Ezra's Integrity:

D201/5 BBY, Lothal

Sabine

After returning to the Ghost I went to the galley to get some water and was happy to see that there was no one else in there so I had a moment to think on the events of the day so far. Leaning against the counter as I sipped my H2O, I wondered what I was going to do about my attraction to Ezra. He obviously thought I was pretty, but should I really let it progress beyond that?

Then it struck me that I'd probably never see him again after today so it didn't matter. (Little did I know that fate was going to throw him at me and laugh like a crazed lothhyena while doing it.)

And then in walked the subject of my ruminations, looking as cute as ever. (Really not fair.) Honestly, whatever star or god or whatever had designed his colouring had to be a master artist. The midnight blue shine of his hair combined with his electric blue eyes and copper skin was the most fascinating thing I'd seen in a long time.

At least he looked happier than the last time I saw him. And that thought reminded me of how he was supposed to stay with Zeb. Not that I would stay with Zeb either, after everything Zeb had done to him already, so I didn't really blame him for disobeying orders. I just had to tease him about it, though. "Not so good at following directions are you?"

Ezra rubbed the back of his neck, looking a bit sheepish at my gentle reprimand. "Not so much. You?"

I scoffed at the idea of me following orders. So far, it felt like my whole life had been against orders and expectations. "Never been my specialty."

"Who are you people?" Ezra asked curiously. "I mean, you're not thieves exactly."

Well, we were, but only from the Empire. I'm pretty sure that didn't really count. "We're not exactly anything. We're a crew, a team. In some ways, a family."

Ezra thought about that for a moment. "What happened to your real family?"

Somehow, I wasn't surprised he figured that out; the boy was smart. But what to say? Technically, my family was still alive and well as far as I knew, but we were as far from speaking terms as you could get. I was dar'manda. Outcast. Disinherited. Tossed out like trash. However you want to put it. The short answer was that it was the Empire's fault, so I went with that. "The Empire. What happened to yours?"

Ezra never got to answer me, but the empty look in his eyes gave me a pretty good clue that his story was probably worse than mine.

The door opened and a displeased looking Zeb stuck his head in, followed by Chopper. "Kanan wants us in the common room," Zeb said to me. Then he told Chopper to watch Ezra. "If he tries anything, sound the alarm. Or shoot him." Ezra's eyes widened in alarm at that in a rather amusing fashion.

Chopper replied with, "Overkill, much?" Zeb shushed him and left. Not that Zeb understood binary, but Chopper was pretty good at delivering different tones and this one had 'incredulous' written all over it.

I felt strangely reluctant to leave the galley, feeling like I'd just started to have a decent conversation with someone in the same age bracket as myself for the first time since Ketsu left me. (For dead, a bitter little voice added at the back of my mind.) But duty calls and all that, so I put my cup down on in the sink, picked up my helmet, and gave Ezra one of those, 'sorry, but I gotta go' shrugs that all humanoids employed.

The little quirk to his lips and return shrug said he understood. (Gotta love body language.)

As I was walking out, I realized I had never told Ezra my name. I paused and said, "Sabine. My name's Sabine." Looking over my shoulder at him, I saw his face light up like I had just given him the best present in the world. How was I supposed to resist someone who thought the gift of a name was enough to make their day? With a mental sigh, I left Ezra in Chopper's rather questionable care.

Ezra

She was so kriffing beautiful, it was all I could do to remember how to speak. And those eyes; I'd never seen their like before. So big and expressive, they dominated her features. I felt like I could gaze into their amber flames for the rest of my life and be perfectly content with my lot.

And then she told me her name.

It was like a gift from the stars delivered in her melodic voice that I also wished I could listen to for the rest of my life. (I was SO gone on her after maybe fifteen total minutes in her company and I was perfectly willing to admit it.) I had already figured out her name was Sabine, but I was ridiculously happy she told me herself. To me, it was like a green light to keep trying to make friends with her.

I felt drawn like a magnet to her, my feet automatically trying to follow her when she was leaving, not even noticing that the astromech had moved in front of me until he bumped my shins and knees and scolded me for trying to leave. I glanced down at him in surprise and then gazed at the closed door longingly.

