Author's Note: Been awhile... but I'm still writing.

CHAPTER 17:

Luke sighed as he laid back in one of the Falcon's small passenger compartments with Mara curled up atop him, just laying there. He stared up at the ceiling of the small bunk and sighed as he listened to the Falcon's drives. Finally he groaned and rubbed his eyes. "I just realized, we were so focused on getting Celchu that I forgot..."

"Forgot what?" Mara muttered.

"We were supposed to grab some Astromech droids; it was the secondary objective..." He rubbed his forehead. "Damn, I hope General Dodonna or Master Kota won't be angry about that."

She snorted. "It was a secondary objective Luke; I don't think they'll mind considering how many Imperial Forces we had to tangle with."

"But the squadron needs the droids," Luke muttered. "Now we've got another pilot, so we need yet another droid."

Mara rolled her eyes, "We'll find a way, just stop worrying about it." She laid her head down on his chest and let out a content sigh. "You could ask Han to pick some up on his next supply run if you're that worried, Luke."

"You're right..." Luke said as he played with her hair and tried to relax. Finally, he felt Mara's soft form shift again as she started to drift off to seep. Luke could feel his own body aching for a bit of sleep. She'd stretched herself out over him like a blanket and Luke could hear the low whistle of her breathing through her nose. A tender smile slid across his lips as he thought of how far the two of them had come since meeting her, going from clear foes to friends and then from friends to lovers.

He kissed her temple and shut his eyes, content to be in her arms.

Han Solo sat behind the controls of the Millennium Falcon, staring out through the transparisteel at the blue tunnel of hyperspace. Behind him, the blond kid that Luke had come to pick up sat looking rather worn. After a few moments, the door to the cockpit slid open and Leia stepped inside.

The blond stammered for a moment before bringing himself to a semblance of attention, "Princess Leia."

"At ease... umm, what's your rank?" Leia asked as she stepped past him and gave the young man a slight smile.

"Well, umm, Lieutenant, Lieutenant Celchu ma'am," He said rather quickly. "I... I had no idea you were with the Rebellion, ma'am."

Han glanced over his shoulder and shook his head as Leia seemed to stiffen. "That's a long story, Lieutenant..." Leia said before slipping into the seat behind Chewie and glancing at the control board. "How long until the Yavin system?"

"About three hours," Han said from his seat. "Don't you worry about it, your Highness, we'll get there... even with Vader's net thrown around the system."

[They still don't have enough interdictors to even come close to closing off the system.] Chewie tried to reassure the princess. [Plus, even if we did get caught in one, the Rogues and Jedi will give us enough of an edge to escape.]

"No kidding buddy," Han said as he shifted in his seat and glanced over at Chewie. "Where are those lovebirds anyway?"

Leia rolled her eyes as she turned away from the comm-board beside her seat. "They're sleeping. Maybe you should think about taking a nap, Captain Solo. I wouldn't want to have to deal with you falling asleep at the controls."

Han snorted as he leaned back and put his arms behind his head, "I'll take a nap right here, your worshipfulness, if that will ease your mind."

A slight smile slipped across Leia's lips at that before she turned back to the comm-board, "I'm not surprised that an old pirate like you is used to sleeping behind the controls."

"I bet Blondie is used to napping behind the controls of his ship," Solo said. "Wait. Nevermind... TIEs don't fly that long."

"Thank god, they're uncomfortable enough after just a few minutes," Celchu muttered. "Who are these lovebirds you're talking about?"

"Oh, just the kid and his girl..." Solo said. "You know Jade and Skywalker."

Tycho shrugged, "So, does that mean your rebels don't have regs against that sort of thing?"

"Oh, they do... but then I think breaking the rules is sort of a rebel thing," Han said with a grin. "Isn't that right Princess?"

Leia rolled her eyes, "Considering how well they work together, I think we can ignore it. Plus, I don't think Mara would have defected if she wasn't so attached to Luke." A slight smile grew on her lips at that. "They do make an excellent team."

