The Force, this is long overdue! I've been so busy this year, no time to fangirl :( This chapter was originally supposed to cover more, but after months of drag writing, I decided it was sufficient for the time being. I just couldn't seem to be happy with it for a long time. But now, after lots of edits, I hope its not too bad. PLEASE, PLEASE review so I can improve! :D characters out of character? Is it boring since I cut it short? Is my description of the Force too weird? Also, I know I'm late, but if anyone still wants to geek out about that AWESOME ENDING, feel free to PM ;)

Though Kanan had always enjoyed some reckless flying, right now it felt like a rancor had picked up his eternal black box and decided to chuck it into the next system. The Ghost was pitching violently as Hera guided it around multiple adversaries. He could tell for the most part what was going on outside Jedha's atmosphere and it was not good. He could hear the shrill whine of TIE fighters, and feel the objects of mass carving through the Force. Then a sharp jolt up his spine every time a fighter exploded and another pilot was lost, be it rebel or imp. This was one of those times when being blind really sucked. Because it took a lot of effort to shoot anything by using the Force alone, Kanan almost never manned the guns anymore. Zeb and Rex handled that, and they did it well. But the Jedi could sense that they were heavily outnumbered.

"What's it look like out there?" He ground out as the Ghost twisted again.

"Bad." Rex said gravely through the internal comm unit, "There are six star destroyers surrounding our position. It's a loose formation but our ships are starting to run out of fuel. We've got stand-stills left and right, and they know it!"

"Great."

Suddenly a rather important detail occurred to Kanan. "Did Ezra make it on board?"

"I don't think so!" Replied Hera through clenched teeth.

"He stayed behind after the briefing, " Zeb's gruff voice cut into the comm accompanied by the din of the canons, the hard work of barrel scrubbing rapidly being undone. "Definitely trying to get out of the dirty work. Not that I blame the kid..." Rex added pointedly.

Despite just pulling off what felt to Kanan like a particularly snazzy maneuver, Hera answered with unfaltering vigor, "You all completely deserved that!"

"You seem more upset about it than the man himself! Kanan?"

"Oh sure, I just love showing off my magnificently bruised shins to the highest bidder!" He said flippantly, wishing they would just tell him where his Padawan had ended up.

"You're welcome luv." Hera chimed loftily.

"So, where is he?"

Before Hera could reply, the comm system beeped to life and Kanan could hear Ezra loud and clear: "Spectre Six to Ghost, do you copy?"

Hera answered him, and Ezra confirmed that he had ship and was on his way to join the fight, but suddenly they were interrupted by violent static and their connection broke.

"Jamming comms." The Twi'lek huffed, then turned the freighter into yet another gut-wrenching spin.

"Is the kid okay?" Called Rex from down in the nose gun.

"Is he making himself useful this time?" Zeb added.

"He has a ship, but we can't tell which one." Hera informed them," It's becoming a pretty uneven playing field out there. Kanan try to find him!"

"I'm working on it!" Kanan was already probing their Force bond for a location. It didn't take long to find Ezra himself, but he still had to pinpoint him among the other fighters with just the Force. Concentrating hard, he pointed out the viewport. "That A-wing. We should get that TIE off his tail."

"I see him." Hera expertly guided the ship in an arch around Ezra's smaller craft, which Kanan now had a clear focus on. The TIE managed one more unsuccessful shot before the Ghost came hurtling to the rescue. Together Zeb and Rex demolished several other enemy ships before focusing on Ezra's adversary.

"Steady Hera, I don't want to hit him." Shouted Rex. They could just barely hear him without the comm.

"Take your shot now, we have more incoming!" Replied the pilot urgently, though she kept the Ghost stable just long enough to hear a satisfying explosion.

"Ha got 'em!" The clone shouted again, except this time they heard him a little too loud and clear.

"Ow! Comm's back online." Kanan threw a hand up to his ear.

"That's lucky. Kanan, try to get a hold of Ezra." Said Hera.

By now, Ezra was flying alongside them. Both ships had managed to take out a number of adversaries, and they had a few moments of respite. Kanan did manage to contact Ezra, and after agreeing wholeheartedly that this was a mess they desperately needed to get out of, again broke contact to deal with the next wave of TIEs.

Kanan continued to trace Ezra's path through the Force. For some moments he could clearly detect his every move. It wasn't often that they fought on separate ships. Though Kanan knew Ezra was a decent pilot and he trusted him to hold his own, he very much preferred everybody to be on the same ship—one they all trusted. Not like he could do anything better at the moment, he reached deep into the Force in order to track his padawan as well as the surrounding battle. Perhaps he went a little too deep.

