All characters are mine, but the Star Wars universe and all its toys belong to Lucasfilm. As always, many thanks go out to the awesome people who read this and/or help me out by giving me ideas, critiques, encouragement and an ear when I need to air my frustrations. I couldn’t do this without all of you.

“I mean they’re not back yet. I have my droid scanning Imperial and civilian frequencies and news reports looking for something. If I hear anything, I’ll let you know.”

Mackin really didn’t like the news Gundark was telling him. “What do we do in the meantime?”

“We don’t do anything,” Trainneer interrupted as he came up to Mackin and Gundark back at the warehouse. “Troy told me Group Three had been delayed.”

“He did? When?” Mackin demanded. He’d never been fond of being left in the dark when his own subordinates were concerned.

“When we were in Bertel. It wasn’t important. He said he’d call again if they would be delayed further. Since he didn’t, that means they left when they were expecting to, and with the drive time figured in they should be here any minute now.”

“Well, if they’re on their way, then I guess there’s no reason to worry,” Gundark said. “I’ll tell the droid to stop looking.”

“Wait,” Mackin said. “Let him continue. It’ll be an extra layer of security for us to make sure the Imperials aren’t clued in to our mission.” Plus, he wasn’t fully convinced there was nothing to worry about with Group Three, not until he was proved wrong. In fact, he’d probably tell Botch or one of the other squadron astromechs to help with the scanning.

It was completely dark all around him. Darin was scarcely breathing but was worried his pounding heart was loud enough to alert the Imperial to their hiding place.

Creeeeak. Creeeeeak. Creeeeeak.

Darin again thanked whatever higher power was looking after him that he had spent some time beforehand looking for a hiding place within the cellar. The best he had been able to find was a small crawlspace under some loose floorboards, but when a group of Imperials started coming down their street and searching it very thoroughly, he decided that was not the time to be picky. The Rebels had scarcely managed to get down there before the sound of footsteps had alerted them to one or two Imperials coming down into the cellar to investigate.

The Imperial’s footsteps in the cellar came closer to them. Darin reflexively tightened his hold over Troy’s mouth under the breathing mask to prevent any inopportune sounds from the unconscious soldier lying on top of him in the cramped space. There was less room down there than there had been under the speeder during the repair work. If that Imperial stepped on the floorboards and noticed they weren’t fastened down–

The creaking footsteps slowly passed directly over the Rebels’ hiding spot. Darin held his breath and squeezed his eyes shut, trying to rein in his imaginings that began with the Imperial pulling up the floorboards and ended in a place like Lokinha, where every prisoner capture resulted in an execution.

The pilot was almost surprised when the footsteps slowly moved away back toward the cellar’s entrance and then disappeared altogether. He very slowly exhaled, hardly daring to believe that they hadn’t been discovered.

Trainneer’s “any minute now” had turned into a half hour, and it was all Mackin could do to keep from pacing. Maybe Group Three had just forgotten to call and extend their time, but that would mean something else happened to delay them further, which wasn’t a pleasant prospect either.

Botch, Darin’s R5 droid, squawked from the droid socket on Darin’s X-wing. About fifteen minutes ago Mackin had put him to work using the fighter’s communications system to help the operative’s droid scan the frequencies, and Ikoa climbed up on the snubfighter to see what Botch had found. As she read his report on his small text readout screen, she got visibly upset. “Botch says he came across some indications that the Imperials are looking for a group of suspected Rebels in Bertel. He’s trying to find more info.”

The Rebels waited anxiously as the two droids worked to find and narrow down information. After a couple minutes of beeping to himself in concentration, Botch let out a sad whistle and a series of quick-sounding beeps and clicks. Ikoa’s breath caught in her throat just before she read aloud again, “Oh, no. Apparently two Rebels were killed during their escape, and initial reports say two or three escaped into the city. The Imperials are searching for the survivors now.”

“Why haven’t they tried contacting us?” Drohner asked.

“Maybe they’re injured or too close to the Imperials to risk it,” Hozke answered.

“Try contacting Group Three,” Trainneer ordered.

Gundark went to work, but a couple long minutes later he shook his head. “No answer on any of the comlinks. Halon might be in a position to know some inside information: I’ll give his comlink a try too.”

“We need to go look for them,” said Arrunes while Gundark worked on the comms some more.

Trainneer shook his head. “We need to wait for more news. Make sure everything is ready to go; if they’re caught and the Imperials find out where we are, we may need to leave in a hurry.”

“Sir, if they get caught and interrogated, the whole mission will be compromised,” said Drohner.

“We can’t do anything until we find out more and know what the actual situation is. Going in blindly just increases the chances of something going wrong and more of us being put in danger. The chances of that ultimately compromising the mission are far greater. For all we know, this could be bait set for us by the Imperials. We wait and find out more first.”

“But we’re going to help them, aren’t we, sir?” Mackin asked in an even voice.

“It depends on what we hear.” Trainneer abruptly turned away to look over the loading preparations, ending the discussion.

No one in that warehouse, Mackin most of all, looked like they agreed with that sentiment except for maybe Gundark, but they all went to work. Some of the commandos spoke to each other in inaudible tones as they went about their business. The Coronas were silent, occasionally looking back at the droids. Mack did so more often than the others and silently pleaded with Botch to beep out better news soon.

