It has been five years since the Clone Wars ended, and the Galactic Empire rose from the ashes of the Republic. The Core Worlds enjoy peace and prosperity brought by the new order, but those who might challenge the Emperor's rule are being forced to flee to the edges of the galaxy, pursued by the long reach of the Imperial Fleet. The Jedi are all but extinct, and the few that survived Order 66 are being hunted down on the order of the Emperor's mysterious right hand- Darth Vader.

But hunting Jedi is dangerous work, and only a few of the galaxy's best bounty hunters are up to the task. Two former enemies of the Republic must now work together to find and capture a lost Jedi. The reward will be more wealth than they can imagine, but Darth Vader is not a patient man, and their quarry must be taken alive...

What a miserable planet.

Onderon, an insignificant ball of pale yellow-green, covered with jungles and primitives and drexls. She had never been there of course- the CIS invasion of Iziz was little more than a footnote in one of her briefings, and her master had thought it of little concern. Just a small piece in his grand plan. Count Dooku didn't have time to supervise the planetary takeover of such a backwater; instead, he'd simply delegated Grievous to take Iziz, the planet's only spaceport, and was somewhat surprised to find that the monstrous cyborg hadn't burned it to the ground. Not pleasantly surprised, though. Asajj Ventress had never seen her old master show anything but disdain.

Stretching as much as she could in the cramped cockpit, Asajj rubbed sleep from her eyes and watched the planet drift lazily across the viewport, slowly revealing its solitary moon- Dxun. Ky Narec had told her once that Dxun orbited close enough to Onderon that their atmospheres would pass through each other. She bit hard on her bottom lip. Ky Narec was long dead. Daydreaming about her old Jedi master was useless. Neither he nor Dooku mattered to her now. They had both left her years ago.

"We're here." Boba said quietly from the pilot's seat, too busy keying in landing coordinates to look up. "Wake up, Ventress. It's time to work."

Asajj thought of a few barbed responses, but decided against it, shrugging her affirmation and stepping out of the navigator's chair. Antagonizing Boba would just make this job harder, and it was already a gamble. Jedi hunting paid well, but there was a reason no one took the bounties these days. It had been five years since Darth Vader had marched on the Coruscant Temple and started the Purges; any Jedi that could survive that long, hunted like an animal, would be a force to be reckoned with.

Asajj was surprised that Skywalker had never shown up on the bounty list; she had fought the young Jedi Knight more times than she could remember during the Clone Wars, and he had bested her on more than one occasion. If anyone could survive the Purges, it would be him. As much as she had hated him, it was a different feeling from the burning, bitter hatred she remembered. Now, it was just bitter, and she could feel the grudging respect she had for his skill as a general, as a warrior. Had he fallen in defense of the Temple? Had his own beloved 501st gunned him down? She knew they hadn't disappeared like their Jedi general; blue-blazoned ARC troopers had nearly killed her twice in the undercity of Coruscant, before she had known that the Empire was hunting Force-sensitives. Before she had run like a cowering akk dog to the Outer Rim, to hunt local miscreants for credits. She despised herself for her cowardice, but it was that or death, and Asajj knew which she preferred.

Boba had found her outside a Mos Eisley sabacc den, two years ago. Half drunk and clumsy without her lightsabers, she had thrown herself at him in a blind rage, but he tripped her into the dust and jammed a blaster rifle in her face. Later, he said the only thing that kept him from killing her was that she owed him credits for fouling up their last job together, but in two years he had never actually asked her to pay her debt. Asajj guessed he had taken pity on her, and quietly hated him for it. She wasn't even sure why she had attacked him- maybe the sight of that Mandalorian helmet, so similar to that of the clone troopers she had spent years fighting against. Or maybe she was remembering their last encounter, back when the Clone Wars were still burning themselves out, when the best job they could find was smuggling a slave bride to her warlord husband. Just the memory of her old life brought some of the old feelings to the surface. They sat like angry coals in her guts.

The past few years hadn't been easy for Boba either, but while Asajj had slunk off to hide among shadows and bottles of Sullustan gin, Boba had mercilessly clawed his way to the top of the Outer Rim underworld. Tales of Boba Fett, the green-helmed blaster for hire, were almost as popular as the rumors about Vader. Not quite infamous, but there was no doubt that every being with a price on their head knew his name. He wasn't the half-grown boy she remembered; he was still young, but now he cloaked himself in the cold poise of a veteran killer. Even his voice had changed, deeper and raspy, though she suspected either death sticks or a vibroblade to the throat had done that. Unless he had done it himself, to better fit his reputation.

