Tipoca City was on lockdown. There was a strict curfew, and citizens were discouraged from congregating in gathering places to or from work. All space traffic from the city had been suspended, and a light cruiser had been called to Kamino to enforce this new protocol. The cruiser was currently hovering above the city like a menacing rain cloud, about to open up and release a torrential downpour.

Ironic, as my planet constantly engulfed in storms. Thought Dr. Tanmi, as he sipped his morning tea. The large transteel viewport at the front of his apartment provided a perfect view of most of the city. Already, some sections of domes were burning, and several protesters had been arrested.

Perfect. The doctor thought. With this level of unrest, unseen since the days of the clone wars, soon his people would begin to revolt. Every piece since he first got wind of the Sith Lord's plan a week before he showed up had begun to fall into place. Everything he had done, traveling to Tatooine, talking to that boy in the dead of the night in Anchorhead, tipping off Lieutenant Yaami where he was in Mos Espa, arranging for Yaami to become Darthensmirtz's attache instead of an officer who would've been less oblivious to Tanmi's plans. It was all coming to fruition now. Soon, he thought with a dark smile, I will be unstoppable.

TXL-27714 was considered by most who knew him, an average stormtrooper. He was a few dozen pounds overweight, and slower to react than his fellow cadets at the Lothal academy. So, when it was time to assign him to a post, Commandant Arsenko had him posted on Imperial Freighter S8-8117, a Gozanti-class cruiser that made regular supply runs picking up shipments from the Mining Guild.

Onboard that ship, he lost whatever edge he had. He went soft and his senses dulled. Which is why, when tasked with checking out the Mining Guild's corvette before the engineering team boarded, he was thoroughly unprepared for the Rebel strike team that awaited him on the other side of the airlock. He took a blaster bolt to the chest and fell, officially becoming the first casualty of the Hijacking of S8-8117. The last thing he heard was a woman's voice, one he recognized as that of the rebel traitor Liea Organa, very loudly telling the rebel scum to "Move it!"

Lieutenant Isabella Garcia-Shapiro of the Rebel Alliance was very bored. Over the past three days she estimated the rebellion had undertaken half-a-dozen operations, and she had taken part in none of them. They ranged from missions as covert dispatching Intelligence operatives to far-flung star systems, to ones as criminally brazen as the hijacking of this freighter.

She was certain that it all had something to do with that blasted cargo pilot she had helped defect. Whatever he told the top brass, it must've been good. Well either good "here are vital imperial facilities and how to get into them" or the bad "Yeah, they're building another death star"

She was unable to take part in any of these operations due to overseeing the extensive repairs to her freighter. She had just finished fusing a new com antenna when she had been assigned to the hijacking. She was initially excited, but found instead of being assigned to the strike team aboard the captured Mining Guild corvette. But no, as fate would have it, her job was to sit in one of the ugly-looking Mining Guild TIE Fighters, just so the crew of the freighter wouldn't get suspicious. She spent half-an hour trying to decide if it was either a reward for successfully extracting the defector, or a punishment for nearly failing to do so.

When the Gozanti-class cruiser had exited hyperspace, she had jumped a little in her seat and shrieked. Thankfully, the com had been off, and no one heard her. She was also grateful for the fact that there were no TIEs docked with the cruiser. It had come alone.

For a brief moment, the com was abuzz with activity as the cruiser's commander called to the Mining vessel. Then, a short reply as Solo-annoying as ever-attempted to explain why the vessel was off course. Then the cruiser swung around to dock with the corvette.

For a minute, all was still. Then, the freighter started firing wildly. The first few shots hit the CR90, until whoever was manning the guns realized it was unwise to shoot at a ship you were currently docked with. Then, to Isabella's horror, the turrets swung in her direction. She pulled to the right just as they began firing, twin bursts of green energy flying through the space where her fighter had been a moment before, exploding ten meters farther.

She looked back at the steering console and cursed. The controls for the TIE to collide Fighters were annoyingly sensitive, and her panicked shift to the right had nearly caused her to crash into the other TIE. Which was piloted by Commander Skywalker. Her superior officer.

Shit.

Darthensmirtz, flanked by Lieutenant Yaami and two of the Death Troopers, entered Tipoca City's Central Command center. Droids and officers both human and kaminoan raced about the room, barking orders, tracking TIE movements, and monitoring security patrols. In the middle of it all stood Colonel Crefet, calm like the eye of the storm. Ironically, there was, as always, a typhoon raging outside, beneath the raised city.

"Crefet!" Darthenshmirtz shouted, as he had for the past several days. The older man's stiffened. "Update! Now!"

