From Flames, I Soar

by Kurenaino

With the Empire at the height of its power and the shadow of a greater threat hanging above all those who would oppose Palpatine, the Specters, led by former Jedi Padawan Kanan Jarrus, are forced to contend with the Sith Lord that set the galaxy ablaze. Sequel to In Chaos, I Thrive.

60. Hera's Heroes

AN: Happy Memorial Day Weekend, kids! Long weekend to enjoy this long ass chapter!

I was going to have this up a lot sooner, but...well, you guys know how it goes. Turns out this thing was way more important that I originally intended, so the chapter ended up...uh, hellishly long. The next chapter's shorter and will therefore be up sooner, I promise. No less important, but shorter. The framework for the next one isn't nearly as intense.

Alright, lovelies! Please enjoy this absolute mess! As always, let me know what you think, I love hearing from you guys!

Chapter 60: Hera's Heroes

"You arrived just in time," Cham Syndulla gasped, giving his daughter a small, grateful smile as he slowly walked toward her and furtively looked around the Ghost's cabin at the Spectres that had gathered to greet him and his small band of rebels. "Thank you for making this supply run."

"It wasn't easy getting past that Imperial blockade," Hera said with a frown, her arms crossing over her chest as she looked at her worn and weary father. "What happened? We stole that carrier and the Star Destroyer to get help take pressure off Ryloth and shift the Imperial focus away from your movement, and now there's a blockade! This is much worse than before, didn't the plan work?"

"It did, for a time..." Cham said bitterly. "There was disarray in the Imperial ranks, as expected, and we used that advantage to take back some of the ground those Imperials stole from us."

"Father..." Hera growled softly, her palm striking her forehead as she tightly squeezed her eyes shut. "The point of taking the pressure off the Free Ryloth movement was to give you and your rebels time to regroup!"

"And what was I supposed to do?" Cham snapped. "Hide in the hills and wait for the Imperials to return?" He cut his hand through the air. "No. I've had enough of waiting. I saw an opportunity and I took it."

"And now you have another Imperial blockade," Hera said flippantly, a wry, forced smirk upon her lips. "Was that a part of the plan to retake Ryloth?" For a moment, it looked as if Cham would argue, his shoulders bunching and his lekku squirming in agitation, before he let out a heavy, defeated sigh.

"Of course not..." Cham said quietly. "And for a while, it was going well enough. But the commander that took over after we stole those ships..." Cham whistled softly as he shook his head and leaned against the wall. "What he lacks in refinement he makes up for with a singular hatred of the Twi'leks." He scoffed, his hand flicking in a dismissive gesture. "Primitives, he calls us. Servant filth fit only for slavery or destruction. Sheer brutality has allowed him to regain everything we took back, and then some, but my forces have been able to stay one step ahead of him thus far."

"Well, a little good news is better than none," Hera muttered, and Cham's gaze fell to the ground as he slowly shook his head.

"I wish I had better news..." Cham said quietly, regret and remorse heavy in his voice. "The past few days, Imperials began an new military strike, and they now occupy the entire Tann Provence."

"What's the Tann Provence?" Ezra asked in the awkward silence that followed when Hera's jaw clenched and her brow furrowed in unsettled quiet.

"It's where Hera grew up," Kanan explained to his student as he drew closer to Hera and lain a hand upon her shoulder, the affectionate touch enough to jolt her out of her thoughts, and with a small, grateful smile to the Jedi, Hera turned her attention back to Cham.

"What happened, Father?" Hera asked tightly, swallowing her emotion as she took a step closer to Cham.

"I underestimated Captain Slavin," Cham said bitterly, anger and offense making his entire body tighten with an almost oppressive tension. "His previous attacks have been clumsy, but this one was swift and precise. I didn't believe the fool capable of learning, but he apparently is." Cham scoffed, the tension leaving his muscles as his shoulders slumped in defeat. "I lost many good men and women in his attack, and now he's made our home his headquarters as a personal insult. I...couldn't save anything when I escaped."

