Rose Squadron: the Inkari Gambit

The Vindictive Empress sat alone in the landing dock outside Gintomi City, with all of the dock workers gone to the Star Destroyers. The city had fallen eerily quiet in comparison to the violent cacophony created by the battle only hours before. In the distance, the powerful sound of the Inkarin Star Destroyers preparing for take off hummed in the air.
“They’re really going to attack Coruscant, aren’t they?” Mikasa mused, seeing the first massive ship lift into the air.
“Can you blame them?” Jean said, weary from the toll of fighting. “It’s rash, yes, but I’d do the same thing if I was in their place. Coruscant’s about to regret forming this world into a ship-building powerhouse.”
“And they still don’t know that an attack is coming their way,” Ymir added with a sneer. “Poor bastards. I bet they’d never think anybody, Rebel or otherwise, would have the nerve to attack the Imperial capital world itself.”
“It’s like Senator Carolina said,” Armin told them. “This is the best moment for them to strike. Coruscant will be overwhelmed with the revelation of the Emperor’s death, and won’t be prepared to muster any defences, especially with that armada still recuperating. Even better, they won’t be prepared for Star Destroyers of all battleships to attack them. The Inkarin have the element of surprise on their side.”
They boarded the Empress and sat together in the ship’s main room, all anxious to hear the mysterious message left by Inkari’s enigmatic Chief of Security. Eren took out the recorder disk and held it out so that the others could see the projection clearly. Mikasa held his free hand tenderly, and they grimaced at each other, both of them worried about the ominous information that they were about to learn.
He activated the disk, and gawked at sight of a tall, slender man wielding a blue lightsaber of all weapons. Armin and Connie glanced at each other anxiously, and Eren realized that they had to know the truth.
“You two, what the hell is this?!” he shouted, but Armin shook his head firmly.
“Eren, he’ll explain it far better than either of us can. Just watch it.”
The Chief of Security spoke softly in the message, forcing Rose Squadron to bend in to hear.

“Eren Yeager, you don’t know who I am, but I could never blame you. Why would you know, when our father kept so many secrets from both of us?”

“W-what?” Eren and Mikasa said in unison, realizing then how he resembled a blonde version of their father.

“For too long, I’ve gone under the name of Haston Uttaka, to protect myself from the Emperor’s wrath that would surely come my way if my past was discovered. But I’ve hidden in the shadows for long enough, and tonight, the seeds of dissent I’ve planted will blossom into the flowers of war. The first, and most important step is for me to explain who I am to you, little brother. I am the only child of our father and his first wife, Dina Fritz, from when he lived on Corellia before the Clone Wars.”

“I have a half-brother?” Eren asked out loud, bewildered and aggravated that the fact had been hidden from him for so long.

“You have every right to blame our father for hiding this from you, Eren. I still do. He...he hid so many things from myself and my mother, too. It wasn’t until I became Jocasta Nu’s apprentice that I learned he was once a member of the Republic’s Jedi Council. Grisha Yeager lived a double life and refused to open up to the people he loved about his personal truths. In doing so, he failed to protect those who needed him.”

The rest of Rose Squadron instinctively bolted forward to catch Eren and Mikasa before the traumatic weight of Carla Yeager’s death could make them fall. The two orphans wept bitter tears as their long repressed anger against their father resurfaced, and they watched as Zeke wept likewise on the recording.

“I’m so sorry, little brother. Our father abandoned our families when we needed him most. Just as he wasn’t there to prevent my mother’s death when the Separatist forces invaded Corellia, he wasn’t there to defend your mother from the Imperial raid on your Ruusan village. Without a doubt, our father is a coward who has abandoned his loved ones over and over again. From what he’s been running from, I can’t say. Perhaps it’s trauma from his time serving the Jedi Council. Perhaps it’s something else that not even I have deduced. Whatever it is, he allowed it do drive him into hiding as a recluse, and I’ve scoured the galaxy for his whereabouts, little brother. There’s only one place left to investigate...Dantooine.”