He didn’t.

Gundark grew increasingly agitated over at his small comm console, and then he talked to his droid briefly. A few minutes later Botch whistled, Gundark’s droid beeped and Gundark immediately looked over a readout. He cursed a couple times under his breath, composed himself and then walked up to Trainneer. Mackin came over as well to find out what was going on.

“Halon’s not answering his comm,” the Intel operative said, obviously distressed. “That never happens–he always answers. So I asked the droids for some help, and they just uncovered an APB out on Halon’s Imperial persona, and it lists him as a suspected Rebel. His cover must be blown. He may have met up with Group Three and tried to escape with them–that could account for the numbers in the first reports we heard.”

“Botch, any update? Any indication that they’ve been found?” Mackin asked. Damn it, this was getting worse.

Botch didn’t know, and continued scanning.

“Well, that drastically changes the situation,” Trainneer said. “If the operative has been exposed, we need to extract him before they find him.”

Mackin’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “Sir,” he said levelly, “that’s making it sound like we weren’t going in anyway.”

Trainneer glared at him in warning. “Like I said, it depended on the news, and this news means we have to go in for them. The risk associated with going in with the Imperials on high alert and actively looking for suspicious activity no longer outweighs the risk of doing nothing. Our operative knows too much about other things as well as this mission. We have to get him out.”

Mackin felt his anger at Trainneer’s words starting to well up in spite of his attempts to control it. “There are other people in trouble here besides the Intel operative, sir.”

“Don’t get too worked up, Commander. If we had personnel killed, then the odds are that your pilot was one of them so you don’t need to worry about saving him anymore. The commandos on the team were more likely to survive and get away. But that’s a moot point anyway because we are going in, and we’ll be up against some serious resistance. Prep your fighters for an escort.”

“A fighter escort?” Mackin asked incredulously, his surprise at the command making him momentarily forget about being mad at Trainneer for writing Darin off so nonchalantly. “That’s ridiculous! We don’t know where Group Three is. It’ll just draw attention to ourselves as soon as we get close to the city, and then we’ll all be killed!”

“Colonel,” Arrunes ventured, “we can find them if we just get into the city.”

“How?” Trainneer demanded. “If they’re not answering comms and they’re hiding from the Imperials, they’ll be hiding from you too. You won’t find them. We need to create a distraction that gets their attention and have them come to us. Besides, I doubt the Imperials will be too happy with people roaming the streets while they search, which just adds to the risk of being discovered.”

“Sir, we can find a way to make this work,” Hozke said. “We can find them while keeping a low profile. This is what we’re good at, and this is what we’ve been trained to do.”

Trainneer brushed him off. “I’m not your former commander. We do things differently now. Besides, in this situation we’ve got non-Special Forces personnel we have to look out for and accommodate.” He nodded once toward the Coronas. “Their training’s not as good as yours, so any aspect of the plan involving them will have to be set to the lowest common denominator.”

Mackin’s patience was wearing thin. “We can take care of ourselves, sir,” he said curtly.

“Make up your mind, Commander,” Trainneer sneered. “First you try to get out of this mission by saying your pilots don’t have any Special Forces training, now all of a sudden you can handle yourselves? Oh, wait, that’s right, you’re good at taking care of yourselves, and only yourselves. That’s why you’re here now. Remember?”

Mack took a deep, steadying breath and tried to steer the conversation back on topic where he at least had a small chance of winning. “Sneaking in and poking around as civilians will give us a much better chance of finding them, sir,” Mackin countered. “If Group Three hears something big going on, they might run farther. And if they’re hurt, they might not be able to come to us.”

As Rayal watched and listened, the argument started to get a bit off topic and a bit more heated, apparently straining the patience and tolerance of both the commander and the lieutenant colonel. Trainneer looked like he wanted to bust Mackin back to Cadet, and Rayal couldn’t tell what Mackin wanted to do. Those two obviously had some issues they needed to work out, but this was not the time nor the place. There were teammates in serious trouble, and every minute mattered.

Without a second thought, Rayal loudly cleared her throat and pointedly raised her voice above the argument. “Sirs, there is a very simple solution.”

Trainneer and Mackin both stopped quarreling and instead directed their glares at her, evidently annoyed at the interruption; however, Rayal wasn’t even fazed and calmly said, “We don’t need to go in guns blazing, sir, and we don’t need to go in as civilians. We have these Imperial uniforms. All we have to do is go in undercover and pretend to be looking for the Rebels. If the Intel op is with them, maybe Gundark knows of a place they might have gone to hide and we can start looking there.”

The Special Forces commander shook his head firmly. “None of you are listening! You still run into the problem of how you let them know you’re not just another Imperial search party that they need to shoot in self-defense.”

Drohner grabbed the idea and took over. “If we can get to a general area where they might be, sir, then maybe all we have to do is talk and use some words that have a special or personal meaning to them, words they would recognize with a frequency that’s too high to be coincidental. Maybe by that time they’ll be answering their comms, too.”

Trainneer stared at him. “You want to talk?! That’s your big sophisticated plan?”

“That could work, sir,” said Arrunes, looking earnest. “Sometimes the simpler, the better. Assuming, of course, that Gundark knows of a starting point.”