"Not even the Kalikori?" Hera asked, hopeful despite the twisting knot of dread in her stomach, and when Chan shook his head, she couldn't help the gasp that slipped past her lips. This was not what she signed up for when she agreed to go on this supply run.

It had been an easy decision, at first. In light of their losses at Skystrike Academy and the ever tightening grip that Thrawn was exerting upon them, Ahsoka and Hera agreed that it would be best for the Spectres to make themselves scarce, putting space between themselves and the Grand Admiral in the hopes that the distance would afford them a new perspective on the trap that Thrawn was setting. With the Spectres temporarily out of the picture and with Ahsoka and Commander Sato taking the lead back in the Lothal sector, they had high hopes that the change in command would force Thrawn to reevaluate and assess his tactics.

With the information that Sabine brought back with her from her brief, frightening meeting with the Grand Admiral, it seemed that the only way to beat the man was to keep him on his toes, and to do that, they had to remain as unpredictable as possible. That meant new commanders, new tactics, and to do so, the Spectres needed to step out, at least for a little while, and Hera had been quick to sign her team up for a supply run to Ryloth when the call for aid came in. While she and her father never had the best of relationships, they last parted on better terms after she had earned stubborn Cham's respect, and Ryloth, clear across the Outer Rim from Lothal, seemed as good a place as any to escape Thrawn's reach.

But this mission had suddenly become far more personal that Hera cared to admit.

"What's a Kalikori?" Ezra asked when Kanan drew Hera closer to him, and he quickly found his arm being punched by the strong, heavy fist of the resident Lasat.

"You don't know anything, do you Ezra?" Zeb chortled, his fangs exposed in a wide grin as he watched a glowering Ezra rub his arm. Looking quickly between the identical, skeptical looks on Kanan and Hera's faces, Zeb's ears flattened against his head as he leaned in toward their fearless Jedi leader. "...hey, Kanan..." Zeb whispered, loud enough in the silent room that everyone who was listening heard him. "What's a Kalikori?"

"It's totem Twi'leks craft and pass down the family line to honor all those who have come before," Hera calmly explained, a small smile on her face as she closed her eyes and remembered her own. "Each parent adds to the artwork to include themselves in the legacy."

"Family history as living art," Sabine said reverently, delicately laying a hand over her own painted armor, the hard beskar alloy reforged to her liking, but it too had come from a long, proud line of Mandalorians, hundreds of years old and carrying with it all the battles and history and blood it had been through. It was unthinkable to leave something like that behind, even for focused, duty-bound Hera, such a thing would be difficult to abandon.

"Hera would have inherited our family's Kalikori," Cham muttered, looking back at Hera and taking a deep breath to apologize for his failure, and was quickly cut off when Hera stepped forward, fierce determination on her face.

"And I still will," Hera said, firm and resolute, immovable in that way she got whenever she committed herself to something. "That heirloom was important to my mother, and I'm not ready to give it up yet."

"My forces and I will be coming with you," Cham said slowly, drawing up to his full height and for the first time since they picked him up looked something more than just weary. "It was my fault that it was lost. It's only right I help reclaim it."

"So will we," Sabine said as she lightly tapped Zeb and Ezra on the chest, and with a heavy sigh, Hera shook her head.

"This wasn't meant to be a personal mission..." Hera said under her breath, taking slow, deep breaths in an attempt to push her emotions away, but she couldn't. This struck too close to home, was far too personal for her to let go, and she found herself quietly looking over her crew. Kanan, his life as he knew it destroyed in an instant when the Empire came to be. Zeb, his homeworld and his species cruelly torn from him for their defiance of the Empire. Sabine, cast out by her family when they chose loyalty to the Empire over loyalty to family. Even Ezra, his parents murdered for speaking out for freedom and his home of Lothal now under tight Imperial control. Now, after being at war for so long, Hera found herself finally joining their ranks. Like them, the Empire had finally stole her home and her family's legacy.