"Don't even think it," the droid beeped.

"Think what?" I said innocently. (Sort of.)

"Chasing after the female unit. She's not for meatbags like you."

I scoffed at this. "Watch me."

And with that, I was hopping up onto the counter and opening the vent.

"What ya doing?" the droid beeped curiously.

I grinned at him. "Eavesdropping, of course."

He waved a manipulator at me in a 'go ahead' motion. "Oh. Now that, you can do. Have fun."

I tossed my backpack in and shimmied myself in after it. "Thanks," I said on a laugh. What a strange droid. Wasn't sure if I liked him yet or not.

Sabine

Walking into the common room, I found a spot behind the dejarik table for our meeting. Kanan and Hera explained the new mission. The short version was that there were wookiees being taken to an unknown slave labour camp and we had a tight window to intercept the ship transporting them. This sounded like a fun mission to me.

Just as Kanan was saying that he had a plan, there was a bang from inside the closet.

Looking at it, I hid a smile behind my hand. I thought it was a safe bet to say that Ezra had been vent crawling again.

Kanan opened the door and out fell Ezra. None of us were surprised.

Ezra jumped back up and tried to crawl back into the vent, but Zeb grabbed him and tossed him back on the floor. Poor boy's been tossed around a lot today.

"I ordered Chopper to keep watch," growled Zeb. And in came Chopper, beeping about how the kid had escaped, and it wasn't his fault. Zeb looked about ready to kill something. (Specifically Ezra.) "Can we PLEASE get rid of him?"

I jumped up to my feet and got in front of Zeb, putting a hand on his chest at the same time Kanan did to stop Zeb from pummelling Ezra. He leaned against our hands, but restrained himself enough to leave it at that.

"No we can't." I said sternly. Ezra looked at me gratefully from his sprawl on the floor. Oops. Too nice. No one can know I like a boy. That would really ruin my tough girl image. To cover my slip, I said, "The kid knows too much." I saw his face fall at that, making me cringe inwardly, but there was nothing I could do right now. I'd make it up to him later.

Hera

I added to the crowd keeping Zeb off of Ezra, giving him a 'behave yourself or else' look, and then helped Ezra off the floor. "We don't have time to take him home anyway. We need to move now," I said, with a quick smirk at Kanan. (Who was somewhere between Zeb's hostility and Sabine's apparently indifference in regards to what to do with the boy.) I gently pushed Ezra towards the bridge. "I'll keep an eye on him." Kanan looked unimpressed with my scheming. (Hehe) "Come on Ezra, I'll teach you how to set a hyperspace course."

"Cool. Can you teach me how to fly too?" his eyes wide and hopeful as we walked down the hallway.

"Sure, Ezra. Why not?" I was willing to do whatever it took to make the boy want to stay with us. Even (gulp) teach the kid how to fly my precious ship. (The things I did for Kanan...)

After reaching the bridge, I gestured Ezra into the co-pilot's chair. Then I explained everything I did to start the ship and get it in the air. Once we'd left the atmosphere and were back in open space, I showed him how to calculate the hyperspace coordinates. Ezra was very bright, and picked up everything I said right away. "You're pretty good with mechanics," I praised as the Ghost settled into hyperspace.

"Thanks," he said, blushing a little as he kept his eyes firmly on the stars zipping past. "I tinker with things sometimes, when I find something thrown out that was broken. If I could fix it, then I could sell it or trade it for food."

At the reminder of how he lived, my heart hurt for him in sympathy. I knew the feeling of absolute hunger. Of being scared and homeless. In fact, I believe every being on the ship right now could claim the same. (Wasn't sure yet about Sabine, but she had that look of empty brokenness that comes from being all alone in the world that I'd seen way too much in this war torn galaxy.)

"So where are we going?" Ezra asked randomly after a few minutes of vaguely uncomfortable silence.

"How much did you hear?" I asked him back.