"You'd better be right about this place," called Boba from the cockpit. "I don't want to go slogging through the jungle for nothing."

Asajj scowled as she pulled on a long, grey boot. "I told you, the Jedi is here. The feeling is faint, but I would know her anywhere." She pulled her armored tunic over her head, sheathed her twin vibroblades against the small of her back, felt the unfamiliar weight of her blaster in its hip holster. Five years without her lightsabers, and she still felt their absence like a missing limb. Slave 1 shuddered as it met atmosphere, and Asajj steadied herself on the door frame.

"Boba, you know you're supposed to land on the planet, not slam into it, right?"

"Keep talking and I'll drop you out the bay doors. Then you can land however you want." Boba shot back, and threw a lever that started Slave 1's landing sequence.

The cabin tilted back, and Asajj tightened her grip so the sudden gravity shift didn't send her sprawling to the floor. She didn't know how Boba lived with such an inconveniently designed ship, but what the gunboat lacked in common sense it more than made up for in firepower; and despite her complaints, no one she knew could fly like Boba. He was a brutally efficient pilot- no frills, no fancy moves, but she had seen him match six skilled fighter pilots at once without breaking a sweat. Even so, he preferred to hunt on foot. She suspected that was because he got to meet his bounties face to face.

Slave 1 touched down in a jungle clearing, a riot of green and blue and orange foliage. Asajj breathed deep through her nose as the bay door opened and the stale, life-support processed air was replaced with the humid, earthy smell of the Onderon jungle. She loosened the blaster at her thigh, and pulled on her helmet, being careful to avoid catching it in her hair. Asajj had reluctantly begun to grow it out again. After all, the bald Sith assassin had been quite an infamous figure during the Clone Wars. Her tattooed scalp drew too much attention, even in the Outer Rim. Compromising her pride and common sense, she had left the sides and back of her head bare; it had been years since the end of the war, and not many people recognized her these days- they were too busy looking over their shoulders for stormtroopers, or ISB agents, or Inquisitors. She loved the dark daggers of ink that adorned her temples and the top of her neck, but she had to admit her pale shock of hair had kept her anonymous more than once.

A brilliant blue fern crunched like glass beneath her boot as she stepped off the landing ramp. The pale yellow sun warmed her bare arms, a welcome change from the stale chill of Slave 1's life support. Flipping up her face shield to enjoy the fresh air, she watched a drexl circle idly overhead, maybe a mile up. Everything else on Onderon bored her, but the drexl were fascinating. Huge, ferocious creatures, drexl were so powerful that they were able to fly to Dxun when the atmospheres overlapped.

Dooku had once made her read an ancient Sith text about Darth Bane, who had not only tamed and ridden a drexl, but had flown the beast from the moon to the planet, cutting down local savages along the way. Darth Bane, who had formed the Rule of Two, the rule that she and Dooku could have been killed for breaking. Dooku never spoke of his own master, but Asajj knew she had been his secret apprentice. She bit her lip again, this time drawing blood. Dooku was a pile of ash, his head removed (by Skywalker, of all people!) and his body burnt up in the atmosphere of Coruscant. He was dead, dead, dead. She was torn between dark joy and savage disappointment that she could never take revenge personally. She tasted the salt and iron on her tongue. A part of her wished it was Dooku's blood, but that part had grown quieter in the past few years. She pushed it down, focusing on the hypnotic circling of the drexl, and sat down cross-legged in the ferns.

Boba strode out of the doors ahead of her, cradling his helmet under one arm and his blaster carbine in the other. Asajj wasn't sure where he'd gotten a suit of Mandalorian armor, but after two years of hunting with him on and off, it was hard to picture the young man without it.

"Is she here? Check again. I want to be sure." Asajj was about to argue, but Boba gave her a narrow grin. "You're the magic expert, after all. This Jedi is worth a lot of credits, and I'd rather not get on Vader's bad side." He snorted a laugh. "If he even has a good side."

Reaching out with the Force, Asajj felt a wild tangle of jungle life; but, more importantly, she felt the disturbance she had felt before in orbit. It was stronger here. She had been right.

Ahsoka Tano was on Onderon.