"I can't let you take this risk with me," Hera quietly protested, though she knew as soon as she said it that none of the people in the room would even think of letting her do this alone.

"You'd do it for us," Kanan said quietly, his fingers lightly dragging down Hera's arm to gently stroke the back of her hand.

"We owe you," Zeb quietly added, his ears flattening against his head as he rubbed the back of his neck, and with a sigh, Hera closed her eyes and nodded gratefully, her hand tightening around Kanan's.

"Is, uh..." Cham muttered as he leaned over to look down the hallway suspiciously, and frowned when he looked back at Hera. "Is Kenobi here?"

"Not today," Hera said swiftly, and she couldn't tell if the look that passed over Cham's features was one of relief or disappointment.

"I'll brief you on Captain Slavin's defenses," Cham said, pulling a small datacard from a pouch hanging from his belt, and Hera gestured toward the holotable, her crew and Cham's rebels gathering around the table as he slid the card into the reader and the holographic field lit up, a simple map flickering into view. Hera observed it in silence for a moment, her hand to her chin as she slowly circled the table to observe the crude drawing from every angle, reaching out occasionally to brush her fingers through thick red lines symbolizing the Imperial defenses and the large red spot indicating her childhood home.

"This won't be easy..." Hera muttered, taking a step back from the table and reading the scrawled numbers and information in the holofield beside the map. "How accurate is your intel?"

"Accurate enough," Cham said bitterly. "As I have said, Captain Slavin holds the Twi'leks in contempt, and I have been a difficult opponent. Our home is a trophy to him."

"Turning the Twi'lek rebel leader's home into the center of Imperial control..." Sabine drawled, a wry smirk on her face as she watched Cham frown and his lekku squirm with irritation. "Gotta say, this guy's got a way with symbolism. That sends a powerful message."

"The significance of his victory isn't lost on me," Cham snapped. "In all our years of fighting, we have never lost control of the Tann Provence until now. As I said, Slavin has previously been a clumsy commander. I spent the past year fighting him, and this last attack was unlike him."

"So...was it him?" Ezra asked, softly scoffing when he was answered with silence. "Oh, come on, I'm not the only one that was thinking that. If this attack wasn't like him, maybe it wasn't him. Maybe they brought in a new commander."

"We haven't heard anything about a new commander, but it's possible," Cham muttered thoughtfully before he scoffed, dismissively waving the thought away. "A matter which will be important when we fight to retake Taan, but that is not today. This is an infiltration, not a battle."

"It will be if we do our jobs right," Hera said as she looked the map over once again. "Alright, Father, what advantages do we have?"

"Nobody knows this land as well as we do," Cham said proudly. "We can get lost in the canyons and ravines and lead Imperials into ambushes. We've been doing it for months."

"It didn't help you hold the Tann Provence," Hera coldly pointed out, and Cham's jaw tightened.

"No..." he said between clenched teeth. "But it has helped keep us alive. Slavin cannot pin us down because we know the land so well."

"Good enough for an infiltration," Hera said with a nod. "What else?"

"Little else, I'm afraid," Cham said. "Our numbers are few, and a great many Twi'leks were captured when the Empire seized our home." Anger flashed across Cham's face, hopeless, overwhelming rage making his lekku twist and squirm as he glowered at the map. "Our people are now made to serve Slavin and his men as slaves to the Empire."

"They were enslaved?" Ezra asked, a pit dropping in his stomach as he looked at the Twi'lek rebels, the emotions coursing through the Force ranging from hopeless sadness to oppressive wrath, the very look of them enough for him to know how deep this violation ran. "Hera, we need to free them!"

"We can't, Ezra," Hera whispered, a sad smile on her lips as she looked at the young Jedi, and though she hid it well, Ezra could see how wounded the woman was. "We don't have the numbers to liberate Ryloth."

"Not Ryloth, Hera, just here!" Ezra said desperately. "Just the Tann Provence, just your home!"

