"The Force does not belong to us. It was there long before we started using it, and it will be there long after we are gone." - Oola Kitar, from Collected Wisdom of the Jedi Masters

"You're a Jedi?" Laura said to Mikey after she'd climbed out of the wreckage of the Black Mariah.

The pieces of the ship were still floating in mid-air, but when Mikey heard that, he lowered his hand, causing them all to fall to the ground. "No, I'm not," Mikey said. "I don't even know how I did that! The Force isn't even real!"

"I hate to break it to you, Mikey, but I don't think you can say that after you just did...well, whatever that was," Gerard said.

"I'm serious!" Mikey said. "That shouldn't have been possible."

"With the Force, even impossible things become possible," Gerard said. "Altux Wen said that, right? Volume three, issue 26 of Heroes of the Old Republic?"

Mikey rolled his eyes. "Comic books aren't real, Gerard," he said.

"I beg to differ," Ray said. "Those comic book writers do their research. The ones who wrote about the Clone Wars really captured what it was like to be on the frontlines."

"Just admit it, Mikey," Gerard said. "You may not be a Jedi, but you're like them. You have their powers. You're Force-sensitive."

Mikey didn't respond, his face completely expressionless. Meanwhile, Frank stepped toward the pieces of the Black Mariah, wondering what had happened to his beloved ship. Laura was thankfully alive and unharmed, but Frank's brand new TIE fighter was completely destroyed. For a moment, he wished that he'd found a buyer on Cloud City instead of just giving his diamonds away to Lando. If he had, maybe he would have had enough money to buy another ship. As it was, he worried that he would be stuck on Alsakan for the foreseeable future.

"I think it's fixable," Laura said, as if she was reading his mind.

"Really?" Frank said.

"It will take some time, but I can repair this," Laura said.

"Why did it break in the first place?"

"I'm not sure, but I think some of the structural supports might have come undone. It's nothing that can't be fixed." Laura then turned to Mikey. "I know you say you're not a Jedi, but you do kind of remind me of these two Jedi that came in last week."

"Wait a second," Ray said. "There were Jedi here?"

"Who were they?" Gerard asked.

"I don't know," Laura said.

"Then how do you know they were Jedi?" Mikey asked.

"One of them tried to do a Jedi Mind Trick on me, and the other one argued with him about it the whole time I was fixing their ship," Laura said. "They wanted me to install a hyperdrive on this scrappy-looking escape pod for some reason."

"What did they look like?" Gerard asked.

"Gerard, this isn't important..." Mikey said.

"Maybe they were characters in the True Clone Wars Adventures," Gerard said.

"The one that tried to do a Jedi Mind Trick on me was kind of short, and he had black hair and a ton of eyeliner. The other one was even shorter, and he was wearing a hat. Also, he had brown hair, blue eyes, glasses..."

"I think I know who you're talking about," Ray said.

"Me too," Gerard said.

"It's Patrick Stump," the two of them said in unison.

"How do you know Patrick?" Ray asked Gerard.

"Isn't it obvious? He was an important side character in the Thalassia arc in Volume Two of True Clone Wars Adventures. I don't know who the other guy could be though."

"Me neither, and I fought by Patrick's side for two years."

"Wait, you were talking about that Patrick Stump the whole time?" Gerard said, his eyes lighting up. "You've got to tell me more about this."

"Maybe later."

Frank sat down on Laura's workbench and grinned. He loved watching Gerard get excited about comic books. Every time he talked about his favorite authors, his favorite characters, his favorite stories, he seemed truly, deeply happy. All Frank wanted was for him to feel like that all the time.

"I can't believe it," Ray said, smiling. "Patrick's alive."

"We have to find him and whoever he's traveling with," Gerard said as he paced around the shop. "We have to tell them about the plot to kill the Jedi."

"Wait a second," Laura said. "There's a plot to kill the Jedi?"

"Yeah," Gerard said. "The Empire created a group called the Inquisitorius, and their sole purpose is to wipe out the remaining Jedi. If we don't tell Patrick about the Empire's plans, they could kill him."

"Why do you care so much about this Patrick guy?" Mikey asked his older brother.

"He seemed like a genuinely nice person in True Clone Wars Adventures, which was such a breath of fresh air amongst all of that bloodshed. The way they characterized him was absolutely brilliant," Gerard said.

"He's like that in real life too, but it doesn't matter how nice or mean he is," Ray said. "He doesn't deserve to die."

Frank thought about it for a moment. He still had to sell Gerard's data pod on Truwel, drop Gerard and Mikey off on Ilum, and transport Ray to Kriselist, but somehow, this seemed more important than any of those things. If they didn't find Patrick and warn him about the Inquisitorius, he could die, and Frank couldn't bear to have an innocent man's blood on his hands.

