Ezra stared at the hologram. Though the robed man seemed somber and weary, as if he had just suffered a great loss, his voice and stature carried grace and nobility.
“This message is a warning—and a reminder—for any surviving Jedi. Trust in the Force....”
The Force. What was the man talking about? Was this Obi-Wan Kenobi a Jedi? If so, might Kanan really be one, too? Or perhaps Kanan had killed Obi-Wan and taken his lightsaber. That seemed more logical based on how Kanan had treated Ezra, leaving him to rot in a Star Destroyer cell. And why had this object opened in the first place, when it wouldn’t before? So many questions. They were overwhelming. Questions to which he’d never get the answers.
The Force. His mind settled on those two words. He didn’t know why. It seemed to be another thing he didn’t understand. Another secret.
Yet deep down, Ezra sensed that this secret was also the answer.
A quick jump into hyperspace could cause even veteran pilots to sweat buckets in their flight suits. Hera had made so many of those jumps recently she didn’t break a sweat. Pulling the lever on short notice was beginning to feel like second nature. She’d have to make sure she didn’t get too comfortable. Yet for the moment, she leaned back in her chair and watched the starlines. The Empire might control everything from the Core to the Outer Rim, but hyperspace was out of its grasp.
Her moment of peace ended when Kanan and a helmet-less Sabine entered the cockpit and dropped into seats beside Hera. “The whole thing was a setup,” Kanan said.
“You think Vizago was in on it?” Sabine asked.
Hera had to nip any misgivings Kanan had about Vizago in the bud. “Vizago would sell his mother to Jawas for a couple credits, yes. But we’re a source of income for him. Odds are he didn’t know.”
Zeb also came in and took a seat, giving Hera the perfect opportunity to change the subject. “The kid did all right,” she said.
“He did okay,” Kanan said. He glanced down the ship’s main corridor, then at Zeb. “Where is he?”
Hera also peeked down the corridor. It was empty.
“I, uh, thought he was with you,” Zeb said.
Sabine swiveled in her seat. “What’d you do to him?”
Zeb shifted about, avoiding eye contact. “I didn’t do anything to him,” he mumbled. “That ISB agent grabbed him.”
“What?” Hera and Kanan said in unison. No one had mentioned anything about an agent of the Imperial Security Bureau.
“The kid got grabbed, okay? He didn’t make it off the transport,” Zeb said.
“Garazeb Orrelios!” Hera said. She couldn’t believe he’d leave the kid there. What had he been thinking?
“Oh, come on, we were dumping him after the mission anyway. This saves us fuel,” Zeb said. His grin soon melted into a guilty frown. “They’ll go easy on him. He’s just a kid.”
Appalled, Hera exchanged looks with Kanan. “We have to go back.”
Zeb’s eyes bugged out. “No—no, no! No way! You cannot be serious!”
She was more than serious. She started putting new coordinates into the navicomputer. “It’s our fault he was there.”
“Come on, Hera, we just met this kid. We are not going back for him,” Zeb said. He turned to Sabine, pleading for backup.
Sabine looked away but whispered her agreement. “They’ll be waiting for us. We can’t save him.”
Chopper, who was plugged into the corner and had been quiet the entire time, beeped a positive. Zeb spun on the droid. “What? What did that little dumpster say?”
Hera would have to give the droid a lubricant bath sometime soon. “He voted with me,” she said. “That’s two against two. Kanan, you have the deciding vote.”
Kanan looked past her, out into hyperspace.
Ezra picked up the polygonal object. Its sides had closed after projecting the hologram and it seemed no different than before. He juggled it from hand to hand and rolled it around in his palms. If sold to the right person or organization, it would probably fetch him a shipload of credits.
Regardless, he was done feeling sorry for himself. So what if he’d made a wrong choice? People goofed up every day. He wasn’t going to wilt and surrender because of it. He was built of sterner, smarter stuff than that. Stuff the Empire couldn’t lock up. This Agent Kallus from the Imperial Stiff-faced Bureau didn’t know whom he was dealing with.
Ezra Bridger refused to be anyone’s bait.
