Summary: When Mira and Ephraim Bridger were arrested for treason, their 7 year old son Ezra was taken into custody as well and discovered to be force sensitive. Sent to Mustafar to be trained as an Inquisitor, he is promised his parents will be kept alive so long as he behaves only to discover several years later that that was a lie and his parents were dead. With no reason left to serve the Empire he escapes and sets out on his own, moving from place to place to avoid capture. Everything changes though when he comes into contact with a certain rebel cell.
While the architecture of buildings tended to vary depending on location and usage, there was one thing Ezra had found they all had in common, the presence of ventilation ducts. While their purpose was to help distribute air throughout the structure, for someone as small as he was they provided an easy way to get around undetected; it wasn't the most fun of methods of course, the vents tended to be cramped and dusty, but it was the best option he had.
And that was why he was currently making his way through the narrow vents of an Imperial military complex and struggling not to sneeze every time dust blew into his face, the last thing he needed was some stormtrooper coming to investigate why the ceiling was sneezing.
It was a tight fit, even for someone as small as him, and he could feel his muscles aching as he slowly inched forward; no doubt he was going to be hurting come tomorrow. Fortunately he'd almost reached his destination, the vent opening into the Commander's office should be just ahead, at least provided the map he'd memorized was accurate.
Once inside it would be a simple matter of finding the files he was looking for and planting a few bombs before he returned to vents and made his way outside. It was a familiar routine to him, one that he'd done on multiple occasions before to great success; or rather, sneaking in through the vents to steal stuff and then sneaking out again was a familiar routine. Planting bombs however was hardly a usual tactic of his, most of the time he to leave the large and showy things like explosions to the actual rebellion, it was in his best interest to avoid drawing attention to himself after all. This time it was an exception though, this time things were personal.
Almost eight years ago a man named Gareth Kandale had led a squadron of stormtroopers to the Bridger home to arrest them, in the years that followed he'd risen through the Imperial ranks to eventually become the Commander of this military outpost, though if Ezra had his way he wouldn't be for very much longer. He didn't have enough explosives to blow up the whole base, so unless the man happened to be right in his office when Ezra detonated them he probably wouldn't die, which was a pity; but considering the sensitive information held within the facility, the sheer fact that someone had managed to get in and blow part of it up should get him severely demoted at least.
It was petty he knew, and it wasn't like it was going to bring his parents back or undo all the horrible things he'd gone through, but it would make him feel better so he really didn't care.
Pulling himself from his thoughts, Ezra realized he had reached the grate that he needed to exit through; it appeared to be the kind which you could simply push open, a fact that Ezra was grateful for since he didn't have much room to pull his lightsaber out and cut it. Not to mention it would be extremely noticeable.
He reached out a hand and was about to push it open when the sound of voices from within the room made him freeze in place,
"Hurry, the others won't be able to keep the bucketheads distracted forever." Peering curiously through the grate, Ezra raised an eyebrow as he caught sight of the intruders, one of them was girl, or at least he assumed so based on her figure and voice. She was clad in armor that was easily recognizable as Mandalorian in origin, though he'd never seen such a colorful set of it before. A matching helmet was worn on her head, obscuring her features from his view and making it impossible to tell her age or species.
Her companion on the other hand was much easier to identify things about; he was tall, probably at least six feet if Ezra had to guess, and he was covered with purplish gray fur. There's a large weapon strapped to his back but it's not one Ezra's ever seen before so he can't put a name to it.
All and all, the two of them look like they could be bounty hunters, but Ezra has a feeling that they aren't. This isn't the type of place that would be the target of bounty hunters to start with, plus the girl had mentioned others and while it wasn't unheard of for bounty hunters to work in pairs, you rarely heard of more than two of them working together.
Which meant they were most like rebels, and that they were probably here for the same reason he was, minus the revenge angle of course.
That complicated things, if they been bounty hunters then he would have considered taking them out and continuing one with what he had already planned; the rebels were his allies though, well they kind of were.
Ezra did not by any means consider himself a member of the rebellion, he supported their cause yes, and he'd earned a decent amount of their trust by selling information to them under the name of Azure, but he had no desire to actual join up with them. Back after he'd first escaped from the Empire there had been a time when he'd considered it, he'd still been trying to figure out what he was going to do at that point and all he'd really known was that he wanted the Empire to pay. The easiest way to achieve that goal would have been to join the rebellion, but he'd eventually decided against it.
Not being a member though didn't mean he could justify doing something like attacking them however, and he had been planning to sell the information he got to the rebellion anyway….
He'd wait, he finally decided. After all there wasn't even any guarantee they'd actually manage to find the information, based on the research he'd done, the Commander seemed to be a pretty paranoid bastard. It was highly unlikely that he'd he keep top secret information on his terminal where it could be hacked into, no, Ezra was pretty sure he'd keep on a data-disk and then keep that hidden somewhere. The question was, would they find it?
Turning his attention back to the two rebels, he focused half his attention of their conversation while focusing the other half on reaching out with the force.
"You found it yet?"
"No! I don't get it, I've gone through all his files but it doesn't seem to be here?"
"You sure you went through all of them?"
"Yes! It's not there!"
Most of the conversation washed right over Ezra but he got the general gist of it, it seemed they weren't having much success with their search, he on the other hand had lucked out. Most of the time searching for inanimate objects using the force was hit or miss for Ezra, connecting to living creatures tended to be more up his alley, however he'd successfully managed to located what he was pretty was the data disk. Of course that didn't do him much good so long as those two were still in the room, he'd have to wait until they left and then hope there'd be enough time for him to retrieve the chip before anybody else entered the room. It wasn't the best of plans, but it was one that should work provided nothing else unexpected happened.
He should have known better than to hope for that.