"Not much." Ezra shrugged and then grinned at me. "You know, your droid actually encouraged me to escape. I get the feeling that he liked creating chaos. I swear he was laughing as Zeb was getting ready to rip my head off."

I laughed. "That sounds like Chopper alright. Watch out for him. He's a prankster." I mentally shook my head at my droid. "And regarding where we're going, we're off to rescue some wookiees the Empire has captured. They're being taken to a slave labour camp. No one deserves that." I shook my head sadly. "We like to stick it the Empire whenever we can. It's kind of our mission. I guess they'd call us rebels." I smirked at that.

Ezra chuckled. Then he was quiet for a while, spinning his chair around, thinking, I guess. Whatever had been building up in him finally burst out. "This whole mission thing is nuts. I'm not against sticking it to the Empire, but there's no way I'd stick my neck out this far. Who does that?"

"We do," I said, with calm conviction as he gave me an incredulous glance. Oh, Ezra. You have so much to learn about what being the good guy really means. I just hoped he was teachable.

The Ghost signalled the end of the hyperspace jump. Returning to real space, I saw an Imperial transport ship in front of us. Time to bluff our way onto that ship; we had wookiees to rescue.

Kanan

I watched in relief as Hera and Ezra left the common room because I didn't need the distraction of his presence right now. We had a mission to run, and time was ticking away. I looked at Sabine, who was also looking at where Hera and Ezra had disappeared through the door. She was definitely thinking through something. I was getting the impression that Hera wasn't the only one on Ezra's side.

Her face was holding its usual mask of calm serenity when she was hiding something, but I could feel her emotions and they were all over the place; everything from amusement, to relief, to confusion, and possibly even a hint of attraction? Was Sabine interested in the boy? I winced at the mess that might turn into, because I'd have to have been dead to miss how Ezra focused on her like she was the only one in the room. I knew that feeling well, pathetic lovesick idiot that I was.

Eventually, her emotions settled into determination and she turned to look at Zeb and I, expectation now on her face for me to see.

Speaking of Zeb, he had had a low growl coming from his chest ever since Hera and Ezra left and his ears were pinned flat against his head. "Kanan, we are getting rid of him at the earliest opportunity, right? He really rubs me the wrong way."

"I'm sorry, Zeb," I replied. "Hera wants to keep him. You know how she gets when her mothering instincts kick in."

"Can't you talk her out of it?" Zeb whined.

I gave him an incredulous look. "Have I ever been able to talk her out of something she put her mind too?"

Zeb sighed and slumped a bit. "No. That is one stubborn female."

I laughed. (If anyone knew the extent of Hera's stubbornness, it would be me.) "She talked me into seeing how he did with this rescue mission. It was the best compromise we could come up with. She really wants to give him a chance to join us. Though it really is up to the kid if he wants to stay or not." I was obviously rooting for the later.

Zeb looked hopeful as his ears perked up. "Maybe he won't like us and will want to stay far far away from us in the future."

"I hate to break up this pity party, but shouldn't we be talking about the mission?" Sabine broke in, visibly repressing the urge to roll her eyes at us as she crossed her arms and tapped a foot on the floor. "It's only a short jump to where the transport ship is. We really need a plan."

"Sorry Sabine, we got interrupted..." I said, rolling my eyes. (Clearly we were all having a battle for the least mature person in the room at the moment.) "...earlier when I was about to tell you the plan Hera and I came up with. Hera is going to bluff our way onto the ship with a story about catching another wookiee. Zeb, you get to play the wookiee." Zeb chuckled at that. "Zeb and I will go find the prisoners. Sabine, you and Chopper are going to find the control room and create a distraction for us to escape. I was thinking disabling the gravity for a set time frame so I knew when to expect it, but the Imperials wouldn't. Can you do it?"

Sabine snorted at what was apparently a silly question. "Easy. With Chopper's help, we can have that done in a minute."

I grinned at her in approval. "Do you think you could set it to blow once we've made our escape? No point leaving them with an intact ship if we can help it."

She grinned back. (She had mentioned that blowing things up was her favourite pastime, right in front of painting stuff she shouldn't.) "I have a few explosives left. They should do the trick."

