"We need to get out of here now." Kanan said as the TIE fighters gained on them.
"Oh you don't say!" Sabine said sarcastically as she jerked the steering wheel again to avoid a blaster shot from one of the ships. She looked at the outside sensor which told her several speeders were right outside the armed transport. "Great now we have even more trouble." she sighed before raising her voice. "If anyone wants to destroy those speeders it would much appreciated."
"On it." Hunter told her before going to the hatch and opening it. Lifting his hand he clenched his hand into a fist smashing two of the speeders by throwing them into each other.
"I can't wait to do that." Ezra exclaimed excited, that was so cool!
Kanan rolled his eyes and stepped forward. "Pay close attention." Kanan said to his padawan. "Sometimes it's not about power but what you do with it." waving his hand he used the Force to manipulate the two stormtroopers to crash into each other. "Do you see what I did?"
Ezra noticed it took less effort for him to make them crash into each other, than it did for Hunter to do it himself. "You…used less effort to do the same thing."
"Exactly." he nodded. "Being a Jedi isn't about being the most powerful or the flashiest, but using the best tool for the job." he explained to Ezra. "I could mind trick them another fifty times and barely feel it. But if I had done what Hunter did, I would exhausted after doing it five times."
The snap hiss of a lightsaber and a cry of pain drew their attention back to the battle outside the ship. "Well if you are done with the lesson how about you help!" Hunter said as he threw his lightsaber at one of the TIE fighters taking off one of it's wings. Holding his hand up he called it back to him.
"Let me try!" Ezra said eager to impress the two, despite the fact he was the same age as Hunter he still looked up to him. He and Kanan were everything he wanted to be, strong, powerful, brave, smart.
Kanan chuckled glad to see him showing a bit more life. "Go ahead." he encouraged stepping out of the way. Ezra walked to the edge of the hatch and held his hand up closing his eyes. With great effort he managed to turn the handle of speeder enough to send it spinning into the barrier on the side of the road.
"Not bad." Hunter complemented. "Could have gotten a bit more spin on it though." he added with a smirk.
"They are here!" Sabine said from upfront as the Ghost stopped above the transport. "Come on let's go!" she said as she turned on the autopilot and got out of her seat.
Kanan and hunter went up first both igniting their lightsabers to deflect any shots coming at the transport. "Come on we have to get moving." Kanan called as he sensed the Inquisitor getting closer.
"I'm trying!" Ezra shouted as he pushed the rodian slowly up the ramp of the Ghost, but he wasn't making it easy the rodian was so limp that he was like noodle wiggling around all over the place.
"Oh Kriff it!" Hunter said turning around for a brief moment he used the Force to pick up the rodian. "Zeb catch!" he Forced pushed the him into the lasat who caught Tseebo and placed him in a small corner with boxes on all sides of him to make sure he didn't wander off.
Ezra ran up the ramp and Sabine was right behind him. "Come on we have to go!" Sabine called to Kanan who was still blocking many of the blaster bolts being fired at them.
Hunter began to make his way up the ramp and Sabine saw an Agent Kallus climb up the side and aim at him. Before she could cry out a warning he fired, a bang went off, but Hunter did not even turn around, he merely flipped one of his lightsabers into a reverse grip and deflected the blast right back at Kallus. The bolt hit his blaster knocking it out of his hand and throwing him off balance causing him to fall down onto the street below.
"Come Kanan we have to get out of here!" Hunter called rushing up the ramp he and Kanan could probably survive on Lothal below average stormtroopers and few a TIE fighters would be easy, but the others would not be so lucky.
"Go!" Kanan ordered them as the ship began to take off he slowly backed up till he jumped into the air landing inside the Ghost.
"That was so unnecessary." Hunter said he did not need to use the force to make that jump it was barely 4 feet something he could easily make. "I thought Jedi did not use the Force for frivolous reasons?" he said with a smirk reminding Kanan of all the times he scolded him for using the Force for summoning a data pad to his hand.
Kanan rolled his eyes and continued past him. "Kanan get on those guns!" Hera yelled as she tried to escape the TIE fighters chasing them. Kanan rushed past and slide down the Ladder leading to the lower gun.
The ship shook as the TIE fighters hit them. "Damn it!" Hera cursed, "Zeb see what wrong with Chopper!" she ordered he had stopped firing for some reason.
"On it Hera!" Zeb called rushing towards the top gun.
"Come on let's get Tseebo somewhere save." Sabine said grabbing the rodian and pulling him towards the commons area.
