Once again, sorry I haven't been updating as fast as usual. Fevers of 101 tend to make computer activity a no-go, so... yeah. But I'm better (ish) now, so things should be getting back to normal! Anyways, enjoy!
Disclaimer: As the very word 'disclaimer' says, I have no claim to anything related to Star Wars.
If Ezra hadn't known better, he would've assumed that the Empire's security had gone lax.
It had almost never been easier to sneak in and out of his intended destination, even with all of the alarms and flashing red lights keeping the soldiers constantly on the move.
Well, technically he hadn't actually gone into the room... he had stayed in the air vents, mainly due to the sheer numbers of soldiers inside the control room. He'd forgotten, when they were in a crisis, the Empire almost always took refuge behind their panels and buttons.
The main control hub, where his target had been, had housed over twenty personnel inside of it. While Ezra was sure his fighting skills were- to be modest- alright, he wasn't foolish. Taking on a room full of enemies by yourself was a stupid plan, and not one that would help their situation out any. Even if he did manage to take them all out, at least one of them would have the sense to give his position away, which would lead even more guards into the room, which, as you might think, would only lead to disaster. So Ezra had done the next best thing: let the Force do the work for him.
Stationed up in the ventilation shafts, out of sight and out of mind, he had observed the room below him with a tint of amusement at the Imperials scurrying around like ants before he got to work. Within half a minute, the entirety of the wiring inside the turret controls had been un-wired, fried, and generally messed up. A few seconds later, once the bucket-heads had realized something was wrong, the entire console had been crushed. If it was worth doing, it was worth overdoing, right?
And now, Ezra was only a few meters away from where he had given Kanan directions to head to. The sound of lasers being fired- and deflected- told Ezra that yes, his Master had found the right place, and yes, the Empire was still being a massive thorn in their side. Let's change that, shall we?
Quickly unscrewing the bolts to the grate he was currently leaning on, Ezra nimbly flipped out of the metal shafts. Directly behind the three soldiers taking cover behind shipping crates that were currently firing at Kanan and Ahsoka. Too easy.
Quickly pulling out his lightsaber, Ezra managed to stun two with blasts of energy before the third found out his position. Momentarily stunned by his sudden appearance, the bucket-head didn't have time to react to Kanan's quick blaster shot, and he fell down to the deck.
"Nice one, Ezra!"
"I try, Kanan. I try. We good to go?" Ezra jogged over to the group, clipping his lightsaber back onto his belt. He saw Ahsoka give the weapon a curious glance, and felt a moment of pride for his weapon and its' uniqueness.
"You'll have to access the controls for the lift to raise it up." Kanan gestured to the large pad in the middle of the hangar-like room. It was large enough to accommodate a small Imperial shuttle and not much else, but at the moment it was empty. There was a blast door over the space in the ceiling where it would rise up out of, but that too was currently closed. Ezra ran over to the computer terminal by the platform, reaching in for one of his tools.
"You know, sometimes I think I don't get enough credit for what I do, Master. If you didn't have me, you'd never be able to get access to what I get you." Ezra set to work on the little computer pad, fingers flying deftly over the appearing figures and codes. The Empire loved their codes.
"If I didn't have you, I'd have a lot less headaches, that's for sure."
"But you still wouldn't be able to do stuff like this, would you?" Ezra pressed the activation button with a flourish, and the platform rose dramatically, blast door opening above it. Kanan rolled his eyes with amusement, gesturing to Ahsoka to hop onto the platform. They all did so, watching the sky rise higher and higher to meet them.
"I'm assuming you did take out the surface turrets, right?" Ahsoka asked, casting a cautious look at the appearing turrets dotting the roof of the compound. "Wouldn't have come back if I didn't, now would I? But still, might want to hurry." The grin slid off of his face as he eyed the multiple canons himself. "No telling if they had a secondary control somewhere."
Aided with the Force, the three leaped off of the platform before it had fully ascended, landing with a heavy 'thud' on the roof-top. The grey metal was slippery under their feet, and it didn't take long for Ezra to see why.
The sky was a pretty shade of purple, the sun of the Yavin system having just set over the horizon. The orange gas giant of Yavin still hung in the sky, but it didn't do much in the way of lighting the ground on the surface of the moon. Their timing had worked almost impeccably, and the dark would act as a cover-shield. Unfortunately, it had also brought on a light drizzle, which was why the metal was still slippery under their feet.
