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Darkness Rising	By : Jarkota Category: +S through Z > Star Wars Rebels Views: 27053 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own "Star Wars" or any characters or settings appearing within. This story is purely for entertainment purposes and I neither seek or make any profit from its writing.

Chapter List
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Star Wars: Rebels
Darkness Rising

Chapter One:

Dreams and Revelations
by
Jarkota

Author's Note:
And now the long-overdue next installment of this series. Between holding down (and then losing) a job, getting married and caring for family members, I've been extra-busy the last six months or so. By the time this gets posted, The Force Awakens will have been in theaters for a while and I'm going to state now that I'm writing these as if the movie never existed. I did not care for it in the slightest and feel that the old Expanded Universe (which has been relabeled "Legends") was superior, so my works shall ignore the movie and embrace the EU.
As always, if you liked, disliked or have any questions about my work, do not hesitate to tell me. Some people might have been put off by the sex at the end of the last story, given what Maketh had gone through, and they would be absolutely right. I felt pressured to include the scene for fear of losing some readers and I shouldn't have been. I'm not going to try and explain it away nor will I retcon it; it is what it is and I shall endeavor to not make the same mistakes in the future.
Lastly, I had to do a lot of homework to guess where Lothal is located in the galaxy. I could bore you with the details, but I've tentatively placed it between Mustafar and Belsavis in the Outer Rim based on limited information from various episodes and a lot of guesswork and supposition. If this information changes and an exact location given, I will correct my information later.
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It had been six months since the Lothal rebel cell had been forced from their home by the Empire. Using coordinates given to them by former Jedi Ahsoka Tano, they had taken the Ghost and the Defiant to the remote world of Dantooine. The settlements there were small, she had said, and were completely indifferent to the Empire. But more importantly, there was an old Jedi Enclave which had not been disturbed in centuries. It was here that the rebels had chosen to make their home. And thanks to some expertly-forged paperwork bearing the seal of Grand Moff Tarkin - which Maketh had "borrowed" the last time she had been called to his office on Lothal - none of the few people they'd had to interact with since arriving had questioned their being there.
"If there's one place I can be sure the Empire won't find us," Sabine said, reclining on a stone bench and peeling a large, succulent piece of fruit, "it's here."
Hera stood from the round stone table where she sat and put down the hyperdrive coolant pump she had been trying to repair since their arrival. "And we should be grateful; we had to make a lot of micro-jumps to shake the Empire off our tail when we cut through the Core Worlds. Hated doing that, but they would have expected us to keep to the Outer Rim. Pushed the hyperdrive on the Ghost to its limits." She stared at the Mando girl. "And for the last time would you please put some clothes on?"
Sabine just smiled, admiring the all-over tan she had gotten since they settled in. "It's not like anyone's gonna see me. The nearest settlement is too far away for anyone to care. And as far as anyone on this rock is concerned, we're just offworld researchers here to study the breeding habits of the laigreks." She bit the last piece off of her snack and tossed the core away. She ran her fingers through the blue-and-green locks of her hair, making a mental note to have it trimmed soon. It was getting too long for her liking.
"Don't even remind me of those things; took us weeks to clear them out." Hera took off her gloves and massaged her cramped fingers. "But in all seriousness, you really shouldn't be running around like that. If the Empire should manage to find us, or any one of the thousand bounty hunters out for the price on our heads, you wouldn't want to be caught in a firefight like that."
"You never know - whoever finds us might just be too distracted by this fabulous ass to shoot straight." The girl turned onto her side and smacked her right cheek, squeezing the flesh between her fingers for emphasis.
Hera sighed. "Oh, I give up. We've had this same argument almost every day since we got here. You can be as stubborn as Ezra sometimes," she said, tossing her gloves down and entering the ruined Jedi Enclave. Sabine lay basking in the sun a few moments longer before following her.
In the main concourse, near a crumbling structure which would one have held decorative plantlife, Ezra and Maketh stood facing one another, each holding an electroblade in a two-handed grip. A handful had been found in the Enclave's storage closets and from them Ahsoka had been able to fashion two functioning weapons for the fledgling Jedi to train with. Ezra, of course, argued that he didn't need one because he had a lightsaber already. Kanan and Ahsoka refused to relent, insisting that he use the training weapon, which could do nothing more harmful than a stun bolt, when he and Maketh sparred for her safety as well as his.
Sabine watched as her lovers circled one another, looking for weaknesses. For her part, she was admiring their clothing as much as their skill. Since leaving Lothal, Ezra had chosen to wear the dark tunic and slacks, formerly Anakin Skywalker's, that Kanan had gifted him on the day he and Sabine were married aboard the Ghost, feeling that it was only right that he dress as a Jedi if he was going to be one. Maketh had chosen something far less traditional, but no less attractive. A skintight red shirt rode up high on her neck and down to her wrists, but only came down to just below her firm, perky breasts. Matching pants hugged her hips and legs in a most satisfying manner and had a plunging waistband which formed a deep "V" in front and back, stopping just above her crotch and showing a generous amount of her buttocks. A pair of flat-soled red leather boots came halfway to her knees and completed the ensemble.
Maketh struck first, feinting an overhead strike which forced Ezra to hold his blade high to block it. Convinced he had fallen for her ruse, she redirected her strike down and to the side, to hit his left hip. Unfortunately for her the young man had seen right through her attack and rolled to the right. Maketh had put too much energy into her slice and the momentum carried her off-balance, which Ezra was more than happy to take advantage of.
Finishing his roll and standing upright once more, he jabbed at the small of Maketh's back. His attention, however, was briefly diverted by the prominent display of flesh that her pants provided and his timing was thrown off, allowing her to regain her footing and whirl to face him.
Sabine elbowed Hera in the ribs. "See what I mean about the distraction?"
Hera pouted and refused to answer.
Ezra and Maketh had evidently decided to stop playing around, as they dropped all pretense of trying to outwit one another and began trading blows in a much more brutal fashion. Ezra struck hard at Maketh's hip, but she was able to block, parry and attempt a stab at his head. It was easy enough for him to duck under the swipe, which again carried her off-balance, and attempted to place his blade at her neck. The blonde pulled back at the last minute, hastily changed the grip on her weapon so she could direct it with her off-hand and aimed to knock Ezra's weapon from his grasp. He blocked at the last minute, but the sheer force of her attack sent painful vibrations into his arms through his sword.
The two pulled apart and circled each other again, testing for weaknesses once more. This time Ezra attacked first, swinging his blade at Maketh's exposed stomach. She saw the telegraphed attack, assumed he had gotten sloppy and moved to block it. At the last second, Ezra tossed his weapon into the air over her head and rolled to her right, coming up on one knee, catching his weapon in his right hand and slicing at the back of Maketh's knees. She gasped as the electric shock coursed through her, causing her to drop her sword and collapse onto her hands and knees.
From across the room, the rebels heard slow clapping. Kanan emerged from the room which had once served as a meeting hall for the Jedi Masters in charge of the Enclave, a look of approval on his face. "Very good, Ezra. Your tactics are unorthodox, but they definitely work."
"Agreed," said Ahsoka from behind him. "I doubt that would have been in any of the Jedi manuals, but as my Master would have said, the manuals don't tell you everything. Your Padawan and mine have both come far in a short time."
Ezra helped Maketh to her feet. She brushed the dirt off of her knees and pouted, just a little. "Should have known you were planning something tricky; even you wouldn't telegraph your moves that far in advance."
