Echoy'la par ner kar'taylir darasuum.

It means, "Searching for my love."

Chapter Title Means: The Search Begins

Lothal, Lothal System

Around 4 ABY

1200 Hours

I touched my hand to Ezra's painted face. Tears threatened to roll down my cheeks, but somehow I held them back. I knew my next mission now. Defending Lothal was good and all, but something in my life was lacking.

More correctly, someone.

I didn't care if I had to trek to the edges of the galaxy, or even into Wild Space. If he was on Tatooine, Mandalore or Coruscant. Even if he was…

No. That's not gonna happen.

Ahsoka lightly struck the ground with her staff behind me. I still didn't entirely understand why she ad decided to be entirely clothed in white, but it was her clothes, not mine. I could never leave my Beskar plating. It was my second skin.

I walked towards Ahsoka slowly, putting my helmet on as I went. The T-6 shuttle behind her was my personal ticket to whatever planet that my Jedi was (probably stranded) on.

"You're ready, I presume?" Ahsoka asked, looking at me with sympathetic eyes.

"Yes."

Ahsoka turned around, leading me towards the shuttle. I followed willingly. The T-6 shuttle looked massive, but most of it was just the ridiculously large wingspan.

Inside the ship was comfortable, although a bit cramped. Two cabins inside, each with a bed, closet, table and a refresher. Really, it was more like a suite, as it also had a holoscreen. Not bad for a reasonably outdated ship. It didn't have any weapons in the standard model, unfortunately, but Alliance technicians had fitted it with TIE Fighter lasers. A common room was also included on the ship, with a dejark table, another holoscreen and several (rather comfy) couches. The cockpit had four seats, two of which were pilot and copilot seats. Though you only needed one to fly the ship.

It flew smoothly, too, as I found out when Ahsoka expertly flew the ship towards the area where Ezra had jumped away with the Purrgil.

"Where did Ezra jump away? What direction?" Ahsoka asked. I pointed over to our left. That was the way that I had seen the Purrgil take Ezra. Hopefully, they had dropped him off at the nearest inhabited planet. Or the nearest planet on the chart; I wasn't particular.

Ahsoka turned the shuttle towards the direction I had pointed, checked the nav chart and frowned.

"You mean towards Dac?"

"Dac?" I asked. I wasn't familiar with the term.

"Mon Calamari. Sorry for my outdated vocabulary."

"It's fine. And yes, I do. Are there any places on the route that might be inhabited?"

"Um…" Ahsoka bit her lip. "There's Mantan, New Heurkea and Sanctuary. The map doesn't show much else. The Kamdom system, maybe, but that only has Talas and one other planet that isn't even named."

"Which is closest?"

"Kamdon system."

"Let's head there first."

And with that, we were off.

Outside the Kamdon System

Around 6 ABY

1700 Hours

"This is General Admiral Ackbar, of the Alliance to Restore the Republic, over an open channel to all Imperial, Rebellion and unaligned systems. The Alliance is no longer a Alliance. The New Republic has been formed out of the Rebellion, and has liberated half the galaxy."

The camera cut to some footage of X-Wings dogfighting TIE Fighters, and several Alliance squads in the middle of fighting Imperial forces.

"We have a important announcement to make to the galaxy. One that will change the galaxy as we know it, and will fracture the Empire now, and forever."

Already, I was excited, looking at the X-Wings weaving together in an amazing show of skill and precision as they easily destroyed the Imperial fighters.

A beautiful picture popped up, showing several Alliance (sorry, New Republic) Urban Combat Specialists raising the New Republic flag over a dome. (I later found out it was the Senate Building.)

A X-Wing flew over a similar flag, this time on top of the Imperial Palace. "Coruscant has been freed from Imperial control," announced Ackbar. I clamped one hand over my mouth to stifle a scream in delight. The holoscreen shut off abruptly as the transmission was cut off, probably due to some fluctuation in the transmission.

"We're coming up on Sanctuary now, Sabine," Ahsoka called over the intercom. I caught myself nodding unconsciously. We had already searched the Kamdon system with some quick scanning, and nothing of interest had turned up.

Sanctuary was a Rebel safe world, I knew. It was a small, island-dotted oceanic planet located in Mon Calamari Space, and was one of the oldest and most well-known Rebel Alliance safe world colonies. Predating the Declaration of Rebellion, in fact. Sanctuary was originally settled by religious pacifists dodging an Imperial draft. These colonists joined the Alliance on the condition that they would not have to fight in the war against the Galactic Empire. So began a mutually beneficial relationship, in which Sanctuary accepted all manner of Rebels and political exiles seeking asylum from Imperial oppression in exchange for equipment that would boost the planet's agricultural capability.

