Space, near the Asteroid Belt Gas Refinery:
Anakin rubbed his arms to try keeping them warm at the same time Hera rubbed some fog off the window beside her. "Sabine, fuel status." she said to he younger woman. ".05. We're almost down to fumes." the Mandalorian girl replied before rubbing her arms as well.
"Sorry, guys. Have to divert more power from thermal subsystems. Reducing heat to two percent." she informed the others over the ship's comm while pressing a few button on the console above her.
"Our intel on this fuel source better be solid. I'm losing feeling in my fingers." Kanan replied as Chopper entered the cockpit. "Saw the report myself. Somewhere in this belt, the Mining Guild's been refining clouzon-36 for the Empire." she explained as the droid warbled and handed Sabine a datapad.
"Whoa. One shipment of that stuff could fuel us and all the ships in Phoenix Squadron for a full cycle." she said while looking through the datapad. "Empire is scheduled to pick up their shipment today. We just have to get there and find it first." the Twi'lek replied as she looked back outside and Chopper warbled.
"The asteroid field is scrambling our sensors." the ex-merc's girlfriend said with a small frustrated sigh before looked over her shoulder to read the datapad. "Well, I'm getting nothing on the old visual scanners." Ezra said from where he was sitting in the nose gun seat, voice shivering a bit from the cold.
"All right. Cut the chatter. Keep your eyes peeled for that refinery." Hera told them before Ahsoka's son heard a wailing noise. "Does anyone hear that noise?" the young Jedi asked.
"The only thing I hear is my brain freezing." Zeb replied with a shivering groan. "I hear it too." Anakin replied, moving to Sabine's left to look outside before the wailing was heard. "There. The noise. I hear it again. It's, it's getting louder." he said before it did indeed get louder.
"I don't see anything out here. What's it sound like?" the older Jedi asked the other two Force-sensitives. "It's, it's hard to describe. Kind of sad, I guess. But... I mean, how can you not hear it? It's coming from all around us." his apprentice replied before Hera looked at Sabine who only shrugged.
"Ezra, there's nothing to hear. Sabine, check the scanners again." the Twi'lek replied before addressing the younger woman. "Uh, yeah... You may want to look outside instead." Ahsoka's son said quickly as he pointed at the seven large creatures heading straight towards them.
"Whoa." Ezra said in awe before Chopper let out a panicked warble as the creatures reached them. "Brace yourselves!" Hera warned before the creatures started to pass by them.
The ship shook a bit when one of the creatures would occasionally bump into them. "What the bloody blazes are those?" the Lasat asked in surprise. "Purrgils." she replied before pressing a few buttons on the upper console.
"They'll rip the hull apart. Prepare to fire. We gotta drive them back." she added before getting ready to shoot. "Don't shoot! They'll pass. Just let 'em do what they do." Kanan said to her.
"What they do is destroy starships like ours." she replied. "We can't waste power fighting these things." he argued. "What choice do we have?" she shot back. "We could just get out of their way." the Mandalorian girl suggested. "See? Now there's a plan." her boyfriend spoke up in agreement.
"We either run into them or the asteroids. Take your pick." Hera replied. "Try flying with them instead of against them." Ezra suggested. "Uh, that's not a half-bad idea." Sabine said in agreement.
"Fine. I can't believe I'm doing this." the Twi'lek replied. "It's not the strangest thing we've ever done." the older Jedi commented. "Yeah, that doesn't make me feel better." she replied before starting the ship up then turning it around.
"I think they've calmed down. I'm not hearing them anymore." the ex-merc said after sitting back down. "That was a good instinct, Ezra. How did you know?" his master asked, sounding impressed.
"It just seemed like the right thing to do." he replied. "Okay, we're low on fuel, surrounded by asteroids, and caught in a swarm of Purrgil. How has the situation improved exactly?" Hera questioned as they flew alongside the purrgil.