"Thanks.....I think," Ezra replied. "Care to go again?"
She shook her head. "I don't think so; we've been at it for more than two hours and I'm getting sore. Who knew that Jedi training would be so exhausting?"
"We did." Ahsoka, Kanan and Ezra said in unison.
"Yes, yes, and you told me several times when I said I wanted to do this. Under normal circumstances I wouldn't have, but I'm convinced that only Jedi can stop the Empire and the more we have, the better."
"No argument there," Ahsoka said, "and your progress is quite remarkable. Especially given...what happened."
"There's no need to dance around the subject. The loss of our child was hard on me, but it has only served to strengthen my resolve against the Empire. If they had enough information to know I had allied myself with your cause, there is no way they could not have known about the baby, and yet they attacked me anyway. Only the coldest, most heartless of people could set out to kill an unborn child."
"I agree," Kanan said. "The Jedi may have done some things I don't agree with, but at least they weren't murderers. Despite what Imperial propaganda would have the galaxy believe."
Maketh smiled. "Well, I was only a little girl when the Clone War ended, but I knew enough to have my doubts when the Emperor said the Jedi tried to assassinate him and take control of the Republic."
By this time Sabine had sauntered over and embraced Ezra and Maketh. "Well, unless assassinating him to topple the Empire is out of the question, he was kinda right. Just had the timeframe wrong."
Maketh looked down at the girl. "Are you ever going to put some clothes on? I've not seen you wear a stitch in months, and as much as I like how you look this way, you really should be more practical."
"That's what I've trying to tell her," Hera said.
"I never expected that kind of lecture from you, of all people," the Mando said, raising an eyebrow.
"When I lived in my compound, away from prying eyes and with plenty of advance notice of visitors, yes, I preferred to 'dress down', as it were. But here, where we could be found out any moment, you really should wear something."
Sabine rolled her eyes and sighed. "Fine," she said, turning on her heels and walking out to the living quarters she shared with Ezra and Maketh.
Ezra smirked. "I hate to see her go, but I love watching her leave."
Ahsoka raised an eyebrow. "You're the second Jedi I've heard say that."
"Let me guess: your Master?" Kanan asked.
The Togruta nodded. "He thought I hadn't figured it out, but he had a relationship going on with the Senator from Naboo. I thought it was just a physical thing, but I eventually managed to get her protocol droid to slip up and tell me they had gotten married right after the Clone War started." She sat down on the edge of the retaining wall which had once been filled with soil and home to a tree and several other plants, leaning backwards against one of the triangular protrusions set into the circle. "Didn't stop him from getting my pants off, though."
The room was silent for a long time.
"Don't tell me you never told them that little aspect of the Jedi?" she asked, looking up at Kanan.
"Um, well....I didn't think it was necessary for what we were...um....that is..."
Ahsoka sighed. "It wasn't spoken of, but Jedi often sought out lovers in the Order to satisfy biological urges that no amount of discipline and training can suppress. The Council didn't condone it, but they didn't try to stop it, either. Especially since some of the most powerful members of the Order were the result of this. And that's why most Jedi were assigned Padawans of the opposite gender."
Kanan blinked. "So you....and your Master....were lovers. And he was married."
"He wasn't my only lover. Before she turned against me, my friend Barriss Offee and I spent a lot of time in 'private meditation sessions' - and she had learned from her Master, Luminara Unduli."
Kanan sat down on a chunk of rock. "I knew about some of this, but I never knew it was so wide-spread. I thought it was...."
"Thought it was just you and Depa?" Ahsoka chuckled. "Not by a longshot. But take it from me, you had a very good teacher."
If it had been physically possible, Kanan's jaw would have hit the floor.
"You need to stop being so visibly surprised; my exploits were fairly legendary before I left the Order. After I told Padme I knew she and Anakin were married, I took her to the bedroom, saying I'd blab about them to the Jedi if she didn't please me. I wouldn't have, of course - I was curious about how good she was and just didn't know any other way to get her in bed. And she was magnificent; apparently all those handmaidens she had around when she was Queen weren't just for show."
Kanan blinked several times, then something clicked in his brain. "Wait....your Master was Anakin Skywalker???"
"Oh, didn't I mention that?"
"No - you kind of neglected to mention it."
"Sorry about that. He taught me most of what I know about the Force, and he knew how to keep a woman happy. I thought I was dead the day Padme finally told him what I was doing, but all that happened was that they decided on a very.....different punishment for me. The three of us had some good times.....until they died at the end of the war. Anakin was killed when the Jedi tried to arrest Chancellor Palpatine, and Padme died on Mustafar when she tried to strike a peace accord with the Separatist leaders following the death of General Grievous."
Ezra sat down next to her and put a hand on her knee. "I'm sorry; it must have been hard for you. And here I've been wearing his clothes all this time. I feel like I owe you an apology."
Ahsoka smiled. "Don't worry about it. I miss him, yes, moreso than any other Jedi, but the memories I have are good ones, and it doesn't bother me to be reminded of them."
At that time, Sabine returned, wearing a bright green skirt that came down to her ankles and a tight blue sleeveless top that had an oval cutout in the back. Silver anklets sat loosely atop her bare feet. "Better?"
"Much better," Maketh said, leaning down to give the girl a kiss on the cheek. "It brings out your hair."
Zeb's rough, gravelly voice came from the intercom they had roughly patched together between the ships and the Enclave. "Food's ready! Come and get it while it's hot!"
Ezra sighed as the group headed for the common room. "I hope it's something besides heated ration bars this time."
"I just hope it's not wiggling this time." Kanan said.
Ahsoka shivered. "Don't bring that up again, please."
"At least we learned that carnivorous snails are both inedible and hard to kill."
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The crew had not even gotten to finish their meal - roasted brith, as it turned out, since Zeb had managed to locate a small herd of them while hunting the previous day - before an alarm sounded through the intercom, indicating a transmission was being picked up. They ran to the portable comm unit set up in the old council chamber and spliced it into the Ghost's long-range HoloNet transceiver.
Ahsoka was the first to recognize something. "It's encrypted. It's an old Jedi code, from around the end of the war. Scratch that....several Jedi codes. Whoever sent this didn't want the Empire to be able to read it without a fight." She entered the decryption sequences and was surprised when the hologram showed not a person, but text.
"I thought you decrypted it," Kanan said.
"I did," the other Jedi replied.
"Then why can't we read it?"
"You can't. I can."
"Why?"
"Because it's Togrutan." She pointed to a series of characters at the bottom of the message. "I recognize this; it's an IFF code. From Jedi Master Shaak Ti."
Silence fell over the room for a long moment before Ezra asked "What does it say?"
"It's incomplete....either from interference or jamming I can't tell. But what I can read is 'Trapped....need rescue......Felucia....Dark Side......natives turned on us....Padawan injured'. The rest is illegible. But Felucia isn't far from here; that's probably why the message was able to reach us. Anyone farther out than we are wouldn't even be able to pick up this much."
Kanan spoke up. "If Master Shaak Ti is in danger, we have to go."
"It could be a trap," Hera said.
"Probably is a trap," Zeb added.
Ahsoka nodded. "Most definitely is a trap."
"So, we leave immediately?" Kanan asked.
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An hour later, Kanan, Hera, Zeb, Chopper and Ahsoka had prepped the Ghost for launch and were finishing the pre-flight sequence. Ezra was not happy.