“What could possibly be on Dantooine?” Ymir grumbled. “It’s just endlessly rolling green plains stretching as far as the eye can see!”
“It’s also home to a Jedi Enclave, dating as far back as thousands of years ago,” Armin informed him, asserting his complex knowledge of galactic history. “If their Dad really was a Jedi Master at one point, he’d have good reason to go there to hide.”

“Thanks to the knowledge imparted to me by my Master, Grand Jedi Librarian Jocasta Nu, I eventually discovered that Dantooine is our father’s original homeworld. While I don’t know for certain if he’s truly hiding there, or if he’s even alive after all these years, Dantooine is our best bet for finding him. Given his mentality, it’s likely that he wanted to go there to eventually die in peace on the world where he was born. Eren, I’m begging you, please meet me on Dantooine, and join me in this attempt to finally find our wandering father. If he’s still alive, this could be our last chance to reach him, and have him explain himself.”

“Once this message is finished recording and after I’ve explained to Annie what she needs to do to destroy Datenshi’s rule here on Inkari, I’ll be departing this world straight for Dantooine. I’ll await you there, little brother. Once you arrive at the planet, the Force will guide me to you, and at last, we can finally meet in person. I’m so sorry that I failed to find you and protect you from the woes of this wartorn galaxy, Eren. My role as this planet’s Chief of Security prevented me from traveling as long as I’d originally wished to find you. I can only imagine the agony you must have endured since that awful day on Ruusan. Come to me, little brother, and let us both find our father and hear what he has to say.”

The recording ended, leaving the crew to sit in stunned silence. On top of Annie’s untimely passing, they now had to deal with the revelation that Eren and Mikasa’s wayward father had once been a Jedi Master, a vital fact that he had refused to tell even their mother Carla. Grisha Yeager was truly a man of secrets, and they all feared that he had taken those secrets to the grave, that he had died alone in his reclusiveness on some far corner of the galaxy.
“What do you think, Eren and Mikasa?” Connie asked them. “Should we go to Dantooine?”
“The answer seems obvious to me,” Mikasa answered, glancing at Eren as she spoke. “No matter how much I despise Dad for abandoning us when we needed him most, I still want to talk to him, to hear him out like Zeke said. If Eren’s half-brother really has deduced that our Dad’s on Dantooine, then we need to go there and find out for ourselves. What do you say, Eren?”
They all turned to him, and Eren sighed deeply, filled with many conflicting emotions. He was relieved to have such a stalwart ally on his side in his journey to finally see his father again, but at the same time, he felt even angrier towards Grisha for hiding so many vital truths from him.
“It’s like you say, Mikasa. This might be our last chance. We all know I’m more than bitter at my Dad for leaving us like he did, but I, too, want to know what he has to say. Let’s do it.”
Ymir shrugged, and told them, “Hey, if that’s what you guys want to do, so be it. I’ll support it. I can’t deny that this whole thing has struck my curiosity too. Looks like the Empress is headed for Dantooine, folks!”
She bolted for the Captain’s chair at the front port of her ship, and soon, they were floating upwards through Inkari’s atmosphere, leaving the silver towers of Gintomi City far behind. They all looked out of the port at the fading green cemetery, where Annie lay resting peacefully next to Mina, and shed quiet tears as they remembered her fondly. It was thanks to her that they had come to Inkari and gained such a vital revelation about the missing Grisha Yeager, and found direction on where to go next.
“Rest in peace, Annie,” Eren quietly wished, still heartbroken at her loss. “Rest in peace, and may you and Mina enjoy whatever happiness awaited you both on the other side.”
The ship hummed as it prepared to jump to hyperspace, and the two foster siblings beamed at each other, knowing that the future was finally looking up for them all, with the Emperor’s death and the revelations they had found. Finally, the old darkness that had clouded their thoughts for so long had started to dissipate, making way for the light of hope rising within them.
Ymir activated her ship’s hyperdrive once they had sailed out of Inkari, and at once, the familiar corridor of bent starlight emerged around them, stretching to infinity as the Vindictive Empress prepared to jump.
“Dad...you better be alive.”
A moment later, they successfully made the jump to hyperspace, rushing towards the remote Outer Rim world of Dantooine, where an uncertain future awaited them all.