Okay, so... well, it's certainly been a while. I'm sorry this update has taken so long! Words weren't happening for a while there (even though there were ideas aplenty, go figure), and then when words finally decided to happen again, this chapter began to expand to a truly remarkable degree (8400 words and still going up as of this evening, ye gods). I've decided to cut the chapter in two, for the sake of consistency with previous chapter lengths and also so that the next update should come much sooner!

Admiral Piett straightened his rank insignia and tugged his cap a little more firmly down on his head. In just half an hour, he was to brief the squadron captains on a campaign they were to undertake in the Mid Rim, near the Unknown Regions. He had already survived a meeting with several others of the admiralty, whose units were to join Death Squadron in the campaign. During that meeting, he had felt remarkably like a small boy playing at ships and soldiers. It was absurd. Death Squadron was the pride of His Majesty's fleet, Lord Vader's own squadron, and to have it represented, to have it commanded by a green boy-admiral—what was the Lord of the Sith thinking?

And what were Piett's fellow admirals thinking. There had been murmurs when he had entered the briefing room aboard Vanquisher, flagship of the fleet admiral who was to lead the campaign. Those murmurs had crescendoed upon the others realising that the youthful newcomer was none other than Death Squadron's own admiral. One of the less prudent men had barked out a laugh and asked whether Lord Vader was burning through his senior staff so quickly that he had been forced to resort to giving command positions to the ensigns.

"You must think highly of our ensigns, indeed, if you suppose them capable of surviving a period of weeks as admiral under any commander," Piett had replied, with a wry little smile. He refused to show any affront at being called an ensign before his rank peers. Besides, it was mildly pleasing to see the man's consternation at having his insult turned thus on its head.

And then Fleet Admiral Ardek had stridden in, all supercilious authority, and the briefing had begun. Piett had survived with his dignity only somewhat the worse for wear, but a bit of uncertainty had sprouted in his mind as the details of the campaign were laid out. By the end of the session, that uncertainty had grown into a distinct uneasiness.

The Sevret system, which did a modest business in food, textile exports, and lesser luxury goods, had thus far been permitted to exist in peace. The Empire, vast and mighty as it was, simply did not have the resources to conquer every non-Republic system at once, and Sevret had not been a priority, for it had minded its own business politically, engaged willingly in trade, and while it had a military, those forces were utilized strictly for warding off pirates and other factions attracted to the system's valuable commodities. Sevret and the Empire had both known for years that the Empire would one day come calling, but both had been content to see that day as far down the chronological road.

Until, that was, the Inquisitorius had discovered a Jedi enclave on Errece, the Sevret system's primary agriworld. The Imperial forces were now under orders to neutralize the Jedi threat and bring the system under occupation to prevent the spread of treasonous ideology into the Empire proper.

Jedi were too dangerous to be permitted to run amuck in the galaxy. A single Jedi was to be hunted down. A nest of them was to be obliterated before the poison could spread. Well and good—they couldn't have Jedi forming armies in the shadows and joining with the Rebels to wage war against the Empire. But occupation of an entire system because of a Jedi enclave on one world—it seemed excessive. It felt like an excuse, particularly since Errece was also known to boast large mineral deposits beneath its rich soil, as was its neighbor Genne. An agriworld was of minimal interest to the Empire, but a pair of mining worlds, with ores that would supply the shipyards at Kuat and Fondor—that was another matter entirely.

Perhaps recent life experiences had given Piett a turn toward the cynical, but he could not help wondering whether the Jedi were not merely a convenient way to preserve an image of legitimacy during the conquest of Sevret. Perhaps merely was too strong a word—but he wondered nonetheless whether occupation would be a priority if the Jedi enclave had been discovered on a dustball with no valuable resources to speak of.

And so, it was not the prospect of facing the captains of Death Squadron that was making Piett uncomfortable at this point, but the mission itself. As a lieutenant, he would not have questioned his captain telling him they were bound for Errece to eradicate the Jedi. Now, with a rear admiral's clearance that made him privy to the details—suffice it to say that the glory of the Empire was looking a little tarnished in the present light.

Still, he preferred even that discomfort that evoked by the campaign strategy itself. Fleet Admiral Ardek had informed him that Death Squadron was to move on Errece, while the other squadrons would cover the taking of Sevrevar, home to the system's seat of government, and the two other worlds in the system. He could still see Ardek's cold smile, could still hear the smugness seeping from the words that were practically a death knell.

"Rear Admiral Piett. Death Squadron will make first entry into the system and proceed directly to Errece. Once the system's planetary defenses are concentrated there, our remaining squadrons will move in to quell resistance on Sevrevar, Genne, and Albeth."