Gundark nodded and said, “We have a few areas set aside as meeting places if we need to meet in the city. We can try those first.”

“That’s going to be our best chance. It would keep everyone else away and safe and able to escape in case something goes wrong, and it would give us the excuse we need to search the city unimpeded. We need to try, sir,” said Hozke.

Darin figured a drink of water would really do Troy some good and he wished he could give him some, but they had none with them and there was no way that he’d allow Troy to drink the dripping water down in the basement. Instead, the pilot was using his sleeve to wipe some of the moisture off of Troy’s clammy forehead as well as leftover dirt from their crawlspace hiding spot when Halon stood up.

“Okay, it’s been long enough since the last Imperial came by,” Halon said. “Let’s go.”

Those were the words Darin had been waiting for, but as he looked at Troy he knew that they couldn’t leave now. The commando was scarcely breathing and his pulse was nearly nonexistent. Darin was surprised that he was actually still alive. Moving him into and out of the crawlspace earlier probably had worsened his condition.

“We can’t,” said Darin. “We waited too long. We can’t move him now–his condition is too bad. Even I can tell that.”

“We need to leave and get back to the rendezvous point somehow, which means we need to leave him if he’ll just slow us down or if he can’t be moved.”

“What? No! I’m not leaving him. Just call for help! It’s as simple as that!” Darin just couldn’t figure out why that concept was so hard to understand.

Halon apparently felt the same way. “Blast it, will you just listen to me for once?! I told you a thousand times already, we can’t call for help because they’ll be monitoring the frequencies looking for me. We need to go now while we can.”

“I’m not going to leave him behind,” Darin said. “He needs someone with him in case he stops breathing again.”

“Look, I’m sorry,” said Halon in a tone that suggested he was anything but sorry, “but our priority right now is to get out of here and back to the others without getting caught. If that means he stays behind because bringing him won’t let us do that, then he stays behind.”

“No. I won’t leave him. Just send help when you get to the others.”

Halon laughed humorlessly. “If you think I’d send people into this city with the Imperials on alert, you’re crazy. Getting out’s going to be hard enough as it is; I won’t risk sending in more people just because you’re too stubborn for your own good. But it doesn’t matter anyway because you don’t have a choice–you’re coming with me now, and that’s an order. I won’t let you stay because no good will come of it, and if the Imperials find you then the whole mission will be compromised, even if everyone else is already off-planet. They’ll find out about the plans we stole, and then they’ll change them and the plans will be useless. Do you really want your friends here to have died in vain? Because that’s exactly what will happen.”

Darin never made a move to get up. “If the Imperials come down here and find him alone and alive, they could heal him up and find out the same information. So I guess we’d have to bring him too. But we can’t, because if we move him too much he’ll die.”

Halon got visibly upset, but otherwise did not acknowledge Darin’s odd logic. “You’re coming with me. Now.”

“Then you’re going to have to stun me and carry me. But wait,” Darin’s voice became sarcastic, “from what you said earlier, carrying someone just slows you down. We can’t have that.”

“Fine. Then stay here and ruin everything,” Halon spat out. “We’ll see how long you last out here on your own. Between the Imperials and the gangs of humans and Dugs and Rodians, I doubt it’ll be long, especially if you’re trying to mother a dying person at the same time.

“It’s absolutely deplorable how you’ve acted down here. Not only did you show no cooperation whatsoever, you’re also taking risks that are not yours to take. You’ll be lucky to be assigned to a garbage scow if you ever make it back to the Rebellion, though personally I hope you don’t honor us with your presence again if all you’ll do is ruin missions. I’m getting out of here, with or without you. If you want to avoid making a huge mistake and come with, you’d better come now.”

Something in Darin snapped, and he jumped to his feet. “That’s it?! You’re just going to chew me out, leave us here and do nothing? You could save your own blasted mission if you’d just send help back for us. You got us into this mess in the first place–now help get us out!”

“I am! If you want to get out, all you have to do is come with.” Halon started toward the cellar’s broken-down entrance. “Otherwise, well, that’s your own choice.”

And with that he was gone. Darin just stared after Halon in the darkness and started shaking a little.

This situation somehow seemed worse than Darin’s earlier imaginings of what would happen if the Imperials found them, maybe because this one was actually occurring. After a piercing glare at the darkness where Halon had disappeared on his way out of the basement and an unsuccessful attempt to will himself to stop trembling, the pilot spun on his heel and went back to Troy.

Chewing his lip, he sat down beside the commando again and checked the bandages. The second bandage Darin had put on had some blood soaked into it but no more than it had had a little while ago, so Darin believed that he had stopped the bleeding if nothing else, or at least the external bleeding. He rubbed his eyes and tried to figure out what to do now that he was all alone. How’d they get into this mess anyway?

The Bacta Tank was the main downtime establishment in the aft section of Crescent Star, with a motto of “Come cure all your afflictions by getting tanked.” Their most popular drink was called a bacta, so named because of its resemblance to medical bacta. Quiver wished this place could actually cure him inside.

The four pilots entered the Tank and looked around. The bartender noticed them and caught their attention. “Back room.”