One moment he was concentrating on the battle, then suddenly he was plunged so deep in the Force that all the chaos of their current situation, everything that was happening in that moment was slowed to a standstill and all that was supposed to be relevant faded to a white noise on the edge of Kanan's senses. He could still feel the Ghost spinning, and hear

the voices of his companions, but they felt far away. Kanan was completely caught off guard by this new sensation.

He tried to pull out, retreat to reality, but he couldn't; he started to panic. He was sinking deeper. A vibrating, swirling mosh of... stuff pulsed around Kanan and through him as if every midichlorian in every one of his cells was suddenly receiving an urgent message. Images from his darkest nightmares raced past his mind's eye, things he'd thought he'd made his peace with... Images of his past, of Coruscant, of Depa Billaba, of Kaller, Janus, Gorse, Hera, Lothal, Ezra... they came so fast he couldn't possibly process them. How disconcerting; he couldn't feel himself anymore...

Caleb.

The voice was soundless. Unrecognizable. Yet oddly familiar.

Caleb, you are deep within the Force; you are deep within yourself. You see yourself in fear.

Who are you?! Kanan shouted into the spin, but he had no voice either. He was formless. I'm dead. The Ghost was shot. We didn't make it.

No Caleb. You must calm yourself. Let your mind settle. See yourself whole, and your memories will settle too.

Kanan did. Slowly. The energy around and within him slowed to a steady thrum; the thrum that had always been present, only now it was a hundred times amplified. The images faded, and Kanan realized that he could feel himself breathing, though the feeling was distant, as if he'd left his body on a different layer of existence. The others were there too; their spirits close to the surface, where he could sense their heartbeats. They were still alive.

Good Caleb. Now. Listen.

The phantom voice faded.

Wait! What is this? Kanan called after it.

Listen Padawan.

What? Master?

Listen. Find them. Find it.

The voice was gone. Kanan could no longer detect a trace of its presence. Listen? Hmm. Yes, he could hear it, feel it. The call. A song he'd heard long ago.

"Jump NOW!" Kanan gasped as Hera's voice blasted his senses as he was quite suddenly jammed back into reality. To say he was shocked would've been an understatement. His world was fuzzy and black and loud and in circles. His memory momentarily blank, his first complete thought was worst karking hangover since Correllia.

He was still stunned, but the Force had one more small detail to show him as voices he barely heard followed each other through the comm.

Grasping the meaning of Hera's command, and the feeling of impending danger towards a certain A-wing, Kanan shouted "Wait something's wrong! EZRA LOOK OUT!"

Too late.

/

Ezra was quite relieved, and definitely surprised, when he managed to enter Jedha's atmosphere undetected. His puny smoking A-wing was apparently forgotten. Black space was now replaced by cool blue, and he could no longer make out the imperial blockade surrounding that half of the moon. That didn't mean he was safe though. He scanned the landscape below for a place to land. Luckily, the terrain was made up primarily of massive rock formations that would easily conceal the ship.

Ezra would have preferred to keep flying for a while, to put some distance between himself and the last location the Empire could've noticed him. But his fuel gage indicated that he was running on fumes, and the craft was still trailing smoke from where the TIE had shot him. There was zero chance of getting far enough across Jedha's surface that he wouldn't pop up right under the destroyers if he tried to make a break for Hyperspace. Oh, and the Hyperdrive was dead anyway. Perfect.

Ezra slowly brought the fighter close to the surface. His first thought was to dive to extinguish the fire that refused to put it itself out, but he could almost hear Sabine yelling at him: 'You idiot, are you trying to make this ship blowup faster?!' Though it was going to blow soon anyway if the flames didn't snuff out in next few minutes. Soon the ship was puttering around in between the tall reddish mesas. A wide arch of stone close to the ground looked like a good place to set down and Ezra veered towards it. At this point, the controls were lagging and then jerking when they did respond, so it wasn't his most elegant landing ever. As soon as he could, he shoved open the canopy and jumped out of the cockpit, choking on fumes. Something on the control panel had exploded and filled the cockpit with smoke.

Sensing that the hit had been worse than he originally thought, and that the A-wing couldn't keep itself intact any longer, the rogue Jedi scrambled away from the craft. He made it just far enough to avoid the worst of the shockwave from the explosion. He was still blasted forward into the gritty sand, grunting as he landed hard and the wind was knocked out of him. He still managed to throw his arms over his head as debris rained down. Several chunks of twisted hot metal thudded into the sand around him. When all he could hear was the intense ringing in his ears, Ezra groaned, rolled over and sat up. Blinking grit out of his eyes, he glared at the smoldering skeleton of the ship.

"Great. Just great." He muttered. It was clear from here that there was nothing salvageable among the charred wreckage. He was once again stranded on a desert planet with absolutely nothing. At least last time he'd had Chopper for company.

Guess the only thing to do is get moving... before the Empire finds this. He started walking up the small hill of red sand he'd thrown himself onto moments before, wincing as his bruised chest flared, and wiping a trickle of blood from his cheek.

