Days later, not much had been done. The fleet was well out of the reach of the Empire now, but their escape didn't feel like much of a victory. Aboard one of the transports, Commander Sato was broadcasting to Hera and the rest of the Ghost crew. Fulcrum was standing against the wall, observing and wondering if he should speak up about his idea or not.

As Kanan and Ezra walked in together, they caught the middle of the conversation. "The destruction of our command ship has severely limited our ability to fight the Empire in this sector."

"So maybe we don't fight...uh, Commander Sato, sir," Ezra suggested before petering out. Anakin hid a grin and shook his head. Teenagers. "When things got tough for me on Lothal, I'd go find someplace to hide."

"You are never shy with your opinions, Ezra Bridger," Sato grumbled, "but establishing a base is a good idea."

"Problem is, none of the potential bases we know of have the tactical advantage we need to protect what's left of our fleet," Hera explained. This wasn't the first time this topic had come up.

Kanan walked up behind Hera. Ever since their stand-off against Offee, he had been trying to be a little more helpful. A little. "Or aid the nearby systems suffering from Imperial oppression."

"We can't help others if we can't help ourselves, Kanan," she reminded him, though she knew where his heart was at. "If only we had more allies."

Well, there are no accidents in the Force, Anakin thought, and he spoke up. "I think there's something we can do about that."

Everyone in the room turned, and he had their attention. "I knew a military commander who's been in the Outer Rim ever since the fall of the Republic. With how much time he's spent there, he might be able to suggest somewhere we could establish a base. His leadership skills would make him a powerful ally."

"How do we recruit this...leader?" Sato asked as Anakin walked behind his hologram.

"Finding him would be the first issue," Skywalker explained. "I haven't heard from him since I went underground, over fifteen years ago."

That didn't daunt Ezra. "We can find him. Let us try."

Grinning, Anakin crossed his arms. "There's something I haven't tried yet, if you're willing."

~

"Is that...the head of an old tactical droid?"

As Anakin set it in Sabine's arms, he explained to Kanan and the Ghost crew. "These droids were good at finding things, calculating." He raised an eyebrow at the thing. "Found me more times than I'd like to admit."

Ezra leaned in close to get a good look at it, and even Sabine (who was sporting a completely new hair color) seemed like she had her doubts. "How in all the galaxy is that droid gonna find your friend?" Chopper seemed to be slightly offended by his question.

"The only transmission I've received from him was an old signal, one I was able to trace to the Seelos system yesterday. You can start there," he offered, walking out of the cockpit.

"You're not coming with us?"

"I have something else that needs my attention."

"Offee," guessed Kanan, who watched him walked toward the door.

Anakin nodded. "I don't like that she's slipped through our fingers for so long. I've only been in the Rebellion for less than six years, but it shouldn't have taken me even that long to find her. If I can get a fix on what she's up to, I'm going to."

No one doubted the importance of this, but it was still disappointing. "I wish we could go with you."

"You have your own mission, Ezra. And Kanan, if you find my friend, you need to trust him."

"If he's all the things you say, we can't afford not to," Kanan assured him with a smile.

Skywalker wasn't. "Trust him," he repeated, right before the doors closed him off from the rest of the crew.

Kanan and Ezra looked at the place he used to be, slightly confused. The latter asked, "What was that about?"

"I have no idea."

As Anakin walked away and off the Ghost, he felt pretty sure that his words were going to fly out the window as soon as they realized what he had set them up to do. There were a hundred ways this mission could end badly, but Anakin wouldn't have sent anyone else to do this. So long as he couldn't do it himself, this was his only other option.

It wasn't just because of Kanan either. He probably had PTSD from the Jedi Purge, but that was personal. Prejudice against clones, on the other hand? That had nothing to do with past experiences. As much as he hated to admit it, he wouldn't have been surprised if the entire crew admitted to an anti-clone bias. In the world that Tyrannus had created, that was the new normal.

~

Kanan, Ezra, Sabine, and Zeb were all in the Phantom. Apparently, Chopper hadn't finished all the repairs to the hyperdrive before they jumped to the Seelos system and he was currently receiving an earful from Hera about it. She had sent the rest of them down to the surface without the two of them so they could finish the repairs.

Sabine had just finished wiring up the tactical droid head to the Phantom's navigation system. "Well, let's fire this thing up," she said, setting it in front of Kanan in the pilot's seat. Nothing seemed to happen, at least not physically. "I think it's scanning for a signal of some kind."

From behind, Ezra didn't seem too optimistic. "Good luck. You could really get lost out here."

"Maybe that was the idea," suggested Zeb. "What if this great commander we're looking for doesn't want to be found?"

Ezra made a face, but the tactical droid appeared to have found something and was repeating a string of digits over and over again: "7567 7567 7567..."

"It's homing in on something," Sabine announced, looking up as the droid steered the ship to the side. They listened to the droid's monotone voice for a few moments before Zeb knocked everyone aside, pointing out the front windshield.

"There. Up ahead."

Zeb was right. On the surface, there was a very large walker going about its business and looking very impressive. Ezra woahed, and even the others were stunned.

Sabine was especially entranced. "Now, that is a work of art."

"Looks like an old Republic tank...used during the Clone Wars," he realized, and all of a sudden, he was a little less excited to meet this friend of Master Skywalker's. Didn't he say this person was a commander? It couldn't be Commander Tano, and if it wasn't her...