"I thought you said I was doing good, Kanan!"
"You are."
"Then why can't I go with you?"
"Because you're not doing that good. Not yet. Felucia is deadly. It's got all of the dangers of Dathomir, Tatooine and Kashyyyk and none of the nice parts of any of them."
Maketh placed a hand on the boy's shoulder. "Kanan is right, Ezra. You and I are only beginning to hone our abilities. We would be no match for something that would make a Jedi Master send a distress signal."
Ahsoka set down a quartet of bulging backpacks at the top of the ramp. "There's no guarantee that Kanan and I will be safe, either. But we have the best chance. You three can stay here, relax and take a break from training for a while. Consider it a vacation."
Sabine blinked. "Wait...three? I don't get to go, either?"
"Afraid not, kiddo," Hera chimed in. "The last thing we need is small, easily-devoured target moving around to attract predators. It's going to be hard enough to not get eaten ourselves." She knelt down next to the pouting Mando girl. "Tell you what; while we're gone, you don't have to wear anything if you don't want to. And if - if - you behave and stay out of trouble, I'll stop trying to keep you dressed."
The smile on Sabine's face said it all. "Deal!" Her clothes were flying through the air before Hera could blink. A few moments later, the Ghost's boarding ramp folded up and the freighter took off into the evening sky.

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Ten days passed without incident. Since landing on Dantooine, Maketh had found joy in tending to the fruit trees which grew in a sizable grove not too far from the Enclave, and she had chosen to spend her time doing just that while the Ghost crew was investigating the distress signal. Clearing the native kath hounds from the grove when they arrived had been a chore, but thankfully they'd only had to kill a few of the pack leaders before the rest took off for less troublesome hunting grounds. Ahsoka had said the grove was once a farm during the time of the Jedi Civil War four thousand years before, but the arrival of the Sith decimated the planet towards the end of the war and killed nearly all of the inhabitants. The attack also scarred the planet for generations to come, which was why so few chose to settle there - not that the rebels were complaining.
Maketh, dressed in a white tank top and blue shorts that used to be slacks, climbed up into one of the trees to examine the fruit on the higher branches. She sat on a particularly thick limb, about a foot and a half wide, and checked them not with a scanner, but the eye of a botanist. The database calls these 'sphere-fruit', though there isn't much information about them. Probably because so few people live here. Don't seem to have a growing season, but given how temperate this region is it doesn't surprise me. She mentally selected a dozen of the ripest fruits to replenish the basket that Sabine was always eating from, which was currently sitting at the base of the tree. Closing her eyes, she lifted one hand and focused on the nearest one, on a branch about two feet above her head and several feet in front of her. She reached out with the Force and began gently tugging at the bright green orb. It took several moments, but she eventually felt it give a little, the tough, flexible stem tugging on the branch it grew from more and more with each telekinetic pull.
Finally, the heard the tiny "snap" she was waiting for and opened her eyes to see the fruit suspended in mid air and the thin branch bobbing slightly. Pleased with herself, she lowered the fruit down into the basket and did the same with the rest she had chosen. Her task done, she lay back against the trunk of the tree and closed her eyes, basking in the sunlight that filtered down through the leaves, the cool breeze that blew in from the south and the roughness of the tree bark against her back, legs and bare feet. This is a paradise, she thought. Not as grand as my mansion was, but better in a lot of ways. More natural. She was starting to doze off when she heard splashing a short distance away.
Cracking one eye open, she saw a large towel and a lidded basket on the ground and fresh ripples in the small lake that was down the hill from the orchard. An unruly mop of blue-and-green hair popping up from the surface confirmed that Sabine had gone for a swim, a ritual she had embraced since they arrived here and had been made a daily occurrence since the Ghost had left. Sometimes Maketh, Ezra or both joined her, but usually there was too much Jedi training to be done, and right now the blonde woman was simply enjoying passing the days by being with her trees.
Maybe I should join her for a dip, though, she thought. And maybe a little more. The last time Maketh had been intimate with either of them was back on Lothal, before Kallus and Tarkin destroyed her home and her unborn child. And it wasn't due to lack of offers, either; Ezra and Sabine both had been trying to get her to join them in bed many times, but she just hadn't felt up to it. She had been reconsidering it lately, as she genuinely missed the unique bond they had; it was just a question of whether or not she was ready.
Suddenly, Maketh felt light-headed. She gripped the branch she sat on with both hands so as not to fall off, but it seemed a losing battle. It was as if her mind was being twisted in all directions at once and taking reality with it. Unable to maintain her balance, she fell.
She wasn't sure why, but she didn't hurt when she hit the ground. Picking herself up, she looked towards the lake. The grass had withered away and died, the trees were gray and barren, the sky had turned black and the water was as red as blood. Sabine was the only thing unchanged, happily swimming along, diving and surfacing and enjoying her freedom. Maketh tried to call out to her, but it was as though her voice had been taken away. When she tried to move, she found she was rooted to the spot. She could only watch in horror as they appeared.
The lake water began to change shape, coalescing into two humanoid figures wearing long, flowing black robes. One was tall and muscular beneath his battle armor, a hood covering his masked face. The other was very clearly female, short-haired and fair of skin. They walked across the dry lakebed towards Sabine, who was now dancing and completely oblivious to what was happening.
As the pair reached the girl, they withdrew lightsabers from beneath their robes. The masked man's was a single blade while the woman's had one blade at either end of the handle. Each blade was bright red. Without so much as a nod or glance, they cut Sabine down where she stood, severing her head and bisecting her torso. Her still-smiling head bounced across the dirt, up the bank and rolled to a stop near Maketh's feet. The bright, cheerful eyes looked up at her, full of love and passion and said "Won't you join me, Maketh? The water feels great today!"
The two figures, now standing on the edge of the bank, held their hands out towards Maketh and curled their fingers in a "come here" motion. The image began to ripple and dissolve, with Sabine's head endlessly repeating its invitation, until there was just darkness and silence.
Maketh's vision was blurry, as though she was just waking from a deep sleep. She saw gray walls, low ceilings and and ancient floors flying past her until everything stopped. In the middle of the room stood what she could only call a small obelisk. As she watched, the central portion split open like the petals of a flower and a glowing sphere emerged in the center.
Maketh's eyes flew open and the first thing she was conscious of was her extremely-rapid heartbeat. The second was the cold sweat she was drenched in. The third was that Sabine was gone.
Leaping out of bed, grabbing a blaster rifle and slapping a field light onto the rail beneath the barrel, she shouted for Ezra to wake up and get moving.
Then she noticed he was gone, too. She hit the button on the intercom and tried to raise them, but there was no answer. Panicked, she bolted from the room.
Caring not for the fact that she wasn't dressed, Maketh ran through the Enclave, checking all of the rooms to no avail. She checked the Defiant, but the ship was still locked up tight and powered down. Rushing outside the walls, she checked the walkways around the building, the grove, the lake, everywhere the rebels usually spent their time in exile, but there was no trace of her lovers. Overhead, the clouds moved rapidly in the darkness as wind whipped through the trees. The occasional bolt of lightning illuminated the sky and shattered the silence with rolling thunder.
That means, she thought, they've gone to the one place Ahsoka told us never to go. Breaking into a sprint, she headed east.