"To what end, Ezra?" Hera asked darkly, her lips drawing into a thin line and her eyes narrowing with anger. "This isn't the only place my people are enslaved, and they will continue to be so long as the Empire occupies Ryloth. If we drive them out of the Tann Provence, they will only be back, and in greater numbers than before. No," she said resolutely, her hands gripping the edge of the table. "To free my people, we must drive the Empire from Ryloth for good, and that won't happen until there's no longer an Empire."

"Open war with the Empire..." Sabine mused quietly. "It won't be long before it's upon us."

"But that day isn't today, we aren't ready," Hera said firmly, shooting her indignant father a pointed glare. "This is a personal mission. I'm not about to turn it into a battle we can't possibly win."

"So what's the plan?" Kanan asked before Cham could start arguing, and giving the Jedi a grateful smile, she turned her attention back toward the map.

"We create a diversion," she said, pointing to a space within the boarders of the Imperial line. "Like my father said, nobody knows the land like us. We get Imperial attention, lead away patrols in the area, which will allow me to sneak past them."

"And you intend to just walk into our home, is that it?" Cham asked with a roll of his eyes. "Have you forgotten that Slavin has made our home his headquarters?"

"I haven't forgotten," Hera said with a tight, disdainful smile. "Ezra has a set of Scout Trooper armor. That should get he and I past the perimeter. And for the rest of it." Hera shrugged. "You said it yourself, Father. Our people have been enslaved. No Imperial is going to notice one more servant."

"It's risky..." Cham said quietly, his fingers lightly drumming on the holotable as he looked at the projection of the hand drawn map. "But it just might work."

"Just you and Ezra?" Kanan asked, and Hera's features softened significantly, and she reached up to lightly drag her fingers across his jaw before she gently patted his cheek.

"A smaller group can move faster and has a better chance of going unnoticed," Hera said quietly, the small smile on her lips fading into a tight frown as she considered the plan. "And if something were to go wrong, we'll be better off if we lose fewer people. Kanan," Hera said swiftly, effectively cutting off the objection the Jedi began to raise. "I need you out in the canyon with my Father to act as a diversion. There isn't anything that attracts Imperial attention like a Jedi."

"Boy is that the truth..." Kanan said with a heavy sigh. "Alright, Hera. I'll keep their eyes off you."

"I know you will," Hera said, turning her eyes to the Mandalorian across the table. "Sabine. You ready to blow some things up?"

"I've never been more ready for anything in my life," Sabine said with a devious smirk, her hand resting on a cocked hip. "I've got an explosive that will go up in chromatic flames. Should be as beautiful as it is destructive. I've been dying to try it out."

"Looks like you're going to get your chance to do that." Circling around the table once again, Hera stopped and pointed at one of the map's edges between two Imperial sentry towers. "We'll begin our operation here," she said quietly. "You guys work on a diversion to draw the troops away so Ezra and I can sneak in. Once inside, it shouldn't take us long to get what we came for and get out." Taking a deep breath, Hera looked around the room at the attentive faces looking at her. "Any questions?"

There were none, and laying a hand upon her shoulder, Kanan flashed her a calm, confident smile. "Alright, kids," the Jedi said. "Let's get this done."

---

The diversion was executed flawlessly, the Imperial patrol shouting commands and calling for reenforcements as they recklessly rushed after the glow of a blue lightsaber, and Hera and Ezra effortlessly slipped by them, the speeder bike they had commandeered taking them swiftly through the red rock ravines of Ryloth's Tann Provence. Despite the time she had been away, Hera knew the way through the twists and turns of the canyons like she had just been there yesterday, her childhood spent running across the dusty land imprinted upon her mind. For a very long time, Hera's home was out among the stars, but it felt good to be back.

Even with the Empire occupying it.

