After much deliberation, careful study, and scientific analysis, Wes Janson decides that the Fate Of The Galaxy is entirely dependent on the state of Senator-Princess Leia Organa's hair.

It’s always been something of a point of pride, for Ponds, that he never really has to worry about his general.

There’s a child hiding behind his robes. Mace looks down, brow rising like a warning flare, but doesn’t move. Leia looks back, all big, innocent brown eyes and perfect guilelessness, and pulls a fold of brown cloth over her head as she practically stuffs herself under his chair.

With a sound of quiet sympathy, Kit reaches out, tapping his knuckles lightly against Rex's pauldron. “Forgive me, Captain, but I believe you would be far more comfortable without your armor. The beach cannot be a pleasant place for you right now.” Rex pauses, almost startled by the idea of taking his armor off. He’s on a mission, or at least the disastrous tail end of one, and unless he’s on leave, he almost never strips down to his blacks. And it’s been…months, since his last stretch of leave that wasn’t cut off before it even started. “Oh,” he says dumbly, and then flushes, reaching for the clasps on his armor. “Right, sorry, sir.”

A shadow falls over the mountaintop just as the first droid drops down onto the rocks above Fives.

“Are you really sure this is necessary?” Jon asks, faintly hunted.

“This,” Xanatos says with perfect conviction, “is going to be an absolute disaster, I can't believe you agreed to this.”

“I'm not going to stay with the ship,” Anakin says, outraged. Savage closes his eyes, not quite praying for patience, but—reaching for it, certainly. Having a padawan has been good for his self-control in ways Savage hasn’t even wanted to consider too closely.

Thire's grimace is apologetic, but that doesn’t stop him from saying, “We’ve got a guy from that group of infiltrators who got rounded up last night asking to speak with command.” Fox waits, brow raised, because if every lowlife who wanted to talk to command ended up in his office he’d never do anything else. Thire knows that, too. If this guy rates a mention, there’s a reason. Thire's expression says he needs a vacation, and also someone else willing to play messenger. “He says he’s a Jedi, sir.”

Agen digs his fingers into the silver-veined bark, smiling a little. Pushes upright, flicking his hair back behind his shoulder, and pulls his outer robe off, draping it over a branch. “A trooper in distress,” he says, stepping forward. “I believe Jedi are supposed to rectify such things.” Two pairs of dark eyes snap to him, and Fives's widen with glee. He wriggles harder under Echo's pinning weight, like a landed fish, and cries, “General Kolar, help! I'm being overrun!”

“Leia, it’s fine,” a man says, and it’s not quite soothing. More entreating, and Boba wrinkles his nose, shifting slightly. His hands are cuffed behind him, and one of his captors was smart enough to steal the lockpicks from his belt. Boba hates smart enemies. “It’s not fine,” the woman says acidly. “Luke, he tried to kill us!” “Only once,” Luke says stubbornly. “And technically he was taking Han alive.”

Tup gathers his courage, leans in. With a flicker of humor, Mace dips his head to meet him, taking the kiss without hesitation. Behind them, someone chokes.

“Soon, padawan,” Qui-Gon says, and Obi-Wan doesn’t appreciate the amusement in his voice at all, but his disgruntled look doesn’t win him anything except a raised brow and the calmly bemused glance that always makes Master Windu eye Qui-Gon’s hair like he’s about to pull on it.

There's a moment of absolute silence as Fives and Echo trade startled glances, Rex gapes at Obi-Wan, and Kix and Jesse freeze, eyes widening. Then, deliberately, awkwardly, Rex clears his throat, face about four shades redder than it was a moment ago. “General, you—you know Quinlan?” No wonder they made it out of the smuggler’s mansion in one piece. Obi-Wan breathes in through his nose, lets it out, and then says, “Very well, yes. Quinlan Vos, I thought you were dead, and instead you were—were—playing hooker to a crime lord!”

“Well,” Kit says lightly. “This does seem to be a predicament, doesn’t it?” Pressed right up against him, gauntlets digging bruises into his almost-bare hips, Dogma squeezes his eyes tightly shut. “I'm going to kill my whole squad,” he says, perfectly certain and resigned to it.

“What is that?” Thire asks, wrinkling his nose as Fox marches past him. He immediately turns to open a window. Fox snorts, lifting a boot to kick Thorn where he’s sprawled out on the couch. Thorn groans, but raises his head, and Fox jerks his head at him. “A Jedi,” he answers, and Thorn freezes, eyes widening.

“It’s Chancellor Palpatine,” he says clearly, as steadily as he’s able to. “Chancellor Palpatine is the Sith Lord. I need your help to kill him.” There's one beat of stunned, frozen silence. Then, careful, Thire clears his throat. “You want us to kill the Supreme Chancellor?” he asks. “Yes,” Mace says, and when he sits back, all three commanders are staring at him. Something in his chest sinks, grim and resigned. “I can't—” “Thire, get those damn boxes open,” Fox orders. “Stone, we need some kind of distraction. Grab some detonators.”

“He hasn’t noticed yet, has he?” the little Chalactan girl asks cheerfully, pulling herself up to sit on the table. Myles, currently face-down on the wood and despairing of every moment he’s spent devoting his life and honor to an idiot, groans loudly.