It seemed to be winding down, but for now, the cold rain was falling down just enough to fall under the 'annoying' classification. It wasn't fine and misty, which Ezra had no problem with, nor was it heavy and pouring. Instead, it was light and drizzly-ish. Again, under the annoying category.
But all thoughts of the weather could go someplace else. Like, far away someplace else. Because nearly a dozen stormtroopers had just come out of the main entrance, and were currently heading their way.
Ezra pulled out his lightsaber, but he was already running, along with Kanan and Ahsoka. It wouldn't do to make a stand here, when there were possibly tens of dozens of stormtroopers around, waiting for action. Besides, if they wanted to use the darkness as cover, now would be the best time to do so, and the cycle didn't last very long.
Within seconds, the trio had jumped down onto the ground and had run into the tree-line, dodging the few stray red lasers the bucket-heads chasing them fired out. Ezra hoped Kanan knew where they were headed in relation to the Phantom, because he himself had no idea whatsoever. But he followed along, occasionally firing back a few blue bolts at the soldiers pursuing them. Whether they actually did damage or not, he had no idea. There wasn't any time to check.
"Head to the left!" Ahsoka's instructions rang out, momentarily distracting them.
"Our ship is-"
"Going to be surrounded if you bring them anywhere near it! I know this terrain, and we can lose them quickly if we head left!" Wasting no more breath for arguing, Kanan veered their trajectory to the left. Ezra just trusted Ahsoka wouldn't lead them into some horribly-dangerous scenery- and then immediately regretting trusting that. Because turning left had taken them into view of one of the most freaky looking places Ezra had ever seen: and with the crew of the Ghost, he'd seen some freaky stuff.
They were standing on the edge of a cliff, the height of which Ezra didn't want to know. But the cliff wasn't the freaky part, it was what was beyond the cliff.
Hundreds- maybe thousands -of huge stone spikes littered the ground beyond the cliff-face, stretching far into the distance, looking to be almost a hundred feet long. Some were thick, some were thin, and they all were various heights*, but there was one thing they all had in common: if they jumped off of the cliff in the wrong fashion, any one of them could skewer them straight through.
AND THEY WERE HEADED STRAIGHT FOR THEM.
"There's a series of ledges leading to the bottom! The Empire won't be able to reach us down there for a while!" Ahsoka cried out to them, red blaster bolts behind them accentuating her point.
"I hope you know what you're doing!" Kanan responded, before they had reached the cliff-face.
Even if Ezra had tried to stop, his momentum wouldn't have allowed him to. There was also the fact that even if he could stop, there were still dozens of bucket-heads running after them. So, he did the only logical (if you could call jumping off a cliff logical) thing to do. Ezra prayed to the Force that Ahsoka wasn't wrong, and plummeted downwards.
They hadn't Jedi-jumped, because that would have taken the soaring off of the edge and into one of the pokey-spikes of death. Instead, they kind of hoped off of the edge, where they landed on their feet, standing on solid rock once more. But before Ezra could even begin to thank his lucky stars, Ahsoka had them moving again.
"Keep going down! There's a few more ledges that'll lead us to the bottom, where-"
"Where we play hide-and-seek with the Empire in-between the spikes?" Kanan was clutching a stitch in his side, but he wasn't tired. Neither was Ezra. Honestly, who could be tired if they had just jumped off a cliff? Ahsoka grinned at Kanan.
"Essentially, yeah." And she hoped down, presumably to the ledge she had been talking about earlier. Ezra found himself liking Ahsoka more and more. She wasn't some stuffy Jedi apprentice, without a sense of humor and banishing her emotions. She was... well, like him. Fun. Ezra could feel his fears and doubts about her judging him- and through him, Kanan- fading away.
Kanan smiled slightly, shaking his head just so, and followed the Togruta down the cliff-side. Ezra jumped as well, still remembering the bucket-heads pursuing them.
Another ledge later, and they were safe on the rocky ground. Directly in front of them, a forest of stone pillars rose from the slightly slanted ground, reaching high up into the sky. Ezra had a thought about one of them tumbling down to the floor, then immediately banished it with a shiver.
"This way!" Ahsoka called out to them, beginning to weave back and forth between columns. They followed her jogging pace, clutching their sides and panting slightly.
"That cliff-face... it won't stop the Imperials, will it?" Even if the bucket-heads couldn't Jedi-jump, they still had equipment to bring themselves down a measly forty-foot ledge.