One day, Ryloth would finally be free, the fight her father had started so long ago finally won, and Hera wondered, when her own fight was finally over, if she would return home someday. She suspected not. Even as a young girl, her eyes were always turned upwards toward the sky and the stars, the Ghost more home to her than Ryloth had ever been. But still, the thought persisted. When her war was over, when the galaxy was free of the tyrannical clutches of the Empire, what came next? Free of restrictions and obligations, she and Kanan could finally devote themselves to each other, and if they were so inclined, they could start a family of their own. Such things felt so far away, but one day, that day would come, and when it did, perhaps a free Ryloth wouldn't be such a bad place to return to.

Though deep in her heart, she knew her home would always be aboard the Ghost.

"There it is," Hera said to Ezra as they crested the ridge of one of the many canyons, pointing down into a deep ravine at a large, cone-shaped mound of hollowed stone reaching high up into the sky, the remnants of a long extinct volcano peppered with lights that glowed beautifully in the swiftly darkening ambers of Ryloth's twilight.

"That's your home?" Ezra asked, pulling up the mask of the Scout Trooper helmet to get a better look at the gleaming lights cut into the side of the mountain like veins of glittering crystal. "It's beautiful!"

"It was more beautiful before the Empire," Hera said softly, a slight, sad smile on her lips as Ezra looked back at her.

"I'd love to see it after we drive the Imperials away."

"You will, one day," Hera said as she slid off the back of the speeder bike and took a moment to stretch her legs. "But I do believe we promised to free Lothal first, didn't we?"

"Do you think we can?" Ezra asked as he also dismounted the bike and tossed Hera a pair of restraining cuffs. "We haven't been back to Lothal in a really long time."

"There's an Imperial fleet around Lothal, we can't. Not yet," Hera muttered as she slipped her wrists into the restraints. "But we will, I can promise you that. Once we have a large enough force to take it back."

"I know we will." Ezra was silent as he adjusted the restraints, closing them to fit snugly around Hera's wrists without being uncomfortable and leaving them unlocked so she could easily slip out of them later. As he helped her back up onto the bike, his gaze drifted to the beautiful lights that glittered upon the cut side of the mountain of Hera's home, and he bit down upon his lips as his thoughts began to churn. "...why Lothal?"

"Hmm?"

"Why Lothal?" Ezra asked again. "When our fleet is large enough, I mean. Why are we choosing to liberate Lothal instead of anywhere else."

"I've...been working in the Lothal sector for many years," Hera said with a frown. "Long before you joined the crew. I'd like to finish what I started."

"But we could free anyone," Ezra said flatly as he gestured toward their destination. "We could free Ryloth."

"We could," Hera agreed. "And we will. Ryloth has been under Imperial control since the beginning of the Empire. Many worlds have, and one day, soon, I hope, they will all be free." She took a deep breath, her eyes drifting to the extinct volcano for a moment before she looked back at Ezra, hard resolve in her eyes. "But there's something going on out on Lothal. Something big. Kanan feels it. Kenobi feels it. Something that drew us all there and keeps drawing us back, and now with Thrawn in the area..." Hera closed her eyes and shook her head. "Everything seems to be converging on Lothal. We need to find out why and stop the Empire there before it's too late."

"Won't argue with that..." Ezra muttered as he threw his leg over the bike and settled himself behind Hera. "Ready to get your art thing back?"

"More than ready. Let's go."

It didn't take them long to arrive at the perimeter gates surrounding the new Imperial headquarters on Ryloth, though even with the presence of the Stormtroopers and guard towers and the towering AT-ST Walkers, the wealth of the Syndulla estate shown clearly, the land wide and expansive and the carved stone rich and intricate. Ezra wasn't entirely sure what to expect, but it wasn't to find himself approaching the home of someone both wealthy and influential, as practical Hera and rebellious Cham didn't act at all in the way that Ezra knew the rich to act. Perhaps things were different on Ryloth, though more than likely, the Clone Wars had disrupted their way of life and had forced the influential Syndulla's to take on the leadership of their people's efforts to liberate their planet, first from the Separatists, then from the Empire.

