Ezra crept down the hallway towards the cockpit, poking his head through doorways as he did so. And he was a man on a mission – for the fifth time in as many days, Chopper had substituted the sugar in the shaker for salt.

Or at least, he thought it was Chopper. But all the evidence pointed to him. Every single time it had happened, Ezra had heard his wheels rolling away down the hall followed by a mechanical laugh, and it was high time he got back at him.

This morning he had chased after the droid, and gotten shocked a few times for his efforts. But now, he had a secret weapon: the Taser that Teri kept in his sleeve. If he couldn't win against Chopper, then he could at least make it a fair fight.

But, as he paused to stick his head into the kitchen, he suddenly found himself being dragged by the shirt collar back the other way.

"Hey!" he exclaimed, scrambling to his feet and swatting the hand away.

Kanan glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, unimpressed. "Come on. You can deactivate Chopper after the mission."

Ezra lit up. "Really?"

"No," the older Jedi deadpanned. "And you should probably give the Taser back before Teri notices it's gone."

"You kidding?" Ezra laughed, puffing out his chest as he hooked the Taser onto the back of his belt. "I did this for a living for years. Of course he won't notice!"

"Better yet, you won't notice either," came a voice.

Ezra jumped, whipping around to see Teri walking silently behind them. The dark-haired man dangled the Taser in front of his face, chuckling to himself. "Never steal from another thief, Ezra," he said. "It doesn't end well."

"You were a pickpocket?" Kanan asked, surprised.

"I had my moments... But only when it was necessary." Teri sighed wistfully, but he was back to the present a moment later. "Okay, so what's the plan?"

"We're going in on the Phantom. Chopper screwed something up in the hyperdrive repairs, so he and Hera are staying here to fix it."

Teri thought for a moment. "Okay... But she's got to stay in this corner of the system. Rhea can get pretty rowdy, and there might be pirate ships flying around."

Kanan nodded. "I'm sure she knows."

Teri set his jaw, staring straight ahead determinedly. "All right, then let's go."

-:-:-:-:-:-

A few minutes later, the Phantom had cleared the atmosphere and was settling into a slow descent while Teri and the Ghost crewmembers present set up their scanning equipment.

Seelos was a pretty sort of planet from the upper atmosphere, as Ezra mused, with its fluffy-looking wisps of cloud that shimmered ever so slightly in the light and took every shape and form imaginable. Although he knew that the clouds here were comprised mostly of water vapor, and wouldn't hold his weight, he was suddenly tempted to jump into them like they were big, soft pillows.

But the subtle beeping noises of the droid head being activated soon brought him out of his oddly childlike reverie, and he looked away from the windshield as Sabine walked over.

"Well, let's fire this thing up," she said, placing it on the dashboard and plugging it into the Phantom's systems.

"We can restrict our search to this quarter of the planet. My friend knows exactly where all the hotspots are."

"What kind of hotspots?" Kanan inquired, raising a skeptical eyebrow.

Teri didn't answer; he only smiled.

But everyone had become aware that the droid wasn't doing more than just beeping in a regular pattern. There were no fluctuations or other signs there that would indicate that it was working.

"Is it supposed to do that?" Ezra asked, choosing to voice the general sentiment of all of those in the ship whose names weren't Teri or Sabine aloud.

The dark-haired informant looked up. "It's not instantaneous, Ezra. These droids were experts at winning the long game; the one where patience and thorough analysis were the factors that won them battles."

"Yeah," the Mandalorian agreed. It could have been Ezra's imagination, but, as she ran a hand through her hair, now a bright, two-toned blue, he could have sworn he caught a whiff of hair dye. "I think it's scanning for a signal of some kind."

"Good luck," Ezra said, leaning back in his chair. "You could really get lost out here..."

An uneasy grimace came to Zeb's face. "Maybe that was the idea. What if this great commander we're looking for doesn't want to be found?"

"He's all right with being found... Just not by the wrong kinds of people." Teri crossed his arms, staring off into the horizon moodily. "And we all know the galaxy is home to more than a few of those."

For a moment, everyone was quiet, thinking about what had just been said and other aspects of this particular mission.

Suddenly, the droid sparked to life. As its photoreceptors lit up, its tinny old speaker began playing the same series of digits over and over again, occasionally interrupted by short bursts of static: "7-5-6-7. 7-5-6-7."

Sabine looked up, her eyes wide. "It's homing in on something!"

"Follow it," Teri ordered, putting a hand on her shoulder.

The ship's computer and the droid's artificial brain linked up for a few moments, and the former soon presented them with a course adjustment. Kanan flipped a few switches and tilted the yoke to one side, and soon they were flying in the right direction.

A few moments later, Zeb scrambled over Ezra and Kanan to point off into the distance. "There!" he called. "Up ahead!"

The closer they got to the vehicle Zeb was pointing to, the wider Ezra's eyes grew. He had never seen anything quite like it – it had six legs like some of the insects back on Lothal, and even from quite a while away, the sound its half a dozen feet made when they hit the ground was clearly audible. Although it had clearly seen better days, the heavily armored transport was getting some good use out of it.

"Whoa..." Ezra breathed.

"Now that is a work of art," Sabine said, admiring the colorful paintings along the transport's topside and bits of cloth and wind chimes that were strung from every available overhang.

"It looks like an old Republic tank," Kanan said, in a tone that was somewhere in between surprise and, oddly enough, distrust. "Used during the Clone Wars..."

"Kanan, I know what you're thinking," Teri said softly, his grey eyes compassionate as always. "But it's not like that. My friend is the most trustworthy person I know. He's saved my butt more than a few times when I thought no one was coming. And you have to trust him too, or this is never going to work."

Kanan said nothing.