When they had arrived, Ahsoka had sensed this cave in the Force. She and Kanan had gone to investigate it and immediately sealed it by wedging a large boulder into the entrance and piling several more around it. Said boulders were now so much gravel, pieces large and small scattered everywhere.
Maketh reached out with the Force, trying to find Ezra and Sabine, but it was as though a wall had been thrown up around the cave entrance. It felt dark and cold and terrifying and she knew she had to go in. Steeling herself, she stepped through the entrance.
The light attached to her blaster winked out and refused to come back on. The air inside was colder than she imagined. Her skin immediately tightened up and her nipples hardened to the point she imagined they could cut glass. She could hear something moving around ahead of her, but her eyes had not yet adjusted to the dim light and so she could not see.
After a few minutes, she began to make out soft but distinct blue, green and yellow lights, seemingly coming from the walls themselves. Moving forward, feeling her way along the floor with her feet and using the vague outlines of the rock walls as a guide, she pressed deeper into the cave. She still could feel nothing but the oppressive cold, though it didn't feel quite as cold anymore. She assumed she was just getting used to the temperature change and pushed it out of her conscious mind.
Maketh lost track of how long she had been in the cave, but she noticed a dull red glow ahead and slightly to her left. Pressing on, she found herself in a chamber at the back of the cave. A natural stone spire ran from floor to ceiling, and around it were a series of smooth rocks about the size of her head. The glow was coming from one of the rocks. Kneeling down to inspect them, she gasped aloud when she realized they weren't rocks.
They were eggs.
The scuttling noise came from behind her this time and she whirled around, jamming down the trigger on her rifle and illuminating the cave with scarlet energy bolts. The creature in front of her, easily four times her body mass, had an oblong body that walked around on four spindly legs tipped with claws. A fifth appendage emerged from the middle of the body, ending in a vicious looking stinger. The beast howled and screeched as the blaster fire ripped into it, tearing holes through its flesh and spraying blood everywhere. Finally, it stopped moving and slumped to the ground.
Breathing heavily, Maketh turned back to the eggs, now knowing what they were. I used up a quarter of my power pack on that thing. Can't let any more hatch. She leveled the rifle and blasted each each egg, watching with satisfaction as they exploded and the remains of the larval creatures inside twitched and died. By chance or subconscious choice, the last remaining egg was the one giving off the red glow. Rather than shooting it, she slammed the butt of her blaster into it and cracked it open.
Inside was not a larval predator, but a red gemstone. Picking it up from the shards and ooze from the egg, she was awestruck by its beauty, so much so that she didn't hear the multiple scuttling noises all around her.
She found a section of the wall and backed herself against it, cursing herself for her inattentiveness and wasting blaster energy on the eggs. She couldn't tell how many of the beasts there were, but she was sure there were too many for her to fight alone.
She also realized that she didn't care.
Holding the crystal tightly in her left hand and the rifle's pistol grip in her right, she called out a challenge to her attackers. "Alright, you monsters! You want a piece of me? Come and get it! I've been spied on, betrayed, brutally attacked, my home destroyed and my child stripped from me before it could even be born! I've been holding back for far too long, so if you think you can handle it, here I am!"
Almost as if in answer to her challenge, the creatures swarmed her. They were much smaller than the one she already killed, being only as tall as she was, and took far less energy to kill. But their numbers were a problem, even as they had to climb over the corpses of their brethren to try and get to her. The blaster began to beep a warning, indicating that she was down to a ten percent charge on the power pack. She was contemplating grabbing it by the barrel and using it as a club when two blaster bolts slammed into one of her attackers from the side, knocking it against the stone spire.
The shots were followed by the familiar sound of a lightsaber igniting. Ezra and Sabine waded into the fray, cutting the beasts down left and right. His dark tunic and cloak made him one with the shadows of the cave, while Sabine's bright silver armor made her stand out like a signal flare. It seemed to be over in seconds and yet also take eternity, but soon all of the creatures lay dead at their feet.
"Well, don't just stand there!" Sabine said, her pistols smoking. "We gotta get back to the Enclave!"
On shakily legs, Maketh followed her lovers. They encountered a few more of the creatures on the way to the entrance, but they were easily dispatched and none followed them once they were back out in the open.
"What were you doing in there?" Ezra demanded.
"Looking for you two! I woke up and you were gone, so I assumed the worst had happened!"
Sabine took off her helmet. "An explosion woke us up and then we heard a panicked voice over the intercom calling for help. We couldn't wake you up, so we looked around to see if anyone was nearby or had a commlink that just happened to be on the intercom's frequency but couldn't find anything. So we went back to the room and found you gone. We went to the grove, the lake, every place we could think of until we ended up here. We saw the smashed boulder and then heard the blaster fire, so we came running."
"And just in time, too. I don't know what I was thinking; I should have known you'd never be so stupid."
"Well, we live and we learn. But we have got to seal that cave back up." Ezra said.
"Agreed." Maketh dropped the blaster and held her right hand out towards another large rock nearby on the plains. Ezra shucked his cloak to the ground and together they slowly rolled it into place over the entrance. It took nearly an hour, but they also moved all of the smaller rocks around it, filling in cracks and adding extra mass wherever they could to ensure that the creatures couldn't escape. Through it all, Maketh maintained her deathgrip on the gem.
"That was exhausting," she said.
"Yes, but necessary." Sabine agreed.
Ezra rolled his shoulders. "Let's go back and get some sleep. We have another few hours until dawn."
"Before we do anything I'm getting into Defiant's refresher and taking a sonic shower. I am covered in pieces of those things." She hadn't taken two steps towards the Enclave before it started to rain, in such volume that they may as well have stepped under a waterfall.
Sabine grinned. "Well, now you can skip the shower!"
Maketh threw Ezra's wet cloak into her face.
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Back in the Enclave, Maketh did exactly as she said she would and made use of the Defiant's sonic shower. She left the spent blaster rifle on the dining table, but carried the crystal into the refresher with her. As the ultrasonic waves washed over her and cleansed her of mud, rock dust and the remains of the creatures, she turned it over and over in her hands. Such a small thing, yet she was sure it had called her into the cave. The explosion they heard might have been a lightning strike destroying the boulder, and I was so deep in my nightmare that I didn't hear it. Everything fell perfectly into place to allow me to get this....but why? What's so important about it? She made up her mind to tell Ezra about it.
She left the ship and locked it down, stopped off to don a silver silk robe and met up with Ezra and Sabine in the common room. "I didn't tell you the entire truth about the cave," she said. "I found something in there, besides the creatures." She dropped the crystal on the table in front of Ezra.
"Maketh......do you know what this is?"
"No, but I feel like it was what drew me to the cave." Taking a deep breath, she told them of her nightmare, her journey through the cave and finding the crystal.
Ezra was silent for a long time. "That sounds like a Force vision, Maketh. And I believe you're right. Something wanted you to go into that cave and retrieve this. And those creatures weren't the reason Ahsoka told us not to go in there."
Sabine stayed quiet and somber, tracing patterns on the table with her fingertip. She knew what was coming and she didn't like it.
"That cave....the coldness you felt? That was the Dark Side. I've felt it before, back on Lothal. When I first saw you and Sabine together, and later when I thought you were dead. I couldn't control myself and I almost gave into it. It was all I could do to hold it back while we were trying to save you. And this," he said, pointing to the crystal, "is a lightsaber focusing crystal. From what Kanan told me, an exceedingly rare one."