Ezra slowed the bike as he approached the guard at the gate and gripped Hera close to him, a bitter scowl on the woman's face as she attempted to wrench away from him, though the binders upon her wrists restricted her movements enough to keep her right where she was. The Stormtrooper guard extended his hand, and Ezra stopped the bike, the hand on Hera's arm tightening as he forced the woman to turn toward the guard.

"I found this rebel out in the hills," Ezra said in a low, angry growl. "We think she was part of the attack on the eastern perimeter."

"I heard about that," the trooper said, extending his arm beneath a scanner on the gate that quickly read the invisible codes imbued upon his gauntlet, and the gate groaned as it opened. "Take her in for processing. Let the Captain decide what to do with the Twi'lek filth."

With a nod of acknowledgment, though grimacing beneath the cover of his helmet, Ezra shoved Hera to make her face forward once again and pushed the speeder forward into the gated compound, moving slowly as they passed groups of soldiers and officers, his eyes roving slowly over the rich, beautiful walls of the estate. The courtyard was cluttered with haphazardly stacked crates and broken, twisted machines that stressed mechanics gathered around as they attempted to fix them. There were a few Stormtroopers stationed around the area and small group of officers talking quietly to each other beside one of the far walls, but otherwise, it was not densely populated, those present hard at work at one task or another and paying very little attention to the newly arrived Scout Trooper and his Twi'lek prisoner.

Dismounting beside one of the smaller side entrances, Ezra helped Hera off the speeder, much more careful with her now that nobody was looking, and grabbing hold of her arm and gently pushing forward, he followed Hera as she led him inside. For as intricate and beautiful as the outside of Hera's home had been, the inside possessed a rich opulence that Ezra hadn't been expecting, with floors inlayed with mosaic tile and partitions walls crafted from fine blue glass. Even with the Imperial surveillance stations and monitoring stations that were currently set up throughout the residence, it couldn't hide the beauty of the place, and Ezra wondered just how wealthy the family had been before wars had taken their toll.

When they ducked into one of the many vacant corridors, Hera swiftly removed the binders and handed them back to Ezra, her hand trailing over the carvings on the wall as sharp, focused eyes took in her surroundings. There were no Imperials around, from the look of it, though they did catch sight of a few Twi'lek servants shuffling around, their eyes downcast and their heads bowed as they went about the business that their new Imperial masters had given them. For just a moment, Ezra started to walk toward a pair that had turned a corner at the end of the hall, but Hera swiftly reached out and grabbed hold of his arm to stop him.

"This isn't our mission, Ezra," Hera whispered. "Not today."

"I-I know..." the teenager stammered. "I just...I don't understand. Why aren't they fighting?"

"How do you suppose they'd do that against a heavily armed opponent when they have nothing?" Hera asked absently, and Ezra felt stupid for having asked the question, even though the woman made no indication that she found the question foolish. Holding her breath as she laid her hand upon a door control on the wall, she sighed in relief as she peeked inside the room and found it empty.

"There's more to it than just that, of course," Hera whispered as she waved Ezra inside the room, a small place cluttered with crates and shelves stacked high with clay vases and wood carvings, though Ezra couldn't tell if the things kept there were somehow valuable, or if it was just junk. "Kenobi has said more than once that Twi'leks are a slave race."

"Kenobi says a lot of things," Ezra said with a roll of his eyes. "We know that one isn't true."

"He isn't entirely wrong..." Hera said with a grimace as she opened one of the crates and began rifting through it's contents, more junk, so far as Ezra could tell. "There's a reason Twi'leks are among the most enslaved people in the galaxy. We have a long tradition of cultural submission." She scoffed as she moved on to the next crate. "Ride the storm, don't fight it," she said with barely concealed disdain. "My Father's been fighting hard to free Ryloth, and he'll likely be fighting for a long time to come. His rebels are the exception, not the rule. Most of our people just..." She sighed, shook her head, and said nothing more as she slid the top back on the crate.

"Ride the storm, don't fight it," Ezra said as he nodded in understanding, his arms crossing over his chest as he thought. "And what if the storm changed?" he asked quietly. "What if it wasn't the Empire, but the rebellion that was causing the storm? Would your people rise to fight?"