"Spectre Five, come in. Are you almost finished?" The crackling of a com link reached Ezra's ears, followed by a man's voice.
It was the girl who answered, her voice apologetic
"Negative Spectre One, we can't find the files, they're not on the computer. Do you want us to keep looking?" There was silence for a moment then,
"No, plant the explosives and get out of there…" Ezra didn't hear anything past that point, his eyes widening at the mention of explosives. While he himself had been planning to blow up the place, it wouldn't have been until he was safely out of the building that he'd planned to detonate the explosives. No doubt the rebels were also planning to wait until they were safely out of blast range to set them off, unfortunately they likely would be able to get out far quicker than he would be able to through the vents, meaning he could very well end up getting caught in the explosion.
Being blown to pieces really wasn't the way he wanted to die.
He was trying to decide just what he should do when the Force choose that moment to give him a nudge, letting him know the direction it wanted him to take. Back on Mustafar he'd been taught that the Force was nothing but a tool, you were suppose to make it do what you wanted, not let it tell you what to do; in the time since he'd escaped though, he'd learned otherwise, he'd learned to trust the force and follow where it led.
Not that he always did, it was one thing to know that you should do something, but actually doing it was a lot harder. He'd spent six years learning the ways of the dark side and while he'd been free for close to two years, that was nowhere near enough to time to totally shake off all the things he'd been indoctrinated with, he still had a long way to go. Sometimes though, he managed to break through and let the force tell him what he needed to do, and right now it was telling him to help the rebels find the datachip.
Ugh, could this day get any kriffing worse?
"Okay, that's all of them." Sabine told Zeb as she finished placing the last of the charges she had brought, the room was currently rigged with enough explosives to kill a herd of Rancors, once she hit the detonator there'd be nothing left of it. Combined with the other explosives she and Zeb had placed on their way here, a good chunk of the facility should end up getting taken out.
The Imps wouldn't know what hit them.
"Guess we'd better head back to the others then" Zeb sighed, running a hand over his ears, "Wish we could have found those files."
Sabine understood his disappointment, according to the tip they'd gotten the files were supposed to contain information about several upcoming supply shipments, something that would have proved invaluable to the small crew.
"I know, there's nothing we can do about that though."
"Actually, you could check under the desk. I'm pretty sure there's a secret compartment there." The sound of a new voice joining their conversation made both Sabine and Zeb jump, hands reaching for their weapons as they whirled to look in the direction it had come from.
An unfamiliar teen stood leaning against the fall wall, a grate above him hanging wide open as if to mock them by letting them know how he'd entered without them noticing.
"Who the hell are you?" Zeb growled, grip tightening on his bo-rifle; he'd never actually use it on a kid, Sabine knew, but it provided a nice intimidation factor. Unfortunately it didn't seem to have any effect on the boy, if anything he seemed to be annoyed by it
"I'm the person who knows where the files you're look for are, so you could try being a little more polite." Behind her helmet, Sabine's eyes narrowed in suspicion, this seemed just a little too convenient for her liking.
"And why should we believe you? You could be an Imperial for all we know." The boy gave her a look of annoyance,
"Do I look like a kriffing imp to you?" Sabine had to admit he didn't, there was no Imperial insignia visible anywhere on his person and his mismatched outfit would hardly pass Imperial standards. A worn black jacket, a single knee guard, a pauldron painted with some kind of animal pattern...Yeah, he definitely didn't look like an imperial. To be honest he looked more like a bounty hunter then anything.
"Okay, so you're not an Imperial, that still doesn't mean we should trust you. Why do us to have the information, why not just take it yourself?" Her best bet was that he'd altered the data so that if they followed it they'd be led into a trap, however for some reason she felt it was important to give him the benefit of the doubt and let him explain.
"That was my original plan, to be honest. You guys kind of messed that up though." His voice was nonchalant, as if he was having a casual conversation with a friend instead of standing in the middle of an imperial base; just how much of that calmness was real and how much was a bluff? "I figured it would probably be better to just tell you where it is, rather than wait for you to leave so I can retrieve myself and still be here when you set off your explosives."
Sabine pursed her lips thoughtfully, his line of thinking did make sense, and since he'd rather them have the files rather than leaving and letting it blown up with the base, it gave her reason to suspect that he was somehow affiliated with a rebel group; or at the very least was no fan of the Empire.
"Fine, I'll believe you. You said to check under the desk, right?"
"What? Sabine!" Zeb's eyes widened in surprise at her words, but she just shrugged in response.
"It'll be fine Zeb, just keep an eye on the kid while I check under the desk." She heard the Lasat grumble something in response but chose to ignore him, ducking under the desk in search of the compartment the boy had said should be there.
The desk was an overly large metal one, the kind that was much bigger than necessary simply for the sake of showing off, as such there was plenty of room in it for hidden compartments; and sure enough there was one, just like the kid had said. There was an electronic lock on it but that was by no means enough to stop Sabine, all it took was a few moments and she had it open.
It was mostly empty inside, but along with a handful of credits was a datachip. There was no way of knowing for sure that it contained the files they wanted, but after a moment of hesitation she grabbed both it and the credits.
"I found it." She told Zeb, as she crawled back out from under the desk.
"Told you it was there." The boy gloated, a smug smile on his face, which earned him a glare from Zeb.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Come on Bine, let's get back to…" He was interrupted by the crackling of his comlink as Kanan's frantic voice came over the line,
"Spectre Four, Spectre Five, where are you?"
"Where just about to head your way, there was a bit of a problem but…" Kanan cut Sabine off before she could finish,
"Tell me later, you need to get out of their now! Stormtroopers are…" They didn't get to hear the rest of whatever he was going to say as the communication suddenly cut off, there was no need to hear it though as the familiar footsteps of stormtroopers came from the hallway.
Things were not looking good.