The Kitten, the Witches and the Bad Wardrobe - Willow & Tara Forever

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 Post subject: Short StarWars uber - Tinker...- Added new part 29/05
PostPosted: Sat Mar 11, 2006 7:48 pm 
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5. Willowhand
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Hello, dear Kittens. :)

Inspired by late night sessions of playing Empire at War, here's a brief one-shot W/T fic set in the Star Wars universe. And yes, it's silly. :) Writing this fic was fun, but I'll leave W/T in the Star Wars universe in SithLordWiccan's very capable hands from now on. Check out Star Witches while you're at it.

Title - Tinker, tailor, soldier... spaz.

Author name - Useful_Oxymoron

Email Address - Viernadevir@hotmail.com

Rating - PG.

Disclaimer - Well, I don't own Willow or Tara. If I did, I wouldn't have made certain... questionable decisions in the latter seasons. In any case, Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy own these characters and I don't intend to make any money off them.

Feedback- Is cool. It's always nice to know somebody liked the crap I write.

Summary- One-shot set in the Star Wars setting. Willow is a tech on board of the Super Star Destroyer Executor. Of course, Tara's in the story, but Willow's main antagonist is a certain other legendary character.

Notes- Influences for this story: playing Empire at War late at night until I hear birds starting to sing in the morning.

Star Wars aficionados might know about the controversy surrounding the supposed size of the Executor. For this story, I used the figures listed on the Star Wars Databank, though. For the planet that appears later on, well, I admit, I just picked one. :)

Italics are thoughts.

[hr]
Willow clutched her toolkit as she walked onto the massive bridge section of the Executer. A massive bridge section for a massive 19000 meters long ship with a massive crew compliment numbering in the hundreds of thousands, massive amounts of support craft, massive amounts of weaponry, massive shielding, massive engines, massive power core... everything was massive about this ship.

It just made Willow feel so tiny...

Being a member of the elite tech-crew assigned to the bridge section, Willow could enter the bridge whenever she pleased. All around her, Imperial officers were slaving over consoles and generally buzzing around while she could see the swirling colored hyperspace tunnel beyond the ship's viewports, the ship's front being 19000 meters away.

She grinned inwardly as she imagined the Emperor standing at the very front tip of the ship, proclaiming himself King of the Galaxy. But Willow quickly suppressed those thoughts, seeing they could get her executed.

Willow had a mission to perform. Officially, she'd be tinkering in one of the pits, trying to track down a problem with the starboard computer access terminal. Unofficially, however, she'd be downloading several personal and very classified files on a datacrystal. A datacrystal intended for her contact in the Rebellion.

That's, right, Willow thought as she climbed down into the pit near the observation post. You just going on doin' what you always do. Don't mind tiny little Willow. She doesn't exist. She lifted the access panel from the side and started to pretend to be working on the delicate circuitboards inside. Every so often, Willow checked over her shoulder to look if she was being watched, only to find that everybody was watching everything else except her.

Finally, she saw her chance. She slipped the datacrystal into the read/write port and keyed in the files she wanted to download to it. Immediately, a red bar on the small viewscreen started to show the download process.

This was when Willow started to get nervous. She blocked the viewscreen with her body by hunching against it as well as she could, but still... She knew that if she were spotted, it would mean torture and a painful death.

Come on, come on, come on, she hexed the download bar, but it only seemed to go slower. Come on, download, already, so I can get out of here.

Suddenly, she heard the sounds of dozens of boots snapping at attention and briefly wondered what was going on. But all her worries came crushing down on her when she heard heavy footsteps moving towards the observation deck, accompanied by the sounds of mechanical breathing.

Oh, sithspit, oh, sithspit, oh, sithspit... What's he doing here?! Why's he here now? He's never supposed to be here now! I especially picked this time because he's never supposed to be here around this time! Oh, no, why is this happening to me?! Willow gulped. Come on, come on, come on, come on, Willow told the download bar, now at 86%

Don't look. Willow forced herself to keep watching the bar.

Don't LOOK!

Willow felt her neck crane slightly, almost against her will.

I told you not to look, doofus! she told herself while glancing over her shoulder. Lord Vader was standing mere feet away from her. From where she was, he stood was slightly angled to his side, peering out into hyperspace with his arms crossed, his black cape draped neatly over his armored shoulders. Willow could swear she could see her own reflection on the side of his shiny black helmet.

There's only one reason he's here. He knows, Willow shuddered. He knows. Oh sithspit, he knows, he knows, he knows, he knows. No, no, get a grip Willow, don't panic. If he knew, you'd be writhing around on the floor right now, choking to death. Just calm down... he's just there to look at whatever he's looking at down there. Come on, download, download, DOWNLOAD! 98% Okay, okay, this'll work...

Willow quickly looked away when Lord Vader suddenly turned around and headed to one of the consoles near her. At that instant, the download completed. Willow practically ripped the crystal from the port and stuffed it into her beltpouch. Intense relief washed over Willow. It was over. She could just gather her tools, close up the console and the hell off the bridge and back to...

"Technician," Lord Vader's bass passionless voice cut right into the core of her soul. Pale as a sheet, Willow slowly turned around, coming face to face with Lord Vader. She stared right into the marble-like black eyes of his breather-mask, seeing only her own reflection.

"This console is defective," Lord Vader continued. "See to it." That said, the partly mechanical Sith Lord strolled back to the observation desk.

"Yup, I can do that," Willow said. Oh, cripes, did I just say that out loud?! Oh, no... I won't even be able to bruise his fist with my face. He'll just choke me to death and have me tossed out of the airlock.

Vader turned to look at Willow briefly, but resumed to peering outside into hyperspace, apparently letting the irreverent response pass.

Willow sighed in relief, gathered her tools and hurried over to the console. She popped up the access port and saw that one of the transtators had shorted out. No problem, I can do that.... Only then did Willow realize that Lord Vader's sudden address had caused her to forget to purge the computer's memory. From the corner of her eye, she could see the red 'download complete' light still blinking. If anyone'd see that...

Oh, no... There are twelve consoles here and, of course, he had to pick this one. Alright, Will, no bad. Some of my tools are still there. Just fix the console, go back calmly to gather your tools, purge the memory and get out...

At that moment, her all-purpose laser-microwelder shot from her sweaty hands. For Willow, all time stopped. The microwelder clanked against the metal grating and skidded across the deckplates. Lord Vader heard it too. His armored cape billowed as he spun around and watched the microwelder some to a stop near him. Slowly, every so slowly, he raised his head to look Willow right in the eyes.

Willow gulped and slowly walked towards him, never breaking eyecontact. It was as if she and him were the only things that existed in the universe. She could see or hear nothing else but him and that awful mechanical breathing. Willow felt her heart pounding in her chest when she was mere inches away from him. She gathered that this was the spot she had last seen the welder and, not daring to break eye-contact with Lord Vader, slowly squatted down to feel around for her lost tool.

Where is it? Willow gulped. Finally, she felt something. Something soft... leathery... big?

A boot.

A boot?

...

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPPPP!

She withdrew her hand as if she was burned. Luckily for her, it landed on the deck, right on top of the welder. Willow scrambled to her feet and returned to the console, trying her best to keep herself from trembling.

Focus... focus, Willow, focus, she told herself. Focusing on her work made her calm down somewhat. She popped over the console and studied the mechanisms inside. Don't think about Vader, don't think about him... Hm, a broken transtator, I can fix that. Hm, odd... I almost looks like liquid seeped onto it. Has someone spilled a drink on this console?

She continued working and finally was able to calm her nerves somewhat. She closed the console and watch it hum to life. Now, all she needed to do was to get back to the starboard computer access terminal to purge the memory. Though, she wondered briefly where that shadow that was now looming over her had suddenly come from. And... was that a respirator she was hearing? Right behind her no less?

Breath in.

Breath out.

In.

Out.

A pitch-black gloved hand set down on the console, right next to her own hand.

"Move," she heard Lord Vader's impassionate command. In response, Willow nodded vigorously and stepped aside. "Report," he commanded while working the console.

"Um, well, uh, you see, um, I think someone spilled a drink on it."

Vader regarded her for a moment. "Are you certain?" he asked. Again, Willow nodded vigorously. "Um, you see, the transtator sorta shorted out and that only happens when there's a foreign conductor applied. Like liquid. Could be water or coffee or even juma juice. Not that I even tried it... spilling juma juice on a console, I mean. Wouldn't that just be silly? Who'd deliberately spill juma juice on a bridge console, after all? Not me, that's for sure. If admiral Ozzel would catch me with juma juice on the bridge, he'd have me painting the hull for the rest of my career. But, yup, I'm pretty sure someone poured his coffee onto this console."

Lord Vader, undisturbed by the torrent of words contained in a single babble, merely crossed his arms. "Hmm," was his response before returning his attention to the console.

"If that's everything, I'll just, um, go get my tools," Willow turned around and focused all her attention on the blinking red light in the pit. Just one press of a button and she'd be safe. One press of a button...

Willow stumbled towards the pit and reached out to press the button, finally pushing it and purging the memory, making all her fears go away. Unfortunately, she was now leaning so far forward that she couldn't help herself from tumbling face forward into the pit and letting out a high pitched shriek in the process. When she scrambled to her feet, she found every set of eyes on the bridge, including Lord Vader's, aimed towards her.

"Um," Willow colored bright red. "I was, um, just getting my tools. Sorry, I'm so sorry," she said, literally throwing her tools into her kit, jamming it shut and almost running towards the exit. Unfortunately, she didn't look where she was going and slammed right into an officer that was just entering the bridge.

Willow gulped when she saw the anger on lieutenant Mott's face, a coffee-stain now spread across his uniform.

"I swear, tech-monkey," the lieutenant spat. "You'll be cleaning mynoch-droppings in the torpedo-tubes for the rest of your natural life for this."

Willow thought of a thousand excuses, but just couldn't get her mouth to cooperate. But in the end, help came from an unexpected source. "Lieutenant Mott," spoke Darth Vader as he strolled towards him. "Beverages are not allowed on the bridge."

"Lord Vader," Mott suddenly grew very nervous. "I, uh, I can explain..."

"Console 24-B is often used by you, is it not?"

"Yes, but..." Mott gurgled and grasped as his throat. Willow chose this moment to make herself scarce. Looking back onto the bridge, she could just see lieutenant Mott keening over backwards before the massive doors closed behind her. She was safe... for now.

---

Willow sat in secluded booth in a seedy little cantina in one of Kuat's less impressive cities. She could hardly believe it was two weeks ago since she had stolen the data on the crystal she was holding in her hands. Her adventure on the bridge was only the beginning: she had hid the crystal in her quarters and had spent two weeks looking over her shoulder all the time. When she was scheduled for leave, she took the crystal with her to Kuat, the planet being orbited by the Executer while she was being fitted with even more turbolasers than she already had.

Of course, on the way to the planet, she'd read the files, if only to check out what she'd risked her life for. Strangely enough, it was about a series of transports containing large quantities of resources and advanced equipment to a planet called Endor on the edge of the galaxy. It hardly seemed worth being so scared about, but maybe it meant something to the Rebellion.

In any case, looking into the azure depths of her contact's eyes made everything seem worth it.

"I... I don't think I can do this anymore, Tara," Willow trembled. "He was suddenly standing behind me and then he... looked at me as if I was an insect. I still think he knows..."

"Willow," Tara whispered softly and folded Willow's hand in her own, squeezing and rubbing it softly. "It's okay, you're safe now."

That feels so nice, Willow smiled in spite of herself. "Tara, I... just can't do it anymore. I don't want to go back to that ship. I'm sorry, Tara, but I'm just a coward," she sighed. "I'm not a hero. I don't fly a Y-wing like you do, Tara. I'm just a tech..."

"Willow," Tara offered Willow a comforting smile that made her heart melt. "I think you're the b-bravest person I know."

Willow felt her cheeks burning. "I, um... I..."

"You stole several of Darth Vader's personal files, right from underneath his nose, and without leaving a trace," Tara started. "Not just once but four times. You successfully hid the datacrystals and smuggled them out to us, supplying us with a wealth of information that have saved and will save many lives. Tell me again you're not a hero, Willow."

She always knows how to make me feel better, Willow thought to herself. "Vader gives me the jeepers creepers, though. I think he likes scaring people. He's all like 'oh, look at me, I'm so wicked cool with my shiny red toy and my big shiny helmet', choking everybody and saying things like 'I find your lack of faith disturbing'. And what does that mean, anyway? Nobody knows! You know, he might be an all-powerful Sith Lord, but that's no excuse to be a big fat, half-mechanical jerk who gets his kicks by standing behind unsuspecting people and breathe down their necks and stare at them all day."

"Whoa, calm down," Tara laughed. "Your mouth is moving at lightspeed."

"Sorry," Willow blushed.

