A fury of red laser blasts shoot passed an unusually different Empire two-man attack vessel.
Kanan jerks around the wheel, trying evasive maneuvers. In the cockpit behind him, Ezra mans the gunner controls, firing at half a dozen TIE fighters.
"There's too many!" Ezra yells.
"Pick one and keep at it until it's gone – don't fire aimlessly!" Kanan answers back.
"I'm trying but you keep flying them out of my line-of-sight!"
"Keep firing! I need an opening to jump!" Kanan replies.
BOOM! The ship rocks.
"They got the R2 unit. We're on fire!" Ezra shouts.
Ezra continues to fire and by coincidence hits a TIE fighter dead on. It explodes close to the vessel and pieces briefly hit the hull and Ezra's cockpit window dome.
"The explosion has caused them to part – I got an opening – jumping to hyperspace!" Kanan yells.
The experimental vessel leaps away into the blackness of space.
Kanan throttles back and the ship stops.
"Okay, let's take a minute to assess the damage and then I'll reposition the ship and jump to the rendezvous point."
Ezra comments, "Got you. The Empire is getting sloppy, hiding a little test base out in the middle of nowh-"
Suddenly all the TIE fighters exit from hyperspace and bare down on their position.
"TIE's!" Ezra shouts.
"There must be a tracking device on the ship. Hold on!"
Kanan floors it. Ezra takes the opportunity to fire with a few seconds of steady flying.
"Let's see what this thing has got…" Kanan jerks the wheel left and spins the ship in a tilted orbit around the TIE fighters. On the trajectory line he starts rolling the ship in place and widening the orbit, changing the target profile of the ship and making it difficult to get a lock.
"That was very fancy, but I couldn't fire at anything!" Ezra complains.
Suddenly a TIE glides by and Ezra fires again and again until he blows it out of the stars.
The TIE's break formation to attack at multiple angles.
"It's gotta be broadcasting a beacon signal via hyperspace communication channels. If I rig this comm' panel I may be able to detect-"
Kanan cuts Ezra off, "There's no time. Use the Force."
"How?" Ezra says, confused.
"concentrate on the beacon signal. Try to feel its energy source to locate it."
Kanan yanks the wheel down and climbs fast up the y-axis on an acute curve. Two TIE's climb up with him at opposite sides, firing, but missing repeatedly. Red beams shoot passed the cockpit windows in both directions to the fore of the vessel.
Ezra puts his hands on the dash and starts feeling out the tracking device. BOOM! He's jolted out after they take a direct hit to a protruding wing. Ezra starts again.
Kanan de-throttles to a nearly instantaneous stop and spins the ship 360 degrees, then opens it up all the way, blasting back down the y-axis. The two TIE's shift directions to avoid hitting each other, but end up slamming wings together, which cause explosions and sparks. They both go tumbling about widely into space. One explodes.
"Now would be better, Ezra."
Alarms start sounding and red lights start flashing.
Ezra opens his eyes, "It's coming from behind my seat!"
"Angle your lightsaber at it and activate it!"
Kanan tries to avoid the final two TIE fighters as Ezra tries to turn himself around in the cramped cockpit. He puts the beam-end of the lightsaber to his seat and feels the seat with the other hand. He stops and activates the lightsaber. He can hear popping and cracking from damaged electronics and a slightly deeper hum as the saber cuts threw hyperspace-grade alloys. He de-activates it and pulls it away, rubber seat material stretching away like melted cheese.
"Got it!" Ezra yells.
"Re-calculating for hyperspace…" Kanan enters some commands and brings the ship about to the right heading.
FA-OOM! The ship vanishes into hyperspace. Red laser beams fill the space where it had been.
.
Kanan starts shouting out, "Communications are out. Life support is failing. Atmospheric navigation controls are gone. There's a fire in the starboard wing."
"And my seat is hot and sticky," Ezra adds.
"Ezra, get your breathing apparatus and helmet ready – the fire may consume the oxygen in here."
As Kanan gets his mask, sparks fly inside their cockpits and systems panels die.
"Thirty seconds to the rendezvous point," says Kanan.
"I smell smoke."
"Put your mask on now! The air will be toxic in a minute!"
They lock their helmets shut. The ship exits hyperspace.
"I don't see the Ghost!" Ezra shouts.
"They must be behind."
"We're not gonna make it!" Ezra continues shouting.
There's an explosion and the starboard wing is largely shredded. Kanan guns it; pieces fly off into space behind him.
"That was an emergency atmospheric fuel thruster. This ship is going, I gotta land it. Taking her into that planet."
"You don't mean that white one, do you? It's an ice planet."
"It's either that or certain death," Kanan replies.
"Oh. How certain is the death again?"
"Hang on – it's going to be a rough landing!"
The ship flies into the atmosphere of the planet and starts heating up.
"How bad?" Ezra asks.
"Pull the manual crash-landing lever," Kanan quickly straps himself in.
Ezra locates the lever and pulls it. Air cushions, like a car airbag, pop up around in and fill so big they hold him softly in place.
"What about yours?" Ezra asks.
"I gotta fly her in."