Death Squadron was more than capable of taking the brunt of Sevret's forces, under an experienced commander. Under Piett, however, success was far from assured. And true, he would be able to call for aid from the other Imperial ships if necessary, but it would be a rank humiliation to the Navy's premier squadron, and surely an intolerable failure in Lord Vader's eyes.

As he was in the middle of striving diligently to put all of these dismal cogitations out of his mind so he might focus on briefing his squadron on the battle ahead, his commlink chimed. He expected a message announcing some change to the mission strategy, but the caller instead turned out to be Starkiller. Piett had given him his personal comm code after their last conversation, feeling it unfair to further embroil Ensign Teshlen in the matter.

"Piett! Do you know—"

"I'm sorry, Starkiller," Piett interrupted, "but I don't have time to talk just now."

"But—"

"I'm due for an important meeting in less than an hour, young one."

"That's a long time away," Starkiller protested. "And this is important, too!"

A Rear Admiral in the Imperial Navy should not be susceptible to tooka eyes. Perhaps Piett would have been impervious had Starkiller been, for instance, a pampered Core brat. But he was a Sith Lord's apprentice, and Piett found himself unable to resist.

"Very well. I can give you fifteen minutes, Starkiller."

Starkiller, wasting no time on such trivialities as thank you, plunged ahead.

"My master was odd a while ago, and I don't know why."

Implied was, So I thought maybe you would, because evidently, though Piett had proven ignorant in the field of droid repair, Starkiller somehow supposed he might be informed in the still more arcane discipline of understanding Lord Vader's whims.

"How was he odd?"

"It was when he was training me last time. I don't understand, I wasn't quick enough in a duel, and he got through my guard and hit me, but then—" he touched his shoulder with a contemplative air, "—then he went and put bacta on the burned place, and he told me how to duel better when we started again, and... and I don't understand, Piett. I did it wrong and I was weak, so why was he being... being... why'd he help me? He never did before, and it's not how Sith are."

Piett could not imagine. Unless Lord Vader regretted having destroyed his apprentice's droid... but Lord Vader, to all appearances, had never regretted anything a day in his life. It was impossible to think he had suddenly begun to feel even a degree of compunction for his apprentice. Too humanizing. Vader was a Sith, a sorcerer, a devastating force of nature—the Emperor's will incarnate—and to think that behind Vader's armor, behind his menace and his own inexorable will, there was a person—a mere person, with all a person's uncertainties and regrets and fears— It was unfathomable.

And yet, Starkiller's account suggested otherwise.

What could make a person into the being who was Darth Vader? And, more puzzling, what could lead such a being to remember his humanity enough to care for the apprentice he had hitherto abused without remorse?

"I'm as much in the dark as you," Piett concluded to Starkiller, who regarded him with a skeptical eye.

"I thought adults were supposed to know things, but you don't know very much, do you?"

That startled a laugh out of Piett.

"I'm still rather new at being an adult, you see. And I haven't the Force like your master. I can't read people's minds and know why they do the things they do."

"Then I suppose you don't know why it feels like now there's a string, or a cobweb or something stuck to me in the Force, either?"

"I haven't a clue."

Starkiller sighed and flopped down on his stomach in front of the holorecorder, chin in his hands. "I wish you did. You wouldn't... well, you wouldn't be like my master if it's something I did wrong."

"I should hope not."

"Piett?"

"Yes?"

"Do you think I'm a bad apprentice?" A worried frown creased Starkiller's brow.

"From what I've seen, you work very hard to be a good apprentice."

"But I'm weak," Starkiller spat. "I— I liked my master better when he was fixing my burn. Better than I ever have before. Still hurt and everything, but it was..." he paused again to study the ground in a shamefaced way, "... it was nice? Kind of like PROXY, when he wasn't trying to kill me."

"He was taking care of you," Piett said, electing not to question why it sounded as if the child's droid-friend was intermittently homicidal.

"But to be a Sith and use the dark side you need to be angry, and hurt and hate. I hated him when he smashed PROXY, but I didn't like it. And it's all for power and stuff, but what's the point of all that if I just want PROXY back, and for my…"

He broke off with a characteristic glare, as if he considered it all Piett's fault that he was admitting to un-Sithly feelings.

Piett held back an aggravated sigh. He wanted to soothe the fretting Sithling and gently tell him that Sith philosophy was complete and utter rubbish, and no one had any business telling a child that only pain and anger would make him strong—but he could not interfere with the training of Lord Vader's apprentice.

"The only answers I have, Starkiller, are apt to get one or both of us killed." Harsh words to a child, but Starkiller had very likely heard worse during his tenure as Lord Vader's apprentice. "I am sorry I cannot offer you anything useful. But—while I cannot give advice, I can listen, if that would help you at all."

Starkiller shook his head, then ventured, "Would you tell me something, instead?"

"Tell you something?"

"Yeah. I haven't had anyone to talk to me since PRXOY's gone."