The Coronas nodded and headed in that direction. When they got to the door Slurry knocked, and an instant later it opened, revealing Lt. Kammaror, one of the Quake Squadron pilots, blocking the entranceway. The scrawny pilot brushed aside a bit of his mop of black hair and looked them all over with a scrutinizing eye, then he relaxed and smiled. “Good, no uniforms. Please, everyone, come in.” He stepped aside and motioned them in.

The newcomers stopped just inside and gawked. The private back room of the bar had been set up to look like a beach, and the thermostat had even been turned up to add to the feeling. A holo of a beach along an ocean shoreline was projected against one entire wall and the soft sounds of sea birds and lapping waves filled the air. A group of Quake pilots and gunners stood there waiting, dressed in shorts and t-shirts. Some held serving trays.

While the X-wing pilots stared in amazement at everything, Jenna smiled and stepped forward from the group of Quakes. “Sorry we couldn’t do this for your whole squadron,” she said, “but we hope you guys can enjoy it just the same.”

“What is this?” asked Kalre.

“This is that R&R you never got, or at least as close as we could come on a ship in the middle of space. We know you’ve all been through a lot lately. Sit down, relax, enjoy yourselves tonight. We’re at your beck and call to make this as fun as possible for you.”

The Coronas looked at each other, shrugged and then each took a seat in a “beach chair,” which were really just modified chairs from the Bacta Tank. The Quake servers took their drink orders and went off to fill them.

Jenna began briefly explaining the options open to the Coronas, like what magazines and snacks they had and what music and games were available. When Chopper looked her up and down, smirked at her and slyly interrupted by saying there was one thing in particular that he’d really been looking forward to doing on that R&R, she calmly dumped a glass of water on his head and continued listing off the rest of the activities as if there had been no interruption. No one seemed to hear her over all the laughing, though.

Quiver joined in and laughed a bit in spite of his down mood as Chopper grabbed a towel from one of the other Quakes and tried to dry off. It wasn’t much, but it was a start: that small chuckle felt good and reminded Quiver of how much he’d missed being his usual good-natured self lately. But just as quickly the laughter seemed wrong after all that had happened, and he felt guilty for it. His amusement at Chopper’s situation died down, and he gratefully took the drink offered him by Flight Officer Wayals.

Before long the pilots and gunners were all immersed in conversation over their drinks.   Later on, Slurry, Lt. Connley and FO. Garret put some loud music on, pushed aside some of the chairs and were hitting around a ball as much as they could in the somewhat small room, making up an odd game on the spot. Chopper, fully dry, was absorbed in playing sabacc with Kalre and a few of the Quakes. Quiver started out by lounging around and reading one of the entertainment periodicals on a datapad, but eventually he lost interest in that and found himself simply gazing at the holo of the ocean instead.

Jenna brought him another drink and sat down beside him, close enough so that they wouldn’t have to speak loudly over the music. “A drink for your thoughts, hotshot.”

“Trust me, you don’t want these thoughts. But I do want that drink.” Quiver reached over and took it from her, but he didn’t drink any of it; instead, he simply held the glass and again lost himself in the moving image of the waves.

The Y-wing pilot followed his gaze and smiled. “Relaxing, isn’t it? I love watching the ocean.”

“Yeah. Darin always tells me how much he misses the ocean. I grew up inland and never really thought much about lakes and oceans and stuff, but I’m beginning to see why he likes it so much.”

“What about CC?” Jenna asked gently. “Did she like it?”

Quiver dropped his gaze to his drink for a moment and said quietly, “She didn’t care much about the water one way or the other. Though it’s funny how even something that didn’t mean anything to her can still remind me of her.”

“I saw Carsyn everywhere after she died,” the Quake pilot said sympathetically to him. Carsyn had been Jenna’s gunner and had been killed in a dogfight about a year ago; in fact, it had been during Darin’s first mission with the Coronas, a mission that Quiver remembered well for those two reasons. “Things that had no connection to her before suddenly had everything to do with her. It was like I couldn’t get her out of my mind and I couldn’t start healing inside because everything reminded me of her and everything was associated with her somehow. The wound never seemed to be able to close.”

Quiver nodded. “I know exactly what you mean. I’m not any better about dealing with reminders. I can’t go near her quarters. When I’ve eaten by myself after Darin started that training, I couldn’t sit at our usual table because I can’t stand that empty third seat. I’m never going to get past this if I can’t even face a lunch table.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Quiver,” Jenna said softly. “I heard you have a new roommate. To live with that kind of a reminder takes more courage than I certainly ever had after Carsyn died. If your willingness to care for Hue is any indication, you’re already doing better than wimpy little me did. It hurts now, but things will get better. Just give it time.”

Quiver didn’t intend to respond, even after Jenna sat there silently for a few minutes and watched the waves with him. As she stood up she said, “I know it’s hard, but try to enjoy yourself a bit. It’s okay to do that, even if it doesn’t feel like it is. Smile a little, hotshot, and call if you need anything.” She ruffled his hair and walked away.