"...I'd like to think so, Ezra," Hera said almost sadly. "But I really don't know." She frowned as she glanced quickly around at the shelves, a sharp, irritated hiss of breath escaping between her teeth. "Damn it, it isn't in here."

"Did you think it would be?"

"No, but I hoped so. Father would never keep our Kalikori here, but I thought maybe the Imperials would have when they moved in. They don't understand it's value." She swiftly strode toward the door, beckoning for Ezra to follow, and Ezra pulled the faceplate of his helmet back down. "That means it's almost certainly in my Father's office."

"Hard to get to?"

"Almost certainly, yeah..." Hera said with a roll of her eyes. "There's no good way to get there. We'll have to pass through the main foyer, and we're absolutely going to run into Imperials on the way there."

"I'm sure it's not too unusual to see a Stormtrooper dragging a slave around," Ezra scoffed disdainfully, and Hera shot him a swift, wry smirk before her features hardened in focus.

"You're probably right," Hera said thoughtfully. "But I'd be very surprised if this Captain Slavin didn't make my Father's office his personal command station."

"Well, with the distraction that Kanan's causing, we might get lucky," Ezra said with a shy, uncertain smile and a shrug. "With your father involved, maybe the captain went to deal with him personally."

"We can only hope," Hera said as she laid her hand upon the door controls and gestured for Ezra to follow her as she slipped back out into the hallway. Ezra stayed close to her as she crept down the hall, her pace slow and careful as they made their way toward Cham's office, the presence of Stormtroopers patrolling through the estate and pairs of young officers with datapads seen more often as they went. At first, the two Spectres swiftly went back around corners they had turned at the sight of Imperials, pressing themselves flat against the carved walls or ducking into empty rooms when they could, but before long, as they drifted toward the estate's main rooms, the sight of Imperials became so frequent that their progress slowed to a crawl.

Taking a deep breath as they steeled themselves, Ezra drew up to his full height as Hera bowed her head, and with a hand upon her shoulder, he followed the woman as she shuffled around the corner and into the hall where they had caught sight of four Imperial officers talking and laughing amongst themselves. Pretending to push Hera before him, Ezra held his breath as they passed by the officers, and to his relief, save for one of the men raking his eyes over Hera's body, they paid them no notice.

Their good fortune continued as they made their way through the Syndulla estate, though the leering looks that some of the Imperials gave Hera made Ezra's stomach turn, and he couldn't help but wonder how many cruel Imperial soldiers and officers forced themselves upon the Twi'leks imprisoned here. A great many, he suspected, despite their obvious disdain for the natives of Ryloth, but he thought that made it all the more cruel, and despite himself, he could feel anger clawing at the inside of his chest and the all too familiar feel of the Dark Side beginning to stir the air around him. It would be so easy to reach out and touch it, to feel the cold chill of power fill him with righteous revenge as he slaughtered the Imperial bastards, so easy to just-

He was swiftly pulled out of his thoughts when Hera jolted forward to take cover behind an opaque blue glass partition wall in a beautiful open foyer, the rising Dark Side vanishing like smoke in the wind. The room was empty, and yet Ezra could feel menace scratching at the back of his neck, could feel anxious anticipation straining vigilant Hera's muscles as she waited for something to happen in the too-quiet room. They remained silent and hidden for a long moment, and when Hera slowly rose to her feet to continue, the Force churned in silent warning, and Ezra grabbed her arm to stop her, the Twi'lek swiftly obeying and remaining crouched beside Ezra, safely behind the cover of the wall.

The two of them peered out from behind the partition and swiftly ducked behind it once again when a soft hiss sounded through the otherwise silent room as a door at the head of the room slid open and two Imperial officers strode out.

"It is outrageous!" one of the officers said, the rank plaque upon his chest designating him as a captain, the other officer following meekly at his side. "Cham Syndulla is just outside the perimeter, he's finally in our grasp!"