"I, um, think it's time we repaid you for all that you've done for us," Tara said. "Why don't you come with me?"

Willow blinked. "Come with you? Join the Rebellion?"

"You've already joined the Rebellion," Tara smiled. "I'm stationed on Home One, admiral Ackbar's ship. They can always use experienced techs and your work will actually be appreciated there for a change. And... w-we'd be able to see each other m-more o-often. I'd... really l-like that."

Willow felt a blush creep across her cheeks yet again. I could see her all the time... "Me too," Willow said. "I mean, I'd like that too."

At that moment, they were approached by a brown-haired man with rugged handsome looks. Willow was slightly jumpy, but relaxed when she saw Tara knew him.

"Tara," the man started. "Things are getting restless out there. Let's finish up and get off this rock fast."

"In a minute," Tara said.

"Right," the man shook his head and fished a communicator from his pocket. "Chewie, warm up the Falcon. We might gonna need to get out of here fast."

Willow felt her mood fall a little. "Is," she started, "is he your boyfriend?"

Tara looked incredulous, then regarded the man briefly. "Oh, by the Force, no. I know Han from my old smuggling days. Only one to ever beat me at the Kessel Run... and believe me, he's never going to let me forget that. I strong-armed him into bringing me to Kuat. He knows this area of space by the back of his hand and knows all the tricks to fool the Imperial sensor array in place around the planet. Besides, he's a bit old for me, don't you think?"

"I'm standing right here, Tara," Han crossed his arms.

"I know, I can smell you," Tara grinned at him. "You know, Chewie actually smells better than you do."

"Oh, laugh it up, blue-eyes," Han scoffed, but there was a gentle humor in his eyes. "Or should I tell your friend about the time Jabba was trying to seduce you and the only way you had to convince him that he was not your type was to walk up to the nearest Twi'lek dancing girl and ki.."

"Alright, alright," Tara laughed. "Too much information. Let's get going, then, but we'll be taking on another passenger," she said, squeezing Willow's hand.

"She's an Imperial, Tara."

"So were you, Han."

"I've got a bad feeling about this."

"You get a bad feeling about everything."

Han sighed briefly, then held up his hands. "Alright."

Willow felt all the fear slide off her soul. She was free now, and was about to start a new life. And maybe, if she was lucky, Tara would become a big part of that new life. But right now, she didn't dare hope.

"Come with us then," Tara smiled to Willow. "And don't worry about Han. He might try to be tough, but deep down, he's a real soft-heart."

"Soft-heart?! I don't care what you've heard. I'm telling you, Greedo never even got off a shot," Han huffed while the three of them headed towards the exit of the cantina. "I'm planning to pay a visit to the liar who's spreading these vicious rumors about me. Then we'll see who's tough."
[hr]

Thanks for reading and I hope you liked it. A new chapter of Reaper should be ready for posting soonish.

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Last edited by Useful_Oxymoron on Mon May 29, 2006 3:43 pm, edited 5 times in total.

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 Post subject: Re: Short StarWars uber - Tinker, tailor, soldier... spaz
PostPosted: Sat Mar 11, 2006 10:13 pm 
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6. Sassy Eggs
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thanks, I liked that too. I could just see Tara putting Hans Solo in his place - in a good humoured way of course. Nervous Willow was v. good.. and I lol at Lt. Mot's fate. As a techie I think every one who spills coffee on their pc should meet a similar fate (well for at least a few seconds, anyway) - anyone taking a drink near any of my computers better look out!)

Anne

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 Post subject: Re: Short StarWars uber - Tinker, tailor, soldier... spaz
PostPosted: Sun Mar 12, 2006 1:26 am 
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3. Flaming O
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you're not gonna continue this???

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 Post subject: Re: Short StarWars uber - Tinker, tailor, soldier... spaz
PostPosted: Sun Mar 12, 2006 2:32 am 
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14. Lesbo Street Cred
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This is great fun UO. Did you make up 'sithspit'? That's fantastic, I tried saying it ten times fast but came out with a big mess of 's's' and 'th's'!!

I don't know how you can write just one chapter of a story...*hint hint* why not just keep on going? But then again I might just be wishful thinking cos I'm such a Star Wars nut and more Star Wars is what we want! One day I might get around to fleshing out my own Star Wars AU after I get Captain Red all finished up.

Thanks for posting!

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 Post subject: Re: Short StarWars uber - Tinker, tailor, soldier... spaz
PostPosted: Sun Mar 12, 2006 3:51 am 
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21. Geek Infested Roots
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Alcy wrote:
Did you make up 'sithspit'?


No, its an actual curse.

Alcy wrote:
I don't know how you can write just one chapter of a story...*hint hint* why not just keep on going? But then again I might just be wishful thinking cos I'm such a Star Wars nut and more Star Wars is what we want!


Well, for starters, he said it was a one shot. For another, I've got my own lying around here. Why aren't you reading that? (And if you have, why haven't you left feedbacky goodness yet?)

OK, I'm done ranting about my thing. Let me get started about yours.

First off, I gotta say that, since I'm trying to be serious about the subject matter in my fic, I'm glad to see that, given the right twist, Willow and Tara in the SW universe in a comedic way is not the disaster I initially thought. (Of course, I thought that my fic was a disaster from the start. And well...you know. )

Second off, yes. I am aware of the fact that Executor's isize is a matter of debate. You can blame Curtis Saxton for that. The official length, according to "Inside the Worlds of the Star Wars Trilogy", is 19,000 meters.

Third off, I'm rather tickled about the fact that my fic has inspired you. Not to mention that I got a gratuitous plug (really, is there any other kind?)

Thanks for sharing dude.

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Last edited by SithLordWiccan on Mon Jul 16, 2012 8:44 am, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject: Re: Short StarWars uber - Tinker, tailor, soldier... spaz
PostPosted: Sun Mar 12, 2006 6:11 am 
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5. Willowhand
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I Liked This! I can relate to Willow's nervousness around Darth Vader - I would be exactly the same!

Thank god Tara has decided that Willow has done her 'bit' for the rebellion. Now I think she should 'thank' Willow for being so brave.

I'd like to see this story continued too!

Caz

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 Post subject: Re: Short StarWars uber - Tinker, tailor, soldier... spaz
PostPosted: Sun Mar 12, 2006 6:36 am 
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Hee! There's something just too cute about Willow babbling to Darth Vader... :lol She needn't have worried about him reading her mind - the speed her thoughts go, he'd probably just have wound up with a headache. That was a really sweet story, and I for one didn't find it 'silly', as such - it was full of laughs, but the underlying story of Willow's risky espionage, and how she saw herself compared to how Tara saw her, was really touching and genuine, to me.

Oh, and I really liked the glimpse we got of Tara - very sexy and confident in her own way, kind of a Han Solo-ette. But still sweetly gentle, and nervous around Willow.

If I may be a big geek for a moment: this is set between Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back, right? The Death Star II (aka 'what are the odds it'll get blown up again?') must have been in construction for a long time prior to the events of Jedi, after all, and Han's presence as Tara's chauffeur means it's either before Empire, or in the brief gap in Jedi between Tatooine and Endor, when Luke (and us) fly off to visit Yoda, by which time the Rebels knew all about the Death Star. (Also, Vader's still in his choke-first-ask-questions-later mood, which seemed to wear off by the end of Empire.) Never mind me, I just like working out timelines and stuff.

By the way, did you really pick Kuat at random? Because it's perfect - if memory serves it's where they make Star Destroyers, so it'd be the most likely spot for them to get upgrades (especially Vader's flagship, which probably wouldn't get refitted at anywhere but the shiniest shipyards).

Tara's a Y-Wing pilot? I used to play the X-Wing/TIE Fighter series a lot, so I have plenty of respect for the pilots of those things - especially as they have to trust their escorts to keep them in one piece. I hope she got upgraded to a B-Wing by the battle of Endor though, those are sexy machines... (I'm very geeky tonight, evidently.)

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 Post subject: Re: Short StarWars uber - Tinker, tailor, soldier... spaz
PostPosted: Sun Mar 12, 2006 9:29 am 
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1) U.O. - another charmer. Good fun and well done - thanks. Vader coming down on Mott for coffee drinking on the bridge gave me both giggles and chills. The best part? That detail is so absolutely realistically absurdly scary. He's the scariest micro-manager ever.

2) U.O., Artemis, SLW - y'all are such geeks. Makes my geeky heart all warm and fuzzy, despite me being a different brand 'o geek.

3) SLW - A tad pouty today, are we?? :eyebrow


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 Post subject: Re: Short StarWars uber - Tinker, tailor, soldier... spaz
PostPosted: Sun Mar 12, 2006 10:27 am 
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Boschi wrote:
3) SLW - A tad pouty today, are we??


Not pouty. Just cranky. (You would be too after spending all night at a party.)

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Last edited by SithLordWiccan on Mon Jul 16, 2012 8:44 am, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject: Re: Short StarWars uber - Tinker, tailor, soldier... spaz
PostPosted: Mon Mar 13, 2006 12:30 am 
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UO,
Straight up as you tell it. Han was the only one who fired a shot and anyone who says otherwise is gonna be bantha fodder.
Definitely brown trousers time when Lord Vader is breathing down Willow's neck as no one can make an entrance like the Dark Lord of the Sith.
He is the alien presence who was doing the billowy black cape number aeons before Angel was even a protoplasmic blob.
My "Star Wars" fan geek credentials are starting to leak through so I shall just say I've got a bad feeling about this if you don't update.

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 Post subject: Re: Short StarWars uber - Tinker, tailor, soldier... spaz
PostPosted: Mon Mar 13, 2006 1:31 am 
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G'day, UO.

Well, you've done it again. You've made me laugh my ass off. I swear, it's going to be hard to find this time.

Quote:
She grinned inwardly as she imagined the Emperor standing at the very front tip of the ship, proclaiming himself King of the Galaxy. But Willow quickly suppressed those thoughts, seeing they could get her executed.


:lol My first thought on reading this was to wonder if Palpatine would wear a space suit, cuz ... well, y'know ... the vacuum of space and all. I can't see his Titanic tribute lasting long if that happened.

The whole Darth Vader bit had me grinning like an idiot the whole time. Willow's little running inner dialog had me repeatedly cracking up, and I especially liked how distracted from her fear she got when she figured out the problem with the broken terminal.

Oh, and Mott? :devil We had a bloke like that at my last job. He spilled his cup of coffee at his desk, but rather than clean it up, he went outside for a smoke, and let the coffee trickle down the back and short out an entire bank of computers. There was an honest to god scorch mark on the partition wall.

Quote:
the planet being orbited by the Executer while she was being fitted with even more turbolasers than she already had.
:lol

Quote:
"I'm not a hero. I don't fly a Y-wing like you do, Tara. I'm just a tech..."


Now, I know it's Tara, and as such, oh so very wrong ... but as soon as I read this, all I could think was; Y-Wing = easy prey :devil

Quote:
"I've got a bad feeling about this."

"You get a bad feeling about everything."


and

Quote:
"Soft-heart?! I don't care what you've heard. I'm telling you, Greedo never even got off a shot," Han huffed while the three of them headed towards the exit of the cantina. "I'm planning to pay a visit to the liar who's spreading these vicious rumors about me. Then we'll see who's tough."


:lol :lmao :rofl I freakin' well love it! You rock, mate. And I'll add my vote for continuing this. :-D

Cheers,
Paul.

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 Post subject: Re: Short StarWars uber - Tinker, tailor, soldier... spaz
PostPosted: Mon Mar 13, 2006 2:55 am 
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14. Lesbo Street Cred
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Quote:
Well, for starters, he said it was a one shot. For another, I've got my own lying around here[/url]. Why aren't you reading that? (And if you have, why haven't you left feedbacky goodness yet?)


I know he said it was a one shot...but a girl can always hope! And yes, I have read the first few chapters of your exceptionally well-written offering but I really need to find the time to finish the rest of it before I deliver with the feedback goods, rest assured I will!

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 Post subject: Re: Short StarWars uber - Tinker, tailor, soldier... spaz
PostPosted: Mon Mar 13, 2006 6:56 pm 
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Could you be any funnier? I'm sorry what was that? No. Reading this and the frog tale in series was just too much for my tiny little brain. You have reduced me to a pile of giggling mush. Imagine the hardships I must go through to write out this comment!! Goodness.

Gotta say, you really got Darth Vader's breathing down pat. How you, like, had it go in and, like, out. Like, that was, like amazing, like like . . . Well, there I go all mushy again.

Thanks for these like mini-stories, but can't wait for the latest reaper. I do in fact read that, I'm just awfully lazy for fb.