Maketh remembered the lights in the cave. "Then, all of those were....?"
"Yes. Lightsaber crystals. Hundreds, maybe thousands of them. Enough to supply an army of Jedi. Natural crystals that can be used in a lightsaber can be a variety of colors and affect the color of the blade itself - blue and green are the most common, with orange, purple, yellow and white being harder to find. But a natural red crystal.....it's almost impossible. And it certainly shouldn't have been inside an egg. This is a Qixoni crystal, formed when the Qixoni star went nova. The minerals and metals of the planet were fused into crystals when this happened and the fragments were thrown out into what became the Qixoni Nebula. I suppose that some of the crystals could have been flung out farther and wound up here on Dantooine. Still doesn't explain how this one got into an egg."
"But the Inquisitor has red blades, and those two in my vision did. Those who've seen it and lived say that Darth Vader has one. They can't be that rare."
"Natural red crystals like this one are. Most of the people who would use a red blade are Sith, or allied with them, and their crystals are synthetic. Primarily because the Jedi were in control of all sources of natural crystals. Synth-crystals are typically made with alchemy, a practice forbidden by the Jedi because it tends to produce things which should not exist and upset the balance of nature."
"Are natural crystals better?" Maketh asked.
"From what Ahsoka told me, they're more stable, but synth-crystals produce more powerful blades at the cost of that stability; they're infused with the Force during their creation, which makes them usable in a lightsaber whereas other artificial crystals would either not work at all or cause damage to the lightsaber." He paused for a moment as he tried to remember the history lessons he'd been given. "And two natural crystals of the same color right next to each other in a deposit can produce blades of varying shade and brightness, whereas artificial crystals made by the Sith tend to have the same processes involved and produce almost uniform blades. Some Jedi were known to utilize blast furnaces to produce the intense heat and pressure to make synthetics that were as varied in color as natural ones, but if Kanan ever learned that he hasn't taught it to me yet." Looking into her eyes, he said, "Maketh, what were you planning to do with this?"
She shook her head. "I don't know....I took it without thinking, without even considering what it could be. I certainly have no use for it. I have no lightsaber, after all."
Sabine finally spoke up. "But now you can. Everything else can be picked up at any scrap yard or machine shop, but without a crystal it would be so much dead weight in your hand."
"No; I'm not ready. The fact that I went in there alone proves that."
"You thought you were rescuing us," Ezra said. "I'm sure Ahsoka and Kanan would agree." He picked the crystal up and held it out for her. "This is yours."
Maketh extended her hand, turned his palm-up and closed his fingers around the gem. "No, it's not. It's yours. I want no part of it." With that, she stood up and went to their quarters.
Sabine and Ezra didn't sleep that night. They worried about the crystal and Maketh's vision.
Maketh cried herself into a fitful, dreamless sleep.
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Another four days passed without word from the Ghost. Maketh had eaten little and spoke less, choosing to spend most of her time among the sphere-fruit trees. She would have been lying if she said she enjoyed her self-imposed solitude; on the contrary, she longed for the companionship of her lovers. But she wasn't sure how, or even if, she could make up for what she had done.
"And all because of a stupid dream," she said aloud, leaning against the base of her favorite tree after picking a basket full of ripe fruit. She pulled the wide-brimmed straw hat she wore further down over her eyes to shield them from the setting sun. She wore a simple long-sleeved blouse underneath a pair of overalls, coarse brith-leather gloves and hard-soled work boots of the same material, one of several outfits she had purchased in the small farming settlement to the north shortly after they'd arrived. She usually wore only the bare minimum when tending her trees, as it had been in her vision, preferring to feel as much of nature as possible on her bare skin while she worked. But the last few days she had stayed as covered up as she could possibly get, almost as if she had been trying to conceal herself even from those closest to her.
Lost in thought, Maketh was startled when she heard twin splashes from the lake behind her. Assuming it was Ezra and Sabine out for a swim, she got up onto her knees and peeked around the trunk of the tree. She was startled to see a small landspeeder and two sets of clothes scattered on the shore, neither belonging to her lovers. Carefully, she watched as the swimmers emerged.
Both of them were young, maybe fourteen or fifteen standard years. The girl was very petite, smaller than Sabine in every aspect, but she had long, flowing red hair that Maketh could see came down to her ankles whenever she made another dive, and her laughter revealed an innocent, angelic quality in her voice. The boy was around two heads taller than the girl and had medium-brown hair cut extremely short. As Maketh watched, the two spent several minutes diving, splashing and laughing, unaware of her presence. Though they were a fair distance away, the blonde could still hear what they were saying.
"It's been way too long since we were able to do this," the girl said, looking up into the eyes of her companion.
The boy nodded. "With the festival and harvest and all, I'm surprised we've had time to sleep. But it was worth it; we've got enough food to last an entire year, and plenty to trade with besides." He leaned down and kissed the girl's neck, making her gasp. "And now that work is done, it's time to play...."
The boy picked his companion up and carried her to the shore, where he began placing feather-light kisses all over her body, teasing her mercilessly. Though she was quieter than before, Maketh could still hear the girl begging for her lover to move on. Maketh was spellbound as he parted the girl's legs and she heard both moan as he entered her.
For several minutes, the boy gently made love to her, their gasps and sighs arousing Maketh more than she would care to admit. Their movements were somewhat awkward, indicating a lack of experience, but they made up for it with sheer passion for one another. The girl wrapped her ankles around the small of his back, locking her ankles together and begging for more.
When the two finished, their cries echoes around the lake before they collapsed side by side on the shore, kissing and cuddling in contentment. They were so focused on one another they didn't notice when Maketh strolled down the hill to stand over them.
"The next time you two do something like that, you might want to make sure you're alone first." The young lovers instantly jumped to their feet, the boy attempting to shield the girl from any harm. "Relax, I'm not going to hurt you. Actually, I rather enjoyed the show. You two been together long?"
The pair looked at one another, as if questioning whether to answer or not, before the bot spoke up. "In a manner of speaking. We've known each other all our lives."
"But we've been 'together' for about two seasons now. Please, please don't tell anyone; our family would kill us."
Maketh blinked. "Your family? Don't you mean 'families'?"
The boy shook his head, and both were blushing. "Afraid not. I'm Cerin, and this is Tala.....my cousin."
Then Maketh understood. "I see. And the reason you came out here was to keep your family from finding out."
Tala nodded, picking up the scattered clothing so she and Cerin could dress. "It's not against the law here or anything, but we aren't exactly free to be together, either. Cerin is the best kibla farmer on Dantooine. He knows how to enrich the soil, can tell which seeds will produce the best bumper crops, everything you can think of to produce the biggest, healthiest and best-tasting vegetables on the planet. And because of that, our family wants him to marry the mayor's daughter and join our land with their tritacale farm."
"It would make both families rich," Cerin added, "but the two of us miserable. We've been in love since before either one of us really knew what love was. And the mayor's daughter has no interest in me, anyway. She's older than I am and slips out after meal time to spend the night with the cantina owner." He pointed to the landspeeder. "That's actually hers; I drive her to the cantina and she lets Tala and I use it to sneak a few hours together, then we all go back home and our families are none the wiser. The truth will have to come out eventually and I don't know what the end result will be, but for now, this is all we have."
"I see," Maketh said. "Well, I won't tell on you, but you should be more careful. My team and I have been using this land as a research base to study the laigreks and we're out here pretty much every day."