I sighed as I swung my legs off the bed. My time in the Academy was a memory I tried to suppress, but Sanctuary was one of the first planets I had gone to after Ketsu abandoned me. It was a mixed memory for me, half good and half bad.

I had barely slept on the way to Sanctuary. It wasn't the T-6 being a uncomfortable ship, because it was actually luxurious. It was the anxiety that I wouldn't find Ezra. That he would die somewhere, alone and forgotten. I wouldn't allow that. I couldn't.

With all my thoughts swirling around in my head, I lost touch with reality and ran into my door.

"Oww…" I muttered.

"Sabine, stop running into doorways," Ahsoka called from the cockpit. I smiled in spite of my embarrassment. That was the second time Ahsoka called me out.

"I'll try my best," I called back.

A few minutes later, I was sitting in the cockpit of the T-6, serene in the moment. Sanctuary was just in front of the shuttle, and we were nearing the main landing spot in the city. We had gotten landing clearance a few seconds earlier. If I had the time, I would probably paint the view that visitors got on the way to it. Water crashing into the black cliffs, the fields of golden wheat beyond the elegant city.

The T-6 touched down on the landing pad lightly. Apparently, Ahsoka had been honing her flying skills over the last couple years. She was no Hera, but she was good.

"So, where do we start?" I asked as we walked down the boarding ramp. Sanctuary was a fairly large planet, with a population of around 30,000 people.

"First, we check into Sanctuary," Ahsoka responded, pointing to a Customs booth. I mentally facepalmed. My overeagerness got the better of me.

The droid in the booth was dumb. Really dumb. It stared blankly at us- no surprise there- and asked for our Rebel IDs.

Rebel IDs. Any Imperial comes down, with his armor on and his bucket on his head, and asks if he can go into the city, and this droid asks for a Rebel ID. Even droids from the Clone Wars hadn't been this dumb. I'm known across the galaxy as a Rebel who fought in almost every major engagement, from Hoth to the closing hours of Endor, and Ahsoka is, well, Ahsoka. And this droid is still asking for our IDs.

I took out mine from my travel bag and passed it over the counter with Ahsokas. The droid took them, probably analyzed them, and waited two minutes before clearing us to Sanctuary.

The yellow ray shield dropped, allowing us to pass through the threshold into the city. Houses lined the wide street, which had a thick screen of people. Ahsoka pointed to a large, three story house on the corner, with a sign on the doorway. The characters of the sign were in Aurebesh, spelling out 'Dingo's Inn' in Aurebesh characters. It was kinda pretty, the way that it was bathed in blue light. Ahsoka led the way in. She was leading a lot on this trip. I was happy with letting her direct us for the time being, but as soon as we had some concrete evidence, I wasn't gonna sleep until I saw Ezra alive and well back on Lothal.

Inside the inn, a few tables were set up with four seats at each. Around the corners of the room were two and four people booths, with some patrons inside them. I took note of some stairs on the left hand side of the room. Those would probably lead to some sort of lodging, probably private.

Ahsoka walked over to the bar and sat down. I followed suit. The bartender looked like he was in his late thirties, with a mess of brown hair on top of a oval-ish head. He had intelligent eyes, a little bit like Ezra's, except they were green. He wore a grey tee shirt, and he was also pretty strong, from the looks of it. On his shirt was my Starbird, which had actually become a really good line of art from yours truly. It featured several battles between Rebels and Imperials, in which I had made all the Rebel troopers have some sort of Starbrid insignia. My most recent one had the Starbird on a Rebel flag.

Oh, and in all the paintings, most of the Imperial flags/symbols were KUBAR (Kriffed Up Beyond All Recognition) as a extra little prod at the Imps.

"Hey," the bartender said, his tone somewhat more friendly than most of the bartenders I had run into. "Want anything to drink?"

"Water," Ahsoka said.

"Make it two," I added.

The bartender nodded and poured our water, putting them in front of us. This guy was nice. "What brings you here? I'm Max Farlou, by the way."

"You know Ezra Bridger?" I asked the bartender.

"I know of him."

"We're trying to find him. He went missing about four years ago." That got the Max's attention. "He was taken away by some space-whales called Purrgil. Um.. did any come through here?"

"I'm not sure. I've heard some vague rumors about a crashed Star Destroyer- I know that part is true- but the rumors say that a Chiss was found on board. I'm not so sure about that," Max responded. "Isn't the Empire really, really anti-alien?"

"Yeah, but their greatest Admiral was a Chiss named Thrawn," Ahsoka answered.

"Greatest is debatable," I countered.

"No, it's not," Ahsoka said with a unmistakeable note of power in her voice. "Anyways, can we stay here for possibly the next couple weeks? We need to search the crashed Destroyer."