The hours passed slowly after that before Han sat up and took the controls while the countdown to jump reversion started. In the midst of the process of getting ready for the drop back to realspace, Luke and Mara reported in from the gun ports. Then Han reached for the hyperspace levers and pushed them forward. Instantly the blue tunnel disappeared to be replaced by starlines and finally stars. In the distance he could make out the red-orange globe of Yavin.

As Han oriented the ship toward the fourth moon, Chewie scanned the displays for a moment. [We're clear for a thousand kilometers in all directions. Looks like we managed to get back unmolested for once.]

Leia stiffened as the comm-board crackled to life, "Millennium Falcon, this is Base One. Good to see you on our scopes again."

"Roger that, it's good to be back. We've got the defector we went for, but had a bit of trouble with the local Imps... Requesting landing clearance for Base One," Han said as he tapped the transmit button.

"Understood, Falcon. You're clear for approach on vector two-one-zero, landing pad nine."

"Right, thanks control," Han said as he turned the ship toward the moon. "You hear that Chewie?"

[Of course, scopes are still clear... Let's take the princess home.]

In the pressure vessel which sat in the midst of his quarters aboard the Imperial Star Destroyer Devastator, Lord Vader sat in absolute silence as he struggled to breathe without the aid of the rebreather for a few moments. Through the dark side of the force he could manage a few moments of freedom from the infernal device, and think without the constant wheeze of the rebreather distracting himself from his meditations.

He could feel them, the Jedi, moving about the system. Through the force he could pinpoint each of their locations as they moved about, and through the force he'd begun to identify each of them, watching them from afar.

Starkiller was easiest to pinpoint, his time spent in the presence of the clone's template made his traitorous apprentice a familiar signature in the force. He was on Yavin XIII, one of the three habitable moons of the massive gas giant. He wasn't alone, as two other signatures flickered in his awareness with him. Jedi, of that he was sure from their signatures... so bright and sanctimonious in their regard to the force, but all the same Vader knew they weren't all that powerful, not compared to Starkiller or...

Their presence had returned with a flash of motion in his senses, signifying a hyperspace jump. Jade, her signature brighter then he had ever seen in in the force before, along with the other... the 'Skywalker'.

The boy's presence was all too familiar to him now, the dim glow of the force he'd sensed in the pilot as he'd lined up on him above the Death Star had blossomed into a brilliant light that shone across the stars, still clearly unharnessed and untrained. Still, the boy's growth was something that concerned him, especially if he had a teacher.

Like those Jedi on the moon of Yavin XIII. Obi-Wan may not be able to help him, but there apparently were still others with the training to teach him. If the transmissions from the Yavin base were to be believed, it was General Kota which remained a threat to him. The old General had proven to be a persistent thorn in his side, and Vader continually cursed Starkiller's failure to kill the Jedi years before.

There were other force signature's scattered about the system, mostly untrained, but still his mental gaze continued to be drawn back to Skywalker and Jade. The fact that once again it was the two of them together was beginning to irritate him.

Vader knew the treasonous Emperor's Hand all too well. He'd been forced to teach the damnable girl the art of the saber, but then he hadn't put much thought into the girl. Her force sense was stunted, probably by the Emperor's machinations, and darkness had been implanted within her. He had sensed the link between her and the Emperor when in their presence. From her end it had been bright in the force, but as it approached the Emperor the link was dark and twisted, much like the man himself. That strange twisted connection seemed like a dark mirror of a connection Obi-Wan had once mentioned to him in passing, that of a Force Bond.

Whatever it had been, that link had been severed. He hadn't found a trace of it in his meditations, but instead he could feel a faint echo of Skywalker through her signature. Jade's powers had been stunted, but now without the link to the Emperor her powers seemed to be growing by leaps and bounds.

The crane overhead slowly lowered his helmet and sealed it as Vader's thoughts wandered back toward the siege of the system itself. With a growl in the back of his throat, Vader tapped the comm unit on the side of his chair, "Captain, this hive of Gundarks grows larger and more dangerous by the hour. Have you anything to report on the location of the Hammer?"

The display before him lit up and Captain Nevik bowed slightly, "My Lord, long range scans of the system have given us hundreds of possible silhouettes... We're going through them now, but I think it more likely they set the ship down somewhere in the system to remove the crew. The most likely locations would be at Yavin IV, VIII, or XIII."