Cerin's eyes went wide. "You're the researchers from Theed University? We thought you were on the other side of New Khoonda."
Maketh shook her head. "Afraid not. Our camp is in the old temple on the far side of the hill. We get a lot of our food from this grove and use the lake there for fresh water, as well as bathing. I heard that you've been too busy for your little 'excursions' due to the farming season, but we've been here for half a standard year now and we're going to be here for the foreseeable future. It doesn't bother me what you do, but unless you like being watched by strangers I'd suggest finding somewhere else. I'm terribly sorry."
Tala looked down at her feet, adorned in simple brown leather sandals. "I guess so. We don't have a lot of options, though."
"It's alright; there's a pond about three clicks south of here." Cerin said. "It'll take a little longer to get there, but it's surrounded by a thicket of biba trees. No game animals, no fish in the pond. Should be perfect. All we'll have to do is watch out for a few kinrath."
"Kinrath?" Maketh asked.
"Nasty creatures. Long, spindly legs, stinger sticking out of the middle of the body. There's a colony of them living around here somewhere. A few of them wander farther from the main nest now and then, but a few blaster bolts puts them down easy. They're only dangerous in large numbers and we never have to deal with more than three or four at a time."
"I see," Maketh said. "Good to know. We'll keep an eye out, but we've not seen any of them around the camp. Not entirely a lie; we didn't see them outside the cave. But I can't tell them about it. We can't be sure they're all dead and the last thing we need is a bunch of gung-ho farmers storming that cave to wipe them out and getting themselves killed. "Well, it's getting late. You two had best be getting home."
"Mika is going to be at the cantina for several more hours." Tala said. "Not sure what we can do until then."
Maketh nodded. "In that case, feel free to stick around. I'm going back to our camp and I'll keep any of my team from coming here tonight. They can wait until morning to bathe." She pointed up to the tree she was leaning against. "I'll leave you some fruit so you can have something to eat while you wait. But take my advice - whatever time you have together, treasure it. Life is too precious to squander being alone when you don't have to be." She shook hands with the pair and went up the hill, taking her basket minus a half-dozen of the juiciest specimens that she left at the base of the tree.
It's time I took my own advice, she thought. I've been ignoring those closest to me for far too long, and all because I was afraid of being hurt again. I didn't even think about what it was doing to them. They need me as much as I need them right now.
The warm, moist sensation between her thighs reminded her of another issue, as well. And besides which, I've been horny as hell for months and watching those two did not help the situation any.
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Ezra was standing in the council chamber, lightsaber in hand and facing the chairs as a Padawan of the Old Republic might have done. He had spent most of the day working on it in the adjoining workshop, tinkering with the emitter array to produce a thicker, more powerful beam in order to more easily deflect blaster bolts. He had also added a new setting to the blaster, adding a standard setting in addition to his stun charges. With the Empire redoubling their efforts to kill him and everyone he cared about, he couldn't afford to play it safe anymore.
To that end, he had placed the Corsusca gem Sabine gave him on their wedding day into the crystal chamber of his weapon directly in front of his original Kyber crystal, and in front of that he placed the Qixoni crystal. My crystal, one from Sabine and one from Maketh. There's a part of each of us in this lightsaber, just like we're all part of each other now.
His musings were interrupted by the sound of footsteps behind him. Turning on his heel, he saw a figure in brown Jedi robes walking toward him, hood pulled up to conceal their face, arms crossed and hands tucked into opposing sleeves. Despite the attempt at concealing her identity, Ezra knew exactly who was beneath the garment.
"You can't sneak up on me that way, Maketh. I know how you feel in the Force too well by now for that to ever work."
Chuckling, the blonde woman uncrossed her arms and pulled the hood back, revealing her smiling face. "I found this in one of the storage rooms downstairs; its in remarkable condition for being as old as it is."
"Are there any more of them?"
"Probably; this was just one locker in one room. We really should go through the basement and see what we can discover. There's no telling what undiscovered treasures we could find."
Ezra nodded. "But we should wait for the others to get back. It's still dangerous down there. We don't know if we sealed up all of the tunnels the laigreks used to get in, and even if we did, they could have nested and laid eggs down there."
"Possible, but I'd rather deal with a few laigreks than those kinrath again."
"Kinrath?"
"Oh - those are the creatures from the crystal cave."
Ezra was puzzled. "How did you learn that? We couldn't find anything like them in the database."
"I was picking some more fruit when I met this couple down by the lake. I stuck to our cover story, of course, and they told us to watch out for kinrath and described what they looked like. I didn't tell them that we had already seen them; too many questions might have come up that I wasn't prepared to answer. But the locals are apparently able to deal with them as long as they don't swarm, so that puts my mind at ease." She looked down at the lightsaber. "And what have you been doing?"
"Trying to improve my saber. I need every advantage I can get if I'm going to be of any use to anyone."
"The red crystal?"
He nodded. "And the one Sabine gave me. I never used it before because I wasn't confident that I'd built it strong enough to handle more than one crystal. But the manuals I found here indicated that the parts I used were every bit as good as the ones used by the Jedi of old, and many of them used multiple crystals, so I decided to chance it." He clipped the weapon to his belt. "So, what were those two doing by the lake? I thought the settlers didn't come out this far."
"Just a pair of lovers, out for a secret tryst. Watching them was quite.....stimulating."
Ezra blinked. "Come again?"
"I mean it got me to thinking about some things and I came to the conclusion that I haven't quite been fair to you or Sabine. I have a promise to keep after all."
"What promise?"
She leaned down and whispered into his ear. "I told you when we left Lothal that I would gladly bear your child - this time intentionally. And I've been neglecting that for far too long." She shrugged her shoulders and let the robe fall open, revealing that she wore nothing underneath save for the boots. "And now, Master Jedi, I think it's time we got in some lightsaber practice."
"But....but what about Sabine?"
"Don't worry about her. This is for you and I."
Ezra glared at her. "She's my wife, Maketh! Whatever we all do together is fine; whatever you two do is fine with me! But I will never, ever do anything behind her back. She trusts me, and I'm not going to do anything to betray that trust!"
Before Maketh could reply, a small chirp sounded from his right wrist. It was the comm system in the wristband the Ghost crew had given him on his wedding day, with Sabine being given its twin. "You won't be betraying me, Ezra. When we agreed to this crazy relationship, what was mine became yours and what was yours became mine. And that includes Maketh. As far as I'm concerned, she's your wife, too. And you don't need my permission any time you two want to have some alone time. I'll just make sure one of you makes it up to me later." With that, the comm channel went dead.
"You heard the lady. No need to ask. Now," she straightened her posture as though she were a military cadet lined up for inspection. "My apologies, Master. I have been neglecting my studies and failed to report for lightsaber training all week. I submit myself for whatever punishment you see fit."
Ezra just stared at her for a moment before what she was doing clicked. He was still nervous without Sabine being there, but he decided to give it his all. "Any punishment?"
"Yes, Master Bridger."
He sat down in one of the large padded chairs that the rebels had procured from a local market and placed within the chamber. "In that case, remove your robe." She did as she was told, then bent down to pull off her boots. "No, no, no; leave those. And do not do anything that I don't specifically tell you. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Master Bridger."
"Good. Now get over here." Maketh walked to him slowly, but not too slowly, swaying her hips just a little more than would have been publicly polite. When she was right in front of him, he said "On your knees. Now." She did so, mindful of the hard stone, and found herself face-to-face with the bulge in his pants.
