"So we're really just floating out here in the middle of nowhere?"

"I told you, Zeb, this is where we're dropping off the generators. Unless you want to go to Rinn and drop them off yourself."

Zeb scrunched up his face in disgust. "Ugh, no thanks. Too cold for me."

From the side, Sabine raised an eyebrow at him. "Zeb, you're the only one of us with fur. If anything, you'd do better than us. He does have a point, though, Hera. What is this place?"

Crossing her arms and leaning back in her seat, she shrugged. "Actually, I'm not sure. These are the coordinates we're supposed to be at, but I've never been to this system. It seems abandoned, from the looks of things."

"You still haven't told us who we're dropping the generators off with," Ezra reminded her. "Let me guess: it's classified."

She grinned, unable to help herself. "It's not classified, but it's a surprise. Don't worry. I think you'll like this one."

Kanan raised an eyebrow at her. "Since when have surprises been a good thing around here?"

All six of the Spectres and Rex were hanging out in the cockpit of the Ghost. Commander Sato had sent them to pass on the power generators to another ship to get to where they need to be. It was kind of nice to have a break, for once. It wouldn't last long, of course, but they didn't have a mission at the moment.

Chopper, who was plugged into the Ghost, suddenly chirped and pointed out the front windshield. Every head turned, and Hera smiled when she saw what the droid was pointing to. A ship dropped out of hyperspace and was on the approach.

"Hey, isn't that..?" Kanan began to ask, but he didn't need to. He recognized that ship.

"Fulcrum!" Sabine realized, and she half-heartedly glared at Hera. "You couldn't just tell us?"

Activating the communications console, she looked back at the Mandalorian. "I told you, you'd like this surprise. Ghost to Rogue, do you read me?"

"I read you, Ghost," Skywalker's calming voice answered, making everyone smile. "Thanks for making the trip out here. Mind if I dock with you?"

Kanan laughed a little bit, glad they were going to have a chance to talk in person. "Don't mind at all. See you in a minute."

Most of the Spectres got up to greet Skywalker, all except for Hera, who stayed in the cockpit to complete the docking sequence with Chopper. Rex also stayed behind, his gaze drifting outside the windshield.

The Ghost crew may not have recognized these coordinates, but Rex did. This planet was abandoned, and he wouldn't have been surprised if nobody had visited this system since the last time he was here. Not that he had any desire to visit again.

"You alright, Commander?" Hera asked, forcing him to snap back to the present.

Shaking his head, he told her, "I'm fine, just...got some bad memories here." Just the one, actually. He smiled, trying to reassure her, before walking out of the cockpit and joining the others. As he did, a warm draft flew past his face.

Rex found the others standing by the docking port, waiting for Skywalker to walk through. Once the two ships docked with each other and the access hatch finished pressurizing, the Jedi walked through, carrying multiple bags with him.

He smiled when he saw the crew alive and well. "I heard you have some generators for me. Could I interest you in a trade?"

Zeb narrowed his eyes. "What kind of trade?"

"How about dinner and a long-overdue conversation?" Skywalker suggested, holding up the bags in his hands. "I grabbed this fresh off the market before jumping here. I figured nobody would complain."

Now that he mentioned it, the smell radiating from the bags had reached their noses and smelled amazing. If they weren't hungry five seconds ago, they certainly were now.

~

Food came first, obviously. They made sure everyone got their fair share before digging in, savoring every bite of the meat that was somehow still warm. Skywalker certainly knew where to find goods like these, and they were willing to dismiss their curiosities as to how he got it for the time being. They were too busy eating to speak anyway.

R2-D2 had rolled in with Anakin, but Chopper had stayed in the cockpit to get some work done before following Hera to join the others. The moment he entered the room, he saw Artoo and indignantly asked what he was doing here.

The blue astromech whistled that he had been invited on board, thank you very much. He was about to ask what Chopper thought he was doing, but Anakin saw it coming and intervened before things could escalate. He put his foot directly in front of Artoo, who had tried to charge at Chopper. "Hey, hey! No, we're not doing this today!"

Artoo complained and pleaded for Anakin to let him go, but the Jedi didn't relent. "Enough, Artoo. If you're going to have a problem, go back onto our ship. I don't want to deal with this again."

He wasn't happy about it, but he did as told and wheeled out of the room, his camera trained on Chopper the entire way out. Chopper muttered some choice opinions about the old trash can, but Artoo knew better than to react. He didn't want to get shut off for the rest of the day.

Hera shook her head in disappointment. "Really, Chopper? That wasn't necessary."

Though he tried to defend himself, no one really took him seriously. Rex rolled his eyes as he finished chewing a bite. "Those two are going to be a problem."

"They already have been," grumbled Anakin, pointing over his shoulder. "Hera and I had to pull them off of each other a while ago. Another minute and one of them might have scrapped the other."

Chopper insisted that he would have been the victor of that fight if they hadn't intervened. Anakin didn't believe him, but he gestured to Chopper all the same. "You see what I mean?"

Rex watched as Chopper rolled out of the room again, complaining even further. "Not gonna lie, I almost want to see that fight."

"Forget about the Empire. That would be the real fight of the century," Ezra teased in between mouthfuls. "Chopper versus Artoo: the astromech smackdown."

"I'm tempted to root for Artoo," Zeb laughed, looking to see if Chopper heard him. Apparently, he didn't because he didn't come screaming into the room in retaliation.

Sabine finished her plate and set it aside. "Sorry for asking, but what is this place? Did you pick random coordinates?"