"Have probe droids and reconnaissance patrols sent to each of those worlds, Captain," Vader said sternly. "A star dreadnaught is a hard vessel to hide, after all."

"Yes my lord, two convoys are currently enroute to the new platform in the shadow of Fiddanl. Hopefully they'll be able to have a long range sensor array assembled soon to search the system," Captain Nevik said.

The Millennium Falcon's ramp descended to the stone floor of the base's hangar as a dozen odd men clad in Rebel Specforce gear nervously shifted from side to side. General Cracken stood behind them, his hands clasped behind his back as the two X-wings that had been escorting the Falcon settled into their assigned places on the hangar floor.

Then the first of the Falcon's occupants appeared, and Cracken nodded once as Captain Solo and Princess Leia clambered out of the ship followed a moment later by the wookie Chewbacca.

"Good to see you back, Solo," Cracken said as his gaze drifted up to a blond man followed by Jade and Skywalker. "Is this the defector?"

"Yep, we saw a bit of trouble on Dantooine from the local imperials, but nothing we couldn't handle," Solo said as he turned to glance back toward the blonde as he stiffened in the General's presence.

"Sir, Lieutenant Tycho Celchu, reporting," He said smartly.

Cracken nodded, "At ease, Lieutenant... we've had a lot of defectors the last few weeks, so I'll be handing your debriefing to Agent Retrac." With that Cracken jerked his head over to the platinum blonde woman behind him. "Once your debriefing is complete, we'll see about getting you assigned... I take it due to your friends in Commander Skywalker's unit. You would want to join them."

"Yes sir," Celchu said quietly.

"We'll see... Welcome to Rebel Alliance, Lieutenant," Cracken said as Agent Retrac led the Lieutenant away. As they left he turned to Commander Skywalker and frowned slightly. "I don't see any droids, Commander."

"A bit hard picking up any when the Imps showed up," Solo muttered under his breath.

Skywalker sighed, "Sorry General, things got hot fast... so we didn't make the secondary objective. Does General Dodonna have another assignment for us?"

"He does, I'd expect a briefing in a bit... Lieutenant Jade, I believe you were supposed to pick an astromech from the maintenance pool?" General Cracken observed.

"Stang, I'd totally forgotten about that!" Mara stammered. "Come on Luke… It seems I'm supposed to pick out a trash can of my own."

Luke snorted at that before following Mara toward the maintenance bay.

Inside the maintenance bay they found the duty officer working besides a Xizor Transport Systems container that was sitting in the middle of the bay. As large as the Millenium Falcon, the brick like container almost filled the whole of the maintenance bay.

"Lieutenant, we were told you had an astromech for Lieutenant Jade," Luke said as he stopped behind the duty officer.

The duty officer jumped a bit at that and spun to face them before nodded. "Sorry sir, we've got quite a few..." His gaze flicked over to the redhead for a second. "She can have her choice, we've got more than enough of them here."

"Good, we'll need another droid as well for a new recruit," Luke said as the duty officer turned toward a control panel on the side of the container. After he pressed his hand to the panel the door hissed open.

Mara stared at the insides of container, her eyes widening in shock. Hundreds of racks filled the space, each one of them containing a droid socket with a waiting droid, powered down. Slowly she plucked the manifest from the computer terminal beside the hatch and stared. "Damn Luke..."

Luke nodded as he glanced over the duty officer's shoulder, "Six-hundred-and-forty R3 series droids... I guess you can just take your pick then."

She nodded and tapped the manifest display and started up a search, detailing the subtypes and occasional individual units with specialized programming. Finally her gaze stopped at the R3-D series, and then she tapped the display. "R3-Ds... They're meant for use with starfighters."

"I want this one Luke... R3-D9."

Luke glanced up at her and arched an eyebrow in an unspoken question.