The Corona pilot sat there for a while longer gazing at the fake ocean. Lost in thought, he killed his drink and wiped some sweat off his forehead from the warmth of the room. He thought he remembered Darin saying one time that he’d spent a lot of time by the shoreline after his father had died until the Imperials had closed off the beach for security reasons. He knew that Darin had been through situations like this before and had managed to survive; maybe now Quiver was ready to talk to him about it and find out how to do that. He made up his mind to have a long talk with his wingman when he got back: a face-to-face one, not a big message on a datapad like the one he’d dumped on Thumper before he left on the Special Forces mission. The written message had helped, but maybe a real talk would help more, especially if the small amount he felt better after the small chat he’d just had with Jenna was any indication.

He felt a little less weighed down after that decision but still nowhere near good enough to actually get up and join in the festivities, so he opted instead to sit and watch everyone else. Somehow, just seeing the others laughing and having a good time cheered the Coronas’ morale officer a bit more. It got his mind off of CC’s death and Darin’s mission and just let him stop thinking for a while.

The “R&R” lasted well into the night, and it only ended when the bartender kicked them all out because he was closing the tavern. There were a few suggestions made to continue the party in the pilots’ lounge, but the ones who wanted to keep partying were so out of it at that point that they had forgotten those plans by the time they got to the first turbolift outside of the Tank. The pilots and gunners who were more sober made sure the drunk ones got back to their quarters, and before they headed off to bed themselves, the sober ones placed bets on who would complain the most about their hangover in the morning. Quiver bet on Chopper but got lousy odds. He also wondered if this was a common occurrence after parties that he just didn’t know about since he was usually one of the more “partied-out” individuals. He’d have to ask C–no, he’d have to ask Darin.

Before everyone split up, though, the Quakes all learned one thing: the Corona pilots, whether they were relatively sober or much too drunk, all agreed that it was the best R&R they’d ever had.

Coming back over to Troy, Darin wiped the sweat off the injured man’s face again with a sleeve and moved some drenched locks of black hair out of Troy’s eyes. Troy was paler than before and had an even threadier pulse, but the worst of it was that he had stopped breathing for the second time a little while ago, and it had been harder to get him to start again this time than it had before. Darin’s thoughts were becoming less and less rational and coherent as he got more and more anxious about Troy’s condition, afraid of being captured, indecisive about what he should do and worried about being left behind by the others. Add to all that the leftover emotions from Lokinha and he knew he was close to having an anxiety attack.

“Stay with me, Bren,” he whispered in a tight voice, not even caring about using code names or ranks anymore. “You have to hang on. What do I do?” the pilot suddenly demanded of the barely-alive commando, feeling trapped by his own indecision. “I can’t go for help if I stay here, but I can’t leave you alone either, and I can’t take you with. I don’t know where I’d go anyway! And if I leave and the Imperials find me then our teams will never find you and you’ll die too. And I never even realized he never gave me my comlink back before he left so now I don’t even have that and–”

He stopped rambling as his frazzled mind thought of something that normally he would have remembered hours ago. Darin started frantically searching through Troy’s pockets and almost cried from relief when his fingers finally closed around Troy’s comlink, muffled and buried in a side pocket. He hurriedly turned it to the secure emergency frequency they set aside for this mission and opened the channel. “Is anyone there? Can anyone hear me?”

Nothing but silence greeted him. All he could think was that the others had left already, and in a near-panic he tried again a few moments later. “Is anyone there? Answer me!”

“That you, Niy?” Arrunes’s voice came over the comm, laced with static.

“Yes! Yes, it’s me!”

“Hold on one minute. Don’t say anything.” There was a long pause, and then Arrunes said, “We’ll be there to pick up that droid in a few minutes, okay? Don’t be surprised by what you see. Listen first.”

About fifteen minutes later, Darin was hiding in the doorway of the street-level entrance of the run-down building they’d been occupying. He nervously flexed his grip on his blaster as he waited and listened for his friends. The last thing he’d heard on the streets outside very decidedly hadn’t been his friends: just a few minutes ago, a gang of Dugs had noisily come down the street, and Darin had retreated to the basement. The small aliens had a reputation for being vicious and nasty, and this particular group looked like they were looking for trouble. Thumper wondered if his friends had come past while he was still in the basement after that and if he therefore had missed them. He didn’t even know if they knew where he was or not. They hadn’t asked him, so how could they know his present location? What if they thought he was still at the Imperial receiving dock? Every minute brought him closer to using Troy’s comlink again.

He ducked down when he heard a repulsorlift come nearby and then park about two blocks away. From what the pilot could tell in the darkness, it looked like an Imperial speeder. He ducked down farther, all but held his breath, and watched.

Three figures got out of the speeder and left a fourth inside at the controls. The three on foot started walking down the street in his direction, visually searching the street around them with glowrods.

Darin’s heart raced, and he quickly looked around the deserted streets. Where was Arrunes? He needed help! He couldn’t get Troy into hiding by himself, which meant he’d have to fight if the Imperials found him, and he was too outnumbered to win.

But not if I surprise them, he thought. He could surprise them, take them all out, steal their speeder and get away from here with Troy. Then he could meet up with the others and get Troy some help. Yeah, that’ll work. I can do that. It’ll be simple. I’ve got a blaster, after all. I’ll jump them after they walk past and then shoot the driver when he comes down here to investigate.