Besides, it wouldn't hurt to keep Gerard around for just a little bit longer.

Frank turned to Laura and asked, "Do you know anything about where the two Jedi went?"

"Not really," Laura said. "I know they left Alsakan, but that's about it." She walked over to her workbench, grabbed a binder, and started flipping through it. "I might have some details on their ship though."

"That would be great," Frank said.

"Here it is," Laura said when she found the right page in the book. "They were flying a planetary escape pod manufactured by the Corellian Engineering Corporation, license number 424577931. It didn't have a hyperdrive, but I installed one when I worked on their ship."

"Great," Frank said. "I can try tracking them once we get the ship working again."

"Sounds good," Laura said. "I'll get started on repairing the Black Mariah."

Laura went back to work, carefully piecing the ship together bit by bit, while Ray, Gerard, Mikey, and Frank kept on chatting. As Ray told Gerard everything he knew about Patrick Stump, Frank watched them from a distance, wishing for one more second of Gerard's undivided attention. Then again, now that they'd added another stop, he would have plenty of time to stare into Gerard's hazel eyes aboard the Black Mariah. Frank doubted that their relationship would ever go any further than that, but he fantasized about it anyway.

Frank finally tore his eyes away from Gerard and glanced toward Mikey, who was standing off to the side, stone-faced. Frank had never trusted the Jedi as an institution - they'd propped up a corrupt Republic for centuries - but Mikey wasn't one of them. He was just a scared kid with powers he didn't understand. All of the surviving Jedi were probably like that: hiding who they were, hoping that the Empire wouldn't find them. It seemed like an awful way to live, but who was he to judge?

A few hours passed by, and eventually, Laura finished repairing the Black Mariah. By the time she was done, it looked good as new. As he stepped aboard, Frank tried to give Laura a few credits, but she refused.

"You don't need to pay me, Frank," Laura said. "We're friends." As Frank stuffed the credits back into his pocket, she added, "Just make sure to keep in touch. I want to know what happens with those Jedi."

"Don't worry," Frank said. "I'll send you a hologram as soon as I get the chance."

"Great," Laura said. "I'll see you soon, Frank."

"See you," Frank said as he climbed into the Black Mariah. He immediately ran over to the control panel, went into the tracking system, and entered the license number Laura had given him. While the system searched for the escape pod, Gerard took out his data pod and put it into the ship's data reader.

"There's a list of Jedi that survived Order 66 on here," he explained. "If Patrick's on the list, then the Empire knows he's alive."

"He could be dead by now," Ray said. "Laura saw him and his friend a week ago, but one or both of them could have died between then and now."

"Don't be such a downer," Gerard said.

"Says the guy who won't shut up about vampires and death and not being okay," Mikey said.

"Shut up, Mikey," Gerard said. He opened up the list, and he and Ray looked it over. "Interesting," Gerard said. "Ress Rexi, Woorg Blobrukk, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Carnor Bly...but no Patrick Stump. The Empire doesn't know he survived."

"They'll find out soon enough," Ray said.

Meanwhile, Frank focused on the tracking system, waiting for it to find Patrick's ship. All of a sudden, it beeped, indicating that it had found a match. "They're in the Tarabba sector," Frank said. "It looks like their ship landed on Utapau, but I can't imagine why they'd go there, of all places."

"I don't know either, but we have to go to Utapau," Ray said. "If Patrick and his friend are alive, we have to tell them about the Inquisitorius."

"Of course, and besides, maybe they could train Mikey," Gerard said. "Maybe they'll teach him how to use the Force."

"I don't need training," Mikey complained.

"You know, Mikey, I wish we could trade places," Gerard said. "I'd sign up for Jedi training in a heartbeat."

"I never asked for these powers," Mikey said. "Is there any way to get rid of them or something?"

"Why would you want that?"

"I just want to be like everyone else."

"You saved Laura's life!" Gerard exclaimed. He sighed and then added, "I guess we can ask Patrick Stump about it when we meet him."

Frank ignored the Way brothers as he steered the ship upwards. Now that Laura had fixed the stabilizer, the handling was much smoother. He could fly through space without the ship veering wildly off-course. He piloted the Black Mariah toward the nearest hyperspace route, and just as he was about to leave the Alsakan system, he looked back at Gerard and smiled.

Even a few weeks ago, he would never have expected this. He was the Most Dangerous Man in the Galaxy, but here he was, about to go to Utapau to save some Jedi. There was nothing in this for him - no diamonds, no credits, not even bragging rights - but he knew that finding Patrick and his friend and warning them about the Empire's plot was the right thing to do.

Maybe Gerard was right all along. Maybe he was a good guy at heart.