"There's some base code hidden in astromechs with the D9 designator, something about the company's internal designation scheme. When I was working for the Emperor, one of the things I learned how to do was slice in and activate some of the alternate base coding." She paused and glanced up at the racks of droids. "There was a personality imprint in the base code; I'm not sure if its leftover data or some sort of company tradition but turning on the old code made the droid a bit more independent, and loyal."

She stepped toward the racks and glanced at the serial numbers for a moment. "Growing up in the palace I... appropriated one of the R3-D9s from the engineering pool, and turned on the old codes. For a long time, the droid was the only thing close to a friend I had."

Luke sighed, his own thoughts jumping to the old battered astromech that'd gotten him involved in the whole fight against the Empire. Then he tapped the display and selected the droid, "What happened?"

"Palpatine found out," Mara said simply. "He wanted me dependent on him, so he had the droid's memory wiped and all the other D9 series droids removed from the Palace's engineering pool." She tensed as another thought occurred to her. "He was probably glad that I was dependent on a droid. It meant his plan to make me dependent on him would work."

An automatic system activated and Mara watched the a set of mechanical arms reach out for one of the droids sitting in the rack. To Luke's eyes it looked a lot like Artoo, aside for the coloration. Instead of white, silver, and blue coloration this droid was painted in imperial black, red, and silver. As the mechanical arms set the droid on the ground, Luke saw a faint almost nostalgic smile slip across her lips.

"Hey, Lieutenant, you got a data-spike?" Mara asked as she bent before the still silent droid and ran a hand over its panels.

"Yeah, sure..." The man answered before handing over a data-spike and a pad. "You know what you're doing, don't you? We've already purged them of imperial coding and loyalty processes."

Mara nodded, "I know how to do this. You didn't mess with their base personality coding, right?" She said as she took the spike and inserted it into a port hidden in one of the compartments.

"No, base programming not something we had to mess with... except for the RA-7s, the ISB inserted some stuff into their base programming turning them into ISB spies," The duty officer said.

Mara snorted, "They'd be much more successful if the RA-7s were something people would actually want to buy. The ISB practically gives them away." She tapped the datapad that was attached to the spike and studied it for a moment before smiling. "There's a second personality matrix in R3-D9s, it's nothing dangerous, just more personable." She tapped it. "I'm going to activate it..."

"Okay..." The Lieutenant said nervously.

The spike whirred for a moment before finishing the changes with a click. Then Mara glanced at the datapad again before pulling out the data-spike. "Okay... let's turn her on."

"Her?"

"The second matrix is a female personality matrix," Mara said in a clarifying tone. "When I found out about it, the slicer told me it was the Firebird personality profile. You guys did do a full memory wipe on these, right?"

"Yeah, that's standard procedure... or at least we did it after intelligence combed through em."

Mara nodded before reaching into a compartment and flicking a switch. Instantly she jerked her hand back as the compartment closed and the droid's dome spun once before focusing up at Mara, then it twittered a question.

"Yes, I'm your new Master," Mara said and the droid twittered an affirmative before rolling slightly forward and craning its optic up to look at her.

"She needs a name, you know..." Luke said.

Mara rolled her eyes, "Really, when you call your R2 unit: Artoo?" She snorted at the end and glanced fondly at the farmboy. "I'll think of something."

While Mara and Luke were busy in the maintenance bay, Leia was frowning at a datapad that the Alliance Minister of War, General Dodonna, had handed her.

"An imperial drone craft was intercepted early this morning. It seems to have been a message meant for us from a group of disgruntled imperial officers, offering us the plans to the Executor," Dodonna said. "With Grand General Tagge's Annihilator already a concern, we feel that any intelligence we can gather on this new class of ships would be invaluable."

Leia frowned slightly as she skimmed the report. "They want Luke to meet with them? Seriously? This smells like a trap, General."

"It probably is, but we can't deny that the information they could give us would be vital. With Kuat and Fondor producing these new ships for the Imperial Navy, we need that information," General Dodonna said. "I intend to ask him to volunteer for the mission once Rogue Squadron completes its newest assignment."

Leia blinked and glanced up at him. "New assignment?"

"The Empire has been constructed an XQ orbital platform in the shadow of Fiddanl, and we believe a convoy of ships that is on its way to the platform is carrying components for a long range sensor array. If they manage to construct one, the Empire will be able to hunt down our fleet units in the system with impunity," General Dodonna said.