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 Post subject: Re: Short StarWars uber - Tinker, tailor, soldier... spaz
PostPosted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 2:16 pm 
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Anne Oh, believe me, I've got plenty of experience from the time my father spilled beer on his keyboard. Nasty. Tara's more of a scoundrel in this universe, but a good natured one. :)

eirnlove - Well, I wasn't planning to, but I just might add one part.

Alcy - Sithspit is an actual curse, I think. I got it from Kyle Katarn of the Jedi Knight games fame.

Alright, maybe one more part in the future. :) Thank Paul for that challenge. :)

SithLordWiccan - There's room for humor in Star Wars, I think, but it has to be a bit more subtle than my usual pun and slapstick style.

Personally, my stance in the Executor debate is more like 'It's Big' and that's about it. :D

I went for more of a 'view from the galley' sort of feel, in contrast of your story, in which they're jedi... basically the highest attainable role in the SW universe.

Caz - I think Vader'd make anybody nervous. :) And expect Tara to be thanking Willow for her efforts often and vigorously. :D

Alright, alright, one more, sheesh. :D But Reaper has priority now. :)

Chris - First of all, I loved the banner you've created for the story over at Looking Glass. Perfect, as always.

Willow and Tara's relationship is still budding as of now, but seeing they can spend a lot more time together... well... :D

Tara's more confident than Tara on the show, but, yeah, matters of the heart still make her nervous. I originally had a passage where Tara said she'd be taking the information and Willow to Hoth, but I decided against that. Still, yeah, this story is set before Empire.

I didn't entirely pick Kuat randomly. I know from the game I'm playing that it's the central shipyard of the Empire, but I didn't know how deep it is in empire territory or how well defended it is, or if it's even possible to land there undetected.

Tara prefers the Y-wing. :) She's got hers heavily modified to suit her flying style. More on that in the next part. :)

Boschi - Vader's looking out of the ship. It'd be very embarrassing to get your ship damaged because someone had spilled coffee on the shield controls and it was impossible to raise the ship's shields quickly. :)

Taralicious - And another vote for a continuation. Oh, well... :) Glad you liked the story. If there's even a scare-contest between Angelus and Vader, I don't think Angelus would stand an inkling of a chance. :)

Paul - Have you tried looking under the couch? ;)

The console gave Willow something else to focus on. It helped her deal, so to speak. :)

Scorch mark on the partition wall? Geez... I suppose that burke lost his job over that?

Quote:
Now, I know it's Tara, and as such, oh so very wrong ... but as soon as I read this, all I could think was; Y-Wing = easy prey


Oh, that was the clincher. :) That one convinced me to write a second part just to show how good pilot Tara is and how well she can handle her Y-wing. :D

Beanie - Oh, dear. Thanks for the compliment, and I hope you've recovered somewhat by now. :D

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 Post subject: Re: Short StarWars uber - Tinker, tailor, soldier... spaz
PostPosted: Fri Mar 17, 2006 8:29 pm 
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5. Willowhand
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Hello, dear Kittens.

So my one-shot became a two-shot, due to popular request. But you can thank Paul for the clincher that made me write this one. Never diss the cool Y-wing in my presence. ;) It causes me to write stuff. :D But really, after this it's over. No more! Really this time. Really. No, really... :)

But first, a reply to Irene's comments - Thanks for the compliments. I'm best in my element when I'm writing comedy. :) I can definitely see Willow's fear at being discovered. A battle between Willow and Vader would be a short one, I fear.

I made Mott a bit more abusive towards Willow so he wouldn't gather much sympathy when he'd go. Glad to see it worked. :devil

Yeah, you're right, Tara used to be a scoundrel, a mercenary smugger who ran spice and guns and who's now turned around a new leaf by joining the Rebellion. She can hold her own against Han and Lando, though. :glasses

Well, I'm breaking my promise of this being a one-shot, I suppose. Oh, well... but this really is the last one! Really. No more. Finito. The end. Fin. :D

And without further ado :

Title - The Honourable Scoundrel.

Author name - Useful_Oxymoron

Email Address - Viernadevir@hotmail.com

Rating - PG.

Disclaimer - Well, I don't own Willow or Tara. If I did, I wouldn't have made certain... questionable decisions in the latter seasons. In any case, Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy own these characters and I don't intend to make any money off them.

Feedback- Is cool. It's always nice to know somebody liked the crap I write.

Summary- One-shot sequel to a one-shot set in the Star Wars setting. Willow is not a tech on board Home One, the Rebellion Flagship, and in a relationship with Y-wing pilot Tara. The Battle of Endor is about to begin.

Notes- Influences for this story: 1- playing Empire at War late at night until I hear birds starting to sing in the morning. 2- A certain someone calling Tara in a Y-wing an east target. You know who you are. ;) :D

About the title : since the title of the previous chapter was based on the title of a John Le Carre novel, so is the title of this story. :)

Italics are thoughts.

[hr]
"It's a trap!"

Admiral Ackbar's words made Willow's heart skip a beat. Certainly, she'd expected the Death Star II to be heavily guarded, but how the hell did the Empire knew they were coming?

Standing on the bridge of Home One, Willow was commanding the group of techs tasked to keep the bridge 100% operational no matter the cost. And with 'group of techs', she meant herself, a purple-skinned Twi'lek, a plucky Gungan female strapped from head to toe with tools and three astromech droids buzzing around trying not to get in the way of the Mon Calamari command crew steering the ship. This bridge was Admiral Ackbar's nerve center for the battle efforts, and even though she had her doubts she was up to this task, the admiral had expressed his full confidence in her abilities.

Even though she had been serving aboard Home One for two years now, being appreciated was still something new for her. Definitely refreshing, considering how much she'd been kicked around on the Executor due the Empire's anti-female, anti-alien stance. In private, she always surmised that the Emperor must have had very few dates in lifetime.

The ship rocked as a series of proton torpedoes hit the bow. Two consoles exploded to the side of the bridge and immediately, while the injured crewmembers were being seen to, Willow sprang to action. "I4," she told one of the droids. "Transfer turbobattery control to console 23. Dak-dak, help me pop the lid. Let's get this screen blinking again. Gilba, we need spare parts here!"

"Yes, ma'am, Big Boss Willow, ma'am," Dak-dak flapped her ears in a typical Gungan manner. While R2-I4 transfered computer control, Willow popped the top of the console, while Dak-dak slid underneath it.

Willow was working mostly on auto-pilot, watching her hands do the work as if she was watching a stranger. She glanced out the viewports and saw the skeletal image of the Death Star II floating around Endor. Thank the Force that they'd gotten to that thing in time before it was finished. One such terror had been enough.

She shot a brief look at the admiral's holographic tactical display panel... Their fleet was bigger then the gathered Rebels. Forty Star Destroyers, numerous support craft and well over a thousand TIE's. Forty... Willow winced and looked out of the viewport again while working. So far, the ships were not approaching, just boxing them in, sending in the TIE's first. Green and red blaster fire in the distance lit up the blackness of space.

Tara, Willow felt nauseous when thinking about that. My Tara's out there.

It was silly, Willow knew that. Tara had gone out on missions before, and she was hardly worried then. Why was today different?

But she knew the answer to that. Everything about this battle felt wrong. The ships were there, but they weren't moving in. The shield around the Death Star II was still up. Something was so very wrong here... and she sensed that the admiral felt it too.

"Tara," she whispered when she finished her repairs and the formerly broken console was working around. "I4, transfer controls back to this console. Good work, Dak-Dak." Willow knew her work was only beginning. As the Rebellion's flagship, Home One was bound to be a primary target.

At least Tara wasn't alone out there. She was with Blue Squadron. And she had her trusty astromech with her. Willow shook her head... R3-Y5, the droid who was permanently surly. Trusty, yes. Reliable, yes... but, golly, that droid's just damn rude! Well, what do you expect? His memory hasn't been wiped since the Clone Wars!

Y5 just loved to complain... all the time and about everything. While Willow and Tara were making love for the first time, R3-Y5 rolled inside their bedroom bleeping angrily that Willow's loud moans were disturbing his recharge-cycle. Tara had a laughing fit when a blushing, mortified Willow covered herself up quickly. After that incident, they made sure that the door to their bedroom was locked.

Willow had once offered to wipe R3's memory and reprogram his personality matrix, but Tara had been horrified by that suggestion. Tara told her she considered R3 a self-thinking being and that Willow had no right to reprogram Y5's personality simply because it was not to her liking.

Tara had won R3-Y5 in a high-stakes game of Sabacc with a deep-space trader on Tatooine five years ago. Tara had literally played him under the table and when the trader bet more than he could afford, he ended up being forced to leave the cantina creditless, droidless and in his underpants.

Of course, most of those credits ended up paying for expensive gifts for twi'lek dancing girls. Han told her that Tara used to have a healthy appetite for exotic women. And, to Tara's dismay, Han Solo had only mention the words 'M'lyb twins' to make her blush redder than a Manaanian seacrab... it got even worse whenever Lando Calrissian was around... he always had the best kind of stories. Tara was always quick to add that her scoundrel days were over and was looking to settle down. Considering the women Tara had been involved with and could be involved with, Willow wondered why Tara had chosen her of all people to pursue. But she was only too happy for it.

If we'd both survive this, Willow thought wryly. Again, Home One rocked slightly, and some monitors flickered.

"Power failure!" Willow shouted. "D4, G11, get working on those conduits," she said while running to the power distribution node and started to reroute emergency power to the most essential bridge control systems and Admiral Ackbar's holographic tactical consoles until the starboard reactor would come back online. A few seconds later, the bridge was humming with life again, but Willow was still struggling to maintain it so.

At least Tara would be safe in her Y-wing. The Y-wing was known for it's adaptability. And Tara had the most customized Y-wing she had ever seen. Like an ordinary Y-wing in Rebel service, it had been stripped of its bulky surface armor and had most of its innards exposed for quick maintenance access. But, unlike a regular Y-wing, its central spar didn't mount the massive ion engines in a 90 degree angle, but at a 50 degree angle, bringing the engines closer together. For added stability, a series of four inwardly folded foils were mounted on top and bottom of the engine pods, which were also slightly longer than standard. The end result was a sleeker, faster and more maneuverable craft. The price to pay were the higher energy costs for the shields.

Tara's safe. She's safe. Safe. She has to be...

---

Careening through Space, Tara found herself being chased about three TIE-Interceptors. Blue Squadron had a bad run-in with the TIE's, and, despite their piloting experience, the enemy had succeeded in breaking their formation.

R3-Y5 bleeped something that was drowned out by the sound of her engines accelerating, but, knowing Y5, she was sure it wasn't flattering. She checked her instruments and found the TIE's still hot on her tail.

Come on, come and get it. Easy target... she thought and got ready. The TIE's were almost breathing down her neck... until she suddenly decelerated. Tara briefly experienced a red-out from the massive G-forces on her body, but she weathered it nicely. What she expected happened: all three faster TIE-Interceptors overshot her and ended up in front of Tara's eager turbolasers. Three explosions quickly lit the blackness of space.

Not, Tara grinned and accelerated again, headed back to her Squadron.

"This is Blue Leader. All check in," Tara called over the comm.

"Blue One," sounded over the comm. "Shipshape."

"Blue Two, spaceworthy."

"Blue A-wings, all accounted for."

"Blue Three, singed, but flying."

"Blue Four, stabilizer's loose. Otherwise fine."

"Fold down your foils, Blue Four," Tara said.

"Copy that, Blue Leader."

"Blue Five, what is it with clones and bad aiming?"

"Blue Six, super-duper."

"Blue Seven, active."

"Blue Eight. I lost my droid."

That was her group. Blue one through six, X-wings, herself, Blue Seven and Blue Eight Y-wings and accompanied by a small group of five A-wings.

"Alright," Tara called over the comm. "Target ahead. Xavier manoeuvrer," Tara announced. It would be an attack that would seem like a standard run, but while the others distracted the turbolasers, three craft would break off for a precision run.

"Blue One and Blue Five, you'll run interference. We do this by the book and we'll all come back alive. No heroics, everybody! That means you, Spike!"

"OY!" sounded over the comm. "Blue Five resents that, Blue Leader!"

"Let's dance," sounded over the comm, the eager voice coming from Blue One.

"No unnecessary risks, Dawn," Tara called. "Let's get to it!"

While rest of the squad veered to the side of the ship, Tara and her escorts dove forward. While

Ahead was their target. The Imperial Star Destroyer Tyranny had strayed too far from the main group, providing them with a perfect opportunity. Blue Squadron barrelled towards the tip of the wedge-shaped ship and, at the last moment, she and her escorts broke off. While Blue One and Blue Five kept the turbolasers busy, Tara skimmed mere feet away from the ship's hull, skirting along the ship's shields. She pulled up sharply as she came to the command tower, and launched two proton torpedoes.