"Hello? Are we shooting them or not? 'Cause here comes a really big one." Zeb said, sounding a bit worried. "Wow. These creatures are amazing. Who would want to shoot them?" the younger Jedi wondered.
"Hera, if you gave her the chance." his master replied. "Kanan, you don't know what you're talking about. I do." she snapped. "Well, since I'm so uneducated, why don't you explain your problem?" he shot back as Anakin rolled his eyes at their bickering.
"These creatures are a menace. A big, lumbering menace." she shot back before the two younger Force-sensitives heard the wailing again. 'Ah hell, now what?' "Something's upsetting them again." Ahsoka's son said.
"Maybe it's Hera." the Lasat replied. "No, it's not Hera. TIE fighters. Two of 'em. I need a better angle." Kanan said before one of the TIEs hit them with three blasts as it flew overhead.
"Hang on!" the Twi'lek warned before pulling the ship up above the purrgil.
Right after sensing the death of one of the pilots, the teens and Hera saw the second fly over them and noticed it wasn't an Imperial TIE. "Those TIEs have been modified. They're not Imperial." Sabine pointed out.
"Well, they're acting like it." the older Jedi replied before the TIE turned around for another run. "I've got him. I've got him." his Padawan said before they heard a beeping sound. "Hera, I lost my cannons." he said to her.
"Rerouting auxiliary power from the Phantom." she said while pressing a few buttons.
"Hera!" Ezra said urgently as the remaining TIE got close enough to open fire on them. Ezra yelled in fear as the fighter got right in front of them before the Twi'lek finally managed to reroute power.
The younger teen quickly blasted it before sighing in relief. "Oh, see? If we shot at the Purrgil, we wouldn't have had..." Kanan started before Hera shut the comm off so she wouldn't hear his 'I told you so' speech.
"Those fighters were Mining Guild." the ex-merc's girlfriend said to her. "They must be from the refinery. You think you can track where they came from?" the Twi'lek asked her. "Maybe. Give me a minute." she replied a few seconds before the older Jedi entered the room.
"As I was saying, it's a good thing we didn't waste energy shooting at the purrgil." he said with a smirk and leaning against the chair opposite of Anakin's. "I heard you the first time." she replied, annoyance in her tone.
"Something's happening." Ezra said as they saw the purrgil heading in a different direction. "They're turning around. I think we should follow them." he added a few seconds later.
"Following them is the last thing we should do. Sabine, did you find out where the fighters came from yet?" she replied before addressing the younger woman while Kanan sat down.
"I did." the Mandalorian girl replied. "Good. What's our heading?" Hera asked. "Follow the purrgil." she replied, earning a surprised look in return. "What?" she asked. "Yeah, I hate to tell you this, but the purrgil are heading right where I calculated those fighters came from." she replied.
"That's so interesting." the older Jedi said with mock enthusiasm while smirking at the Twi'lek. "All right. I guess for now we follow the purrgil." she hesitantly agreed. "Hey. For what it's worth, I've got a good feeling about this." the younger Jedi reassured after climbing up the ladder.
Hera turned her seat back around before piloting the ship towards the purrgil. "Go check your cabins. Make sure everything is switched off. We've gotta save every little bit of fuel." she told the others after catching up to the purrgil.
Since Sabine was exiting the cockpit, her boyfriend decided to stay behind with Ezra and Hera. "I never imagined there were creatures in deep space." the kid said as he walked up to her.
"When I was young, I was told amazing stories of creatures that lived in the stars, traveled between the worlds. Old pilots said it was the Purrgil who inspired us to jump from system to system. But I don't believe it. The Purrgil are dangerous. They wander into hyperspace lanes, crash into ships. I've lost more than one friend that way." she replied.
"Maybe they don't realize they're putting people in danger." the ex-merc suggested. "Maybe it's like Kanan says, you know. They just do what they do." the younger teen agreed.
"Right now, as long as they don't come between me and my mission, I really don't care what they do." she replied dismissively before he chuckled. "Fair enough." he said with a smile before the alarm went off as they neared some planetoid.