Anakin shook his head, finishing chewing before responding. It was a habit that had been ingrained in him by his wife in the past fifteen years under pain of dishes. "Not exactly. I figured we would be here for a few hours, so I wanted somewhere the Empire wouldn't bother to look. I doubt they even know this planet exists."

"Why is that?" Kanan asked, tilting his head to the side.

"It's been abandoned for over half a century. Nearly all its natural resources have been stripped, and there's nothing here except for old buildings. It doesn't have any value to them, so it never comes up if their systems if it's there at all," he explained. "It's nice for meetings like this, though."

Ezra thought for a moment. "Couldn't we have gone down to the surface?"

He shrugged, looking to Rex. They both knew the real reason why they weren't meeting on the surface, but that's not what he told the Spectres. "Sure, but moving the generators between ships will probably be a bit smoother now that we've docked together."

The answer seemed to satisfy the Padawan, who went back to finishing off the rest of his food. Zeb, who had already polished off his dish, sighed. "I'm guessing you heard about our new Inquisitor friends?"

"That's the other reason I wanted to meet up with you," Anakin admitted, setting aside his plate and folding his hands together. "I owe you all an apology. Seeing more Inquisitors should not have come as a surprise to you. I'm sorry I didn't warn you sooner."

"How long have you known about them?" Kanan asked, staring at the other Jedi Knight.

The room went quiet so everyone could hear his explanation. "It was one of the first things the rebel council asked me to work on when I joined the Rebellion. At the time, they didn't have anyone else to address the issue because they didn't have Force-users at their disposal, Jedi or otherwise. They were still causing problems everywhere, though, and not just hunting down Purge survivors. They were sent after Republic sympathizers too. The Rebellion has lost a lot of potential allies to the Inquisitors."

Ezra stared down at his hands. "They already knew about all three of us. Even you."

Anakin smirked, but he didn't seem very amused. "That doesn't surprise me. After running into Offee a few weeks ago, I expected the Empire to start looking for me a little harder. I guess she dispatched more Inquisitors to do it for her."

"How similar are these new Inquisitors to the original?" Rex asked, speaking up, although he had been quiet for most of the time. "During the Clone Wars, the First Sister acted like a commander for the Separatists, but they seem to be operating differently now."

"I think that has to do partially with the fact that the Emperor doesn't trust the Inquisitors in the same way Sideous did," Anakin explained. "After the first one betrayed the Sith, I doubt Tyrannus is willing to risk that happening again. From what I can tell, they're Imperial agents, much like I am a rebel agent. No rank to speak of, but they have a lot of influence in the Empire."

Sabine, Zeb, and Ezra glanced at each other, remembering their encounter with the Inquisitors at the medical station. "Do we need to be worried about running into more of them?" Sabine asked, turning to Skywalker.

He shook his head, but hesitantly. "I don't think so, but you'll probably run into those two again." Activating his comlink, he projected two images into the air for the rebels to see. "Are these the ones you fought?"

Ezra nodded, having been able to get the best look at the Inquisitors out of the three of them. "Looks like it."

"These are the Fifth Brother and the Seventh Sister," he told them, showing the images for a moment longer before shutting the projection off again. "Both of them were Jedi that survived Order 66, but the Sith recruited them not long after and trained them in the Dark Side of the Force. Most Inquisitors were, actually," he noted, looking to Kanan. "Did the Grand Inquisitor ever talk about that?"

"A few times," he remembered, "though I didn't pay much attention. I was usually either getting attacked or tortured."

"Fair enough." Anakin had been in that position himself enough times to know the feeling. "I wouldn't try to ask any of them about their past, though. Inquisitors drop their names once they join up. The only reason any of their old identifiers are kept on Imperial file is if Tyrannus or Jadis want to use their past against them. If you tried to call them by their old name, they'd probably tell you that person is dead."

Zeb looked confused. "That doesn't make sense. How can that person be dead if they're standing right there?"

He stared into space. Though he had gone to the Dark Side a couple of times, that had been years ago, and he no longer remembered it. All he did remember were his past experiences with the original Inquisitor. "I don't understand it completely, but when people go to the Dark Side, they're not the same person. If they go too far, they forget about who they used to be completely. There's some shared memory, but their personality is different, they can look different, and they might not even talk the same as before."

Hera glanced at the Jedi in the room. She didn't think any of them would do such a thing, not in a million years, but the idea of it did unsettle her. "Is there any way to tell when that's happened to a person?"

"Yellow, glowing eyes are a dead giveaway," Anakin answered, pointing to his own. "Not all Dark-Users have them, I don't think Tyrannus does, but a lot of them do."

"The Grand Inquisitor did," Kanan remembered, looking at Ezra, who nodded in agreement. "I always thought it looked off."

"So does the Seventh Sister," added Ezra, drawing his knees to his chest, "but the Fifth Brother's eyes were...white-ish."

Anakin turned back to the captain. "The Dark Side affects everyone differently. No two Sith or Inquisitors look the same, unfortunately. Personally, I would look out for a red lightsaber. That's usually a bad sign."

"That much, I had figured out," she told him, setting her plate aside and standing up. "Let's get those generators loaded before we forget. If we all grab one, it shouldn't take too long."

Everyone stood up and was ushered out of the room by Hera. They gave their thanks to Agent Skywalker, knowing better than to take a hot meal for granted. Dealing with Inquisitors sucked, but it was much better to deal with them on a full stomach.