"This is it? One lousy crate?"
Kanan can hear the irritation in Ezra's voice as he stares at their target. He's not wrong, one single crate abandoned for pickup by another cell when they were called away on an urgent mission hardly seems like a good use of their time, but that doesn't matter. They are here to do a job. "One lousy crate filled with blasters that could mean the difference between life and death in a battle," he tells him. "Not everyone has a lightsaber, you know."
Ezra sighs and Kanan remembers the fate of his Padawan's weapon. He hasn't been able to build a new one yet, relying on more mundane weapons instead.
"Good point. Okay, let's get it loaded."
Ezra takes a few steps in the direction of the crate awaiting them just inside the mouth of the cave, when the ground begins to shake violently. Kanan hears the rumbling coming from above them moments before he starts to feel it, not through the Force, but through vibrations in the ground as the falling stones and earth gather speed as they slide down the mountain.
Instinctively, he runs forward into the cave. He pushes Ezra from behind, then as he overtakes him, grabs him by the arm and drags him forward into the cave until they reach a wall of stone at the back. He feels Ezra's shock and surprise, whether it is surprise at the fact that he isn't allowing him to flee outward, or at the accuracy of his grab, Kanan isn't sure. Either way, he doesn't let go as the rocks begin to fall.
He holds his free hand above him, harnessing the power of the Force to ensure that none of the falling stone lands on them, within seconds he becomes aware of Ezra doing the same thing, and it is only then that he releases his grip on his Padawan's arm and concentrates all of his efforts on maintaining the outward pressure inside the bubble of Force that they are creating together.
The quake stops as suddenly as it had begun, the stone walls and floor of the cavern still. Carefully, he eases up on the pressure and is relieved to find that the roof doesn't cave in. At least, not yet.
"You okay?" he asks, turning his head in Ezra's direction more out of habit than anything else. He can feel Ezra's shock communicated through the Force, but he manages to disguise it in his voice as he replies.
"Yeah, I think so. What was that, a bomb?"
Kanan shakes his head. "Earthquake," he explains. "The planet is prone to them, that's why the Empire leaves it alone, that's why we use it for storage."
"Right. Hera mentioned it on the way here."
The mission had been supposed to be a simple one, get down the the surface, collect the crate of weapons and bring it home. So much for that, the crate lies buried under a pile of rubble near the mouth of the cave. Kanan tries his radio. "Specter one to Ghost." There is no reply.
"That can't be good," Ezra says. "Why did you drag us in here? Wouldn't we have been better on the other side of the pile of rocks?" His shock and surprise at the unexpected quake has given way to the beginnings of panic, still well disguised in his voice but definitely present.
"We wouldn't have been able to run fast enough or far enough to avoid ending up squashed as flat as the crate we were supposed to be collecting."
Ezra shifts his position and swallows. "You mean the blasters…"
"Aren't going to be much use to anybody any more," Kanan finished for him. He crossed the cave to the other side and tried the radio again. Still nothing.
"Is it broken?" Ezra asks. "I'll try mine."
"I wouldn't bother," Kanan tells him. "The rocks here contain heavy metals, they must be too thick for the signal to get through. Give me a minute to check what we're dealing with…"
He takes a careful step in the direction of the mouth of the cave, feeling with the tips of his toes in a narrow arc before each step. Under normal circumstances he would be able to rely on the Force to tell him about any obstacles in his way, right now, he is concentrating all of his attention on the cave mouth, checking what kind of a situation they had gotten themselves into this time.
He turns back to face Ezra. "It isn't great news. There are tons of rocks and dirt here, and more piled on top of it. Even with the Force on our side, we won't be able to move it."
"Well, we're going to have to try," Ezra said. "Unless you want to get used to living in a cave."
"Even if we had the strength, and we don't, it would be too dangerous. One wrong move and we could bring half the mountain down on our heads."
"Do you have your lightsaber?" Ezra asks.
Kanan instinctively feels for the place where his weapon should be, he knows it isn't there before his fingers close around nothing. He doesn't wear it as much recently as he had in recent years. For a while, being a Jedi had become important to him again, wearing the weapon was a symbol of that. In the weeks since Malachor he had wielded the weapon only for solo practice, still lacking confidence in his ability to use it to defend himself. He shakes his head, "I didn't think I'd need it for grabbing a box of supplies from a cave. We wouldn't be able to cut away at the rocks anyway, That would be worse than trying to move them with the Force."