"Scanners are picking up an energy source from that planetoid ahead." she said while looking at one of the screens on the console. "Think it's the refinery?" Ahsoka's son asked while getting up from his seat and walking over to stand behind hers.
"We're about to find out." she replied before they got closer to the massive crater filled with unrefined clouzon-36 gas. "There it is. The refinery." she said a few seconds later as they neared the refinery.
"I wonder why the purrgil are headed that way." Anakin wondered. "Works out for us. Between them and all these asteroids, the Mining Guild will never see us coming." the Twi'lek replied before they heard grunting and turned their heads to see Zeb forcing the doors open.
"The automatic doors aren't so automatic anymore." he grumbled before Kanan and Sabine moved under his arm to enter the cockpit. "I've rationed what energy we have left." Hera replied as he let the door close behind him.
"What's your next move?" the older Jedi asked as the Mandalorian girl moved over to the console behind the seat her boyfriend was sitting in earlier. "I want to get a secure position to plan our attack. Sabine, Chopper, ready a short, controlled burst from the engines. In three, two, one. Now!" she ordered before the ship suddenly sped up.
Asteroid Belt Gas Refinery:
As they neared a small asteroid above the refinery, Hera quickly slowed the ship before landing on it. "Okay. So how exactly are we gonna pull off this raid with our limited resources?" the Lasat asked, sounding skeptical of their odds.
"Well, give me a second and I'll tell you." Sabine replied before walking up between Hera and Ezra.
The Mandalorian girl then held up a pair of macrobinoculars to scan the area. "Okay. More fighters. That's not good. Anti-ship cannon, also not good. But... Aha. There's the Empire's shipment. Okay, lots of guards around, but I think we can drop down there, scoop it up and go." she told them.
"Forget the scoop job. We have just barely enough fuel to get down there. We'll have to land." Hera replied. "Refuel on the platform? They'll blast us to bits. We need a diversion." Zeb said as Ezra took the macrobinoculars from the ex-merc's girlfriend before scanning the platform.
"I've got one. The gas in that pool is unrefined clouzon-36. Highly explosive in its pure form. We drop in a few charges, the blast will provide all the diversion we need." she said. "In the chaos, we grab the fuel." Anakin said, catching onto her plan.
"And that huge fireball will destroy the Empire's ability to refine more. I like it." the Twi'lek said before addressing the younger teen. "Ezra, you hear the plan?" she asked him. "Yeah, sure." he replied, sounding a bit distracted before he lowered the macrobinoculars.
"Uh, they're using the cannon to shoot the purrgil. Why would they bother?" he questioned. "Speaking of, how do we get past that gun undetected?" Sabine asked as he went back to looking through the macrobinoculars.
"We jump." Kanan said, getting everyone's attention. "Excuse me?" the Mandalorian girl asked, sounding surprised. "We're in the upper atmosphere. We can glide in on the catwalk. With all the purrgil around, we can probably slip by unseen." he replied.
"Sounds like a dangerous plan." the Lasat said. "Don't worry, buddy. You're staying here." the older Jedi replied while placing a hand his friend's shoulder. "Oh. Sounds like a good plan." Zeb said, sounding a bit relieved before turning around and opening the door for Kanan and the couple.
"Sabine, do you have the helmet I lent you?" Kanan asked as he joined the teens and droid in the cargo hold. Without a word she tossed the painted stormtrooper helmet to him. "What?" he asked in surprise at seeing the paintjob.
"You said you just wanted to look at it." he said sounding annoyed. "I did look at it. And it looked bad." she replied with a smirk before they both put their helmets on. "I think it looks great." her boyfriend complimented while looking at her.
The girl smiled behind her helmet before the ramp opened and lowered. "Wait. We're not taking the Phantom?" the younger teen asked as the ex-merc's girlfriend clipped four proximity bombs onto her belt.