“Queen Miraj is going to betray you,” Feral says, and Cody practically jumps out of his own skin.

Maul is going to make himself a widower in short order.

“I cannot believe you,” Jaster says, muffled where his face is buried in his hands. “One week of leave and this—this—this is how you come back?” Myles weighs whether he should be ashamed of himself, considers that last time Jaster got himself kidnapped because he pissed off a culty group of guardians around an ancient shrine, and promptly decides he regrets nothing. “I was only the Sith Emperor for three days before true love’s kiss broke the spell, it was fine.”

“Barriss?” Ahsoka hisses, bewildered. Barriss, in a fancier dress than Ahsoka has ever seen her in, covered in tattoos and dripping jewelry, freezes stock-still on the stairs into the casino, and Ahsoka feels the bright-sharp flare of her panic a half-second before she spins to face Ahsoka.

“I can’t believe you ruined my boots,” Leia says, outraged, and pushes Dooku’s face further into the mud.

This was supposed to be a vacation.

Jango's eyes flicker up, down, up again, and it’s meant to be dismissive, but Shaak knows wariness when she sees it, and it makes her smile just a little. “Lady, I just tried to put a slug through that fancy headdress of yours.” With a chuckle, Shaak takes a step closer. “Fett, I've been a Jedi for decades. If I held a grudge against everyone who had tried to kill me, I would have more enemies than you.”

“Well this is awkward,” Quinlan says, raising a hand to stop his nipple tassels from swinging.

A high, sustained, familiar scream rises above the treetops, and Rex pauses. He looks over at Cody, finds Cody already looking back, and does his absolute best not to grin.

“No,” Sabé hisses, catching the edge of Kycina's red hood and dragging her back down behind cover.

"If you say I told you so, I'm going to feed you to a sarlacc," Jango growls, stalking right past Jaster and into the keep, trailing slime.

This mission isn't going anywhere close to plan, and Mace is never again trusting Obi-Wan when he says it will.

“Please tell me you're paying attention, Echo, this is not the second you should start taking after Fives.”

“Hells, 17, I think your lady friend is trying to show us all up—” “Shut your mouth,” Alpha snaps, though it’s a hell of a lot more true than he would like right now.

“Sure you've got enough in there, Senator?” Cody asks, warily eyeing the crate two of his brand-new aides drop with a heavy thud. “There's more on my ship if I need it,” Padmé says mildly, and when Cody turns his wary gaze on her instead, she smiles, perfectly demure. “Captain Rex was kind enough to stand in for you when I visited my favorite tailor. A senator needs a wardrobe, after all.”

Fox has the galaxy’s greatest hero in his bed, he’s well-fed, he’s astonishingly well-rested, and he has a whole week of leave saved up that starts in about six hours, during which no one is allowed to bother him with anything work-related even if Coruscant gets invaded by brain-stealing worms. Again. He made sure Thorn and Thire both knew that. Which makes it ten times as unpleasant to wake up to someone bypassing the chime entirely and just pounding right on his door.

Bly's new wife is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen, and she's graceful and charming and funny and so far out of his league that he's about to die.

“What?” Rex's voice shades towards alarm. “Cody, that’s a bad idea—” “You can't go,” Cody says reasonably. “You have to monitor communications and make sure the generals have an extraction ready if they need it. Ghost Company’s down half its men right now, so I have the chance.” “That’s exactly the tone you used when you explained why you were overcome with the urge to punch General Grievous in the metal face,” Rex informs him. “Cody, no.”

There’s a hollow thud, a sound like a gong, a war-cry that makes Alpha-17 freeze in his tracks, and Priest goes flying back into the window.

Sometime between the end of the war and when Fox got shot, Coruscant Guard CMO Basher got their hands on the good drugs. That was the only explanation, really. Someone (Thorn) also made the mistake of giving Fox a datapad.

The Jedi do the utmost to support the clone troopers who fight alongside them. Even the ones who like to cause problems on purpose. (In which Sergeant No of the 91st Mobile Reconnaissance Corps has a funky alien gender and tests Commander Neyo's patience.)

The planetary security forces have captured a Sith, and Maul has nothing but a bad feeling about this.

Depa takes one step into the council chambers and stops dead, clapping a hand over her mouth.

“Is the kid in trouble?” “No, of course not—I was just, uh, wondering, Mr. Djarin, if you could tell me about Grogu’s typical diet—I only have limited experience with his species, and I have reason to be... concerned that he’s not getting the enough nutrients here,” said Master Skywalker carefully, the kid sitting beside him, not looking particularly remorseful. Dank farrik, not again, Din thought.

There’s something strange about the bounty hunter the marks hired for this job, but Granta can't quite put his finger on it.

Trapper sat down, datapad in hand. “Ok, ready to transcribe.” Wooley smoothed the scarf down one more time, then started inspecting the stitches.

Quinlan can’t take it anymore, and if he sticks around for one more minute, he’s going to have a reaction that’s entirely inappropriate given the discussion that’s happening above his head.

Everyone is whispering that a Jedi saved the Mand'alor’s aide.

Xanatos has never met a single more infuriating man.

“You're not very good at this, are you,” Fox says flatly. It has only passing resemblance to a question.

The armor is just making Jaster colder.

“That,” Quinlan says, faintly frazzled, “is not how the Force works.”