"The Imperial Shuttles can carry up to twenty thousand pounds." Tseebo said, making Sabine roll her eyes.
"Good to know." she said shoving him along.
Ezra glared at the rodian as he passed. "I thought Jedi were above anger?" Hunter asked, Ezra as he tried turn Tseebo to cinders with his eyes.
"Yeah well I guess I'm not a very good Jedi than." he said bitterly, Tseebo had abandoned him left him to die if being a Jedi meant forgiving him he didn't know if he was cut out to be a Jedi.
They entered the commons just as the ship shook again. Sabine cursed. "Shavit! Ezra you and Hunter watch Tseebo I need to get on the nose gun." she told them rushing off before Hera's voice stopped her.
"Sabine the coolant system is damaged I need you to fix it!" Sabine swore, but Hunter stepped up.
"I'll repair the coolant, you man the gun." he told her rushing past her and down the hall.
"Got it," she nodded. "Ezra make sure Tseebo doesn't wander off!" she ordered, they did not need the loopy rodian wandering around in the middle of a fire fight.
"Fine." Grumbled Ezra, shoving the rodian towards the table and away from the wall he had been talking to. Just Tseebo was sitting down the ship shook knocking them to the ground. Tseebo hit his head on Ezra's.
"Ezra?" Tseebo asked confused. "Ezra Bridger?" Ezra backed up it was hard enough dealing with Tseebo, when he was just a rodian with knowledge of the Empire's plan, but that he seemed to remember. Tseebo muttered something Ezra couldn't understand.
"What?" he asked Tseebo, hoping he would repeat it in basic.
Sabine answered for him, having stayed back when Tseebo said Ezra's name. "He said that…" Sabine closed her eyes trying to translate, her eyes opened in shock. "He says he knows what happened to your parents." she looked to Ezra to his reaction. His eyes had widened and she saw in his eyes a glimmer of hope.
Hera called out to her, "Sabine I need you on that gun now!" Than the ship shook and the lights flickered. When they turned back on the glimmer of hope was gone.
"Didn't you hear Hera?" Ezra asked her making her throw her hands up in disbelieve.
"Didn't you hear Tseebo?" she asked. "He knows what happened to your parents." she couldn't believe he was not interested in this.
"I already know what happened! Their dead so go!" he ordered her with a glare. The lights flickered and a shadow was cast over Ezra's face. Sabine would call Ezra many things interesting, determined, friendly but in that moment she would have called him intimidating. She felt a shiver of fear run up her spine. There were few things that truly scared her but whatever that power that Ezra had emitted for a moment made her want to run into her room and hide under the covers. Turning she ran into nose gun, hoping Ezra did not see the fear on her face.
Ezra looked at her for a moment, he missed the brief look of fear that crossed her face, but he didn't want her to be around to see him question Tseebo. "Are they? Are my parents dead?" he asked half-desperate.
"The Bridgers should hide! The Bridgers should run! The troopers came and took them away!" Tseebo said slipping back into his previous mind set, whatever allowed him to regain himself was wearing off.
"Where?! Where did they take them?!" Ezra demanded shaking Tseebo.
"F-f-forgive Tseebo, Forgive him." Tseebo muttered looking down in shame but Ezra did not care.
"Forgive you! Forgive you!" he asked anger welling up in him once more.
"Tseebo was weak, Tseebo was scared. Tseebo could not raise Ezra Bridger."
"You coward!" Ezra roared. "You could have stopped them why didn't you stop them?!" that last bit came out as a whisper. Tseebo shied away from from Ezra his battle for control vanishing.
"Ezra I need you in the cockpit now!"
"Yeah! On my way!" He called to her absently before turning back to Tseebo. "Forgive you? You abandoned my parents, you abandoned me. I will never forgive you." Ezra said before storming off.
"Well the good news is that the tracker is attached to hull of the Phantom not the Ghost itself." Hera said once chopper had finished scanning the ship for the tracker Tseebo had warned them about.
"How is that a good thing?" Zeb asked, it was still attached to the ship.
"Because that means we can detach the Phantom and lure the Imperials away from the Ghost and Tseebo." Kanan told the lasat.
"Woah woah woah!" Sabine said holding her hands up to stop the conversation. "You want to detach the ship in the middle of hyperspace. That's insane!" she cried looking at Kanan.
"Not as insane as what I plan to do with the ship."
"Can't wait to hear this." Zeb mutter though everyone heard him.
"I checked our current trajectory." he turned to Hera. "if you can modify our hyperspace coordinates."