"You know, you should really pay more attention." she chided. "How are we getting down there?" he asked. "Like Kanan said. We jump." the ex-merc said before the older man jumped first, followed by Anakin then his girlfriend and finally the kid and Chopper.
As they fell through the air, Sabine grabbed onto her boyfriend before a few purrgil started moving alongside them.
"Wow." the younger Jedi said in awe as he and one of the purrgil looked at each other for a moment before it and the others flew off. "Five seconds." Kanan told them as they neared an unoccupied bridge.
The ex-merc landed with ease before his girlfriend let go at the same time Kanan landed. Unfortunately Ezra hadn't got the hang of using the Force to slow his fall and instead kept going over the side before his master reached for him with the Force to pull him back up.
Ahsoka's son grabbed him by the hand as he neared them before helping the kid onto the bridge. "I'm gonna have to work on that." he said while panting from fear. "I'm gonna make sure you do." the older man replied while placing his hands on his hips.
"Look out!" he warned, igniting his blade as rodian worker opened fire them. Ezra ignited his blade too as Kanan started deflecting blaster fire. "So much for our stealth mission. Sabine. Toss the detonators." the older Jedi ordered.
"I'm on it." she replied before activating all four. "Detonators?" the younger Jedi asked in surprise before sheathing his saber then knocking the bombs out of her hands. "What the hell are you doing?!" Anakin demanded as he fired off a few shots from his DC-15S.
"Ezra, are you crazy?" the older Jedi asked incredulously after the kid picked up the bombs. "We can't blow up the gas!" he defended as Sabine fired off a few more shots. "Don't tell me this is about the purrgil." she asked, sounding frustrated.
"It is." he replied firmly. "Hold that thought. Sabine!" Kanan said before dropping to one knee to give her a shot. The Mandalorian girl quickly took it and gunned down the rodian before they all ducked as another rodian working the cannon that was behind the first miner opened fire on them.
Thinking quickly, the ex-merc released a hand from his blaster before thrusting it forward and releasing a controlled Force push that moved past the two Jedi who were charging the rodian, and knocking him off the end of the bridge.
Both then turned to face their friend with shocked looks behind their helmets. "Did you just control that Force push?" Ezra asked in awe. "Pretty much, yeah." the other teen replied with a shrug.
"Okay. Explain yourself." the older Jedi asked his apprentice after snapping out of his surprise. "Okay. The gas and the purrgil are connected. We can't blow up the gas without hurting them." the kid replied before the older man hummed.
"Kanan, what's the plan?" Anakin's girlfriend asked him. "I trust your instincts, kid. Now get on that cannon and cover us." he ordered the youngest teen who then ran over to the cannon.
"What exactly are we doing?" Ahsoka's son asked the older Jedi. "We're going to secure the landing zone." he replied before taking off with the droid and couple following him.
The three were still running when Hera suddenly contacted the Mandalorian girl. "We're improvising, again. Kanan, Anakin and I are securing the landing zone while Ezra covers us with the cannon." she replied to the Twi'lek's question.
"The purrgil changed the plan." she answered again after a few more seconds passed. "Hera, if you're looking for a guarantee, you are on the wrong mission. We'll contact you when the platform is clear." the younger woman answered once more before cutting off just as they reached the end of the bridge.
As a miner opened fire, the four quickly took cover behind a container that was roughly as tall as the two men. "Where's my cover fire?" Kanan asked his apprentice over his helmet's comm as two more rodian appeared and opened fire on them.
The four watched as the cannon blasts scared off the rodian shooting from the balcony above before a few blasts neared the other two who were near some fuel canisters. "Careful! Don't hit the fuel." Sabine warned him over her comm.
A few seconds later the younger Jedi managed to scare the other two rodians away before she contacted Hera. "Hera, you better get down here. Your landing zone is temporarily secure." she informed the Twi'lek.
Almost immediately after she contacted the other woman, the four saw the Ghost descend onto the platform nearby.