"Go for it. Blow up whatever you can. As long as we're nowhere near it," I said with a smirk. Sabine's smile widened impossibly further. "Welcome to the Ghost Crew, kid; where you get to blow stuff up with impunity."

"Sweet," she breathed.

"Alright people," I said, getting serious. "We'll be there any minute. Let's gear up. Hey Zeb, you know where the manacles are? You get to wear them for a minute." I laughed at Zeb when he groaned and ran away, mentally rubbing my hands in anticipation of the coming fight to get him into them. (Yep, there were zero mature people in the room right now. Don't tell Hera.)

Hera

I gave a silent sigh of relief when the officer on the Imperial ship bought my story. I was worried for a minute there. Apparently my threat to throw the wookiee out the airlock was convincing enough for them to think I was the real deal. It didn't hurt to throw in Governor Tarkin's name either.

After receiving permission to dock with the Imperial transport ship, I called over the comm, "We're here people. I hope you guys are ready to go."

Kanan called back, sounding a bit breathless, "Yep, we're good. Just trying to wrestle Zeb into the manacles. Despite agreeing to the plan, he seems to be having some second thoughts."

From beside me Ezra piped up with, "Oh, I wish I could see this. He owes me."

I'm sure he did. "Sorry, kid. You'll just have to imagine it."

Ezra's blue eyes gleamed with a devilish light. "I can work with that." He linked his hands behind his head and closed his eyes, apparently doing just that.

I giggled a little, a mental picture forming in my mind as well of Zeb being wrestled to the floor by two people who still didn't weigh as much as he did even if you combined their weights.

Poor Zeb. (Okay, not really.) Poor Kanan and Sabine was probably more accurate.

Sabine

I had my arms wrapped around Zeb's upper arms from behind, while I was clinging to his back like a leech. Kanan was desperately trying to get the manacles done up, while Zeb was doing his best to shake us off. Chopper was laughing maniacally at us.

"Got him," crowed Kanan.

"It's alright big guy. You'll be out of them in a minute," I reassured the large lasat, letting go of him, and jumping back down to the floor.

"You know they'll never buy this?" grumbled Zeb. "I do NOT look like a wookiee."

Kanan patted him reassuringly on the shoulder. "It's okay, buddy. Once we get on their ship, I promise you'll get to smash some bucket heads." Zeb grinned at that. Kanan led the way to the airlock. "Everybody ready?" We all nodded.

Over the comm came Hera's voice saying, "Good luck."

The door opened to reveal two stormtroopers. Time to take out the morons trained only to count to ten and march in time. Don't ask me where the Empire found theses guys, but when I was in the Imperial Academy on Mandalore, the standard issue stormtrooper would have been annihilated on the first day of school.

Hera

This was the worst part for me; the waiting.

It was necessary for me to wait here so we could take off at a moment's notice, but it was torture at the same time. All the possible what if's that could happen to my family while they were on a mission would swirl around in my head. Every time, it was all I could do to keep myself in my chair. I so desperately wanted to help, even if I knew they'd be fine without me. Fortunately today I had a distraction, in the form of a boy fighting through his own demons.

Kanan called on the comm, saying something about security being soft, then all I heard was static. I tried the comms for all my Spectres, but no one answered. The comms must be jammed. That is not good. Say hello to all my fears.

Ezra looked on with worry. Then I saw him get lost in his own head for a moment, getting that blank look Kanan does sometimes. "Something's coming," he warned just as an Imperial Star Destroyer appeared out of hyperspace. We both gawked at it for half a second. "This whole thing was a set up!" Ezra stated, needlessly.

"It's beginning to look that way. You need to board the transport and warn them," I said to him in a firm voice.

"What!" He looked at me like I'd lost my mind. "Why don't you do it?" I mentally growled at him. What an oblivious child. Apparently, I'm going to have to twist his arm into being a good person. (Sigh.)

"I need to be ready to take off, or none of us stands a chance," I explained in something resembling a patient voice.