Mulling over his options to break out of this joint, he took the best one available. He went up to the small set of stairs near the door and began to heckle the stormtroopers.
This wasn’t your normal ribbing at the local podrace. Ezra used every joke in the book, poking fun at how the stormtroopers sounded and looked like clones, saying scout troopers had niftier armor than they did, even questioning their undying loyalty to the Empire. And he didn’t stop. He repeated the same jokes, over and over, not trying in the slightest to be funny, only to get under their armor and annoy them to no end.
“You bucket-heads are going to be sorry when my uncle the Emperor finds out you’re keeping me here against my will. I guarantee he’ll make a personal example of you,” he said. Ezra made choking sounds and added a few coughs for effect. Maybe the stormtroopers would think he was dying. That wouldn’t be good for their bait.
The door opened. Ezra crouched beside the stairs as the two guards rushed down into the cell. He leapt up the steps and was already out when they turned around.
“Bye, guys.” He shut the door, pressing the lock button.
His first destination was the storeroom, which he found just across from the holding cells. It held more—much more—than just his backpack and slingshot. Imperial helmets of all varieties packed the room. He’d hit the mother lode.
As much as he wanted to collect the helmets he didn’t have, his priority was to find an escape pod before those troopers radioed for help. He stashed the polygon in his backpack, strapped the pack onto his shoulders, and remounted the slingshot to his arm. As he turned to leave, his eyes fell on a smaller helmet, almost his size, made for cadets.
An idea struck him. He grabbed the cadet’s helmet and put it on. It didn’t possess all the advanced tech of a stormtrooper’s helmet, but it had a simple radio tuner that automatically activated. He listened in on the comm chatter from the bridge.
“The delay was insignificant,” an officer said. “The transport ship Agent Kallus diverted will dock on Kessel within two hours. The Wookiees will be offloaded to work spice mine K-seventy-seven.”
Interesting, Ezra mused. The Wookiees had been on that transport ship. They must’ve been locked in another hold.
“This is Stormtrooper L-S-zero-zero-five,” radioed another voice. “Reporting for Agent Kallus.”
“Kallus here.” The man sounded even colder on the comm.
“Sir, th-the prisoner’s gone,” stammered LS-005.
“What?” snarled Kallus, a sliver of anger cracking his ice.
Ezra bit his lip. He couldn’t leave the way he’d come. The corridor outside would be crawling with troopers soon. Spotting a ceiling vent, he began to climb up a stack of helmets.
“I knew the boy would act as bait, but I never dreamed the rebels would be foolish enough to attack a Star Destroyer. How did they get aboard?” Kallus asked over the comm.
Ezra stretched on his toes to reach the ventilation duct. He was listening but not paying much attention as he pried loose the vent’s grille.
“Sir, the rebels didn’t free him,” radioed LS-005. “He, uh—”
“Agent Kallus!” shouted the officer from before. “There’s a security breach in the lower hangar!”
Ezra winced from the volume of the man’s voice, nearly falling off the stack of helmets. He grabbed the edge of the vent and pulled himself into the duct.
“I don’t know how,” the officer continued over the comm channel, “but the rebel ship approached without alerting our sensors.”
Ezra ba
nged his head on the top of the air duct in shock. What rebel ship? The Ghost was the only one he knew. He knelt there for a moment. Had the strangers come back for him?
“Order all stormtroopers to converge on the lower hangar,” Kallus said. “I’ll meet them there.”
Kallus’s sudden change of attitude meant this was a serious breach. Maybe he was wrong about these so-called rebels. Maybe he had made the right choice in rescuing them, and now they were trying to do the same for him.
Right or wrong, he had to do something. The rebels were his best way off the Star Destroyer.
Ezra cleared his throat. He tapped the helmet to turn on the filter mic, then used his Imperial voice. “This is trooper LS-one-two-three, reporting intruders in the upper hangar. Sir, I believe the lower hangar is a diversion.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Kallus replied. He didn’t question Ezra’s identification but also didn’t fall for the entire trap. “Squads five through eight, divert to upper hangar. The rest converge as ordered.”
Ezra sped up his crawl. Four squads were better than eight, at least. Every little bit helped.