General Cracken peered across the table at the defecting Imperial Lieutenant before him. Celchu had already been a great deal of help, and was quite willing to answer questions about his life and the ship he'd served on, Admiral Piett's Accuser.

In this way Cracken was more than grateful for the young son of Alderaan's decision to defect to the Rebel Alliance. Few of their defectors were from ships commanded by competent officers, and as a result most defectors seemed to give them intelligence that painted the Empire's armed forces as a massively corrupt and inept force.

The truth was that while corruption and incompetence were problems for the Empire, it was those units that proved less corrupt and more competent that were the ships that the Empire tended to dispatch to fight the Rebellion. While a competent soldier under an incompetent officer was more likely to turn defector, a competent soldier under a competent commander was more likely to be a lethal adversary.

If it weren't for Alderaan's destruction, Cracken doubted the young pilot before him would have turned to the Rebel Alliance. That was probably the single greatest error the Empire had made, not just in losing the Death Star but in contemplating a planet destroying superweapon as a tool of compliance in the first place. There comes a point when the threat of destruction no longer brings about compliance but revolt.

Cracken glanced back down at the datapad where he'd been taking notes before leaning back in the chair. "You requested assignment to the Rogues?"

"Yes sir."

"I take it you had some friends in the unit then... I think we can clear you for active duty," Cracken said.

Tycho Celchu smiled at that and nodded. "Thank you sir."

The briefing room wasn't nearly as full as it had been when the Rebels had planned the attack on the Death Star. Instead of the thirty odd pilots, a mere dozen sat in the room as General Dodonna stood at the podium. While on the mission to pick up Celchu, other new recruits had been assigned to the squadron.

Luke glanced down at the datapad which Wedge had given him filled with the dossiers for the new recruits which had been assigned bringing the squadron to full strength.

The first of the new pilots was a fair skinned Twi'lek woman named Flight Officer Dia'dira, whose file mentioned that she'd been a freighter pilot before joining the rebellion. Already the rest of the squadron had christened her 'Tails' as a reference to her twin lekku. The second new addition was a Mon Calamari named Abal Ahdar. Finally the third new addition was a woman named Lieutenant Yumi Azul, who had been transferred from Blue Squadron. Apparently she'd her old squad mates had given her the nickname of 'Skifter' thanks to her skill at sabacc.

Looking at where the squadron's members had sat down, Luke could see that already many of the male pilots in the squadron were angling for Dia's and Yumi's attention. While Dia seemed a bit amused by the attention, the same couldn't be said of Yumi, who had plopped down beside Farlander and immediately engaged him in conversation a bit further from the squadron.

This made sense to Luke, as the fact that Azul was a veteran from one of the squadrons that had served alongside Farlander's probably meant the two knew each other, at least more than the other Rogues.

Mara sat down in a seat beside his as her astromech trundled after her, twittering as it glanced around at the pilots in the group before coming to a stop beside Artoo. There the droid came to a rest and its sensor dome slowly panned over the group as it muttered to itself.

Dodonna stood behind the podium facing the group, his wizen features hardening slightly as the noise level increased somewhat from the rowdy band of pilots. Then he cleared his throat.

"Alright, let's get this briefing started."

As he spoke the holoprojector in the center of the room whirred to life, displaying the a map of the Yavin system. Immediately a set of symbols began to flash around the world closest to the system's sun.

"This is Fiddanl, a rather worthless hot rock in orbit around this systems sun," Dodonna said. "Following a series of raids on convoys moving through the system, we've identified a recently built Imperial Installation in orbit on the dark side of Fiddanl. Intercepted Imperial transmissions indicate the Empire is sending a convoy with equipment to allow them to construct a long range sensor array at the platform, thus allowing them to pinpoint our movements throughout the system and most of the sector."

Luke frowned slightly, it sounded quite a bit like the last mission they'd been sent on.

"Rogue Squadron will be tasked with destroying the convoy. We'll have Task Force Liberty standing by in case of imperial reinforcements."