The pilot got ready and then waited silently, again scolding his heart for being so loud. It wasn’t long before the Imperials came within earshot. When they did, Darin noticed they were chatting idly amongst themselves. That seemed like a strange thing for them to be doing if they were trying to hunt down Rebels, and his curiosity was piqued. He listened closely, hoping for any useful information.

As they approached, it sounded like they were taking turns talking. He was surprised when he heard one of them mention Cracian thumpers. The next time he spoke, that same person mentioned something being botched.

Darin hesitated and squinted. That sounded like Pellicer! As he peered out into the night from the doorway, he thought it looked a lot like Pellicer as well. And now that he thought about it, the other two with him sounded like others from the Special Forces teams.

He waited until they walked past and he was sure it was Shaun. Feeling completely relieved at being found and rescued, Darin poked his head out of the doorway, cautiously looked around and then quietly said, “Five?”

The three men in the Imperial uniforms stopped and whirled around to find the source of the voice. Darin stepped more out into the dark street and stuck his blaster in his belt at the small of his back.

As soon as Darin was out of the doorway, Pellicer came at him. He grabbed Darin’s jumpsuit and roughly pushed him face-first into the wall, then quickly took out his own blaster and shoved the tip into the side of Darin’s throat. Darin looked completely baffled by this sudden turnaround, so Pellicer said to him under his breath, “We have to play our roles, Nine, just in case someone’s watching. Everything will be fine. But for now, you’ve just been caught by the Imperials, Rebel scum, so look scared.”

Darin’s mind finally caught up with him, and after a fleeting look of comprehension he opened his green eyes wide and started to struggle. Blast, he hated acting.

“That’s better,” Pellicer muttered, and then in a much louder voice he commanded, “Hands on your head, you damn Rebel!” When Darin didn’t comply, Pellicer pressed the blaster harder into his neck and said, “Now!”

This time Darin slowly put his hands atop his head. Arrunes walked up and in a menacing voice said, “We know there were others with you. Where are they?”

“I’m not telling!” Darin retorted.

Pellicer laughed humorlessly. “You’re acting like you have a choice in the matter.” He shifted the blaster ever so slightly as if to remind the prisoner of its presence and then said, “Try again.”

Darin swallowed hard, feeling his throat press more against the weapon as he did so. Then he said in a small voice, “Okay, okay, just don’t hurt me. One is downstairs, but he’s hurt bad.” He indicated the direction of the basement with an elbow. The remaining commando, Hozke, disappeared into the building.

“How many more?” asked Pellicer.

“The other two I came with are dead. I think. There’s another who met up with us and forced us to escape.”

“Where’s that one?” Arrunes asked, professionally not outwardly reacting to the information that two of his friends and teammates had been killed.

Darin’s voice abruptly changed from his mediocre acting into real emotion. “He’s not here. He left,” he said hotly.

Pellicer took a breath to say something but was cut off by a single word coming over his and Arrunes’s comlinks: “Starburst.”

Pellicer quickly looked around and softly mumbled, “Someone’s coming, Nine, but just relax. Gundark should be bringing the speeder now, and we’ll get out of here as soon as we can.”

Darin nodded just as the headlights of a speeder rounded a nearby corner and slowly came at them down the road. Lights from the Rebels’ repainted “Imperial” speeder followed and stopped behind the first.

Arrunes turned to Pellicer and said, “You watch the prisoner. I’ll see who this first speeder is. Damn civilians don’t know when to stay home, and other Imperials just want to steal our credit.” He walked over to intercept the four unfamiliar figures disembarking from the first speeder. Gundark sat in the driver’s seat of their own landspeeder behind the first, ready and waiting.

An unknown voice asked Arrunes, “What’s going on? Did you find one?”

Pellicer got a good hold on Darin’s collar and held the younger pilot against the wall harder. Then Shaun repositioned the blaster against the back of Darin’s head.

Forcing himself to remember that it was Shaun doing that and not that biker scout on Lokinha, Thumper took a second to calm down and pay attention to the situation at hand. Once his mind was back in Bertel, Darin continued his act and tried to pull his head away from the wall so that it wasn’t pressing the edge of the breather mask so uncomfortably into his cheek. “Blast it, you damn drone of the Empire, not so hard!”

“I’ll do what I want if you value keeping that breathing mask on,” Pellicer retorted. After he made sure the real Imperials were still focused on Arrunes over by the speeders, he leaned in a little closer, and then it was Darin’s squadmate talking, barely audibly asking, “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Darin whispered as he struggled a bit more for show. “Just glad to be found.”

“Me too. I refuse to lose two wingmen in a row.”

Slipping back into their roles, they both covertly stole a glance over at the proceedings, needing to squint against the headlights shining at them. One thing Thumper noticed was that whatever Arrunes was saying to the Imperials, it didn’t look like they were buying it. The Imperial army soldiers obviously wanted to come arrest the prisoner themselves or at least see what was happening so they could report it, so Shaun quickly murmured to Darin, “If things start to go sour, wait until it looks like I’m distracted and then grab my blaster, shoot the real Imperials and take off running. We’ll pursue and ‘catch’ you a minute later. Whatever you do, from now until you’re in our speeder make it look realistic in case someone sees us. Okay?”

Just then one of the unfamiliar voices called over to Pellicer, “You there! Bring the prisoner here.”