"Yeah. It's 150 creds a night. Uhh… I heard about the reformation of the Republic, so are you guys using some sort of new currency, or what? I was putting the price in Imperial Credits."

"As far as I know, the New Republic is still using Imperial Credits. We're just renaming them Republic Credits, I think. So, may we see our rooms?"

A hundred-fifty credits might sound like a lot of money, but it's not. Minimum wage is twenty creds an hour. I make around fifty to a hundred thousand per painting. Right now, my bank balance was two hundred seventy-five thousand credits. Around three-quarters was from paintings, and the rest was from the payment I got from the Rebellion. As a Commander, I had occasionally been called to fight in major battles; Hoth, Endor, and Bespin, to name a few. I'd actually been in most of them. Everytime I participated, I got a nice wad of money- around five thousand credits. Again, that sounds like a lot, but the Empire pays it's Stormtroopers about five hundred credits an hour. The Alliance had given payroll on a participation basis, where if you were in a battle, you got credits. If you weren't in the battle, you didn't get credits. Simple, really.

"Yeah. They're upstairs. The stairwell on the right," Max said helpfully.

"You mean the only stairwell?" I asked, somewhat too forcefully. Max looked hurt, but he nodded. After a moment, I added, "Sorry."

Immediately, Max's face brightened. "It's okay, Miss."

"It's Sabine."

Max's jaw dropped to the floor. "S-Sabine Wren? The Rebel from Mandalore? Lothal Rebels Sabine Wren?"

"The same." I wasn't all that surprised that Max was shocked. I was something of a legend in the Rebellion/New Republic. Just the fact I was one of the original Rebels was enough to make me a celebrity; but being on the Ghost, along with my status in the New Republic, had elevated me to legendary. Not to mention getting Mandalore on the Rebellion's side, of course. I was Sabine Wren, Mandalorian Protector of Lothal to many people.

But I wasn't in the mood for other people to worship me. "Stop gawking at me. I know I'm a legend and all, but please don't treat me like it."

Max nodded several times. Then, he gave me two passcards. "Just take these. They're the keys to the two best rooms. The rooms are the farthest down the hall."

I thanked Max and walked up the stairs confidently, absently running my hand over the whitewashed walls. At the very end of the hallway were two rooms, as Max had said. Then, I thought, Why would he lie? He thought of me as a hero, far as I could figure.

The two rooms were almost identical. I say almost because they were mirror images of each other. A two person bed in each one, with two nightstands on each side. The walls were whitewashed and decorated with pictures of Rebel art. I was pleased to see a Rebel recruiting poster designed by moi, with pictures of A-Wings flying around and the Liberator in the background. The poster had the words Fly For Freedom written across it, going diagonally upwards from the left.

Hera was inside one of the A-Wings. Ohmygod, Hera! I had forgotten all about her. Quickly, I took out my holoprojector and called Hera. Within seconds, she answered.

"Sabine!" she called joyfully.

"Hera," I responded, happy that I was able to reach her. "How you doing?"

"Better, now that you've called. I was kinda worried, what with you not calling."

"Sorry. We were checking out the Talas system, and now we're on Sanctuary. A Destroyer crashed a couple days ago, and apparently salvage crews found a very Imperial-looking, blue skinned humanoid. Know anyone that fits the description?"

"Well, if it isn't Thrawn they found. At least he's dead."

"At least. Anyways, nobody's found a trace of Ezra, as far as I'm concerned, although somebody did say that they saw a bunch of escape pods jettison from the Chimera before it crashed. I heard them in the inn."

"Wait, you're staying at an inn?"

"Yeah. What about it?"

"What's its name?"

"Dingo's Inn. Wait, don't tell me…"

"Yup. We're coming to you, Sabine."

"We?"

"Me and Jacen."

"You and Jacen."

"Me and Jacen."

I sat back on my bed, half horrified and half happy. Jacen was a nice kid. He was pretty good at finding lost things (don't ask how I found out). He had an uncanny ability to detect Force-sensitive things, as I found out when Ahsoka was first introduced to him. Immediately, he knew she was a Jedi.

"Alright, fine," I said, capitulating. Hera smiled.

"That's good. Even if you weren't fine, we were coming anyways."

"Of course you were."

I shut off the holocomm and lounged back on my bed. I hadn't been this close to victory before, and at the same time so far away. I had no idea if Ezra was actually on the Destroyer, I had no idea if he was even on the planet, but if he was then we could get him very, very soon.

I was scared and hopeful at the same time.

Hey everybody, thanks for pointing out my date mistake so kindly. It is now fixed.

-RebelliousWaffle