"Shall I help you with that, Master Bridger?"
Ezra's hand was a blur as he reached out and struck her cheek. It was really just a tap, made to sound much harder than it actually was. The sharp sound made her flinch, but she was unharmed. "You will speak when spoken to." Since she was not asked a question, the blonde merely stayed silent. "Good. Now, you may assist me." As soon as her hand lifted towards him, he pushed it down with his own. "With your teeth."
Maketh could not help but lick her lips. She had never been dominated like this in her life. Sabine usually liked to be a little rough with her, but the girl was a natural submissive and it did not come easy for her. Ezra was on an entirely new level. When they were with Sabine, he had always treated Maketh as an equal. But not today.
Today, she was his bitch.
And she loved it.
It took her a moment to secure her teeth around the metal clasp that held his pants together in the front, never mind pull it apart, and working the zipper was one of the most uncomfortable things she'd ever done. Nevertheless, she was quite satisfied when her task was done and she could see the top of his throbbing shaft, still constrained in part by his clothing.
"Let's see how well you've been paying attention to your lessons; use your tongue."
Obediently, Maketh opened her mouth wide and secured her lips as far around him as she could get, wriggling her tongue underneath it and using the suction of her mouth to help free it from its prison. She heard him sigh as the swollen head popped free.
"Excellent work, my young Padawan," he said, starting to immerse himself in the role. "Now it's time we reviewed some lightsaber maintenance techniques. First, it is very that the weapon must remain lubricated if it is to be of any use. Show me what you have learned."
"Yes, Master Bridger," she said, opening her mouth wide to suck him in. She bobbed her head back and forth, taking more and more of him into her throat each time, and never once using her hands.
Unbeknownst to them, Sabine had slipped into the workshop through a loose wall panel as soon as she saw Maketh headed his way and was watching them from behind the door, which Ezra had left cracked open when he finished working on his lightsaber. She was as naked as the day she was born, save for the collar that was his wedding present to her, and as she watched she began to play with her breasts and nipples. It wasn't easy to stay silent, or hidden, or away from two very welcoming sets of hands that would have gladly done this for her, but she managed to control herself. This is for them, after all, she thought, and I've always wanted to play the voyeur anyway. When Maketh had successfully swallowed Ezra down to the base, more than half of him lodged in her throat, Sabine moved a hand down to the junction of her thighs.
Ezra leaned back in the chair as Maketh worked her tongue and throat muscles on him, making his member even harder. "It really should be a crime to be as good at this as you are, you know that?" She nodded as well as she could under the circumstances. The young Jedi wouldn't deny that it felt incredible, but it was also wrong. "Alright; you can stop."
She pulled away and sat silently before him, hands behind her back. "I meant you can stop the act, Maketh; we're not going to carry this any further."
"Do you not find me attractive anymore?"
Ezra shook his head. "It's not that. It just doesn't feel right. It's different with Sabine, because I know she likes it and we're both well aware of her limits. You're not a possession to be used, or a slave to be mistreated. You're better than that. Sabine is, too, but for some reason it's what she wants. But you really don't. I can sense it, so don't try to lie to me. You came here and did all of this because you thought it's what I wanted. Didn't you?" She nodded. "Well, I don't. I just want to be with you and Sabine. I'd be lying if I said I only saw you as another warm body to fill my bed. Sabine is my wife, you are our lover. Will I ever love you, the way I love her? No. But what we have can still be special, but we have to be honest with each other if it's going to work."
Maketh started to cry a little. "Thank you, Ezra. I was a dreadfully nervous about all of this. I didn't know where I stood with you two anymore, or what was going to happen to us. I've always known that the two of you will never feel for me the way I feel for you. That doesn't bother me. Seeing you love each other and being able to share myself with both of you is enough. Just promise me that no matter what mistakes I make, or Sabine makes, or you feel you've made, we don't let it drive us apart."
Ezra smiled. "That will be the easiest promise I've ever kept, Maketh." He kissed her gently on the forehead. "Now, let's go get something to eat."
He started to stand up, but Maketh pushed him back down onto the chair. "No way. You're not going to let me get all worked up and then leave me sitting there like an idiot." She straddled his hips and pushed him inside her, both of them moaning aloud as she took him to the hilt.
Sabine, meanwhile, had been watching the exchange with a smile. She had known her lovers would have to have this conversation sooner or later. Indeed, it had been touched upon briefly before but never to this extent, and it finally felt like everything was finally falling into place. When Maketh mounted Ezra, Sabine grabbed a metal tube as wide as three of her fingers with a dome-shaped cap on one end and slid it into her tight hole, working it in and out at the same pace Ezra and Maketh were going. She continued to play with her teenage breasts, imagining herself sandwiched between the pair like she had been so many times in the past.
In the council chamber, Maketh could feel her release coming. She hoped she could hold out until Ezra was ready, and then it dawned on her that there might be a way she could arrange that. Opening her mind to his, she reached out with the Force.
Ezra was surprised to feel Maketh probing at his mind and wondered what she was up to. After a moment's deliberation, he decided to trust her and let his defenses relax. As soon as their minds touched both of them were overwhelmed with pleasure. The human mind is a resilient thing, but it was not designed to process the stimuli they were producing and they completely lost control. Their shared orgasm was the last thing either of them remembered before blacking out.
Sabine had managed to keep pace with the two and get herself off, but when she stood up to leave the room it was like a newborn tauntaun trying to walk for the first time. Holding onto the long worktable for stability, she slipped out of the workshop through the main door and slipped out to the lake for a quick bath. And when I'm done, I have a masterpiece to finish.
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When Ezra and Maketh awoke, it was hours later and they were feeling exhausted but satisfied. They untangled from one another, made themselves somewhat presentable, then went to the Defiant for a quick sonic shower. Cleaned and dressed, he in the brown clothes that were his usual garb on Lothal and she in a simple, off-the-shoulder beige dress and leather sandals she had purchased from a local market, they headed for the common room.
They found Sabine there, laying across one of the benches wearing nothing but a smile and eating from a foil pouch of dried bantha meat. "About time you two showed up. I was getting bored," she said around a mouthful of food.
Maketh raised an eyebrow. "You? Bored? I find that hard to believe."
The Mando shrugged. "Well, I did have something to do for a little while, but it didn't take long and I've been waiting for you ever since." She chuckled. "You two sure worked each other over, didn't you? I've never known either of you to be that wild before."
"Yes, it was unusual," Ezra said, "but how would you know that?"
Sabine gulped, a piece of meat almost getting stuck in her throat. "Um, well, I, uh, heard you. Yeah; the acoustics in here are better than you'd think," she said, nervously eating the last bite of meat from the pouch.
Maketh shook her head. "No, that's not it. You were watching us. How else would you have been able to open that commlink exactly at the right moment?"
"It was a coincidence; I swear!"
Ezra strode forward. "I'll be the judge of that." He stood her up and parted her legs to get a good look at her crotch. It was puffy and red with obvious signs of recent arousal and attempts to satisfy that arousal. "And there we have it; not only did she spy on us, but she was getting off while doing it."
Sabine sighed. "Alright, you caught me. I just wanted to see what you two would do. It was pretty hot. And you both said some things that got me right here," she said, pointing to her heart.
Ezra looked at Maketh. "You know, now I think she needs to be punished."