"Our patrols have found nothing, sir." The Colonel replied curtly, his patience with the Sith Lord worn thin. "Just like yesterday, and the day before. Absolutely nothing. Is it time to consider that he might not be...on the planet anymore?"

"He is, Colonel. I can sense him."

"With all due respect sir,"

Which is none. Crefet thought silently. "The force is an ancient religion and does not factor into my superior and modern search methods. Especially since your ability to call upon it is somewhat...limited. " Crefet winced. He regretted saying that the moment the words had left his mouth.

Darthensmirtz's nostrils flared. He raised his arm and the Force pushed against Colonel Crefet. He slammed against the transteel window before being pulled back to just a foot away from Darthensmirtz. As his feet touched the ground, he felt his windpipe begin to tighten. His hand reached for his throat, and his eyes bulged. He gasped, but that action alone made it feel as if his throat were on fire.

"Let me show you the power of the force colonel." Crefet's face turned purple, and it felt like his thin neck was about to shatter. Then, as quickly as it had started, the tantrum ended, and Crefet dropped to the ground on his knees, gasping for breath.

"Sir!" a technician reported. "One of our probe droids has detected something in quadrant 4." Darthensmirtz turned, leaving Crefet on the ground. It was then the Colonel noticed Dr. Tanmi. The aged geneticist was standing alone in a corner, watching the chaotic proceedings with expression. He was almost...smiling? Crefet scowled. He had always been suspicious of that strange alien, who had the bizarre habit of disappearing for weeks at a time.

"Report." the sith lord said loudly, drawing Crefet's attention back to the situation at hand.

"It was searching the ventilation tubes in an older, mostly empty, building in the south of the city, when it reported contact with a young human, matching Fletcher's description. We have received no fur updates from it."

"Deploy troops to intercept. Have the droid force him out of the ducts and into the open." he shouted, momentarily forgetting the Colonel. "Make sure they know I want him alive! Scramble all available gunships!" Satisfied, he turned back to Crefet.

"Colonel, I want you to lead this mission." Crefet gaped, and slowly got to his feet. "Fail, and you will suffer."

Crefet nodded. "Yes sir." with that, he turned and left the command room.

One minute earlier

Ferb poked at the floor with an old wrench he had found lying in one of the ducts. He had been on the run for a week now, and was running out of places to hide. His last meal was yesterday, a piece of soggy fish nabbed from a passing aiwha, and it wasn't particularly filling. Needless to say, he was indeed hungry again.

In a moment of delirium, he almost thought the wrench a piece of food, and tired to eat it, but was interrupted by a strange noise.

It sounded like a droid, that much Ferb could tell. The voice was mechanized, and it sounded like it was speaking binary. Back on Tatooine, before they met Isabella, before that R2 unit fell into their landspeeder, and certainly well before his parents had become prisoners of the Empire, Phineas and Ferb had picked up some binary in the course of their chores; working with the family's motley collection of binary vaporators. He could make out little of what the droid was saying, but enough to realize one thing;

"This is Unit 321..contact...lifeform. Matches...description..Fletcher's medical file."

He had to run.

He picked up the wrench, and slowly backed towards the exit of the duct. He kept his eyes pointed right at the spot where the droid would surface. And surface it did. Like some dark monstrosity of a sea creature rising from the depths of an ocean, the probe droid slowly rose up out of another air duct. It wasn't even halfway visible when it began firing. Ferb ducked, and to his surprise, avoided the stun blast. He jumped, and again, avoided the blast. He avoided the next one, too. And the next one. And the one after that. With a start, he realized that he knew where the blasts would be before they were fired. The force was guiding him.

For a second , the droid stopped firing. Ferb guessed that this was to reload the cylinder of charged tibanna gas in its blaster. He seized the opportunity to strike, and shoved his wrench through the droid's largest "eye", a big photoreceptor in the center of the domed head. The droid started sparking, smoke billowing from the crack in the photoreceptor. It was then Ferb remembered a conversation he and Phineas had had with Blatto, their Toydarian junk dealer back on Tatooine three years prior regarding these very droids;

"Ah, the Imperials, they've got these new probe droids workin' with their patrols." Blatto had said. "You seen 'em?"

"I've heard of them." had been Phineas' reply "My father's cousin Ohine said he saw one patrolling the streets over in Bestine, on the edge of the Dune Sea. He said someone shot at it with a slugthrower, and the whole thing exploded."

"They have some sort of self-destruct mechanism." the Toydarian had said. "Hit it once, and the whole thing goes down. Waste of an ugly droid."

