her lips curled down ever so slightly.

"There you are," she said, and turned to who Calvin guessed was her aide. "I'll hang on to the file. If you wish to leave, you may do so."

"Thank you, Ma'am," the aide said, and walked past Calvin, acutely avoiding his gaze. As the aide walked past, one of the death troopers removed his bindings. Then, they stood around and behind him, waiting.

"So," he said, flippantly, "torture, right?" He looked around. The room was small, and contained no giant life-draining machine or interrogator droid or even a chair. Just a floor and walls. "Doesn't look very ominous."

"It's interrogation, not torture," the woman frowned, and let out a small sigh. "Listen. I don't want you to think that I take any pleasure out of this. It's painful to watch, and you're just a child. So, we're going to avoid any truth serums and electrical devices-" she looked pointedly at him- "-and start this with an old-fashioned method. It will still hurt, and if you say nothing, we will keep moving up the pain ladder, but I want to give you one last chance to-"

"Nope," Calvin interrupted, "I am not going to tell you how to build my invention. Just saying it right now, so that you don't waste yer time."

"Why not?" she asked. "I don't know what the Rebellion told you, but that machine is dangerous. I'm just trying to keep the people that live under our rule the protection that we promised them."

"What a coincidence!" Calvin said. "I'm trying to protect people, too! And y'know what won't protect people? You Imperials getting your grubby hands on my machine."

"The only people that won't be protected are the rebels," Amela argued. "It's noble of you to try and save them, but nobility means nothing when it is used to defend evil."

"I can assure you that the Rebellion is no more evil than you guys are," Calvin said. "And we're certainly a lot less evil than you ISB spooks."

"Oh, yeah? How many people do you think you killed when you destroyed the Death Star?" Amela hissed.

"What the heck are you talking about?" Calvin asked. "We destroyed a planet-obliterating-moon-sized battlestation! How many people do you think were killed when you blew up Alderaan, dummy?"

"Alderaan was a hive of Rebellion!" Amela snarled. "Filled with terrorist conspirators! When we destroyed it, we saved billions of other lives from their planned attacks against other planets and sent a clear message that we will go after anyone and anything that threatens our people!"

"Oh, my god," Calvin muttered, exasperated.

"As I've told you before, the information that I extract saves people," Amela said, clearly frustrated. "So tell me how to build your machine, and I'll try to help you in return. Alright?"

Calvin sighed, and stopped to think. He had thought that because she tortured people (and was the daughter of a very ruthless Imperial admiral), she knew the truth. Yet now, he could clearly understand that she was no less delusional and propaganda-filled than any Imperial citizen. She wasn't torturing and interrogating because it was her calling in life or something like that…

It was because she thought that she was protecting people.

He sat there for a minute, thinking, then said, "I see your point of view, I guess."

She looked at him, surprised.

"You torture and you work from the shadows because you believe that you're improving the lives of everyone in the galaxy," Calvin said. You're protecting them from pirates and smugglers and slavers."

She nodded.

He sighed, and looked at her. "Listen, lady. You and me, despite all odds, seem to have something in common. You joined the ISB to help people, and I joined the Rebellion to help people. But no matter what you think, I know. And I know that-"

"Help?" she interrupted, frowning. "You don't help people! Do you think that your constant raids, attacks, explosions, and assassinations help people?"

"Well, I don't see the Empire as being any better," Calvin growled, frustrated at being cut off. "I've been to Kessel. To Corellia. To Coruscant. And everywhere I go, I see corruption and suffering and fear. The empire has killed millions to stay in control of the middle and outer rims. It uses slave labor from other species to mine and harvest and desecrate endless uprooted civilizations! When I infiltrated your base on Tanka, when I found out how you created these very Death Troopers that guard me right now, I knew that I would never look upon the empire as anything but an undoable knot of lies and corruption that will justify anything to prevent its collapse."

She tried to say something, but he didn't stop. "And y'know what's funny? The Rebel Alliance doesn't know what my machine is for, either. I'm not just trying to keep this thing out of your hands because I'm afraid that somehow, you'll use it to eradicate the Rebellion. I have no doubts that if the Rebellion got their hands on it instead, the outcome would be exactly the same!"

"And what is the outcome?" Amela asked.

"Chaos," Calvin said, leaning forward. "Imagine millions of different universes containing trillions of beings and factions and dangers and plague and horrible, possibly mind-breaking things all spilling out of their respective worlds, all fighting and consuming and killing. The result of the Rebellion or the Empire using it to destroy one-another would cause them to destroy not just themselves, but this entire galaxy and others in the process. That is what my machine is capable of, and that is why I've done my best to make sure that nobody knows about it. Please… don't doom your galaxy."

Amela stood there for quite a few seconds, silent, and Calvin thought that, just maybe, he had gotten through to her.

Then she snorted.

"Nice try," she said. "But there is nothing in this galaxy that can jump between universes like a frog." She straightened. "When you lie to me, you ought to really consider saying something that I would actually believe."

"But-" Calvin tried to say.

She held up a hand. "I'm done giving you second chances." She looked at the Death Troopers and said, "Beat the truth out of him."

Before Calvin could blink, a gloved, armored fist smashed into his gut. Then another. And another. And another.

Thank you, CalvinZilla, for the review and for helping me decide whether or not Hobbes should tell Leia now or later!

SmarmySmirk Out.

:D