Ezra was shaking his head adamantly. "No. No way! Why would I risk my life for a bunch of strangers?"

What could I say that would make him change his mind? "Because Kanan risked his for you. If all you do is fight for your own life, then your life is worth nothing. They need you Ezra. They need you right now." Seeing the stubborn set to his jaw, I was beginning to despair that I had made a mistake in my judgement of the boy. I had been so sure there was good in him somewhere. I was running out of ideas, and my crew were running out of time. The Star Destroyer had put a tractor beam on our linked ships and was pulling us into their hanger. "Listen, our crew boarded that transport to selflessly rescue Imperial prisoners. They have no idea they walked into a trap. No idea what's coming. You need to go warn them, Ezra."

"No, it's too late for them Hera, We should run now while..."

I cut him off before he could finish that truly awful sentence. "You don't mean that!" I watched the indecision on his face. He was really fighting with his own self preservation instincts and the something in him that wants to be good.

"I do, I swear I do. Which is why I can't believe I'm doing this," he said as he ran out of the bridge.

"I can," I said to his retreating back, with a small smile and a mental sigh of relief. Yay, there is something in there worthy of my trust. I knew it.

Ezra

I could NOT believe I was now running through the halls of a strange ship, looking for two men who didn't like me, a droid who thought pranking me was fun, and the hottest girl in the galaxy.

I'll give you one guess as to who I was hoping to find first.

Unfortunately, I never did stumble across Sabine. Never got to play the rescuing White Knight. That would have made this worth it.

I know it wasn't all that long ago that I had just resolved to do more, be a better person, etcetera, etcetera. But that was before I was faced with the enormity of being on an Imperial ship which was now in the belly of a Star Destroyer. There was absolutely nothing about this picture that said it was a sane idea to be here.

And I'd spent most of my life doing whatever I had to to survive.

This didn't look like surviving to me. All of my instincts were screaming, 'Danger! Danger! Bad idea!'

Listening to my instincts would lead me running back the way I came, so I compromised by pulling my energy slingshot out of my backpack and clipping it onto my wrist. It didn't really help me feel all that much better, but it helped a tiny smidge that you could see if you squint.

As I ran past an intersecting hallway, I caught a glimpse of green and purple and came to a skidding halt and backtracked. "It's a trap!" I yelled as I ran up to Kanan and Zeb. "It's a trap. We've got to get out of here!"

"Karabast," Zeb growled. (What the kriff was that?) "Kid's blowing another op," he grumbled to Kanan.

"It's not an op," I said between panting breaths. "It's a trap. Hera sent me to warn you."

At that moment, the door they'd been trying to blow open opened on its own and I saw a veritable herd of white armoured troopers standing in the room behind them.

That was most definitely a trap.

"Run!" I yelled.

As soon as the other two were clear and I was far enough away, I shot an energy ball at the bomb Kanan had put on the door controls.

It went BOOM and troopers went flying with a satisfying scream. But there were plenty more were those came from.

I ran after the Jedi washout and the purple menace, quickly catching up when they stopped to see why I wasn't with them. (Awww. They do have hearts. Somebody give them a medal.)

We took off running again. "We need to warn Sabine and Chopper," I said, worried about my gorgeous girl. "But they jammed the comms."

"They'll follow the plan. It'll be fine," Kanan reassured.

"Yah," I scoffed. "Cause the plan's going great so far."

Kanan shot me a look for my sarcasm that I was happy to ignore.

Our problems grew exponentially as another herd of stormtroopers appeared around a corner at the end of the hallway we were running down. In the lead was a man in grey armour wearing what had to be the stupidest looking helmet I'd seen yet. It had HOLES in the top. What the kriff for? Ventilation? Yeesh.

I wanted it for my collection.

"Don't stop," Kanan called as he charged towards the enemy with extra enthusiasm and what I would call stupidity. I stared at his back like he'd lost his mind. Zeb also put on a burst of speed and charged at them, roaring a challenge.

These people were nuts. I think I was starting to like them. Did that make me nuts too?

