"A Jedi always helps a friend in need." - Erima Hawless, from Collected Wisdom of the Jedi Masters

Frank gripped the controls of the Black Mariah as he approached the surface of Utapau. He glanced out the window, and there was nothing but a bleak desert landscape dotted with sinkholes, stretching out as far as he could see. As he came closer, he spotted a planetary escape pod. He couldn't see the license plate yet, but he was sure it was Patrick Stump's ship. It had to be.

He landed the Black Mariah next to the escape pod, and the four of them climbed out to inspect the ship. Frank stood on his tiptoes and peeked inside, but there was nobody there. In fact, the ship looked like it had been abandoned.

"What do we do now?" Gerard asked.

"We should keep looking for the Jedi," Frank said. "They have to be around here somewhere, right?"

"Mikey!" Gerard exclaimed. "You can sense things, right? Through the Force?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Mikey said.

"Is there any way you can find Patrick and his friend?"

"Uhh...I don't think so."

Gerard frowned. "How are we going to find them then?"

Frank turned toward the Black Mariah. "Let's get back on the ship," he said. "We can fly over the area and see if we find them anywhere."

The four of them got back on the ship, and Frank took off. However, they weren't in the air for long before Frank heard a loud, beeping noise.

"It's a distress signal," Frank said as he steered the ship closer to the ground. "And it's coming from...right next to the sinkhole." Frank carefully landed the ship and then told the others, "Stay here. It could be dangerous."

"No way," Gerard said. "I'm coming with you."

"I'm serious, Gerard. I don't want you to get hurt."

"I'm coming whether you want me to or not. If it's dangerous, you shouldn't go alone."

Frank couldn't argue with that. He left the ship, and Gerard followed him. As they walked along the sinkhole, Frank asked, "So what do you think of Utapau so far?"

"I don't know," Gerard said. "I think I liked Alderaan better."

"Alderaan's nice. It is the Planet of Beauty, after all."

"Then again, nothing's more beautiful than a wheat field."

"A wheat field?" Frank said incredulously.

"Wheat makes me feel calm, in control, like everything's going to be okay," Gerard said.

Frank blushed - that was exactly how he felt when he was with Gerard. No matter how worried or scared he was, it all floated away whenever he and Gerard got a moment alone together. Then again, sometimes Gerard gave him a whole new set of worries, like what Gerard thought about when he stared out the window of the Black Mariah, whether he was as head over heels as Frank was, what they'd do when they finally had to say goodbye.

"Nothing's more beautiful than wheat," Gerard continued. "Nothing except for..."

Gerard didn't get a chance to finish his sentence. He and Frank stumbled upon a red-plated R1 unit, and it was beeping loudly. "I think we've found the source of the distress signal!" Frank shouted as he tried to turn off the droid's sound system. However, no matter what Frank did, it wouldn't stop beeping.

"Gerard, do you understand binary by any chance?" Frank asked. Maybe they could do something if they could understand what the droid was saying.

Gerard shook his head, so Frank picked up the droid and carried it back to the Black Mariah. Once he got there, he asked Ray and Mikey if either of them could understand the droid. When both of them said no, Frank sighed and plugged the droid into the ship.

Soon, the droid's message flashed across the display screen. Frank gasped as soon as he read it. "The droid...it belongs to someone named Pete Wentz," he said.

"I recognize the name," Ray said.

"He's a Jedi Padawan," Frank said. "He escaped the raid on the temple with Patrick Stump."

Gerard smiled. "That's good news!" he said. "We've found Patrick Stump's friend!"

"No, it's not good news at all," Frank said. "Pete Wentz...he fell into the sinkhole a few minutes before we got here. Patrick jumped in after him."

Everyone was quiet for a moment. "So they're both dead," Gerard finally said.

"Not necessarily," Ray said. "There's a chance they survived, and if there's any chance they're alive, we've got to find them. After what happened to Patrick's master, to the whole Jedi Order, I owe it to them."

Frank nodded, and he steered the ship into the sinkhole. As the ship flew lower and lower, he thought about the two Jedi. He didn't know them, but he could hardly imagine the hardships they'd been through. He desperately hoped they were alive. They were teenagers, just like him, and they were far too young to die.

As the ship flew into the sinkhole, Patrick sat on the rocky shore, trying to figure out what was going on. There was a TIE fighter above him, with dogs and spiders and cowboys painted on it. It could be here to help him, or it could be coming here to finally kill him. There was no way to tell, but Patrick knew he didn't want to die, not like this. He took Pete's hand, and he dragged him away from the ship, fighting back tears as he felt Pete's skin growing cold.

Meanwhile, Frank steered the Black Mariah even closer. "Does that look like them?" he asked Ray and Gerard.

"Yeah, that's Patrick for sure, and I think the guy he's with is Pete," Ray said.

Gerard leaned closer to get a better look. "Pete looks pretty dead to me," he said.

"I don't know," Ray said. "It's hard to tell from this far up."

Frank gripped the controls, and the Black Mariah flew in even closer.