"I could…" she said looking at him dubiously what was he planning.
"Than we could pass by the asteroid field where the old clone base is." Kanan finished laying out the basics of his plan.
"You mean the base with scary things that live in the shadows?" Sabine asked shivering at the memory of the creatures.
"That's insane why would we want to go down there?" Ezra asked, for once couldn't they have a mission where they weren't more likely to die than live.
"He's right Kanan, we should just drop the Phantom into our trail and let the Imperials chase after their tracker." Hera said agreeing with Ezra, that was an unnecessary risk.
"It's not the tracker he is worried about." Hunter said from his place leaning on the wall of ship.
"What do you mean?" Zeb asked and Hunter couldn't help but roll his eyes.
"If we can sense the Inquisitor what do think that means?" he asked the crew, who seemed to consider it for a moment.
"He can track us as well." Ezra realized, making the others see Kanan's plan.
"Well to be more specific he can track you two I know how to hide my Force presence." Kanan tried to focus on him through the Force and realized he was right, he could sense him but if he hadn't known he was Force sensitive he would have never known.
Ezra noticed too and he was amazed. "You have to teach me that!" he said excited already imagining how useful it would be against the Inquisitor.
"Later right now the two of us have to get out of here." Kanan said getting up and walking out of the cockpit.
Ezra glared at him clearly wanted to object to this plan, he was about to rush out after him and argue about this when Hunter stopped him. "What?!" he growled.
Hunter reached for his belt, and drew one of his lightsabers. "You might need this." he said handing Ezra the saber. Ezra grabbed it and looked at him in shock. "Don't think I'm letting you keep it, I want it back but if you are going up against the Inquisitor you might need it." Ezra nodded and walked out the door, standing a bit straighter.
As the Phantom detached Hunter saw a worried look on Sabine's face as Ezra left. "What wrong?" he asked sitting down next to her.
"It's Ezra, Tseebo said he had information on what happened to Ezra's parents and Ezra didn't care." she told him placing her chin over her knees.
Hunter sighed, she was smart and mature but when it came to stuff like this she was pretty naive. "Ezra had to give up hope, he had to if he wanted to survive."
"What do you mean how is holding out hope a bad thing? That is what this entire thing we have going on here is based on!" She said, glaring at him how could he say that, didn't he betray the Emperor for the hope that he was creating a better tomorrow.
"Oh and why did you start fight against the Empire?" He asked raising an eyebrow.
"Because I realized they were evil and that I couldn't wait for someone else to come along and do something."
"You mean you gave up hope that someone else would do it for you." He pointed out, "same thing happened with Ezra he couldn't hold out hope for someone to come and help him, not if he wanted to survive. Ezra has spent so long believing his parents are dead that he doesn't dare hope now they are alive." Sabine looked pensive at that. She couldn't imagine what life must have been like for Ezra, it couldn't have been easy.
"That explains why he got so angry earlier when I mention it." Hunter had wondered where that flare of the dark side had come from, he doubt Kanan sensed it or if he did he assumed it came from the Inquisitor. Hunter's senses were a bit more attuned to the dark side he could easily tell the difference.
Mara will appear in this story but much much later on at least as a consistent character until than she will be a side character mentioned, sometimes shown but not in the action. Look at it this way, if one of your top agents went rogue you wouldn't send the person with the closest emotional attachment to him after him because there is a risk of her going rogue. Get it. Remember the Emperor isn't the good guy trying to bring hunter into the light he is the bad guy trying to drag him into the dark. He wouldn't send Hunter's sister after him to kill him that would make him hate the Emperor. Instead he would allow communication try to slowly drag Hunter back to the dark. Remember Sidious had every intention of truly replacing Vader with Hunter because Hunter right now as he is has more potential than the crippled Vader. So unlike his assassins that he sent to test Vader he truly trained Hunter not completely he left things out so that he would still have things to teach when Hunter overthrew Vader because of this while Hunter tends to use the dark side more he does not shy away from the light.
Axcel: first remember palpatine could be called arrogance incarnated. He believes everyone to be weak and only the sith to be strong and even than himself the strongest despite knowing that he was matched by Yoda and surpassed by Vader before his burns. Second while yes some of what I used like red lightsabers is made up by me for my story most of the lightsaber lore I use is canon now and I kind of like it actually. There are a lot of things about the new canon I don't like but the lightsaber crystals I like a lot. Instead of being already colored that way the force user Attunes it to himself so it is best suited for him I love that.