As the Phantom pulled up alongside the old tank, it ceased its slow lumbering forward, waiting in silence as the ship landed in front of it. There was no reaction whatsoever as the crew came outside and into view of the tank's occupants.

As Sabine and Zeb walked on ahead, Kanan put his hand on Ezra's shoulder. "Ezra... Be on guard."

Why would I need to be on guard? It's just Teri's friend that we're coming here to meet, isn't it? He thought. Kanan really is paranoid. Maybe I should ask him if–

But the elder Jedi Ghost crewmember was already gone.

All was quiet aboard the tank, and Teri stared at the nearest door for a few moments. But suddenly, a wicked smile came to his face. "Clearly, they're waiting for us to make a move. So I'll make one." He smirked at them. "Let me do the talking."

Suddenly, much to Ezra's surprise, Teri cupped his hands around his mouth and started yelling a bunch of insults at the walker!

"Maddox Jagannath, you kriffing son of a gun! Get your worthless self out here! You pfassking di'kut of a Zabrak, I'm gonna bloody well knock you into next week if you don't show your face right now!"

That got someone's attention.

Hardly a moment later, a man hollered back from inside the tank. "Maddox ain't here, Bonteri, ya crazy-ass!" Then the voice became more friendly. "So shut yer trap and get your butt up here! We've got a few old bottles of Corulag's finest left in the storage locker!"

"That is, if Sirius hasn't gotten to them yet!" added another voice, also in a shout. "That nerf-herder'll go through an entire bottle of the stuff in one sitting if we're not careful!"

Ezra blinked. The two voices had to belong to twin brothers, because while they both spoke so differently, they sounded exactly alike.

"Watch it, baldy!" came a roar from the far end of the vehicle as the tank suddenly came alive with laughter. (Who at, the second speaker or the third, it was impossible to tell.) "Maddox'd gut me if I gut you, but I'd do it anyways!"

The howls of identical laughter only increased in volume.

Teri chuckled. "All right, why don't you all come on out?" "There's some people here I want you guys to meet!"

There was a series of thumps as several pairs of heavy boots stomped over to the door. A moment later it slid open, revealing three old – and identical, besides their different haircuts and clothes – men. Two of them were giggling like children, but the one standing in the middle was quiet and stern.

Zeb let out a noisy breath. "It's just a bunch of old geezers!"

"Well-armed old geezers," Sabine reminded them, and everyone's attention was immediately drawn towards their impressive rifles and shotguns, which, despite the fact that they were antiques, still looked every bit as deadly as new ones.

"What do you want?" the middle one called, and his two doppelgangers quieted down.

"We're looking for someone," Kanan said, crossing his arms.

"Well, that's too bad, 'cause there's nobody out here," he replied, leaning over on the railing in front of him.

"Hey, does the number 7-5-6-7 mean anything to you?" Ezra asked, belatedly realizing that Teri had said he would speak on their behalf. But he was pretty sure it was all right – after all, Kanan had spoken without being rebuked in any way.

"Ezra," Teri hissed.

Ezra gulped. Apparently, he had been wrong.

"What did you just say?" the man growled, and the two men on either side prepped their weapons.

"Uh, I– I said 7-5-6-7," he repeated uneasily.

The man narrowed his eyes. "I haven't heard those digits in... Well, that's my birth number!"

Ezra looked away. "Birth number...?"

What does that even mean?

A spark of rage Ezra had never seen before suddenly lit up in Kanan's eyes. "They're clones!"

"Kanan, stop!"

But Teri's order came too late. Kanan had already drawn his lightsaber, activated it, and stepped in front of them.

The eyes on the man in the middle went wide in shock, but the man to his right had a far different reaction. "Jedi! They've– they've come for revenge!"

A fearful expression just barely hidden by his military sabacc face, he raised his rifle, aimed, and fired.

*And so we leave off on a terrifying note, unsure what will happen next... Much like UAAT, as it is, and that's next. This chapter was originally supposed to encompass another part as well that made it NOT a cliffhanger, but I took it off at the last minute because the chapter was just getting too long, and this was the cleanest break between chapters I could find.

But many questions there are still... How are the crewmembers of the Ghost really taking to Sorena's sudden presence aboard the ship and the fact that they have to take her with them wherever they go? And what could suspicions could they have about Teri and his true motivations? After all, with his secretive nature, he does nothing to dissuade any mistrust they could have for him...

And now that Teri, after his previous infractions with bringing Sorena aboard, has led them right to the soldiers that were given orders to destroy the Jedi, which they carried out to devastating effect and even killed Kanan's own Master Billaba, how will he react? And another upcoming revelation might just push him over the edge as it did so many years ago during Operation Knightfall...

Okay, I'm finished with the dramatic narration stuff. I hope you guys liked the chapter, even if half of it was kind of a filler and I ended it just as things were getting interesting... Oh well. I'll have the next chapter (it's half-finished already since I just decided to take that extra part out) and probably one for UAAT ready sometime tomorrow.

Also, I've discovered that I really like writing comedic Ezra and Kanan moments. They just have the most hilarious sort of dynamic when they're not training or disagreeing over something, and  it's great fun to come up with new scenarios where I can show that... And adding Teri in is fun too. I also like writing from Ezra's POV because he wasn't around during the Clone Wars, and half the time he has no idea what's even going on. Makes for a great SORT OF innocent eye with a lot of dramatic irony...

So, on another note, I did a random mass post of sketches both new and old in my art book and there's some pretty cool pieces there, so go take a look-see if you feel like it! I'm going to bed now, because it's WAY later than I should be up and doing stuff. But I wanted to get all this posted for you guys, so once again, I hope you enjoyed! 

May the Force be with you,

Sharron