The torpedoes, guided by R3-Y5 expertise, fired at point-blank range, penetrated the shields and slammed into the shield generator, disabling it entirely. Together with her escorts, Tara barreled back down towards the ship and pulled up again after passing the Star Destroyers massive engines, trying to ignore the powerful G-forces forced upon her body.

She saw that her Squadron were already picking away at the Tyranny's soft underbelly and decided to join the effort. Parting gift, she grinned inwardly and launched a single torpedo. It slammed into the now unshielded hangar-bay, completely incinerating whatever TIE's and shuttles stored in there.

"Withdraw," Tara commanded. "Head towards the Calm Reef." On her instruments, she saw that the massive Mon Calamari cruiser Calm Reef was already targeting the Tyranny. Halfway to the Calm Reef, the doomed Star Destroyer was being treated to a barrage of laser cannon fire. When Blue Squadron had reached the Calm Reef, the formally imposing Tyranny had cracked in two.

"WOOHOO!" sounded Dawn over the comm. "Eat that, bucketheads!"

"One down. Thirty-nine to go," Tara said and checked her commscreen for new orders from Admiral Ackbar. "Alright, Squadron, a group of TIE-bombers is making a run for Home One. Let's see to it they never get there."

Willow... We'll keep you safe, sweetie, Tara thought as her squadron headed towards the TIE-Bombers. The A-wings and Blue Two and Six had already engaged their fighter escorts while she and the other Y-wings were launching their attack from below. Home One was already in range... sixteen bombers to take out...

---

Willow looked up from her work, to keep an eye on the viewscreen. The battle outside seemed to be intensifying. At that moment, a TIE-bomber spun out of control and slammed into Home One, harmlessly into the shields. A Y-wing passed right in front of the bridge section, leaving no doubt as to who the person was who'd taken out that TIE-bomber.

Tara... Oh, baby, Willow sighed with relief after having seen this sign of life from the love of her life.

"Tara be a bom-bad pilot-lady," Dak-Dak said appreciatively.

---

"Blue Squadron, reporting," Tara answered the comm while hunting down a few stragglers that been driven from their main group.

"Red and Green Squadrons are pinned down by a trio of Victory-class destroyers," sounded the voice of Lando Calrissian. "Be awfully kind of you if you could help unpin them, Tara."

"Sure thing, 'general'," Tara replied with a smirk. Outside of her viewport, she could see a Corellian Corvette shattering in three large pieces.

"Hey, don't shoot the messenger," Lando replied, while Tara joined the Sundance, a Nebulon-B frigate and three Corvettes and headed towards the Victories.

Still, Tara had this nagging feeling that everything about this fight was just wrong. Why hadn't any of the bigger ships moved into the fray? Why only frigates and Victory-class destroyers? It was almost as if the larger ships didn't want to get into the way... or something at least.

At that moment, the reason became abundantly clear. A huge green blast of energy passed her, reducing the mighty Mon Calamari ship Alliance to a collection of charred space debris.

"By the Force, no..." Tara sat back in her seat and sighed heavily. Behind her Y5 bleeped angry about being shot at.

"That blast came from the Death Star!" sounded Lando over the comm. "That thing's operational!"

Tara closed her eyes. Every eve before battle for the last two years, she and Willow had made love with a passion as if it would be the last time. Last night might very well have been the last time.

---

It's all over... Willow felt like crying. The Rebellion... Freedom... Tara... Our love... It all ends here...

"We saw it. All craft prepare to retreat," Admiral Ackbar sighed heavily. He knew as well as Willow that with the Death Star II online, this battle was over.

"You won't get another chance at this, Admiral," Lando tried. Willow shook her head and continued working on the computer access terminal. Lando, ever the optimist, Willow thought.

"Wesa not dyin'," Dak-Dak said, more of a hopeful statement than an actual truth. "Wesa fight harder, so wesa win!"

"If only it was that easy, Dak-Dak," Willow sighed. "Even admiral Ackbar think we should retreat."

"What? Mesa worry?" Dak-Dak snorted. "No, no, no, Big Boss Willow. Wesa can still do this."

"We have no choice, General Calrissian," Ackbar said. "Our cruisers can't repel firepower of that magnitude."

"Han will have that shield down. We've got to give him more time," Lando replied.

Willow sighed heavily. "Come on, Han. Come on. Be bom-bad."

"Yousa be saying mesa bom-bads now?" Dak-Dak admonished. "That be Gungan-speak! How would yousa feel if mesa be saying yousa babbles?"

---

Tara and her squadron were skirting between the two armada's. Upon Lando's suggestion, Ackbar ordered all ships to move in to the large destroyer group. Though faced with tremendous opposition, the Death Star could no longer fire without destroying its own ships. The two armadas, like their sea-bound ancestors, blasted away at each other in individual point-blank confrontations. In the thick of it all Tara and her squadron were hard at work destroying individual TIE's that were making life miserable for the Rebel capital ships.

To say that this was a dangerous situation to be in was the understatement of the millenium. Dozens of turbolasers on one side, TIE's on the other and then the constant risk of being caught in the explosion whenever one of these massive ships would go up in flames.

She checked in on her squad. So far, everybody was still alive, but Blue Six, Ahita, wouldn't last much longer. Still Ahita was a good pilot and could hold her own, so Tara's main concern was Dawn. She was a young pilot, inexperienced. The rookie of Blue Squadron. Tara'd been sticking close to Dawn, taking out some TIE's that she hadn't seen or wouldn't have been able to destroy in time. Tara had promised Dawn's sister she'd keep her safe. And that was a promise she was going to keep no matter what.

A Star Destroyer exploded behind her, while the Rebel victor limped away, its read section alive with a series of minor explosions. In a final act of heroism, the Rebel cruiser managed to move in next to a second Star Destroyer before it exploded completely, taking the other ship with it. Desperation... pure desperation.

Tara reacted to late to avoid a small but sharp piece of debris. Her Y-wing groaned as it slammed against the right engine, imbedding itself into the pod. Alerts started to light up the cockpit, and Tara had to reach over for her fire extinguisher to put out a small fire from a damaged console.

Y5 complained loudly, but immediately started to regular the power-flow to keep the craft up to speed and prevent the mounting instability from blowing himself and Tara into atoms.

This was turning out to be a very, very bad day.

Until...

"The shield is down!" Ackbar shouted on all Rebel channels. "Commence attack on the Death Star's main reactor."

YES! Tara clapped her hands together once. Han, I love you! Uh, in a completely non-romantic, platonic way.

---

YES! Willow practically danced on the bridge. Han, I love you! Uh, well, no, cause I love Tara and I'm kinda gay, so I don't love love you, I just friendship-y love you. But that doesn't mean I don't appreciate you taking down the shield, cause now me and Tara could still live through this and be together for so much longer.

"We're on our way," Lando grinned. "Red Group, Gold Group, all fighters follow me. Told you they'd do it!"

"We've got to give those fighters more time," Ackbar announced. "Concentrate all fire on that Super Star Destroyer."

"Oh, sithspit, here it comes," Willow braced herself as Home One prepared for a slow pass alongside the Executor. Before long her old ship and her new ship were duking it out, pounding turbo-lasers, missiles and torpedoes into each other's side. Willow held on the console she was working on while the entire ship rocked, feeling as if it was shaking itself apart. Looking out of the viewport, she could see both the bow of the Home One and the Executor bathed in explosions caused by targeted high-yield ordinance. Shards of metal littered space. She could only imagine the massive damage being done to both vessels.

Around her, the bridge was burning. The admiral sure wasn't making her job any easier.

"Droids, put out those fires!" Willow shouted. "Dak-Dak, get working on the computer access ports! Gi..." she started to say, but found tears forming in her eyes. Gilba lay on the floor, caught in one of the explosions. There was no doubt that he was dead.

She'd known him for a year... been standing right next to her, excited that the Death Star's shields were down and then... he was just dead. This... this isn't fair! We're winning! How... how could this have happened? This... this just isn't fair!

"Big Boss Willow!" Dak-Dak called. "Wesa mourn later! Now wesa need ta get ship workin' for bom-bad admiral!"

---

Tara was in trouble. She'd taken three direct hits from the Executor's turbolaser array. Though her craft was durable and strong, the damage done was substantial. In fact, her entire squadron was in bad shape.

"Dammit!" Tara shouted over the comm. "I can't take any shots at hangar B. My torpedo-tubes are clogged up!"

"Copy that, Blue Leader. We'll take care of that one," announced Blue Seven.

"Tara! Uh, I mean, Blue Leader," Dawn said. "Their bridge shields are down! Should we..."

From the corner of her eye, Tara caught an explosion at the Executor's bridge section.

"Oh..." Dawn said while the Executor started to spin out of control. "Never mind."

---

There was cheering on the mostly repaired bridge when the Executor collided with the Death Star and blew up like a shuttle bought at a Toydarian's Slightly Used Starship Shop. The wake of the explosion took out two smaller Star Destroyers as well. Willow watched her former ship go up in flames, but didn't feel any form of sorrow.

"Burn," she whispered softly.

"All craft," Ackbar ordered. "Fall back to a safe distance. We don't want to be near that station when it goes."

---

Willow hurried to Home One's hangar bay as soon as she had heard that Blue Squadron was docking. After the destruction of the Death Star and the death of the Emperor, most of the remaining Imperial fleet had retreated, leaving only a few damaged stragglers behind.

Willow winced when she saw the severe battle-damage of Tara's craft. Scorch-marks marred the otherwise fine craft and there was a large jagged gash alongside the right engine pod. There was a large blackened spot on the cockpit where a laser had penetrated the shield... If it had penetrated the Y-wing's armor, Tara would have been incinerated...

But the cockpit folded open with a bit of a shudder, and out stepped Tara. She looked very tired, sweaty and her hair was disheveled after removing her helmet.

Willow ran to her and Tara let her flow in her arms, hugging her tightly. Willow's lips met Tara's, the prelude of a deep, soul-searching kiss. Finally, Willow broke the kiss and lay her head on her lover's shoulders. "I was so scared for you," Willow whispered.

"Hey, I'm fine," Tara smiled. "I grew up in the pilot seat. Space is my element, sweetie."

"I lov... Dammit, Spike, stop staring at us!" Willow scowled.

"Oy," Spike snorted as he dismounted his X-wing. "I was just hoping for another show."

Willow something hard push against her leg. "BREEEEET!" shouted the now released R3-Y5 at Willow, causing her to jump away from Tara. Y5 continued to roll towards the oilbaths.

"That droids hates me," Willow pouted.

Tara took Willow in an embrace. "Y5 hates everybody... Well, except Spike. And you did stand in his way, sweetie."

"Hey, guys," Dawn grinned as she climbed from her X-wing. "This is big. This is, like, huge! Emperor fried, Vader burned up, Death Star gone, Imperial fleet scattered."

"No, this is bollocks," Spike grumbled. "You think these Imperial tossers are just going to roll over and surrender? No, we'll be system-hopping for years to come, and putting out brushfires for decades."

"I just heard admiral Ackbar talking to Mon Mothma on the bridge," Willow smiled. "Systems everywhere are throwing off the Imperial joke. We've won."

"Spike is right, though," Tara smiled. "But for now, lets celebrate. I for one, really could really use a bath right about now."

Willow smiled knowingly. "Home One's in shambles, but the admiral has given me and Dak-Dak some time off... and I could really use a bath too. So..."

"Can I watch?" Spike smirked.

Dawn smacked Spike in the back of the head for good measure.
[hr]

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 Post subject: Re: Short StarWars uber - Tinker...- Added new part 17/3
PostPosted: Fri Mar 17, 2006 10:09 pm 
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10. Troll Hammer
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Well, since my smack talk inspired this ... dibs!

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 Post subject: Re: Short StarWars uber - Tinker...- Added new part 17/3
PostPosted: Sat Mar 18, 2006 2:22 pm 
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5. Willowhand
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I vote for more Star Wars story's!

Good update - are you sure that this is the end! :-D

Caz

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 Post subject: Re: Short StarWars uber - Tinker...- Added new part 17/3
PostPosted: Sun Mar 19, 2006 7:58 am 
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18. Breast Gal
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Hee! So, it's smack talk that gets us more Tinker stories? Well, I bet a Y-Wing pilot wouldn't be able to help out at all in rescuing Han Solo from Jabba the Hutt :D Okay, so it'd be a semi-prequel, but who cares when they're this good?