He looked back at the tactical droid. 7567. He started to be very suspicious of that four-digit number.

As the Phantom landed, the occupants of the walker seemed to realize they had company and halted their vehicle. As the four of them walked out, Kanan rested a hand on his apprentice's shoulder. "Ezra, be on guard," he warned, and offered no further context. He only had eyes for whoever was going to be in that walker.

For a few seconds, nothing happened. The only thing that moved was the wind chime hanging from the overhang, until the door opened and a man in his forties walked out in worn-down armor. He was flanked by two more men who looked very similar to him, about the same age and nearly the same build. They could have been brothers.

They were strong, that much was clear. The armor suggested they were warriors, and the weapons they carried seemed to confirm it, although the rough state of their equipment implied they hadn't seen proper battle for a while.

Zeb scoffed. "It's just a bunch of geezers," he said, starting to think his prediction from earlier had been right. If this even was who they were looking for.

"Well-armed geezers," corrected Sabine, who wasn't going to put anything past them just yet.

"What do you want?" called the man in front, blocking the sun so he could see them better.

Kanan replied with the same defensive tone the question was asked in. "We're looking for someone.

"Well, that's too bad, 'cause there's nobody out here," the same man, distinguishable by by his blond hair, told him while leaning against the railing of the walker.

Okay, well this isn't going anywhere, Ezra realized, and he decided to take a chance. Stepping forward a little, he asked, "Hey, uh, does the number 7567 mean anything to you?"

"What did you just say???" the blond asked, and all three men tensed up. None of them looked too happy.

"Uh, I said 7567," Ezra repeated, hoping some kind of answer was coming. In particular, he would have preferred if the answer didn't come in the form of a blaster bolt from the other guys, holding sniper rifles.

The blond mumbled something to himself, too quietly for the rebels to hear. Then he looked back down at them. "That's my birth number."

That didn't make sense to Ezra. "Birth number?"

"They're clones," Kanan explained, not taking his eyes off of them.

"CLONES?" All three of them knew what that meant. Kanan stepped in front, lightsaber drawn and held in a defensive stance. The others backed up behind him, grateful for the cover.

"You see?" The guy on the left, who's eye was scarred, pointed at them. "Every time. Doesn't matter who it is, their first instinct is to shoot."

The one on the right looked down at the visitors. "Well, they haven't shot yet. You'd think we'd be dead by now, especially if they wanted to kill us."

Below them, the rebels came to the realization that none of the clones had made a move. None of them had drawn a weapon, no one had acted aggressively, they hadn't even ducked for cover. They were just...standing there. The rebels were also standing there, weapons drawn and beginning to look a little stupid.

"Um...what do we do?" Zeb asked, speaking for all of them.

"Why would Skywalker send us to find clones?" Sabine asked, keeping her weapons pointed at them. "Did they kill you guys?"

Kanan kept his stare up front. "They did," he admitted, but he also remembered an old conversation they had. It was possible that the tactical droid had found the wrong people, but Kanan didn't think so. This was exactly the type of thing Skywalker would think of.

The blond, once he realized that the visitors weren't going to shoot just yet, called out. "Why did you come here?"

"We told you," Kanan yelled back. "We're looking for someone."

"Did you find them?"

"Maybe," he answered, but he still didn't move.

Though still hesitant, Ezra was trying to be agreeable. "Kanan, Master Skywalker said to trust them." Kanan didn't move a muscle, and the other two didn't look very forgiving either. Ezra knew why, every Imperial citizen knew why. He just also knew that he trusted Master Skywalker.

"Look," the blond conceded. "Leave if you'd rather, but as long as you're here, we're not going to attack you unless you associate with the Empire. I just don't think a Jedi likes them any more than we do."

"What's going on out here?" Another clone asked, coming around the side and followed by a fifth clone. One of them had a largely faded tattoo across his face, the other had a medical symbol on his shoulder plate. They got a little closer before seeing the situation that had transpired outside. The lightsaber explained a lot, actually, and they joined the others. This was going to be interesting.

Since things were already awkward and tense enough, Ezra took the initiative, put his weapon away, and walked in front of Kanan. He deactivated his lightsaber, and the other two followed suit, putting their blasters away. None of them looked very comfortable, though. "Well, my name's Ezra. This is Kanan," he introduced, gesturing to his master. "That's Sabine and Zeb. It's nice to meet you, 7567."

"Actually, my name is Rex," he corrected, standing tall. "Commander, 501st Clone Battalion. Meet Commanders Gregor," he pointed to the far right clone, "and Wolffe," he pointed to scar-clone, "as well as our medic, Kix, and ARC Trooper Jesse."

"We were sent by Anakin Skywalker," Ezra explained, quite glad that no one was pointing blasters at anyone else now.

This didn't surprise Rex. After the unprecedented signal he had received a few days ago, he had all but expected a visit of some kind. Maybe he should have realized he wouldn't be able to come himself. "Anakin Skywalker. I fought by his side from the Battle of Arantara to the Battle fo Yerbana, and a friend of his is a friend of mine."

From behind him, where the visitors couldn't hear them, Jesse muttered, "I was wondering when he was going to give a shout. It's not like the general to hide out for too long."

"Yeah, but why's he shoutin'?" Kix asked, folding his arms. "Wherever Skywalker is, trouble isn't too far behind."

"Eh, nothing we're not used to," Jesse reminded him, and Rex formally invited the visitors on board. Time to see what crazy message Skywalker had sent with his friends.