Only seconds before everyone was about to crash into each other, Kanan said something about pushing off. I didn't understand until I started floating. (Thanks for letting me in on the plan, people.)

I heard shots being fired, but I was too occupied with being weightless for the first time in my life to see who was shooting who. Then Zeb pushed me down via my head as I was apparently in his way. (I take back starting to like him.) Snarling at his broad back, I swam through the air and grabbed on to the back of his shirt and happily used him as a shield and a means of transport as we floated past the troopers and the man in grey, shots flying all over the place but somehow not hitting us.

I caught a glimpse of Kanan at that moment and I swear I saw him deflect a red blaster bolt away from him and into the wall with a subtle flick of his hand. Whoa. Maybe not quite as much of a Jedi washout as I thought. Was he keeping ALL the bolts from hitting us? Then why didn't he use his lightsabre? I knew he had it on him; I could hear the quiet song of it.

As we left the troopers behind, Zeb shoved me off him, and I looked back to see all the troopers either out by their own blaster bolts or swimming around helplessly in the zero gravity.

The man in grey was not looking so helpless though. He was pushing off walls and making quick work of catching up. Eeeeeppp.

I pushed off a wall and shot forward to catch up to Zeb and Kanan as the floated through the halls like they'd done this sort of thing before.

"You doin' okay, kid?" Kanan asked as he waited at an intersection for me.

"Are you kidding?!" I exclaimed. Aside from learning how to do this on the fly (hehe, I made a funny), I was doing great. "If you don't count Cheese Grader Head back there, everything's just dandy!"

Kanan chuckled at my joke, glanced back at the man who was making good progress, flicked his hand subtly, which closed the door to the hall, then shot the door controls.

"That should slow him down a bit," he smirked.

I was definitely starting to like this guy. (Zeb could fall out an airlock, though.)

With only half a hallway to go before reaching the airlock leading to the rebel ship which Hera had told me was called the Ghost, Kanan said, "Gravity's coming back on in five, four, three, two, and... now." I'd like to say I landed in a graceful crouch like Kanan did, but I ended up in a sprawl on the floor for what had to be the hundredth time today as gravity hit me.

Zeb picked me up by the backpack and we were running the last little bit to where I could see Sabine and Chopper waiting for us. Man, was I glad to see she was okay. The droid... eh. I smiled and waved like a complete dork when her helmeted head focused on me and I got the feeling she was surprised to see me.

Smooth, Ezra. Real smooth.

Sabine

So far, everything had gone down without a hitch. Of course the troopers didn't believe that a purple lasat was a wookiee, but Zeb smashed them into unconsciousness with one blow of his manacled hands. Then I took the manacles off him, and away we went to our separate jobs.

Chopper and I found the control room with no problems. Strangely, we didn't encounter any more stormtroopers. Security was really lax. Oh well. That just made my job easier. Arriving at the control room, I found only one officer on duty. I stunned him before he could even stand up from his chair. This was seriously way too easy.

Telling Chopper to get to work on the gravity controls, I did my part to set them on a timer. We would have exactly two minutes with no gravity. Then I put what was left of my explosives on the consoles. (Might as well blow up the most important part of the ship.) Then they'd have one less ship to their name.

I sent a silent signal to Kanan's wrist comm, letting him know the gravity was going off in three seconds. As we became weightless I grabbed onto Chopper and let him pull me through the air while he used his thrusters to manoeuvre through the hallways. Counting down for Chopper's benefit, we had just made it back to the airlock when the two minutes were up. The two knocked out troopers had been floating weightlessly until this point. I smirked as their bodies crashed to the floor, zero sympathy in me for them.

Kanan appeared a moment later, followed by Ezra and Zeb. What was Ezra doing on the ship? And... "Where are the wookiees?" I asked Kanan.

"No wookiees." Kanan said in disgust. "Sabine, man the nose gun. Chop, tell Hera to take off."

I was already running onto the Ghost, following orders. It never crossed my mind that we wouldn't all make it off the transport.

A/N: Before I write more in this arc, tell me if you like the 1st person pov or should I change the last four chapters to 3rd person?