Seriously though (no, I was serious, write more!), I really enjoy how you write 'comedy', because it's full of laughs, but quite serious at the same time - it's funnier because it's real (so far as Star Wars is real). It never loses the fact that there's a real war going on - Tara fighting to keep her squadron in one piece, which makes you very aware of what's happening in Jedi when one of the ships goes 'pfft!' in a little puff of flame and vanishes, as happens a lot in the big starfighter scenes; and Willow, as before, doing work that no doubt seems mundane to her, but in fact is crucial to the survival of the whole fleet, keeping the C&C of the flagship up and running, which you did a great job of showing the difficulty of once the capital ships sidled up and started really smacking the crap out of each other. And moments like Gilba dying (nice to finally see another male Twi-lek, though, besides freakazoid Bib Fortuna - not that I'm complaining about all the females, because Star Wars is short on them so it's doubly welcome when they show up colourful and sexy), and Willow watching with grim satisfaction as her old ship goes up would fit in perfectly in an entirely serious story, but aren't at all out of place here.

Incidentally, you really did the battle justice. It's one of my all-time favourite space battles involving capital ships (Endor, the Battle of Cardassia in DS9's finale, and the battle surrounding the station's secession in Babylon 5 - and it's to ILM's credit that those other two had the benefit of advanced CGI, even if they were TV shows. It's kind of staggering to think that every single ship, down to the tiny fighters, in the Jedi space battle sequences had to be photographed individually and composited together)... those parentheses went on so long I forgot what I was saying... right, favourite space battle: you really captured the frantic nature of it, the desperation of the rebels, and you added the one element that, looking back with the benefit of having seen more advanced sequences, was missing: big ships being destroyed, and breaking up. In the movie I never got a sense of the big ships fighting - aside from the ships hit by the Death Star, and the Executor crashing, it seemed like the capital ships were just scenery for the starfighters to battle in and around.

Tara's Y-Wing sounds like a right piece of work, up there with the Millennium Falcon in terms of being boosted far above its factory performance (given how we only Corellian freighter we ever see is the Falcon, kicking enormous amounts of arse, it's surprising to recall that, in 99% of cases, Luke would've been right when he called it a 'piece of junk'). So I'm forgiving Tara for not swapping it in for a B-Wing - better to have a good ship made great by customising, that she's really familiar with, than a great factory-made ship she's new to. I liked R3 as well (yay for Tara having an R3 - must be quite the object of envy in Rebel hangers, what with them having to use R4s and 5s as starfighter droids), and I liked the disagreement Tara and Willow had over him - it's an interesting dichotomy of Star Wars that droids are so often seen to have personalities, but it's evidently a very commonly-held opinion, even among educated people, that there's nothing wrong with wiping them. Come to think of it, that's another point in favour of the Y-Wing: they carry an astromech.

I liked the glimpses of Tara's past too :blush Often, like canon Tara, uberTaras are fairly introverted socially, and not especially well-travelled prior to meeting Willow. It's actually kind of cute that this Tara has left a trail of satisfied women from one end of the galaxy to the other (let's face it, it's not like she couldn't if she wanted to - Tara's hot) - it makes her shyness in the face of Willow (most notably back in part one) much sweeter, that it's Willow specifically who makes her blush-y and tongue-tied. I'm not at all surprised than Han and Lando have fun teasing her, though ;-)

So, what are the chances of a one-shot prequel to a one-shot follow-up to a one-shot story?

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 Post subject: Re: Short StarWars uber - Tinker...- Added new part 17/3
PostPosted: Tue Mar 21, 2006 12:00 am 
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UO,
Chris pretty well summed up the intricacies of Star Wars canon and technical jiggery-pokery so I will just add that I love your attention to detail and how you imbue every scene with humanity and never let us forget that these are real people and that WIllow and Tara realize how dangerous and unstable life out in the space lanes is.
I really liked the scene where Willow and Tara made love before every space battle.

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 Post subject: Re: Short StarWars uber - Tinker...- Added new part 17/3
PostPosted: Tue Mar 21, 2006 5:13 am 
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G'day, UO.

Yes, I know I could have edited my earlier post, but hey, that was three days ago now, so screw it. Start afresh and whatnot.

I would apologize for bad mouthing your (apparently) beloved Y-Wing, but it seems I helped to inspire this revisit to what was supposed to be a one-shot, I won't. If I criticize it again, will we get a part three? :p

Seriously though, I think I actually liked this bit more than the first. There's still traces of your customary humor, especially in the character of the surly R3, but there was also plenty of emotional pathos.

Quote:
Tara had literally played him under the table and when the trader bet more than he could afford, he ended up being forced to leave the cantina creditless, droidless and in his underpants.


Let's hear it for Tara the cardshark, shall we? :applause I like the image of her as a scoundrel, albeit one who seems a little less rough around the edges than Han Solo. I'll agree with Chris' comments regarding Tara's list of prior conquests; cute!

And, I'll allow you, Tara's customized Y-Wing sounds tasty. Faster and more maneuverable sounds good to me. I'd still prefer a TIE-D though, but in the sort of massive FUBAR situation like we have at the end of ROTJ, your normal TIE's are about as survivable as an ice cube in a hot oven.

One quibble though, you wouldn't have turbolasers on a starfighter. :geek

But aside from that, fantastic representation of a battle in space. You capture the chaos and desperation of a large scale engagement perfectly. A situation where death can come in an instant from any number of directions, and only luck, skill, training, and faith in your wingmates can hope to keep you alive.

Spike and Dawn's cameo's were fun, though the peroxide one has got it right, especially if you've followed the EU. The jobs not done yet, not by a longshot.

Great job, UO. Now, is there any way I can incite another update. :hmm

Cheers,
Paul.

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 Post subject: Re: Short StarWars uber - Tinker...- Added new part 17/3
PostPosted: Sun Apr 02, 2006 5:00 pm 
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Whups, I'm sorry I'm late with replying to my feedback. I'm afraid this story's fallen between the cushions of the couch. Sorry, sorry, sorry.

caz - Is this the last? Uh, short answer? No. :) Got plans for another one, but no idea when it's going to be written.

Artemis - Hey, Chris. Glad you liked this sequel. And, yeah, I have another idea. :) So sue me. :)

Comedy is what I like to write most, from situation to slapstick, but the comedy in this story had to be a lot more subtle. Heh, comedy comes back in every story I write, even when I'm trying to be tragic or serious... or even writing serious horror-stuff, there's always an inkling of a small joke hidden somewhere.

You're right about the bigger ships in that battle. They almost feel like props, just being there to filler material. But from playing Empire at War, I have seen those ships do kick ass. :) It's nice to be able to show that.

Tara's the kind of pilot who doesn't swap her ship when a newer model comes out, but fixes it up and alters it enough so that it's easily up to par with the newer model. I imagine she's flown that Y-wing for years.

Droids, yeah, I've always thought of them as sentient, self-thinking individuals. Just look at droids like C3P0, R2D2 and HK-47. These droids have developed personalities and no human has the right to take those away, I feel.

Tara is very hot. :) So, yeah, she's left a trail of satisfied women behind her during her smuggling days. Han and Lando know enough stories to completely embarrass her in front of Willow. :) Come to think of it, that would be fun to do. :)

Chances are looking good for another part. :)

Taralicious - Thank you. Tara realizes, in a sense more than Willow does, that she's putting her life on the line for the Rebellion every time she flies out. That's one of the reasons why Willow and Tara make love before every mission Tara flies : every time she flies out, it could be the last time.

Paul - Yeah, I admit to having a soft spot for the Y-wing. :D Glad you liked the story.

Tara's a more world-wise (or is that galaxy-wise) in this story, what with her past as a smuggler and all. Fun to come up with, really. :)

Quote:
One quibble though, you wouldn't have turbolasers on a starfighter.


Uh, whops, sorry. My bad. Glad you approve of Tara's modified Y-wing, though. It held it's own in the space-battle, which was fun to write as well. A mixture of chaos and order. No plan of battle survives contact with the enemy, an old addage that applies to space-battles.

Quote:
Spike and Dawn's cameo's were fun, though the peroxide one has got it right, especially if you've followed the EU. The jobs not done yet, not by a longshot.


I'm pretty sure Blue Squadron will be called upon for the liberation of many more planets, including Coruscant.

And, yeah, there'll be another part. Don't know when, though. :)

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 Post subject: Re: Short StarWars uber - Tinker...- Added new part 17/3
PostPosted: Sun Apr 02, 2006 8:28 pm 
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Hey, dude. I actually read this a while ago, and forgot to leave feedback. (Don't look at me like that. I got my own fic to write, after all.)

Now, being the uber Star Wars freak that I am, I gotta say how much I enjoyed this fic. I too am planning to have the Battle of Endor covered in my fic. Of course, neither of our girls will be involved with the actual battle, but I will be covering it.

Gotta wonder why the Gungans would join the Alliance, though. Seemed pretty clear to me that they never left their homeworld. (You know, what with their only colony getting torched in the Clone Wars.)

And I laughed a lot, too. Especially at Tara's droid interrupting our girls...well, you know. ;)

I gotta admit, though, that I'm rather surprised you still made Tara fly a Y-wing. Like Chris, I put a lot of time into the X-Wing games, and lemme tell ya. Unless you know what you're doing when you fly those things, you are FUCKED!

And I hate that you have Empire of War, but that's not really relevant to this.

Glad to see that there will be more Tinker stories soon. Let me know if you need a helping hand.

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 Post subject: Re: Short StarWars uber - Tinker...- Added new part 17/3
PostPosted: Sun Apr 02, 2006 9:11 pm 
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UO
loved it. agree with comments by Chris. want more... please.

Anne

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 Post subject: Re: Short StarWars uber - Tinker...- Added new part 17/3
PostPosted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 7:44 am 
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Sorry for the delay in commentary, but I'm here now and with a new part. :)

Sith - Icon love, btw. :wtkiss Don't worry, I'm happy you're here. And I'm glad you've enjoyed the fic. I love spacebattles, so I'm glad I was able to do it justice.

Well, it's not exactly the Gungans that joined the rebellion, just one Gungan in this case. :) Also, next part I'll be having a Genonosian turn up. Aside from adding to the exotic flavor of the Rebellion, I also think there could be lone travellers from other races who got caught up in galactic affairs on their adventures and joined a good cause. Hey, if humans can do it, why not Geo's or Gungans? ;)

Quote:
gotta admit, though, that I'm rather surprised you still made Tara fly a Y-wing. Like Chris, I put a lot of time into the X-Wing games, and lemme tell ya. Unless you know what you're doing when you fly those things, you are FUCKED!


LOL! Well, it's a good thing Tara know what she's doing. Besides, she's been doing a lot of expensive modifications to her craft to get it up to par with more modern fighters.

I can really recommend Empire at War, even though the ground battles are somewhat bland. Thanks for the offer of help, btw. I'll keep that in mind.

Anne - Heya, glad to hear you've enjoyed the story. More is on the way.

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 Post subject: Re: Short StarWars uber - Tinker...- Added new part 17/3
PostPosted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 7:45 am 
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Well, now that I've finally got a working computer. (Long story. I bought all my new stuff and put it in my old case, and everything overheated. So I had to put my old stuff back, have everything in scaffolds, wait for a new case to arrive and plant all my new hardware in there. Finally, I'm done now, 400 euros above planned budget. Ah, don't you love computers? But at least Oblivion runs without a hitch now. ;)

Anyway, there's a delay on Reaper, which will be worked on next and hopefully will be ready for posting somewhere next week. In the meantime, I've decided to work on a third Tinker story, which turned out to be longer than expected. Sorry about that.


Title - The Pilot Who Came In From The Cold

Author name - Useful_Oxymoron

Email Address - Viernadevir@hotmail.com

Rating - PG.

Disclaimer - Well, I don't own Willow or Tara and if I did, I'd set them free.

Feedback- Is cool. It's always nice to know somebody liked the crap I write.

Summary- Tara leads a group of Rookies into a training mission. Unfortunately, unexpected visitors show up. Meanwhile, Willow helps Han fix the Millenium Falcon. Warning: character death.

Notes- This takes place between the first two tinker stories, and just before The Empire Strikes Back. Also, yet again, the title is a reference to a John Le Carre novel.

Italics are thoughts.

[hr]
The Pilot Who Came In From The Cold

Hoth.

A dreary little ice-world, but still the newest hidden base of the Rebellion and Blue Squadron's temporary assigned post. Echo Base had two squadrons and accompanying repair-crews 'on loan' from Home One while the majority of their forces were involved in an elaborate troop-transport effort. Though it was only a posting for a month or two, Tara was eager to return back to Home One. First of all, because Hoth was far away from any sort of action. Second, and more importantly, Willow was rather unhappy there.

Still, it wasn't all bad. Her friend Han was there as well, and they'd spent some time catching up. And because Willow could get rather cold, she often needed a set of arms to warm her up.

Tara and her entourage dropped out of hyperspace. In front of them, the Peragus asteroid belt loomed. The system was devoid of life giving worlds, or anything else useful. For thousands of years, Peragus had been a major fuel source for the galaxy. But that was ancient history. Now that every single drop of fuel had been extracted from the asteroids and planetoids, all that was left were ancient abandoned mining stations and a whole lot of useless floating rocks.