As more of the land came into view, it stretched out as the same unfavorable terrain Ezra had seen from the air. That would be a pain, but now that the turmoil of his arrival dissipated into the calm of untouched wilderness, Ezra noticed something else. As it had in his and Kanan's visions, this moon was vibrating with the presence of the Force. A very strong presence. It had been a more insistent than usual hum around him since they'd entered the system, but there had been too much chaos to pay attention to it. There was something else as well. Deep within the web of unfamiliar ecology, there was a familiar voice, a whisper. It was so faint that Ezra couldn't place it at that moment. But it was a song he'd heard before.

There was no time to ponder it now though. He started forward again, resigning himself to a long, hard trek towards civilization—assuming there was any within reachable distance. Though the air was actually pleasantly cool here, he tried not to think of water.

Ezra had been trudging on for about half an hour, in as straight a line as he could manage following his most basic Force instinct, while ignoring the horrendous burning in his side, when he thought he heard a very faint hum. It was nearly undetectable, but a rebel knew better than to dismiss it as a trick of the imagination. He stopped and cocked his head, closing his eyes so that his hearing became his primary sense as Kanan had taught him. Under the whine and wisp of wind scraping sand over rock, he heard it again. It slowly gained intensity, and soon the hum turned into a rumble from above. Karabast.

Ezra sprinted for cover, the nearest being a small alcove between two large boulders. He dived for the space and squished himself flat against the rock, which provoked another wave of pain in his lower chest. Ezra peered out in time to see the imperial search ships coming into view. The sound of the engines now reverberated against the rock formations, echoing and penetrating. He backed as far into his hiding place as possible. If he was caught, he had a grand total of one blaster he'd forgotten to charge, one lightsaber, and zero backup. Not that the imps were ever very good at finding him or any of his teammates in these situations, but he really couldn't afford to get captured this time.

A half dozen of the bulky shuttles swept the area for several minutes, but eventually they moved on, the cacophony of motors fading into the distance. As usual they'd passed him over. He waited until the land was completely silent and then a minute more before emerging from his hide out. The search ships might have overlooked him, but he needed to move before ground crews showed up.

Twenty minutes later, Ezra was really starting to think he'd cracked a rib during the explosion. His left side felt like it was on fire as he alternated between walking and jogging, keeping close to any available cover. Eventually he had to stop. In the shadow of a large arch, he leaned against the smooth rock and lifted his shirt part way. Gritting his teeth, he examined the patch of black and blue that spread across half his ribcage. It was one hell of bruise, but he forced himself to rub his fingers over the lot of it. It all hurt, but one part was particularly excruciating. It was also swollen and burning hot. It had to be a fracture but there was nothing he could do for it at the moment, for once again the hum of heavy vehicles was carried to Ezra by the wind, this time accompanied by the shrill whine of speeder bikes.

Ground crews had arrived and couldn't be more than a mile away. "Oh come on, they never get here so fast!" He said aloud (a mistake, his parched throat told him) Thrawn must have known it was one of the Ghost crew who had been left behind. The Chiss admiral would have been watching the ship carefully, and seen its attempts at protecting his A-wing and hesitance to leave the system without it. With that knowledge, Thrawn would be thorough in his search.

Ezra wasn't in much condition to outsmart that tactician, but the next set of stone risings appeared to be some sort of canyon. That was a start. The sky was just beginning to darken. The air turned even chillier as the sun cast long shadows over the land. The wide canyon was a gateway of shadow between the stone walls. That worked in Ezra's favor.

Ezra ducked behind a boulder, eyeing the distance between here and the canyon across an open space. His breath hitched with the pain in his ribs. He doubted he could run fast enough to get there without being spotted, but he had to take the chance...now. He drew his lightsaber, ready to ignite if he was shot at, and sprinted for the darkness.

He was only a few meters from the canyon entrance when two speeder bikes complete with white-armored troopers appeared from the maze of stone Ezra had just left behind. That stone maze must have been throwing off sound waves, because they were a whole lot closer than Ezra had thought.

One shouted something that Ezra couldn't make out, but probably was along the lines of 'lookee, rebelscum, blast em!' At least that's what Ezra's imagination said when he was in near delirium with pain.

Ezra expected shots any second, but they never came. Perhaps they hadn't seen him after all. Or they really wanted him alive. He looked back to see that they were still heading in his direction, but for some reason they were not going full speed. In fact, they seemed to have slowed down. Just as he reached the edge of the shadows, Ezra stopped. Something was in there. No. Someone. The speeders were very close, but Ezra didn't move. Suddenly, an object flew from somewhere high on the canyon wall. The round object sailed high over Ezra's head, then landed with a ping in front of the bikes, about a hundred feet away. Ezra had just enough time to think when did Sabine get here? Then, BAM!