"That's not why I wanted it," Ezra tells him. He shifted a little uncomfortably. "It's dark in here, Kanan. As in can't see your hand in front of your face dark. I thought we - I - could use it to generate a bit of light."
Kanan takes a breath and exhales slowly. Of course it's dark, they were inside a cave that had been completely sealed off by a cave-in. The sun had been their only light source, and it was well and truly blocked out. He could kick himself for not having realized sooner.
"Never mind, right?" Ezra says with a weak smile in his voice. "You can teach me some of those tricks you've been picking up the past few weeks, right? Seeing through the Force?"
Kanan sighs. "Let's concentrate on getting out of here for now. If I need to try to teach you anything along the way, I will, but I'm not exactly a master at those skills, I'm still figuring things out myself."
"You see to be doing pretty great to me," Ezra tells him.
Kanan feels an irrational stab of irritation at that. He might appear to be doing well, and it was good that he was at least fooling Ezra, but beneath the surface there were times when he felt like he was barely holding it together. Taking on this mission - his first since their return from Malachor, had been a way of easing himself back into it, the most simple supply run they had ever done, nothing even remotely strenuous, no danger of running into a battle.
"Thanks," he says dully, suddenly glad that the playing field has been leveled and Ezra can't see the expression he knows he is wearing. "This is the last time we don't come prepared. You knew we were going into a cave, you didn't think to bring a flashlight?"
"Believe me, I'm kicking myself now," Ezra tells him. "If I'd known this was going to happen, I might have packed differently."
Kanan reaches out through the Force, into the network of tunnels leading out from the mouth of the cave. The mountain is a maze filled with dead ends and deadly drops, but the way they came is blocked and their only chance is to find another way out. "We need to go," he says.
"Go? Go where?"
Kanan doesn't react to the question, he is concentrating too hard on the way ahead. He had seen a map once, years ago, but the memory is misty and unreliable now. He adds imap/i underneath iflashlight/i and iperson with a set of working eyes/i to his list of equipment to remember in the future, then brushes a hand lightly across the cold stone wall of the cavern. "There is a network of natural tunnels through the mountain. Can you follow me?" he asks. "If I go ahead, can you keep track of my movements?"
Ezra hesitates a moment too long before he replies. "Shouldn't we stay put? Wait for someone to come. It's not like they don't know where we are."
Kanan considers this for a moment. "We have no way of communicating with the rest of the crew, they'll know about the landslide, but they won't know if we're alive or dead. If they try to come for us through that pile of boulders, they could bring the mountain down on us all. I think I can find the best way out with the Force to guide me, and with any luck, maybe Hera or one of the others can find the way in using a map, we can meet them half way."
"Map?" Ezra says. "There's a map? Why didn't we bring it?"
"Yeah, it would have been really useful to us. Me blind and you without a flashlight."
Ezra sighs. "Good point. Okay, let's do this."
Kanan doesn't move at first, he concentrates on the network of tunnels through the cave, listening to the route that the Force is providing, feeling the difference between rocks and stones and the spaces between, until he is sure he has located a path through the mountain that ends with an unblocked cave.
"Okay," Kanan tells him. "Ready to get lost in a very dark maze?"
He imagines that he can see the glare Ezra is fixing in his direction, "You're really filling me with confidence right now."
"That's what I'm here for," Kanan tells him. He clasps Ezra supportively on the shoulder and allows his hand to sit there for several moments, fingers squeezing gently. "It'll be fine," he says. "We'll be in there an hour at most."
He can sense Ezra's apprehension. He ignores it. Mentioning it wouldn't help any more than people constantly pointing out his own uncertainty would held him navigate his new situation.
"Do you want to keep a hand on my shoulder, or do you think you can track me through the Force?" he asks. Ezra should be able to track him easily, or rather he thinks that is the case. Honestly, he can't remember ever having had to try such a thing himself until just a few weeks ago when he had been left with no other choice, and already he was beginning to forget which skills were inherent to a Jedi and which he had picked up through his blindness.
"I think I can track you," Ezra tells him.
Kanan nods, realizing half way through the gesture how futile it is. "You'll find it easier if you keep a hand on the wall then, it'll help ground you. And be careful of overhanging rocks, and uneven ground. And one more thing." His own hand on the wall of the cavern, he starts walking, slowly enough that Ezra, less used to walking without vision - and Kanan himself is still far from accustomed to it - can keep up.
"What's that?" Ezra asks from a few feet behind.
"Next time, don't rely on the blind guy to bring the flashlight."