So Piett spent the last few minutes of the call recounting a tales from his days in the Axxilan Anti-Pirate Fleet, to which Starkiller listened with rapt attention.

Following the escape from Corvala, Eirtaé had dropped off the others at the training site and had then flown the ship with the departing Togruta and the stormtrooper captives off-world—the captive pilot had proven remarkably compliant upon the introduction to a blaster muzzle to his dorsal, and had reportedly gotten them through the Imperial planetary checkpoint without incident. Padmé had dispatched a message to Minister Jerti, who sent back his assurances that the families of the conscripted Togruta would be evacuated with all possible haste.

Training of the Shilian citizens was now progressing satisfactorily in the secluded forest valley where the Rebels had set up camp. Knowledge of their presence had spread among the local villages by word of mouth, and by the time they had been on-world for a couple of weeks, they had accumulated a large and eager body of trainees. Sunup to sundown, they practiced sabotage, hand-to-hand, and shooting. They learned tactics, and put their lessons into action in combat exercises against each other and the Rebels. Even the children weren't too young to learn. Numa and several other teenlings from the base had come along, and they helped with teaching the young ones while the adults were training.

Today, Numa had taken her four charges to a clearing to practice the techniques Padmé had been teaching her. Sure, no six-year-old was going to be able to use Handmaiden skills to take out even a single stormtrooper, but the kids liked to feel that they were helping. Plus, who knew? The struggle against the Empire might drag on long enough that they would grow up and actually have to put the skills to use. Everyone hoped not, but they were all aware of the Rebellion's diminutive reality.

Numa watched with satisfaction as one young boy tackled his older sister and sent her sprawling on the soft pine needles that carpeted the clearing.

"That's the idea, Irshi! Now, Raashka, see if you can—yes!" as Raashka dropped her brother with a well-aimed kick to the back of his knee.

"This's fun!" she announced, plopping herself squarely on top of the hapless Irshi, upon whom the other two younglings, Jorec and Ilka, immediately piled as well. The match became a free-for-all, with alliances changing like the wind as the younglings teamed up one moment and gleefully betrayed each other the next.

Numa let herself be dragged into the pile, where she caught Jorec by the arm and pulled her squirming prisoner into a tight embrace.

"I have a hostage!" she announced above the clamor. "Just you try and get him back, you Rebel scum!"

"To the rescue!"

Raashka dove in and tried to pry her arms loose, but she forgot the importance of balance, and Numa sent her sprawling with a gentle headbutt. Then she shrieked and let go, lekku twitching, her captive having managed to wiggle his fingers into her armpit. He tumbled away and got to his feet, very pleased with himself.

"I picked the lock!"

"And I've sent a whole patrol of TIE fighters after you! You'll be back in my clutches in no time!"

Numa held out her arms to the sides and started chasing Jorec, only to be intercepted by a trio of Rebel craft that harried her with many a gleeful, "Pew-pew!" and fired fallen pinecones for ammunition.

A flash of movement out of the corner of her eye brought her to a screeching halt.

"Ow!" complained Raashka, crashing into her. "Hey! Why'd you stop?"

"Shh!" Numa said. She scanned the edges of the clearing. "I thought I saw—"

Brush shifted somewhere off to her left. She spun and gasped in alarm as a massive, cat-like creature leapt from the undergrowth, saber-fangs bared.

"Run!"

She turned around to collect the younglings but tripped over Raashka, who was clinging to her leg. They both scrambled back to their feet and took off after the other younglings, who were already halfway to the other side of the clearing.

"Up a tree!" Numa shouted at them. "Climb!"

They made for a large tree with low, broken-off branches that made for good handholds, and started climbing. Numa and Raashka followed moments later, with the beast hot on their heels. Was it too much to ask that it wouldn't be able to climb trees?

Evidently so. The cat glared at them for a moment or two, then launched its bulk upward. Its thick claws caught hold, and it started up the tree.

Numa reached for her blaster, but it wasn't there. Kark! Stupid thing must've gotten knocked out during the mad scramble for the tree.

"Give me one of those cones!"

One of the younglings handed her a cone, and she launched it at the cat as it continued clawing its way up the tree. The cat, struck on the nose, made a strange sort of snarl-snort and bailed out of the tree, then paced around its base, head bobbing upward.

Numa let out a breath of relief. Maybe it would stay down, now, and they could just stay in the tree until someone came to help.

"Genetrix!" she hollered, using the new codename Padmé had taken since Revenant was compromised. "Fulcrum! Jaig!"

She could only hope one of them would hear, or perhaps Ahsoka would feel their trouble in the Force. She shouldn't have led the younglings this far away from the camp. She'd thought they would be fine—she had her blaster, after all—but a blaster was only useful if you actually had it in your hand.