"It won't stop them, but it'll buy us time to get out of range of their scanners. Where's your ship?" Ahsoka paused, in the midst of the hundred of stone pillars. Closely grouped together as they were, the stone formations reminded Ezra of the narrow streets and alleys of Lothal. He doubted they'd find their way through them if it weren't for Ahsoka.
Kanan looked at his wrist-device, then pointed to their direct right. "It's a couple miles away from here, we had to land far away to avoid them detecting the ship." Ahsoka nodded, then frowned, casting a glance at the now-dark sky before resuming their journey through the thicket of stone. Though they weren't being directly chased, the trio still kept a jogging pace, just for safety's sake. Ezra was now also scanning the shadows around them for any sign of pursuit around them.
But within maybe a half-hour of travelling through the stone pillars, they still had yet to be located, and Ezra was beginning to think it'd stay like that. Even if the bucket-heads were still looking for them, as he had no doubts that they were, Ahsoka had led them so deep into the wilds of Yavin 4 that the Empire had almost no chance whatsoever of finding them. Once again, he felt his respect for the Togruta increase.
But the stone pillars thinned out, and trees were re-introduced into the mix. Ezra breathed a sigh of relief. Even though the pillars provided them cover from the bucket-heads, the giant works of nature gave him the chills. He didn't know what it was, they just seemed to emanate a presence of... creepiness.
"Alright! Back into familiar territory. Although," Ezra gave Ahsoka a humorous glance, "I guess it's all familiar to you, huh?" Ahsoka smiled darkly at him, checking their backs as she did so. Evidently, she was still concerned that the Empire would manage to track them through the maze of stone pillars.
"How could it not be? This was my home for just under a year, I think. It's hard to keep track of time without tech." She turned to face Kanan, slowing their pace down to a quick walk. "How long was I gone?" Kanan's brow furrowed, and so did Ezra's. Kanan had never met Ahsoka, right? So, how would he have known when she'd been captured? What confused Ezra even more was that Kanan answered her.
"I think we might have been in the middle of a mission when you left. Things," he glanced at Ezra, so quickly he would have missed it if he'd blinked, "were complicated around a year ago." Ezra's confusion momentarily was replaced with bad memories. It had almost been exactly a year since Ezra had been captured by the Empire. In fact, the happy anniversary should be any day now, actually. A year ago had been very complicated indeed.
"You'll have to tell me about it later. What have I missed since then?" Kanan shrugged, and Ezra's confusion returned once again. He was acting like he knew her!
"Not much. Axle's been keepi-" As soon as Axle's name was brought into the conversation, Ahsoka's face momentarily darkened in anger. Well, if Ezra needed any more proof that she was unlike the image of a Jedi he had conjured in his head, that was it.
"Axle is the slimiest...foulest... backstabbing bastard that I have ever had the misfortune to meet." Even Kanan seemed surprised at Ahsoka's abrupt change. Her very voice was dripping with dis-like, and Ezra could just barely make out in the dark lighting that she was shaking slightly. Sheesh, Ezra didn't like Axle, but to just have his name brought up in conversation make a former Jedi angry... he kind of felt a dark pleasure at someone else sharing in his detesting for the man. But he was still confused as all hell about the first order of business.
"Um, excuse me, so sorry to bother you two, but, um, how in the world do you two know one another?" Ezra looked Kanan in the eyes, still able to make them out in the gloom. "I thought you said you never met Ahsoka before?" Kanan smiled slightly.
"Well, that's true... in a way. Until now, I'd never met Ahsoka Tano."
"Then how..?!" Kanan let loose a single bark of laughter, clearly enjoying whatever look was on Ezra's face. Ha ha.
"Because I have met her before. Only then, she called herself Fulcrum."
"She's... you're Fulcrum?" Ahsoka nodded, a smile also on her previously darkened face. It seemed they both enjoyed his ignorance.
Ha ha, everyone's poking fun at Ezra...
*Just in case my description of the weird 'spikes' was too vague, they were inspired by The Grand Tsingy in Madagascar, if you want a visual reference you can look it up on Google or Bing or whatever you use as a search engine. Oh, just in case, I don't own Google or Bing either.
Like I said above I'm still recovering from illness, so if there is another delay in chapter posting, thats probably the reason why. Anyways, thank you all for reading! :)