As asteroid fields went, this one was not as rough as some of the others. It was the perfect site for the kids to practise and play.

Six X-wings followed Tara in tight formation. Rookie Squadron contained the next generation of fighter pilots, talented youngsters being trained for the war. Seeing things were quiet on Hoth, it was the perfect time for another training mission, one that had the kids very excited. The plan was to set up a targeting range in a quiet, more stable spot in the asteroid-field to test their reaction speeds. After that, there'd be simulated dog-fights, something Rookie Squadron was really looking forward to.

"Blue Leader, calling in," Tara spoke in her comm.

"Copy that," Buffy replied. "Blue One, standing by."

Buffy had been Tara's wingman for two years and one of the first pilots she had selected when she was asked to form Blue Squadron. She was a plucky and daring pilot who was quick with the quips and always ready to serve. Rookie Two, Dawn, was Buffy's sister. As a trainee, Dawn was assigned to Echo Base and with the temporary transfer in effect, Buffy had been able to spend more with her sister. Tara understood that Buffy was quite proud of Dawn.

"Oy, Spike 'ere," Spike replied. "Blue two, waitin' my bloody bollocks off. What took you so long, Tara? One of the kids got lost?"

Spike was an equally daring pilot who loved space combat, though his irreverence and brash nature often got him into trouble with his superiors. Once, he had called Admiral Ackbar a 'smelly fish-face' when he didn't agree with one of the admiral's decisions. Spike had been lucky that Admiral Ackbar had a good sense of humor.

"I can hear you," Drusilla replied. "Blue Three, fluttering along like a butterfly, still as the wind running through your veins. Ssssssshhhh..."

Dru was a special kind of person. Some people, like Luke, said she was force-sensitive. Other people, like Han, said she was just plain nuts.

Whatever she was, Dru's erratic behavior and mannerisms showed in her piloting skills. Sometimes she was deadly calm and focused. Other times, she was almost like a berserker, flying her craft right into enemy fire with complete disregard of her own safety. This made her unpredictable in combat situations, and thus deadly to both friend and foe. But Tara always found there to be method in her madness: she avoided blaster-fire and other dangers aptly, almost as if she had some form or precognition. Somehow, Dru knew when her enemies would fire before they did, and was determined not to be in the spot her enemies would target.

Tara halted her Y-wing at the edge of the asteroid field, in front of her three wingmen, and the six Rookies did the same.

"Hi, Buffy!" sounded over the comm. "I'm so glad you're finally going to see me fly. Prepare to be amazed, sis!"

"Ahum," Tara coughed. "You're transmitting on an open channel, Rookie Two."

"Oh?" sounded Dawn. "OH! Sorry, Ta... uh, Blue Leader."

"Is the course prepared, Blue Two?" Tara asked.

"Aye, Blue One and I cleared the course with sonic charges. Make sure there's no tiny rocks there. Dru's towed the target into range and... bloody 'ell, there it is again!"

Tara frowned. "Come again, Blue Two?"

"Spike is chasing ghosts," Buffy giggled over the comm.

"I'm telling you there's someone out there!" Spike called back. "Bugger, now it's gone again!"

"Do you see something on sensors?" Tara asked. "R3?"

The droid buzzed in annoyance. He complained about being transferred to Hoth, he complained about Willow, he complained about being cooped up in Tara's Y-wing, and finally, he complained about having to perform a menial scan of the asteroid field. He angrily bleeped the result: nothing on sensors but dead rock, adding the comment that Tara could take a long walk off a short asteroid if she wanted another scan.

"Maybe it's the frequency," Spike said. "Lemme fiddle with it a bit..."

"It's probably a big rock with a metal core," Buffy sighed. "Let it go, Spike."

The comm crackled again, this time with Drusilla's voice. "I can hear the rocks. They tremble. They fear the monsters in the dark. Ssshhh. Don't warn the monsters or we shall be very concerned."

"Okay, now that gave me the wiggins," Buffy replied.

"Everything gives you the wiggins," Spike snorted.

Tara shook her head and looked through the viewport. The course was inside the asteroid-field, in an area that was considerably less treacherous than the rest of the field. Now that Spike and Buffy had cleared the course with sonic charges, leaving only the biggest, easiest to avoid rocks floating around, their training could begin."

"Alright, people, cut the chatter," Tara spoke into the comm. "We're going in. Blue Three, you're our point-woman. Rookie One and Two, tie your navicomputers into Blue One's and follow her into the asteroid field. Rookie Three and Four, your navicomputers will be tied to Blue Two's. Rookie Five and Six, you're with me."

A series of 'copy that's followed. The three experienced pilots followed Drusilla as she led the squadron through the corridor she had plotted in between, past, over and under the spinning, jagged rocks. Tara, Buffy and Spike flew by the information from Drusilla navicomputer, while their assigned Rookies flew in behind them in textbook formation. Eventually they arrived at a large clearing in the middle of the asteroid field.

"Well done," Tara spoke over the comm while Buffy, Spike and Drusilla continued on to their assigned positions. "We will begin with the first exercise. The route will be transmitted to you now. You will fly over Asteroid 1B, pass between 2A and 3B, perform a barrel roll underneath 4A and quickly pass the big rock in the middle that Blue One has dubbed Mr. Gordo. The target is somewhere behind Mr. Gordo. The course ends when you reach Blue One. We will be observing your performance and you will be rated on time, speed, technique and targeting accuracy. Oh, and since we only have one target, make sure you set your weapons to 1/1000 power. Any potential who kills the target will receive an automatic failing grade and a few harsh words from Drusilla who's been dragging that target through all these rocks for the last two days."

A few more 'copy that's followed while Tara got into position. Rookie One was first up. Amanda shot across the course, showing off some impressive flying for a pilot of her skill-level. Tara tied into Buffy's nosecam while Amanda swung around Mr. Gordo. Unfortunately, Amanda completely overshot the target, not even getting off a single shot before it was too late.

"Cor, that was impressive," Spike snorted over the comm. "You fly like an angel, but you shoot like a blind rodian in a smokey cantina."

"Stow it, Blue Two," Tara replied. "Rookie One, you did very well for your first flyby. Don't be discouraged. Alright, Rookie Two, you're up."

Dawn instantly proved that piloting skills were very well represented in the Summers genepool. She pulled off some very impressive moves and was making good times. But, like with Amanda, things went wrong when she swung around Mr. Gordo and fired at the target. Well, Tara thought. At least she fired at a target.

"Dawn!" Buffy shrieked over the comm. "I can't believe you shot at me!"

"She didn't shot at you, luv," Spike chuckled. "She hit you good."

"Mr. computer says that the little sister's simulated shots made the big sister's simulated reactor make a simulated kaboom," Drusilla broke in.

"Oh my god, Buffy, I'm so sorry!" Dawn replied.

"Dawn, you maniac!" Buffy replied indignantly. "You blew me up!"

Tara shook her head. At least now she'd have a nice story to tell Willow when they'd get back. "Alright, Blue Squadron, cut the chatter. We're not finished here."

"Dammit," Spike broke in. "What is this bollocks? That big thing's on my screen again. It's moved and... argh, now it's buggered off again."

"Copy that," Tara replied. Something isn't right here. "R3? Give me another long range scan of this sector."

R3 gave her a not-so-flattering reply, but complied with her order. When the results came in, there was nothing but rock on all spectrums. "I'm still getting nothing, Blue Two," Tara said. "Let's continue. Rookie Three, you're up."

"Uhm, this is Rookie One," Amanda broke in. "My sensors are off. A... a big part of the asteroid field has just disappeared. But they're still there. I can see them right over there."

It didn't take Tara long to realize that their sensors were being jammed. But before she could warn the others, green beams shot into the clearing from all sides, followed by the telltale whines of TIE-fighters as they blasted from the asteroid field and unleashed their weapons upon the unsuspecting rebel pilots.

Tara, like the rest of Blue Squadron, sprang into action and pushed their crafts to engage the fighters. All around her, Rookie Squadron was buzzing around the clearing, trying to make sense of the situation and desperately trying to avoid the TIE-fighters.

"TheyreeverywhereI'velostafoilWherearetheycomingfrom?
BUFFY!HELPME!OnmysixWereallgonnadie!Cantshakethem!" sounded over the open comm channel. The simple training mission had turned into a nightmare. Many of the Rookies had never been in a true combat situation. And now there were boxed in, surrounded by TIE's.

They're panicking, Tara realized, to her horror. The TIE-pilots couldn't hit the broad side of a barn if their lives depended on it, but they had the Rookies so wound up they could fly right into an asteroid without even realizing it.

Tara got a straggler in her scopes and fired, sending one of the TIE-pilots to a fiery death and drawing two more away from Rookie Three's tail.

"I got one, I got one!" shouted Rookie Four excitedly, only to fall into bitter disappointment. "It didn't blow up."

"Rookie Squadron," shouted Tara. "Switch your weapons back to full power and defend yourselves!"

Tara and Buffy teamed up to protect two of the Rookies from a superior force of TIE's while a fourth battalion of TIE's entered the clearing.

"Blue Squadron," Tara spoke over a closed channel. "We can't hold this position. If we don't withdraw, the kids'll get slaughtered. Blue Three, you'll lead the kids out of here, while the rest of us will cover their exit."

Tara jerked her craft hard to starboard and accelerated sharply, firing her lasers into an attack-group of three TIE's. When Tara finally passed their position, all what was left of them were glowing shards of metal. Her victory was short-lived, however. For every TIE destroyed, two seemed to be taking its place.

"Rookie Squadron," Tara ordered. "Tie your navicomputers in with Blue Three. Follow her in tight formation and don't look back! We'll cover your backsides. As soon as you're out of the asteroid field, lay in a course to Waypoint 7 and jump to hyperspace."

A few frightened 'copy that's later, Drusilla punched a hole through the TIE-assault big enough for Rookie Squadron to follow through. While Spike, Buffy and Tara kept most of the TIE's busy, the kids rounded about and followed Drusilla into the asteroid field. And just as a sixth and seventh squadron of fighters entered the clearing, Blue squadron followed Drusilla as well.

It would be a lie to say that Tara wasn't worried. In front of her were Drusilla and the kids, followed suit by a squadron of TIE's. Behind them, two more squadrons followed in fast, while they were trying to keep the TIE's in front of them distracted enough to stop shooting at the kids. To add to the trouble, they were flying through the field at dangerous speed.

Tara was impressed at how the kids were holding out under pressure. They kept into tight formation and flew in a single file behind Drusilla as she skirted among the treacherously drifting rocks. Like a chicks following a mother hen. Or like a caterpillar crawling across the... Oh, crud, I've been hanging around Dru too long...

Behind her, two cocky TIE-pilots collided against each other and crashed into the asteroids.

Didn't even get off a shot. Where does the Empire find these nitwits? Tara wondered.

Spike veered off to engage a number of TIE's that were trying to take the kids into a pincer and was driven into the asteroid field quite a bit away from them, leaving only her and Buffy to the defense of Rookie Squadron.

Flashes of green beams passing along her Y-wing alerted Tara to the fact that the TIE's behind them were gaining. And they were still only halfway out. In front of her, one of the Rookies was under heavy fire from two TIE's, and Tara cursed when she realized her attempts to distract those TIE's weren't working. The rookie broke formation to avoid being destroyed and was driven deeper into the asteroid field, towards a second squadron of TIE's.

She recognized the fighter. Rookie Two.

Dawn.

Dawn was doing her best to dodge the fighters, but was facing certain death by being driven towards TIE's on the one side, and treacherously small drifting asteroids on the other side. Tara steered hard to port and tried to reached Dawn, only ending up playing cat and mouse when three TIE's behind her drove her to dodge them behind a rock. Tara slammed her fist into her control panel: there was no way she would be able to reach Dawn before she'd be destroyed.

"Tara," Buffy sounded over the comm, determination in her voice. "Take care of Dawn for me."

"Buffy?" Tara answered back while swinging around the rock and blasting away at a hapless TIE-pilot coming around the other end.

"Promise that you'll take care of Dawn for me."

It was then that Tara realized what Buffy was planning. "Buffy, there must be another way..."

"You know there isn't!"

"Buff..."

"PROMISE ME!"

Tara remained silent, but only for a second. There was no time to argue. "I promise," she whispered.

That was all the answer that Buffy needed. With a sharp turn, she steered her X-wing towards the squadron of TIE's that was approaching Dawn's position. She accelerated and went in lasers blasting, destroying three TIE's with one foul stroke. Unfortunately, there were twelve left to fight.

Tara made use of the temporary confusion to reach Dawn and took care of the two TIE's harassing her and instructed her to continue along the course that Drusilla had plotted. When Dawn was on her way, Tara steered back towards Buffy, only to see that she was under heavy fire. More TIE's were joining the assault, but Buffy kept fighting bravely. Five... Six... Seven... Eight... Ten... Twelve TIE's destroyed... Buffy was taking heavy damage.