With all its systems operating in stealth mode, the Ghost slipped into the Lawbringer’s lower hangar unnoticed. Kanan knew their concealment wouldn’t last. The hangar’s security cameras would spot the unidentified ship—if they hadn’t already—and the alarms would go off. He just hoped they could accomplish the rescue before every stormtrooper on the Star Destroyer arrived.
Kanan ran out as soon as the Ghost’s ramp hit the hangar floor, Sabine and Zeb with him. “Find Ezra. I’ll be ready,” Hera said from the hatchway.
Kanan surveyed the hangar. It was empty save for a bevy of cargo crates from a recent resupply. “Hold this bay until we get back,” he told Zeb.
Sabine, with a blaster in one hand and a canister in the other, turned her helmet to the Lasat. “And this time, try not to leave until everyone’s back aboard.”
Zeb huffed. “That was not my fault!”
“Well, that’s debatable,” said a filtered voice above them. An Imperial cadet leapt down in front of Zeb.
The Lasat didn’t blink. He just punched, smacking his fist into the cadet’s helmet. The cadet was knocked backward across the hangar.
Kanan held back from firing. This Imperial seemed too short, even for a cadet.
The cadet stood and removed his helmet. “First you ditch me, then you hit me?” Ezra asked.
“How was I supposed to know it was you? You were wearing a bucket!” Zeb said.
The lightning of blaster fire preceded the thunder of four squads of stormtroopers rushing all at once into the hangar. The ISB agent led the attack, aiming his weapon at Ezra.
Ezra tossed his helmet at the agent, then joined Kanan and the others in a full-out sprint toward the Ghost. “Spectre-1 to Ghost, we’re leaving,” Kanan said into his comlink.
In the hatch, Hera laid down suppressing fire while they ran up the ramp. Ezra tried to aim his slingshot, but Zeb shoved the boy into the ship. “Oh, no, this time you board first.”
Hera hurried toward the cockpit, which Chopper managed in her place. Once Sabine had made it through the hatch, Kanan commed the order: “Ghost, raise the ramp—and get us out of here!”
All around Kallus stormtroopers fell, taken out by shots. He ducked behind a crate for cover. The rebels firing from the freighter’s hatch had the advantage of an upper position as the ship started to rise.
“Aim for the shield generator and engines,” Kallus directed his troops. “Do not let them escape!”
His eye caught a pattern on the floor. Painted in orange was what appeared to be the outline of a bird lifting its head and spreading its wings. It reminded him of the legendary starbird, which perished in flames only to rise from its own ashes.
Why would the rebels have wasted time painting this? He reached down and touched the image, smearing it. He sniffed the fresh paint on his finger.
This wasn’t just paint. This was sabotage.
“Take cover!” he shouted, and dove as far away from the starbird as he could. The next moment, the starbird exploded.
Troopers and crates went flying backward from the blast, then forward toward the giant hole that had been ripped open in the hangar floor. A vortex sucked everything not clamped down out into the vacuum of space.
Feet dangling, grip slipping, Kallus clung to the edge of that hole as stormtroopers tumbled past him by the dozens. With all he could muster from his lungs, he called out to those troopers who hung on to handholds on the wall. “Turn on the shield!”
Whether the troopers heard him or not, they deciphered what he wanted. One stretched out and flipped a switch on a console.
Just as Kallus’s grip loosened, an energy bubble shimmered around the hole. It sealed the breach and prevented him from falling.
Kallus crawled back onto the deck, watching the freighter zoom out of the hangar. He had to give his enemies a modicum of respect. They were more than your run-of-the-mill rabble-rousers. They were the real thing—fearless, daring rebels, willing to do anything and everything to achieve their mutinous ends.
As he rose, a stormtrooper approached, carrying the cadet’s helmet that the boy had thrown at him. “Sir, one of the rebels was using this helmet. The transmitter was on.”
Kallus was not a man who smiled. Yet when he took the helmet and stared into its black visor, his heartbeat steadied, and he felt the briefest pang of joy.
He knew where these rebels were heading.
And once he caught them, he was going to relish demonstrating why no one rebelled against the Empire.