Unfortunately it wasn't long before the four were under cannon fire again by a rodian on one of the tower balconies. "Spectre-6, do you copy?" the older Jedi asked his apprentice as another bolt hit their cover. "I believe we need cover fire!" he replied urgently after Ezra spoke.
As soon as their friend got the rodian's attention, the four quickly made their way over to the ship to help Zeb move the canisters on board. "Son of a-!" the ex-merc cursed as bolt from one of the two rodians on the landing platform, skimmed his helmet before he retaliated by shooting the same one in the head. "Heads up." he joked darkly.
Anakin then turned his attention back to the other miner as Sabine and Chopper each moved a canister onto the ship, while Kanan and Zeb helped him with suppressing fire. A few seconds later, the teen focused on keeping the Lasat safe as he attempted to refuel the ship.
"Refuel commencing." he announced before they heard the familiar sound of TIE fighter. "Shit." the teen cursed as turned his to look at them. Noticing them as well, Kanan quickly ran towards the ship before jumping on top and igniting his blade to deflect blasts from one of the fighters.
"We need to find Ezra." Zeb said as he and the couple covered Chopper, who was moving one of the last canisters on to the ship. "Without fuel, we can't find anybody." Sabine said as the three kept firing.
A few seconds later the TIEs came back and held them at blasterpoint just as the Mandalorian girl and Lasat were pushing the last two canisters on to the ship. "Surrender, thieves. You are at my mercy." an unknown alien ordered from a nearby balcony. "What is your answer?" he asked after a few seconds of silence.
Fortunately they were almost immediately saved as a group of purrgil came flying out of the gas cloud and destroyed one of the TIEs. Sabine and Zeb both gasped in surprise and awe as they and her boyfriend saw Ezra riding the lead purrgil with his lightsaber ready.
"Found Ezra." the Lasat said. "Blast those disgusting things!" they heard the foreman order the rodians before the kid deflected bolts from the two beside their boss. A moment later the remaining fighter made a turn to come in for an attack run on the kid and purrgil. Just as it reached them, he swung his saber an managed to cut off one of it's wings.
"Impressive. most impressive." Anakin said as he actually found himself impressed by the kid and chuckled a bit after the TIE exploded before moving over to help his girlfriend push the second last canister up the ramp.
"This is the last one. Go. Go!" Zeb said urgently as he pushed the last one up the ramp with the ex-merc's help after he was done helping his girlfriend but. Hera then started up the ship before slowly taking off.
The couple then quickly made their way to the cockpit before sitting in their respective seats to help if needed. Anakin's eyes widened after seeing the foreman get grabbed by one of the purrgil before it flew into the cloud.
Once the purrgil left the factory, the Twi'lek opened fire on the place before launching two rockets then taking off as the factory exploded.
The ex-merc relaxed in his seat the second they were back in space before Chopper and Zeb joined them. A few minutes later the two Jedi soon joined them. "It wasn't like anything I've ever experienced. I could see what they were thinking." the younger Jedi said.
"You must have established a deep connection with them." his master said with a smile. "I guess so. I could see they need gas to breathe and travel. The crater wasn't their home, just one stop on a long journey." the kid replied before the rebels looked back at the purrgil flying ahead of them.
"I have to admit, without the help of the Purrgil, we never would have gotten off the ground again." the Twi'lek admitted. "Whoa. Look." the ex-merc's girlfriend said in awe as they all saw the tentacles on the purrgil start glowing.
"Can it be?" the older woman whispered in awe before all but one purrgil jump to hyperspace. "It is true. They can travel through hyperspace." Ezra said after the last on jumped as well.
"We better get moving, too." the older Jedi suggested with a small chuckle. "Back to the fleet?" Anakin asked with a small smile before Hera returned it. "How 'bout we follow the purrgil?" she suggested before making the ship jump to hyperspace after their new friends...
It's always nice when an episode ends on a happy note.