Snow slams the cockpit domes, blocking their view. The engines shut off and all the panels die.
"What happened?"
"I've lost all controls. We're gonna crash!" Kanan yells back, over the sound of the alarms and snow slamming the domes.
Kanan finds his lever and pulls it.
Snow smacks the ship and cockpit domes as the ship spins out of control to the planet's surface. It clears the heavy snow and passes into lighter snow, this time low light from the system's star illuminating the sky.
The ship crashes into a hill of snow, sending an explosion of loosened snow with it. It spins around fast and slams into the snow-covered surface, breaking off the other wing and sending it cart wheeling end-to-end until the pointed nose jams into the snow, stopping it at an angle.
"Get your seatbelts off a pull the lever again – we gotta get out of here before the fuel explodes or the snow buries us!" Kanan commands.
As they do so, the internal heat and the hot frame from re-entry, cause the ship to start melting into the snow.
"I'm free!" Ezra yells.
"Gather what you can and blow the hatch!"
Finding almost nothing, they each blow open the cockpit hatches and fall to the ground.
"I'm freezing!" Ezra shouts.
"I'm aware of that," Kanan pulls out a pair of binoculars and looks around. In the side of what appears to be a large mound of snow, Kanan spots a cave opening, "There – I see a cave."
"Kanan!" Ezra yells.
Kanan looks back quickly and sees Ezra back up to him. An arm with long thick hair reaches for Ezra; the calloused rubber-looking fingers dance around, feeling for him.
"There's more!" Ezra shouts and points.
Fat heads emerge from the snow, followed by the arms to push the creatures up. Long natty and dirty hair falls down from their heads. Their faces are rubbery and a cross between shades of black and brown. Their eyes are black as night and their teeth long and jaggedy, like used cutting tools. There are four of them now and they are nearing Ezra and Kanan.
"Ezra, run best you can – I'll throw you to the cave!"
"I can't leave you alone!"
"Ezra, one Jedi has to live if at all possible – there's kind of a shortage."
Ezra struggles to run and when he thinks he's getting going as fast as he can, he uses the Force to jump up. Kanan tosses an arm out at him and Force throws Ezra. Ezra goes spinning head-to-toe about a hundred feet before be nears the ground. He tucks himself inward and barrel rolls down a slight incline until he slows and stops near the cave entrance. He un-tucks and falls on his back.
"Okay, so very dizzy. Just gonna lay here for a minute," Ezra comments aloud to himself.
A mound of snow falls on his head.
"Really?"
Kanan backs off and turns to head to the cave when he sees two more creatures pulling themselves up out of the snow. The first ones are now nearly upon him. He reaches out with his left arm and uses the Force. After a couple seconds one of the glass alloy cockpit hatches shakes and then drags across the snow toward him. Two of the creatures turn to see it after hearing the noise of it dragging, and step out of the way. It lifts up into Kanan's hands and with it he runs at the stolen vessel, tosses the half oval hatch away from himself, up into the air, then leaps up off one foot with the Force, using his other leg to spin himself 180 degrees like half a round-house kick. In a second his feet land on the exposed port side wing, with Kanan reaching behind himself with both hands to grab onto the wing's edge. He bends his knees and in the second second uses the Force to propel himself off the wing into the air. He tucks in, spins once, then opens back up and lands on the inside of the hatch as it hits the snow-covered ground. He crouches down and grabs the sides and sleds toward the cave. In mere seconds he's at the entrance. He jerks one side, causing the hatch to turn and eject him. He rolls next to Ezra as Ezra brushes snow off his hair. Snow hitting the ground flies into Ezra's face.
"Next time I'll throw you and I can sled," Ezra complains.
Kanan takes a couple of seconds to shake it off, then pushes himself up. He gets to his feet and pulls out his binoculars again and looks out. He sees a group of the creatures heading for their position.
"They're coming, and there's more of them. Ezra, get the hatch cover, we may need it," he turns and heads to the cave, "I'll start breaking rocks loose to block the entrance."
Kanan grabs his lightsaber and activates it. He reaches up and forces the blade into the entrance top. Ezra hurries over with the hatch and walks into the cave. Ezra then activates his and uses it as a light to look around. He places the hatch down and looks back at Kanan, who is struggling. Kanan de-activates his lightsaber.
"Agh! I can't cut them out – whatever is in them is too tough and would take too long. What about the cave?"
"Looks like it goes back at least a little," Ezra replies.
"It may be our only hope," Kanan activates his lightsaber again and jogs over toward the back of the cave, also using his lightsaber as a light. The cave curves around and decreases dramatically in height. Kanan stops when he realizes all there is at the end is what appears to be a small hole in the cave wall big enough for them to maybe crawl through, but too small to light up.
"Well?" Ezra yells out to Kanan.
"It's no good!" Kanan yells back as he jogs back over to Ezra.
"I don't think that's gonna be a problem…" Ezra trails off.
"Why?" Kanan says as he comes about the curve. He runs over to Ezra and holds his lightsaber in a defensive manner.
"Looks like we have bigger problems at the moment…" Ezra replies.
Standing at the cave entrance are nearly a dozen of the creatures.