It's not enough, Patrick realized as the mysterious ship approached him. He couldn't outrun a TIE fighter. Not even the Force could give him that kind of power. He set Pete down, his body draped across the rocks, and he watched as the brightly painted TIE fighter landed right next to him. The door of the ship opened, and the crew approached him and Pete. There was a short man with dyed black hair wearing a yellow jacket and a bandana, and he was followed by a redhead wearing a blue jacket, a blond-haired kid around his age with a ridiculously sharp jawline, and a man with long, curly hair. Out of pure instinct, Patrick ignited his blue-green lightsaber, and he stood his ground, ready to fight if he needed to.

"Hey there, Patrick," the man with the bandana said. "I'm Fred Lero."

Patrick looked at him suspiciously, still gripping onto the hilt of his lightsaber. "How do you know my name?" he asked.

The redheaded chuckled. "You were in True Clone Wars Adventures!" he exclaimed. "I'm Gerard, by the way, and those two are Ray and Mikey. I'm a big fan of yours." He turned back to the man with the bandana and smiled. "Hey Frank, why did you tell him your name was Fred Lero?" he asked.

"I don't know if we can trust him," Frank said.

"Of course we can trust him!" Gerard exclaimed. "He's Patrick Stump!"

Patrick turned off his lightsaber, more confused than anything else. "What's going on here?" he asked Frank and Gerard.

"Listen, Patrick," Gerard said. "You're not safe here."

"Why not?" Patrick asked.

"The Empire created a force of Jedi hunters called the Inquisitorius. They're trying to hunt down and kill all of the surviving Jedi. You have to stay away from them."

"How do you know?"

"I have a data pod aboard the ship that lays out the Empire's plans," Gerard said. "Come on. I'll show it to you."

Gerard climbed on board the ship, but Patrick stayed in place, unsure whether to trust the redheaded man. He looked back toward Pete, his famous last words echoing in his mind, and he wondered if Pete had meant what he'd said. Patrick was still scared and ashamed of what he'd done, how close he'd come to breaking the Jedi Code, falling in love, falling to the dark side. He told himself that he'd only done it for Pete, that he only wanted to give his dying friend one last moment of happiness, but he wondered if there was a tiny part of him that loved Pete back, a part of him that was heartbroken now that he was gone.

Patrick tore his eyes away from Pete and followed Gerard into the ship. He had to see what he was talking about. He had to know his enemy better, but sometimes, he wondered if the true enemy was himself.

While Gerard showed Patrick the information on the data pod, Mikey stood next to Pete, waving his arms around wildly. "What are you doing?" Ray asked him.

"I'm trying to use the Force to heal him," Mikey said, suddenly going still. He paused and then added, "The Force never seems to work when I try to use it intentionally. It's only when I don't mean to use it..."

"Is he even alive?" Ray asked.

"I don't know," Mikey said. "If he is, he needs to be taken to a hospital."

"We should talk to Frank about that," Ray said. He sighed and said, "Patrick seems to be okay, but I don't think he remembers me. We were in the same squadron for two years, and he doesn't even know who I am."

"That's awful," Mikey said.

"Maybe it's for the best," Ray said. "We don't need to delve into our shared history."

Mikey and Ray picked Pete up, and they carried him toward the Black Mariah. As they headed toward the ship, Pete slipped in and out of consciousness. At one point, he mumbled something that sounded like "lunchbox," but neither Ray nor Mikey knew what that could possibly mean.

Patrick was still reading over the list of surviving Jedi when Frank climbed aboard the ship, closely followed by Ray, Mikey, and Pete. "He's alive, but he doesn't have much time left," Ray said as he set Pete down on the floor of the ship.

Patrick breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the news, and he felt like there was a glimmer of hope somewhere in the distance. Pete wasn't dead, not yet. He knew the chances were slim, but maybe, just maybe, they'd both make it out of here alive.

"Is there a hospital somewhere around here?" Patrick asked.

"That's what I was about to say," Ray said.

"There might be one above us," Frank said. "I'll fly around and see if I can find somewhere we can take Pete."

"Hurry," Patrick said as he stepped closer to Pete. "I'm worried that he won't last much longer." A part of him wanted to hold Pete in his arms, to kiss him one more time, to finish what they'd started at the bottom of the sinkhole, but he knew he could never do that. The Jedi Order may be gone, but he still had to uphold the Code. All his life, he'd valued peace over emotion, serenity over passion, and he couldn't give that up now, not even when Pete was dying.

Already, he felt lost without him.

The Black Mariah flew upwards, and before long, Frank spotted a medical center near the top of the sinkhole. He landed the ship outside the hospital, and a group of medical droids approached Pete and placed him onto a stretcher. Patrick simply watched as they rolled Pete into the hospital, a lump forming in his throat. He was afraid this would be the last time he'd ever see Pete alive.

"You'll live through this," Gerard said. Patrick barely knew him, but somehow, those words comforted him. "Believe me, Patrick, we'll carry on."