Pellicer yanked Darin away from the wall and pushed Darin before him slowly. Thumper still resisted and made Pellicer literally push him forward step by step. It was an odd reversal: now it was Pellicer delivering Darin into the hands of the Imperials. When they finally reached the group, one of the real Imperials said to Pellicer, “We’ll take him now.”

Pellicer stopped, and Darin felt the grip on his collar lessen. Scoop looked around at the real Imperials and sounded upset when he said, “But we caught him! We should be the ones to take him in!” To everyone but Darin whose ear was right beside the blaster, his voice covered up the sound of the blaster safety coming off.

“That’s it, I’m calling this in,” one of them said.

Darin knew it was now or never. He jerked his hand down from the top of his head to grab the barrel of blaster Pellicer was holding there just a few centimeters below. He twisted around, freeing the blaster from Pellicer’s hand and sending Pellicer down to the ground all at once while shifting the blaster into a proper grip. Two real Imperials went down from one point-blank stun bolt from him, but they’d all been fairly ready for trouble in the vicinity of a Rebel, and Darin knew he couldn’t get the other two in time. He saw Arrunes “fumbling” for his blaster, and he also saw the two remaining Imperials about to fire at him before he could recover from his first shot. At that moment, Gundark yelled out from their speeder, “Prisoner escaping!” and shot at Darin. The two real Imperials were in the way and they were caught by a stun bolt of “friendly fire.” One of the soldiers ended up firing his blaster as he fell, but the shot went wild, and he hit the ground.

Darin took off running down the street past the speeders, even as he heard Pellicer scrambling to his feet and the Rebels yelling orders and curses to each other. A lethal blaster bolt hit a pile of garbage right beside him, much too close to be comfortable. At the next street he came across, he turned and sprinted down it.

He didn’t hear the speeder follow immediately like he expected, but he was content to just keep running. He did, however, hear footsteps following him not too far behind. Hoping it was one of his own, he slowed down just a touch, like he was getting winded. That allowed the footsteps to close the gap and soon afterward, just about the time he heard the speeder in the distance, someone tackled him from behind. They both fell hard, and Darin let the blaster fall out of his hand and bounce away when he hit the ground. Darin squirmed out from underneath his assailant, scrambled to his feet and tried to run, but his pursuer still had a grip on him and wouldn’t let him escape. As he almost simultaneously climbed to his feet, the person holding him spun Darin around to face him, and it took Darin an instant to catch his balance again.

As he was spun around, Darin saw Pellicer holding onto him and fairly slowly bringing his arm back in an exaggerated fashion, his off-hand balled into a fist. The total surprise of seeing Pellicer about to hit him effectively stalled Darin’s mental processes in confusion.

When the blow landed and sent Darin groundward, Pellicer was just as surprised as Darin looked to be in that last instant. He knew he gave Darin enough warning that he was going to do that–why hadn’t he ducked or faked it?

Scoop muttered to himself while he rubbed his hand and moved toward Darin, but at that moment he saw an elderly couple watching the events from a nearby window. Wide-eyed, they fearfully shrank back a bit when they saw Pellicer notice them. He put a stern look on his face and said in a loud, firm voice, “Imperial business. Nothing that concerns you here.” They disappeared behind a tattered curtain.

Pellicer sighed softly as he watched the slight movement of the curtain, and then he holstered his dropped blaster and stood over Darin. The speeder’s lights turned into view, and Gundark pulled up beside him a moment later. Scoop awkwardly lifted Darin up and dragged him into the speeder, dumping him on the seat next to Lt. Troy. “Let’s go,” he said to Gundark as he took a seat himself.

Darin slowly came to. There was warm air around him, and Darin was instantly grateful for it. He blinked a few times, adjusted the positioning of his breather mask so he could rub his sore face, and pushed himself up so that he wasn’t slouching so much in the landspeeder’s seat, though that was a bit tricky since it felt like he was wedged in. In fact, he was packed in between two other people so tightly that it was a challenge to reach behind him and remove his blaster from where it was poking into his back. They were in the back seat of a landspeeder; Pellicer was sitting next to him on his right and Troy, still unconscious, was on his left.

When he noticed Darin was awake, Scoop said to him in annoyance, “Damn it, Nine, you didn’t have to be that realistic. You could have faked being hit and faked being knocked out, or you could have just ducked and gone from there.”

Thumper stared at him. “You hit me!” he said indignantly.

“I’m sorry, okay? I thought you’d duck.”

“You hit me!”

Pellicer couldn’t help but laugh a bit, along with Hozke who was listening from the opposite side of Troy. Under his breath Darin grumbled inaudibly, “I hate acting.”

When Pellicer finished his short bout of laughter, he said to Darin, “I had a blaster at your throat and all you’re concerned about is that I punched you?”

“I knew you wouldn’t shoot me. I didn’t expect you to actually hit me.”

“Now you know better.”

Darin sent a mock, sidelong glare at Pellicer. “See if I ever do anything for your blankie again.” Out of the corner of his eye he saw Hozke give them a strange look.

“You’re just not going to let this go, are you?” teased Scoop.

Darin didn’t immediately reply. Then his voice grew somber, and he quietly said, “Seriously, though, thanks.”

Pellicer was still amused. “For hitting you?”

“No,” said Darin in exasperation. “For coming to get us.”