"Yell," she told the kids. "And don't stop until someone comes to help!"

They set up a ruckus, somewhat impeded by breathlessness from their hasty ascent.

Meanwhile, below, the cat evidently decided to have another go. It leapt at the trunk again, and Numa and the younglings resumed throwing pinecones, but it was getting bolder. This time, it merely squinted against the unwelcome downpour as a hail of pinecones pelted its face, and kept climbing. It seemed to realize the cones weren't going to be much more than a nuisance. Numa cursed inwardly.

"Give me a stick!"

Ilka handed her a short branch.

"No, nerfbrain, a big stick to poke the kriffing cat with!"

"You said a bad word!" Irshi squeaked.

"Yeah, well, I think I'm karking well entitled, don't you? Stick! Now!"

Jorec handed her a bigger stick. She ripped the branches off and stabbed her makeshift spear downward at the cat. It snarled and snapped at the stick, but did not retreat.

"Keep climbing!" she yelled up at the younglings, who had paused to watch.

"But what if we fall?"

"Just don't!"

They continued upward, and Numa scrambled after them. Her hands were growing sticky with sap, and tree branches scratched her lekku. The cat kept following. Its powerful claws dug into the tree trunk, and its wicked fangs snapped sometimes just inches below Numa's heels.

Should've picked a small tree, she thought. This one was so big and sturdy that they would have to climb for a long time before the cat wouldn't be able to follow. The younglings were tiring, and their progress up the tree was slowing. Irshi gashed his arm on a broken branch, lost his grip, and would have plummeted to the forest floor if Raashka hadn't seized his wrist long enough for Numa to shove him up to the next branch.

I said don't fall!

Fortunately, before any other younglings could follow Irshi's example, a commotion sounded in the woods, and flashes of movement showed between the trees. Ahsoka broke into the clearing first, followed by Padmé, Rex, and a group of trainees. The cat paused its climb and looked down with a snarl, the fur along its spine rising.

Padmé and Rex flicked the safeties off their blasters, but Ahsoka flashed the old GAR handsign for Wait. She could feel the raxshir's interest in the children waning as it took in the angry, fearful throng of adults. Seconds passed. The raxshir's head bobbed, and it raised its nose and curled back its lip in a feline grimace, sniffing the air. Then, it backed down the tree, leaping off a couple of meters above the ground, and began to pad forward, nose still aloft. Rex raised his blaster, and again Ahsoka motioned, Wait!

Reaching into the Force, she felt a sparkle of inquisitiveness, and—was that recognition?

She held out one hand, ready to repel the beast, if necessary. It bounded forward like a tooka, tail rising with crooked tip.

Padmé grasped her arm, ready to yank her back if she thought the situation demanded it. Ahsoka brushed her gently away as the cat extended its neck to sniff at her hand. It was so close that its white-streaked whiskers, arched forward, tickled her palm.

"Made a friend, Commander?" Rex murmured.

"I guess. Odd, though. I didn't even use—you know."

"One-upping your grandmaster, I see."

She laughed quietly and looked at the cat, which butted its massive head affectionately against her shoulder, then back at her companions. Most of the Togruta were some combination of tense, relieved, and amazed. One woman, however, stood watching with an oddly intense expression, and the Force stirred with ripples of disbelief and something that almost dared to be hope. As she stared toward Ahsoka and the raxshir, a teenling at her side elbowed her in the ribs.

"Mom!" Ahsoka heard the girl hiss, and the woman—Pav-ti, she remembered from a couple of earlier training sessions—blushed, the orange of her skin taking on a ruddier tint.

The raxhsir made a deep rumble that seemed its equivalent of purring and shoved its head against Ahsoka's sternum, nearly bowling her over. Annoyed that her attention had strayed, apparently. She scratched behind its ears, then patted its shoulder.

"Shoo," she told it. "Go hunt a kybuck or something. Leave the people alone."

The raxshir licked her hand with its rough tongue, then bounded away into the brush.

"What was all that?" Padmé asked quietly, as the other adults went to help Numa retrieve the younglings from their tree.

Ahsoka shrugged. "Beats me. Random carnivores don't usually decide I'm their friend out of the blue."

But had it really been out of the blue? It had felt like the raxshir had recognised her, but she hadn't even set foot on Shili since Master Plo had taken her to the Temple.

"I have no idea," she said again, and Padmé gave her a bemused look before going off to check that Numa was all right.

The Sevret system and all its constituents are my own inventions. Needed a non-Empire-affiliated system with certain specifications and didn't feel like trudging through Wookieepedia in search of a one from canon or Legends!

Also, not sure whether the raxshir would really be as tall as it's described here? It was kind of hard to tell how tall they really are from the pictures I could find.

And finally, I updated Padmé's codename in the last chapter, just in case there's any confusion over Prime vs. Genetrix.