Three quick hyperspace jumps in less than one Rylothian day—Hera supposed that must be a personal record. Settling back in her chair, she hoped to let that record stand for a long, long time. The perspiration that tickled her lekku was well earned.
The boy walked into the cockpit, a little sweaty himself. “Welcome aboard,” she said.
“Thanks,” Ezra mumbled. He hesitated a moment. Embarrassment blushed his cheeks. He spoke louder. “I mean, thank you. I really didn’t think you’d come back for me.”
She sat up and returned to her console. “I’ll get you home now. I’m sure your parents must be worried sick.”
The blush on his cheeks darkened. “I don’t have parents. And you’ve got somewhere else to be.”
Kanan, Sabine, and Chopper came in behind the boy. The cockpit was swiftly overtaking the common room as their meeting area. Hera would have to say something about this. She couldn’t reach over bodies to adjust the controls.
“I know where they’re taking the Wookiees,” Ezra said.
Hera spun in her chair. “Where?”
“Have you heard of the spice mines of Kessel?”
More perspiration welled on Hera’s lekku. This time it didn’t tickle. Of all the Imperial labor camps in the galaxy, Kessel was the worst.
“Slaves sent there last a few months, maybe a year, tops,” Sabine said.
“And for Wookiees born in the forest,” Hera said, “the mines are a death sentence.”
“Then I guess we better go save them,” Ezra said matter-of-factly.
Sabine gawked at the boy. Chopper telescoped his prime photoreceptor. Even Kanan’s impassive demeanor was disturbed.
“‘We’?” Sabine’s eyes were as wide as ryll nuts.
“Come this far, might as well finish the job,” Ezra said.
The kid was right, Hera knew. This was no time to rest on their laurels. They would probably never have another chance to rescue the Wookiees. She started to reprogram the navicomputer. “Setting course for Kessel.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Kanan and Ezra exchange looks. Perhaps more than just the Wookiees could be saved on Kessel. Perhaps Ezra could help break Kanan out of the shell he’d hidden himself inside for many years.
Little Kitwarr wanted to go home. Wherever he and his clan mates had been taken was the opposite of Kashyyyk. The forest here was made
of metal, with piping for branches and smokestacks for trees. Men in white armor called stormtroopers pushed him and the other Wookiees along a grated walkway, which loomed over a dark, forbidding pit. It belched forth horrid, stinky clouds that made him wheeze. A yellow haze sickened the sky where there shone no sun, and ashes floated where birds should have flown. What little patches of land he saw were parched and cracked. Nothing grew.
Kitwarr began to worry that he’d never climb another tree in his life.
He cried out to his father, Wullffwarro, who had a group of the stormtroopers around him. The great Wookiee howled that Kitwarr shouldn’t lose hope. He’d find a way out of this, he promised.
“Keep moving,” one man barked in Basic to Kitwarr’s father. The others raised their guns at Kitwarr. He knew his father could throw all of them into the pit, but with binders on his wrists, Wullffwarro was powerless to do anything. Wullffwarro let out a mournful wail, then plodded forward down the walkway.
Kitwarr whimpered. It was the first time he’d ever doubted his father.
Standing with Zeb near the cargo bay hatch, Ezra checked his slingshot for the umpteenth time. Like before, it was ready for action. He, on the other hand, wasn’t.
Once again, Ezra had made the dumbest mistake imaginable. He should never have suggested this mission. Even if the Ghost’s security countermeasures had slipped past Kessel’s orbital safeguards, their small band could not match the firepower of a highly fortified Imperial detention facility. This was a suicide mission, plain and simple.
“Try not to get dead,” Zeb said.
Ezra glared at the Lasat. What was the point of rubbing it in? He was only making matters worse.
Zeb snarled his version of a smile. “Don’t want to carry your body out.”
It took Ezra a moment to realize the big lug was joking. Ezra faked a smile back. If this was what soldiers called gallows humor, he didn’t much care for it.
Sabine, ready for battle in her helmet and armor, and Kanan entered the cargo bay. “There’s no place to land. You’re going to have to jump onto the platform,” Kanan said.
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