Pellicer and Hozke both smiled. “Sure,” Pellicer said. “Though you already know I was just doing it for my blankie.”

Hozke leaned over and said conspiratorially to Darin, “Don’t listen to him. Earlier he said the whole thing was worth it just for the opportunity to punch you and get away with it.”

“Is that so?” Darin crossed his arms and looked at Pellicer. “Well, it’s too bad that I don’t have any prankster allies or the like who could provide retribution for that.”

Scoop narrowed his eyes at Darin and responded, “You keep that wingman of yours away from me, or I’ll do a lot more than just punch you in the face.”

Looking back at him with as innocent of an expression as he could muster, Darin said, “My wingman? Why, Scoop, you’re my wingman right now. Remember?” Then he smiled a bit and said, “You’re certainly in a good mood.”

“Now that we can get off this planet and be done with all this, I’m in a great mood.”

Darin nodded in agreement and glanced past Pellicer out the window of the speeder but saw no lights or buildings, only darkness. Then he turned to look at Troy on the other side of him and was relieved to see him breathing a bit more strongly than before. “How is he?”

Hozke answered, “Thankfully you stopped his bleeding and got some bacta in his system. We gave him some more aggressive field treatment and some fluids, and he’s stable for now, but barely. We need to get him back to the ship as soon as possible.”

“Okay.” Darin looked down and softly said, “Hozke, I’m–I’m sorry about Kicktar and Stockard.”

“Thank you.”

Fortunately Hozke didn’t press for more information. After a few moments of silence Darin asked, “So what’s going on now?”

“We’re on our way to the rendezvous point,” Pellicer said. “We just left Bertel after picking up our other operative. We’ll be at the warehouse in about thirty-five minutes.” He stopped as Darin’s eyes suddenly searched the front seat of the speeder and narrowed when he spotted Halon with Gundark and Arrunes. Shaun quietly asked, “What’s with you?”

“Ask me later, sir,” Darin replied shortly. Pellicer gave him an odd look but shrugged and dropped the subject.

The Rebels who had remained behind at the warehouse in Tannemil all jerked their heads up and most ran to the entranceway when they heard the return of the rescue team. Even before the newly-Imperialized speeder came to a halt in the warehouse, Hozke poked his head out of his window in back and called out, “We need a stretcher!” Drohner and Rayal quickly ran into Starsmoke to fetch the emergency one.

As soon as Darin had one foot flat on the ground he was yanked out and backwards. With a small yelp of surprise, he suddenly came to a stop to find Ikoa had thrown her arms around his neck from behind him and was hugging him, laughing happily.

“You really need to stop doing this to us, Thumper,” she said.

“Why is everyone strangling me lately?” he asked through a happy laugh of his own.

Mackin and Weas appeared in front of him beside Pellicer an instant later, relief evident on both of their faces. “I’m sure Quiver would have an appropriate answer for that,” Mackin said as he smiled at Darin.

“I’m sure he would, too, sir,” answered Darin. “It’s so good to see you all. I’m glad you decided to wait around for us.”

“Well, Scoop pointed out that Quiver probably wouldn’t let us back without you, so we really had no choice,” Weas said in a rare light moment.

The pilots were joined by Rayal and Arrunes. Hozke, the group’s medic, and Drohner had taken Troy into Starsmoke. “What happened?” Rayal asked Darin, all business.

Ikoa finally let go and came forward to listen better. Darin briefly grinned at her as he straightened up and then turned serious as he started to explain. “We got delayed at the dock, but things were okay until the Intel operative came up and said his cover was blown. Then everything went straight to hell. Alarms went off, he shot at the Imps, the Imps shot back at us, and Kicktar and Stockard were killed. Well, I think Stockard was, anyway.” Darin hated being the one to tell the commandos that news, but Rayal didn’t look surprised at hearing it. “Lieutenant Troy told us to get out, so the three of us took the speeder and escaped. When we got into the city I found out he was shot during the fight. Then we got into hiding, Lieutenant Troy fell unconscious from his injury, and the operative wouldn’t let me do anything!” Darin looked over to where Halon was standing and talking to Trainneer and Gundark, and the pilot fixed a cold glare on him. His voice became quiet with anger as he continued, still glaring, “I couldn’t comm, I couldn’t leave, he wouldn’t help, and then–”

He was interrupted when Trainneer looked up at the group. “Everyone, we’re leaving now!” Trainneer called out. “It’s too dangerous to stay. Get ready to launch, and expect resistance on the way out.”

Rayal and Arrunes reluctantly left to make final preparations. They quietly talked with each other as they boarded Starsmoke’s ramp.

“Five, Nine, hurry and suit up,” Mackin said. He, Ikoa and Weas were already dressed in their flight gear, so to those other two he said, “Get your fighters prepped, then start on theirs until they’re ready themselves. Let’s go.” Pellicer, Weas and Ikoa hurried off, Ikoa too after she patted Darin’s shoulder as one last “welcome back,” then Mackin turned to Darin and held him up for a second. “Nine, we’ll get this figured out when we get back, okay?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Now go get your real outfit on. And it’s good to have you back.” Mackin smiled again and also patted Darin’s shoulder before he too turned and headed toward his own X-wing.