Tara pushed her engines to the maximum output in the hope of reaching Buffy in time, but it was to no avail. To her horror, she saw Buffy take a direct hit to her stabilizer and spiraled out of control.

But she didn't scream. Tara had often heard the horrifying scream of a pilot who realized his or her death was mere seconds away. But not Buffy. She'd made her choice, to live and die by it.

Buffy managed to gain enough control to clip one of the TIE's and moments later, Buffy and her enemy collided against a big asteroid and died in a blaze of fire.

Tara felt numb. No sounds, no movement... there was just her and the explosion in front of her. The fire slowly faded away as the oxygen was being burned away. What had happened repeated again and again in front of her eyes. She snapped out of it almost too late to avoid the asteroid in front of her. Tara pulled hard to starboard and made a 180 degree turn. There was nothing more she could do.

Buffy's heroism had left the pursuing squadrons in disarray, allowing her friends to escape unharmed. Tara emerged from the confines of the asteroid field, just in time to see Dawn entering hyperspace and took solace in the fact that her friend's death was not in vain.

"Spike?" Tara said as a last X-wing emerged from the asteroid field and joined her wing.

"Aye," Spike replied. "Bucketheads gave me a spot of trouble. I bloodied their noses, though... and the rest of them too. Did everybody make it out?"

Tara sighed heavily. "N-no."

"Who?" Spike asked.

"Buffy."

Silence.

The sound of someone punching the side of his canopy, following by language that wasn't exactly protocol on any official radio channels.

"There's your sensor ghost," Tara said softly. Next to the edge asteroid field flew an old Venator-class carrier and, judging by the oversized sensor-arrays, it was a scout. Most of the TIE's were still trapped in the asteroid field, which gave Tara an idea.

"Spike?" she asked. "Do you still have sonic charges?"

"Yeah, three. Why?"

Tara explained her plan and, ten seconds later, they were headed towards the Venator-class ship. The turbolasers targeted them, but Tara and Spike deftly avoided the shots. Spike veered off towards the asteroid field, while Tara swiveled her ion cannon into the forward position.

"R3," Tara ordered. "Transfer all available power, except engine and hyperdrive, to the ion cannon, including primary life support systems."

R3 bleeped in compliance while Tara put on a breather mask and readied a thermal blanket. She'd only get one shot since the ion-cannon wasn't designed to process this kind of power. She carefully avoided the Venator's turbolasers, aimed carefully and waited until she was in point-black range. Then, she fired.

A bolt of ionized energy was released just before her ion-cannon literally exploded, rocking her craft violently. It shot forward while Tara pulled up sharply, hitting the ship's massive engines, disabling them instantly.

"Now, Spike!" Tara yelled and Spike detonated the three sonic charges he had dropped in the asteroid field. The power of the explosion sent tonnes of jagged rock hurtling towards the now defenseless Venator-class ship.

Tara and Spike didn't stick around to see if it was destroyed or not.

---

Willow tried to like Echo Base, seeing she and Tara were supposed to be stationed here for two months, but so far she wasn't having much luck. There wasn't a single place outside of Tara's warm, comforting arms where Willow wasn't freezing her butt off, especially now that the climate systems had failed yet again. But the cold wasn't the only thing that was bothering her.

She'd offered the techs to help them get the climate systems back online, but they had politely, yet firmly declined. Willow had surmised the base commanders still didn't completely trust her yet by the way they never assigned her to repair-duty of more critical systems. Mostly, she was assigned to droid-repair and secondary systems like food dispensers, computer consoles and power conduits. Though lately, her duties had been expanded by assisting her fellow tech Dhul over at Fighter Maintenance, which allowed her to spend more time with Tara, since she usually put in some work on her Y-wing each day.

When she had reached hangar bay three, she finally found the one place in Echo Base where she could actually warm up: the Millenium Falcon, which still had working climate systems. She had offered Han to help him and Chewie repair the ship and, though it looked like he was going to refuse at first, he must have seen the desperation in her eyes.

Seriously, why couldn't they have built their base on a tropical planet like Rakata? Willow thought as she gathered her toolkit and walked up the ramp leading into the Millenium Falcon. The warmth inside slapped her in the face. The only one having a worse time in this cold than me is Dhul, and he has the excuse of being a Geonosian. They don't react well to cold.

After unfreezing the block of ice that had formerly been her butt, Willow made true to her promise and gathered her tools to start work on the hyperdrive. She briefly felt rather ashamed at herself. Everybody was cold, but she was the only one who complained about it. Granted, her general lack of body-fat gave her a much harder time than most people

Willow wondered just what it was that had kept the Millenium Falcon in the air for all those years while she walked passed the exposed wiring and opened panels in the engine bay. As Willow had learned from Han, the ship constantly had to undergo extensive repairs. She made her way to the aft section of the ship and set her toolkit beside the hyperdrive.

While she was working at the hyperdrive control systems, Chewbacca's head suddenly popped from the maintenance hatch above her and let out a series of growls.

"AAAH!" was Willow's first reaction.

"Chewie has that effect on people," Han muttered while laying prone on his back, half embedded within the sublight engine access panels.

Willow muttered an apology and handed Chewie the hyper-spanner he asked for. The bemused Wookiee growled his thanks and returned to his repairs in the crawlspace above the aft section. Still, Willow didn't complain. For the first time since weeks she felt she could make herself useful here and the Millenium Falcon was... interesting to say the least.

"Han," Willow started. "I can't imagine how you got these components working together. You've got a custom built hyperdrive, Nordoxicon shield generator, a Quadrex power core and loads of other stuff which all have a different programming language. Theoretically, this ship is supposed to explode as soon as you switch on the power. It shouldn't work at all!"

"Well, it's always worked before," Han shrugged. "Just gotta work around the incompatibilities. Be creative."

Willow whistled. "I don't know if I'm supposed to be impressed that you've managed to get all these systems to talk to each other, or if I should be very worried that you've fixed the fuel injection systems with duct tape."

"Oh, be impressed, be very impressed," Han smirked. "This baby's got a lot of surprises in her."

"Is spontaneous combustion one of them?" Willow asked.

"And just for that," Han returned, "I won't tell you any secrets about Tara. Oh, I can tell you all sorts of things about Tara that you don't know. But now I'm not going to," Han challenged.

"Uh, this is the speediest most magnificent ship I've ever been on? I mean, it's fast, stream-lined and flown by the best pilot in the universe besides my Tara?" Willow tried while trying to make sense of the wiring in the hyperdrive.

"Close enough," Han chuckled while coming out of the panel and sat up to look for a converter he needed.

"Han?" Willow asked while working on the hyperdrive motivator coils. "Doesn't Tara have a smuggling ship like the Falcon?"

"There's no other ship like the Falcon, and don't you forget it," Han replied, pointing at Willow with a spanner. "But, yeah, Tara has her own ship, the Doll's Eye. It's a VCX-350."

Willow frowned. She read about the VCX-line of ships, a class of light freighter aimed at a more credit-heavy crowd than people who generally bought YT-1300 freighters like the Falcon, but she also knew it hadn't entered mass production yet. "How did Tara get her hands on one of those?"

"It's one of the prototype models," Han added. "Given to a deputy director as a retirement-gift. Sadly for him, he had a bit of a gambling problem. He lost the ship in a sabacc tournament. Lucky for Tara, she was playing against him in the first round. Traded in her old YT-1210 for a nice sum too. But I don't care how luxurious her new captain's quarters is, I still have a much faster ship."

"Where's the Doll's Eye now?" Willow asked. "I'd love to see it."

"Lando, that's a friend of ours, is minding it for her at Cloud City on Bespin," Han said before crawling back into the engine panel with the right part. "You know, I never figured there'd be a single girl in this galaxy who'd be able to tame Tara."

Willow put down her spanner and crossed her arms. "Tame? Tara's not a wild animal," she huffed with a pouty expression.

"Oh, I beg to differ," Han smirked. "Before her Rebel Crusade days, Tara used to be one of those girls who had a lover in every spaceport. More than one woman saw the inside of her luxurious captain's quarters, let me tell ya. But after the first time we contacted you... It takes the Falcon four hours to drift past the sensor nets in the Kuat System, and Tara spent all those hours talking about you. 'Oh, Han, hasn't she got the most enchanting eyes you've ever seen? I could just drown in those deep pools of green'. Every single time we contacted you on Kuat, I had to spend four agonizing hours listening to a lovesick Tara raving and ranting about your eyes, hair and various other bodyparts because.... OWWWWW!"

A static charge shot across the engines and spread to every single system in the aft section. Willow yelped as the charge hit the hyperdrive and slammed her into the floor. The electricity crackled and slowly bleed away. She set up and felt that her hair was standing straight up.

"Sorry about that," Han started combing his charged hair. "That happens sometimes. Don't know why, exactly."

A loud bellow came from the service corridor. Out jumped Chewbacca, and Willow had to bite her lip to keep herself from laugh. Chewie confronted Han angrily, and the best way to describe his current statically charged condition was 'furball'. The enraged Wookiee spat a series of growls at Han, and though Willow didn't speak Wookie, she could tell none of it was flattering. Chewbacca stomped off through the corridor, hurling more growls at Han.

Han merely shrugged. "He'll come back. He always comes back."

"Uhm," Willow said while trying to get her hair to behave. "Did Tara really say those things about me?"

"Sure," Han sighed, taking note of Willow's slight blush. "But if you ask me, women are nothing but trouble. And Leia's the worst of them all."

"Oh, I wouldn't know," Willow smiled. "I've been spending more time with Tara than with Leia."

"I can tell you all sorts of things about Tara that you don't know," Han challenged.

Willow, her curiosity more than piqued, stopped working for a moment. "Oh? Like what?"

"Well, did you know that Tara restores old battledroids as a hobby?" Han said. "It's true. She finds a rustbucket on the scrapheap and fixed it up in her little spare time, when she wasn't gambling or womanizing. Usually, she stripped the weapons and programmed them to look pretty. She's got quite a collection. A BT-16, a BL-droid, couple of old Buzz-droids, an octuparra. Funny story, some two-bit scrapdealer Watto on Tatooine sold her this old armored battledroid from the Clone Wars. Tara said it was in excellent condition, so she installed an independent electronic brain and programmed some butler-protocols it. It was quite a sight to see her and Lando sitting on the observation platform while an SBD served them their drinks."

Willow laughed for a moment. Tara being pampered by a formerly impressive armored battledroid was quite the mental image.

"Made a lot of people nervous too," Han continued. "Bespin's got a lot of Clone War veterans living there, so Tara left it on the ship, to help her load cargo. This other time, one of her clients couldn't pay up so he gave her this 'antique'. It was an ancient rust-covered battledroid about 4000 years old. Mean looking thing too, had red glowing eyes. Tara worked days and nights fixing it up and replacing old rusted parts. But when she was ready to switch it on, it wouldn't work. Tara couldn't understand why. I told her that she'd been had and that it only was a 4000 year old pile of scrap. Hey, it happens to the best of us."

"Not Tara," Willow admonished.

"Even to Tara," Han smirked while closing the panels to the sublight engine. "So, Tara goes to bed and leaves the droid in the hold of her ship. The next morning, it's gone without a trace. Lando turned all of Cloud City upside down, but it was nowhere to be found. Whoever stole that droid also took a lot of weapons from Tara's cache, but Tara was mostly miffed that the droid was taken."

"Weird," Willow said while screwing the top onto the hyperdrive motivator. "Well, this hyperdrive should be working again... I think... I hope... It should?"

"Well, is it working or not?"

Willow looked into the hyperdrive and back at Han. "I honestly don't know," she said sincerely.

"Ah, you Imperial techs, sorry former Imperial techs, need to learn to think outside the box a bit more."

At that moment, the telltale ticking of chitin on metal could be heard coming from the corridor. Dhul, make a rather silly impression... a Geonosian wearing a thick parka with the tips of his folded up wings just sticking out from underneath it generally wasn't easy to take seriously. Dhul whirred and clicked in his native language, but the translator on his belt told her that Blue Squadron was returning to the hanger.

---

The moment of joy Willow experienced at the idea of Tara returning home quickly faded when she saw the scorch marks on her Y-wing as it slid into the hanger bay and put down on her assigned landing pad. Several of the Rookie Squadron X-wings were in similar shape, some missing a foil or an engine pod.

"So much for the little training mission," Han shrugged as he followed Willow who was running towards Tara's craft.

The canopy popped open and Tara jumped out, immediately taking a surprised Willow into a fierce hug. Willow let out a strangled cry after a while. "Buckle," Willow whispered when the large buckle in the front of Tara's flight suit pressed through her clothes into her flesh. "Sharp buckle..."