Maketh let a sadistic grin cross her face. "You know, I think you're right. What should we do?"
"Do you have any ideas?"
"As a matter of fact...." Maketh walked over and whispered something into his ear.
"I'd say that's about right. You're a genius, Maketh."
"I try."
Sabine was worried now. "Wait, what? Punished? What do you mean?"
"Exactly what it sounds like, oh wife of mine. You were naughty and now you reap the rewards of your behavior." He and Maketh each took one arm and marched Sabine to the Defiant.
They took her into the starboard berth, the one Maketh had slept in on their trip from Lothal. Once inside, Ezra kept watch over her while Maketh rummaged around in a storage locker. "I found one!"
"Great," Ezra said. "Tune it to that monitor." He pointed towards a vidcom panel built into the wall next to the door. After Maketh had done so, they left the room, shutting the door behind them.
Sabine heard the sound of keys tapping and an lock being engaged. "Hey! Come back here! What did you do?"
Ezra's face appeared on the vidcom. "Oh, nothing. We just locked you in. And don't even try guessing the code - you never will. You're going to stay in there until the Ghost gets back. But don't worry; that berth has its own refresher and there are plenty of ration packs in the overhead storage compartment. This way you won't be distracted and you'll have plenty of time to think about what you've done."
Maketh spoke up. "Oh, and we've also got this little camera here. We're going to keep it in our room in the Enclave. Since you like watching us so much, we figure you'll enjoy watching us day and night, again and again and again."
"One more thing," Ezra said. "Don't touch yourself. Not even once. I'll know if you do. And you don't want to know what will happen then."
Sabine watched as the camera's view showed them walking through the Enclave and into the bedroom. She kept thinking that it couldn't be happening, that she had passed out in the workshop and was dreaming all of this. But she wasn't. It was real.
For the next week, she watched her husband and their lover go at it like animals in heat, multiple times a day, and each time the urge to disobey and get herself off grew stronger and stronger. But each time she resisted. Not because she feared the punishment, but because she relished the possible reward. Oh, it was torture; there was no mistaking that. But it was a delectable torture, and one well worth putting herself through for the end goal.
If she didn't explode first, anyway.
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A full three weeks after they had left, the crew of the Ghost returned to Dantooine. They sent a short coded comm-burst to the Defiant as soon as they were within range and the ship landed in the courtyard next to the YT-1930. Ezra, Sabine and Maketh were all there waiting for them, he in his dark Jedi tunic, Maketh in the set of robes she had discovered and Sabine looking pale, fidgety and nervous in a pink sleeveless dress, feet bare as had become her custom.
The Ghost's ramp lowered and out walked Kanan and Hera, followed by Zeb and Chopper, then Ahsoka and two other females. One was a Togruta, like Ahsoka, well-proportioned and dressed in loose-fitting white cloth wrappings that left little to the imagination and left her heels and toes exposed. The other was much shorter and less curvy. She had skin as white as snow, small horns growing out of her head and sporting tight black leather pants and matching bra.
"Ezra," Kanan said, "I would like you to meet Jedi Master Shaak Ti and her Padawan, Maris Brood."
Ezra offered a polite bow, as did the two girls. "A pleasure. You're a Zabrak, aren't you?"
Maris rolled her eyes. "Real genius, this one. You sure he's a Jedi?"
"Mind your tongue, Maris. These people have been through a lot, and they did save our lives. What's more, we now have a real chance at rebuilding the Jedi."
"You're right, as always, Master." She extended her hand to Ezra. "It is nice to meet a fellow Padawan."
"Well, you've met two, now," Ahsoka said. "Master Ti, I'd like to introduce my Padawan, Maketh Tua."
Shaak Ti's eyes went wide. "Minister Maketh Tua, of Lothal?"
Ahsoka nodded. "I see you weren't completely cut off on Felucia."
"Indeed. There was a smuggler who would come through the system once every lunar cycle. He had no love for the Empire and only cared about the medicines we could make and trade to him for food and information. He told me that an attack by what the Empire claimed were rebel terrorists had destroyed the Minister's mansion and taken her life. I see now that report was greatly exaggerated."
Maketh smiled. "Indeed it was. The Empire destroyed my home and attempted to kill me because I recognized them for what they were and tried to do the right thing." She briefly explained how she had come to be with the rebels, including the nature of her relationship with Sabine and Ezra, which drew some surprised looks from Shaak Ti, and that Ahsoka had led them to where they currently were. "We didn't figure out until after I had lost my child that I was sensitive to the Force, and I agreed to let Ahsoka train me. I'm surprised they didn't tell you any of this on the way here."
Hera shrugged. "We debated it, but decided it would be best just to let Master Ti and Maris meet you three before hitting them with all of this."
"I know it's a lot to take in," Kanan added, "and a lot of what's happened hasn't exactly been in line with the old Jedi rules, but we're living in a different time now. The Order is gone and we have to choose our own rules now. Whether you agree with that or not, you can't argue that we do need more Jedi."
Shaak Ti sighed. "On that, you are right. I will reserve my judgment for a later date, when I can see for myself how well you have done as Jedi."
Ezra smiled. "Thank you. We took the liberty of preparing one of the bunk rooms for each you, if you would like a chance to rest."
"I believe we shall. Maris, stay out of trouble." With that, the elder Togruta let Kanan, Ahsoka and Hera show her to her room, while Ezra, Sabine and Maketh led Maris to a room on the other side of the Enclave. Zeb headed off into the hills with his bo-rifle to do some hunting and Chopper plugged into a power socket to recharge.
"Sorry it's so far from your Master," Sabine said, "but not all of these rooms are habitable. The ceilings caved in on some, others had the furnishings destroyed by the local wildlife....it was tough just salvaging this much."
Maris nodded. "Your hospitality and efforts are appreciated." She sniffed the air, then leaned in towards Sabine and inhaled deeply. "You are aroused, and have been for some time. Has your relationship with these two ended?"
"Absolutely not!" the Mando girl screamed.
"Then why are you in such a state and the two of them are not?"
Ezra blushed. "Well, that's a bit of a long story, and something of a personal one."
"I do not mind hearing it." Maris pulled down the straps of her bra and began to undress.
Ezra covered his eyes. "Woah, woah, woah! What are you doing?"
"I am preparing for bed."
"I can see that, but why with us standing here?"
"I had to part ways with modesty long ago. It was unsafe to sleep in the open on Felucia and we had to take shelter with the natives, often a dozen or more of us in one small hut or cave-dwelling." She did not stop stripping as she spoke, and eventually stood naked before the trio. "If you tell me your story, I will tell you about myself and Master Ti."
Maketh shrugged. "Well, it seems only fair. Sabine, why don't you start?"
Sabine shut the door, ditched her dress and sat down naked beside the Zabrak girl, earning an eye roll from Maketh and an exasperated groan from Ezra. "Well, it all started earlier this year. There was this Imperial Walker that I had noticed was always parked in this one exact spot every night. I had always thought they looked like chickens when they walked, and it turned out that I had a lot of surplus paint...."
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To Be Continued.....

Well, there it is, for whatever it's worth. I hope this made up for any shortcomings the last chapter or two had and that I've piqued your interest for the next two chapters, where we learn the story of Shaak Ti and Maris Brood, as well as finally reveal what Sabine has been painting for all these months. Until then, may the Force be with you.
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Darkness Rising