Realizing the droid was about to explode, Ferb pulled his wrench free and leapt away from the machine as it erupted in flames. His skin slightly charred, Ferb blinked. He shook his head, and ash fell out of his green hair. What he saw next nearly made him vomit in surprise.

"Perry?" he croaked weakly at the platypus that had just crawled into his ventilation tube.

The door to S8-8117's bridge blasted open, shrapnel and pieces of door flew everywhere. The freighter's commander ducked, her cap flying off of her head. Her heart beat fast, as she reached for the pistol at her side.

Liea, flanked by two pathfinders and Candace, walked out of the smoke, a pistol in her hand. She seemed to have a relaxed attitude about the whole thing.

"I refuse to surrender." the officer said, "I know that's what you're about to ask me to do."

Liea shrugged in agreement.

"It is."

"I'm not doing it." she responded defiantly.

"You could save your crew-what's left of them, at any rate."

"My answer is still no." With that, she pulled the pistol she had been gripping, and pointed it at Liea. She barely had time to stand firmer before Candace shot her, point blank, in the chest.

The officer gaped, her eyes going wide. She gasped quietly, and crumpled to the floor. The pistol dropped out of her hands, clattering on the metal.

Slowly, the life faded from the woman's eyes. Gently, Lia bent down and closed the for her.

"What a waste." Candace remarked, generally unremorseful.

"Still," the Princess said quietly "At least she died fighting for a cause she believed in."

"An evil cause." Candace reminded her, her voice rising. "A cause that enslaves worlds. A cause that orphans more and more children every day. A cause that I served!"

She spoke the last word, 'served', like its very nature, the very combination of letters, disgusted her. Liea frowned.

"Sergeant," she admonished. "You have to remember, they're all human."

"I'm not so sure about that." Candace muttered, stalking out of the room.

"Perry?" Ferb croaked weakly. The platypus coked its head and growled. Yelping in surprise, Ferb realized that the semi-aquatic mammal was not wearing a rebel uniform, but rather and Imperial jumpsuit hoodie, with the cog symbol on the shoulders. Ferb realized what this was;

One of Darthensmirtz's Perry clones. The commandos that were being churned out in the Sith lord's secret facility. The platypus growled again, and leaped at Ferb.

The young jedi lept backwards, swinging the wrench wildly in an attempt to frighten the creature. The clone was not deterred, and slowly walked towards Ferb, forcing him ever closer towards the opening in the top of the vent, leading to the outside.

Another two platypuses appeared behind the first, wielding blasters. Having no choice, Ferb darted up the ventilation tube, out the vent, and onto the little platform at the top of the Kaminoan spire. He hastily fastened the vent grill back with his wrench.

"Mr. Fletcher," a voice called " How nice of you to join us." Turning in alarm, Ferb found himself facing several Imperial patrol gunships hovering in the air above him.

Inside the large troop bays of two, stood several Stormtroopers. The third however, only held the officer that had greeted him and Darthensmirtz when they arrived on this planet; Colonel Crefet and a duo of red-armored Shock Troopers with heavy blasters.

"I was beginning to think you'd never show up, Mr. Fletcher." the officer said calmly. Ferb stood straighter, and glared at him. He frowned. "So you want to play that way, hm?" He frowned harder and turned to his Shock Troopers.

"Get him." he growled.

Glossary

Commandant Arsenko - That thin, bony officer who was executed by the inquisitor under orders from Tarkin in Season One of Star Wars Rebels

Bestine - Actually the name of a city on Tatooine. In the legends continuity, I think it might've been listed as the planet's capital.

So, where do I begin?

Easy..Dr. Tanmi.

Wow. So apparently the geneticist who's been working with our friend Dr. Heinz "Darthensmirtz" Doofenshmirtz has actually been a player in the story way before his introduction in Chapter Six. And not only does he view the other members of Darthensmirtz's retinue like pawns (Not even caring if he hurts them like the sociopath he truly is) but he and his plans have escaped notice from:

Darthensmirtz himself.

NORM-3P0

Lieutenant Yaami

In fact, the only one who has even any suspicions whatsoever is Colonel Crefet.

Ah, Crefet. The Imperial everyman. Your standard under-qualified, under-appreciated, over-promoted imperial officer. Incompetent, but not competent enough to mask his stupidity. And apparently, competent enough to notice suspicious activities of certain Kaminoans.

Also, Candace. Once the law-and-order candidate-ahem-character, is now a complete anarchist. Her extreme resentment of the Empire is something that surprised even me. I guess when you're working on a story, sometimes the characters end up taking different directions than you expected.

-Will X