Tara released Willow, but the dour look on her face worried her.

"Tara?" Willow asked.

"You have been in the war, haven't you?" Han quipped. "So, did one of the kids forget to power down their weapons during the dogfight?"

Tara ignored Han and watched as repair and medical teams swarmed towards the fights, while one fire-crew worked on coating one particularly volatile engine-pod with fire-resistant foam. "We r-ran into bucketheads and w-we l-lost someone," Tara whispered.

Willow swallowed hard. "Who?"

A bewildered Dawn strolled around the hanger bay, looking around frantically until she finally came to Tara's Y-wing.

Dawn looked bewildered and wide-eyed, in a neat state of shock. "Tara?" Dawn asked softly. "Where's Buffy?"

"Oh, god," Willow whispered softly. Even Han refrained from his usual biting quips and stood by silently.

"Dawn," Tara started.

"S-s-s-s-s-she was just behind us," Dawn replied. "W-we..."

"Dawn," Tara started again, squeezing her eyes shut to keep the tears back.

"NO!" Dawn shouted angrily. "Don't say it! Don't you dare say it! S-she's still out on patrol. She held back to see if we were being followed. She... She's scouting the asteroid field! P-perimeter patrol. Yeah, she's on patrol She's..."

"Dawn," Tara whispered softly.

"No, you're wrong! You're all wrong!" Dawn gritted her teeth. "Any time now, she's going to come in flying through those hangar-bays! You'll see!" she called back while walking to the bay control doors. "You'll all see! You'll all see she's fine!"

---

"How long has she been sitting there?" Han asked while he and Tara stood at the Falcon. Some 150 meters away sat Dawn, crosslegged on a cargo container, tireless watching the massive bay doors and the clear blue sky beyond. Watching and waiting.

"Almost two days now," Tara sighed. "I've brought her food, drink, a blanket. She never says a word."

"Poor kid," Han said.

"Buffy was the only family she had left when her planet..." Tara started to say.

"Imperial conquest?"

"In a way," Tara said, but there was no humor in her voice. "Alderaan."

"Ouch."

"Poor Dawn," Tara sighed. "She's lost everything she ever had. She and Buffy joined the Rebellion after the Death Star... They were the only members of their family to be off-world when it happened. Buffy was making a cargo-run to Corellia and Dawn had stowed away on her ship with her swoop-bike to try to race on the Jolanu Swoop-tracks."

"At least she's still alive," Han said. "Oh, Luke asked me to tell you that Rogue Squadron found your Venator. You and Spike really did a number on that old rustbucket. She was at drift, all systems down. Dead in space."

"Good," Tara gritted her teeth. "What did they find?"

"It was a long-range scout," Han replied. "Cargo bay filled to the brim with probe-droids, using the magnacite ore in the asteroids as cover. I think they must have been in the system for a while and tried to take you out just in case you'd seen too much. Typical Imperial tactics. Still, a scout snooping around five systems away from Hoth... I got a bad feeling about this."

Tara nodded. "We did a standard evasive jump. We went to five different systems before coming to Hoth. I think we're safe."

I hope we're safe Tara added mentally.

---

The next day, Tara went to the hangar bay to work on her Y-wing and to bring Dawn a thermal blanket. Weather conditions outside were bad, and the temperature in the hangar had dropped significantly. When she entered the hangar, she noticed that Dawn was having words with one of the quartermasters.

"Tara!" Dawn shouted at her. "Tell this dork that he can't shut the bay doors!"

"I have to!" the quartermaster, a burly middle aged man shouted back. "Have you seen the snowstorm outside? We'll lose our electrical systems or, worse, our crafts if we don't close the bay doors."

"But Buffy won't be able to get in! She's... been gone two days and there'll be a closed bay door. She'd have to circle the planet and wait even longer. Please, Tara, you have to tell them to keep the bay doors open for Buffy! Please!"

Tara responded by folding the thermal blanket across Dawn's back. She flinched when she felt that Dawn was stone-cold and that parts of her hair had started to freeze. Tara started rubbing Dawn's equally cold hands, hoping to rub some warmth in them. "Vesser," she told the quartermaster. "Close the bay doors."

Dawn's head snapped to Tara and, for a moment, she had the look of a child crying for a betrayed mother. But her expression softened slightly. Dawn strolled to the cargo containers at the side of the bay doors while they started to slowly close. She slid to the ground, supporting her back to the containers. A flinch travelled through her body at the moment that the massive bay doors met in the middle.

Tara sat down beside Dawn, allowing the smaller girl to press against her.

"When Buffy and I were younger we used to swoop together," Dawn said softly. "We'd used to zoom across the grass-plains of Alderaan at speeds that gave our mother heart-attacks. We've always been speed demons. Been swooping since I was ten, but Buffy was always a spacer at heart."

"I know," Tara replied. "Space was in her blood."

"It was a prank."

"What was?"

"When I shot at her instead of the target. It was a silly prank. Spike suggested it."

"Fitting."

"Buffy."

"Hm?"

"She's not coming back, is she?"

"I'm so sorry, Dawn."

"I'm so cold," Dawn whispered and finally allowed herself to cry.

---

Willow had returned from a long day of food dispenser repair and longed for a cup of hot chocolate and a lengthy snuggle from Tara as she entered the quarters which they shared. Immediately upon entering, she found an extra cot. On it, lay an exhausted Dawn, peacefully sleeping while covered by ten layers of thermal blankets.

"I've asked her to come live with us for a while," Tara spoke from the small cooking area of their small quarters, preparing Willow's usual hot chocolate after a long day of slaving away at repairing disobedient electronics.

"She shouldn't be alone right now," Willow replied softly. "You're right."

"We're holding a memorial service for Buffy soon," Tara said. "I've asked the base commander to hold off on the ceremony until Dawn's ready for it. I'm also putting in a request to Admiral Ackbar for Dawn to complete her training on Home One."

Tara smiled briefly. "I have a promise to a friend to keep."

In the background R3 bleeped angrily about yet another meatbag cluttering up his tiny living space. Humans could be so very, very annoying...
[hr]

Oh, btw, here's a link with a picture of Tara's ship, the Doll's Eye. I thought it was really cute ship when I saw it. Perfect for Tara. :D http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/VCX-350_light_freighter

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 Post subject: Re: Short StarWars uber - Tinker...- Added new part 23/4
PostPosted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 4:50 pm 
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ETA Wow! I got DIBS!
UO
That was another gripping excerpt from the W&T Star Wars saga. I really like this Tara... reformed (where women are concerned anyway) bad girl, hot shot pilot, sharp card player, and clever with her hands too! ..... uh, I was referring to the restoration of battle droids ....... ;-)

I feel sorry for Willow in this bit, suffering the cold of the weather and the lack of trust. Liked the conversation with Han, and the furball Wookie.

The battle scene was great - the build up of tension thru Spike's repeated phantom sightings was very effective, and the realisation by Tara as to what was happening simultaneous with the attack was dramatic. Buffy's heroic action and death had me hoping she'd make it thru' ok, and even now wondering if she'll somehow come back. Your depiction of Dawn's reaction to her death really showed the shock and the pain such a death can bring. I got a lot of satisfaction from the fact that Tara and Spike had blown the bad guys to bits.... I'm a simple soul, really.

Looking forward to more. Would really like to see some W&T alone time, and learn a bit more about Willow's background in this AU. :)
Anne

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 Post subject: Re: Short StarWars uber - Tinker...- Added new part 23/4
PostPosted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 6:32 pm 
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This is a really good story. I don't have too much to say about it except I have enjoyed it very much. I would like to say that I have read all of your stories that i've found and I think you are an amazing author. :clap

Thx for all your writtings. :-D

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 Post subject: Re: Short StarWars uber - Tinker...- Added new part 23/4
PostPosted: Mon Apr 24, 2006 1:04 pm 
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YAY! More Tinker stories! Nice! :party

I must admit that I liked the "A" story of this fic. I don't particularly like Dawn (and its not because of the oh-so-very-obvious reasons, either), so I find it rather refreshing that you wrote her the way that you did here. To have her be the bratty annoying sister she was and then have her be deeply affected by her sister's death was refreshing. And I'm glad that our girls will look out for her.

I also like the "B" story of finding out more about Tara's past. Tara's turning out to be like Boba Fett in that respect: the character that everyone knows but doesn't know enough about.

I think its funny that Tara has a collection of Clone War era droids, though I think an Octuptarra droid is a bit too huge. And speaking of which, the rference to the fact that Tara once owned a "4000 year old pile of scrap", the fact that R3 called Dawn a "meatbag" and your well known obsession with HK-47 has to make me wonder if we're ever going to see that "encounter".

:lmao about Drusilla as a Force sensitive.

One thing I didn't like, however (and don't take this personal. I've begun to notice it in official works as well, and I don't like it there, either) is the fact that you tended to reference prequel events for no real apparent reason. Personally, I don't see why it needed to be a Venator Destroyer that was involved in that battle (though I should point out that I really love that ship) and why Tara's droid collection is made up of Confederacy droids, given that they were all shut down at the end of the Clone Wars. Also, like the Gungans, I just can't imagine that any Geonosians would join the Rebellion. They did build the Death Star, after all.

Anyways, here's hoping for some more Tinker stories (and that I can be involved in them somehow. :D!)

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 Post subject: Re: Short StarWars uber - Tinker...- Added new part 23/4
PostPosted: Mon Apr 24, 2006 5:06 pm 
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G'day, UO.

First off ... :drool Oblivion :drool I really need to upgrade my computer before I even think about buying it.

It was a nice touch placing them in the Peragus asteroid field. It links the story back to the universe, if you actually know anything about it, but I do have just one minor quibble. Didn't it get blown up by Darth Sion in Knights of the Old Republic II?

The idea of including Dru in Blue Squadron was another example of your inspired lunacy. She could result in some ... interesting comms chatter during a dogfight.

:lol about Dawn shooting Buffy, but in retrospect, I suppose it could be seen as foreshadowing. Not that Dawn was personally responsible for Buffy's death, but still ...

A cluster of rookie pilots, caught unprepared. A TIE pilot's dream. If only they didn't share Stormtroopers general inability to hit a damn thing most of the time. Hang on a sec ... I'm not on the Empire's side this time, so that's a good thing!

I have to admit, the title of the story gave me some hope that Buffy might have survived by ejecting, thus floating in the cold void of space meeting the cold portion of the title, but that was referring to Dawn at the end, wasn't it?

Willow's misadventures in attempting to assist Han and Chewie in the balancing of spinning plates that is keeping the Falcon in working order were fun, and a return to the lighter tone you had at the story's start.

Quote:
"Oh, be impressed, be very impressed," Han smirked. "This baby's got a lot of surprises in her."

"Is spontaneous combustion one of them?" Willow asked.


:lmao

I think I stumbled across a little whoopsie you made there though. You had Willow hand Chewie the tool he asked for, and yet later, you state that she doesn't speak the Wookie language. Did the static charge wipe some of her memory? :lol

Yay! You finally managed to work in HK-47, even if only in passing.

Oh, and SithLordWIccan? I think you're generalizing a bit too much here in regards to both Gungans and Geonosians. You have to remember that individuals of a species are under no obligation to followed a perceived stereotype of their species. In addition, in Empire at War (which is, after all, one of the instigators of this series of stories) the Empire conquered Geonosis to use as slave labor to construct the Death Star, which they designed, not built. Reason enough to join the Rebellion I think.

Cheers,
Paul.

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 Post subject: Re: Short StarWars uber - Tinker...- Added new part 23/4
PostPosted: Mon Apr 24, 2006 5:12 pm 
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Darth Pacula wrote:
Oh, and SithLordWIccan? I think you're generalizing a bit too much here in regards to both Gungans and Geonosians. You have to remember that individuals of a species are under no obligation to followed a perceived stereotype of their species. In addition, in Empire at War (which is, after all, one of the instigators of this series of stories) the Empire conquered Geonosis to use as slave labor to construct the Death Star, which they designed, not built. Reason enough to join the Rebellion I think.


Yeah, I guess you're right. Of course, having never played "Empire at War" (and still hating the fact that U_O has it), I wouldn't know that. I guess it's just my natural dislike of stupid prequel referencing in official works that botheres me about this. Though I gotta admit that I do find the image of a Geonosian in a parka somewhat laughable. :rotf.

Of course, if it wasn't for that damned "General Skywalker" arc in the "Empire" comics, I probably would have liked stuff like this a lot more without having to revert to "geek-fest fanboy mode" to justify it.

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The Star Witches Saga | Under the Sea | The Moonlight Densetsu Chronicles | Going the Distance | Slippery When Wet | Short Fics by Sith


Last edited by SithLordWiccan on Mon Jul 16, 2012 8:45 am, edited 1 time in total.

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