"Captain..." the other officer, an ensign, squeaked, clutching a datapad tightly against his chest as he followed at the heels of his superior. "We were told-"

"I know what we were told, fool!" the Captain snapped. "My achievements here will not be undermined! I will not be denied the glory of this victory! Send out the second garrison and the Walkers, with enough force, we can direct that filthy rebel into the southern ravines and trap him there!"

"I-I..." the ensign stuttered, and with a swift, furious glare from the Captain, the young man hung his head. "Right away, Captain..." With the officers striding quickly across the foyer, Hera and Ezra quietly moved around the partition, and peeking and seeing the retreating backs of the Imperials as they strode through the room, Hera silently sprinted to the door through which they came, pressing the controls while Ezra more slowly, more carefully followed. The door opened swiftly with a quiet hiss, Hera's eyes glued to the Captain and her heart pounding in her chest, and before she had a chance to see if the Imperials had heard them, she and Ezra darted inside the small, closed space of an elevator, Ezra repeatedly pressing the button to close the door as Hera punched in the floor where their objective was located.

"That was the Captain!" Ezra said in an excited whisper. "Man, he sounded pissed! Guess Kanan's giving him hell."

"Big surprise there..." Hera said with a small, proud smile. "Though it sounds like they're going to have a great deal of trouble very soon."

"Nothing Kanan and Sabine and Zeb can't handle."

"Even still, I'd rather them not handle it at all. Let's get what we came for and get out as quick as we can."

"So lucky for us that the Captain's out of his office," Ezra said as he pulled up his face plate and flashed Hera a cocky smirk, and scoffing softly, Hera reached up and pulled the young Jedi's face plate back down just as the console chimed their arrival and the door slid open. Quickly checking both ways and finding nobody, Hera darted out into the hall and swiftly ran down it's length, wincing as she listened to the alternating heavy fall of Ezra's cybernetic leg upon the tiled floor.

It was a short way to Cham's office, and the two of them reached it quickly and without notice, and as soon as the door closed and locked behind them, Hera wasted no time in searching for the Kalikori, her eyes swiftly raking over cluttered shelves and cabinets for the priceless heirloom. Despite her focus and the urgency of the task at hand, Hera couldn't keep her eyes from drifting toward the wall behind her Father's desk where a portrait composed of mosaic tile hung.

Carbon scoring and dust tarnished the upper left hand corner of the piece, but it was otherwise untarnished, just as she remembered it, and she couldn't help the muted twinge of pain in her chest at the sight of her father, her mother, and herself, only a young girl, that stared back at her, frozen in a better time within the colorful tile. Perhaps not a better time, the Clone Wars gripped the galaxy even in her earliest memories, but even then, she had fond memories of watching Republic ships in Ryloth's sky as they fought to liberate her homeworld from the Separatists, and the stories she heard of the heroic Jedi made her hopeful even as war and destruction raged around them.

Hera forced herself to pull her gaze away from the mosaic. Her mother was gone now, killed in her Father's resistance against the Empire, and she missed her dearly. The uncomfortable ache in her chest when she thought about her never truly went away, but seeing her image now, clearer than her memories were, made the sting all the more sharp.

"Is this your family?" Ezra asked as he walked toward the mosaic and lifted his faceplate, and looking quickly at Hera for an answer, he grinned broadly when the Twi'lek nodded. "Your mother's beautiful!"

"She was, yes..." Hera muttered, and Ezra frowned as he looked back at the art and felt that familiar swell of loss rise within the Force.

"...I'm sorry," Ezra muttered, looking back at Hera as she continued to look through the office, and the teenager awkwardly cleared his throat. "Are we sure the Captain's using this office?" he asked as he ran his hand over the desk. "There's no equipment, no computers, no datapads we could take a peek at, no-"

"I found it!" Hera said excitedly as she knelt on the ground and pulled a carved wooden totem from the bottom of a shelf, small wood chimes upon string gently clicking together as she held the heirloom close to her chest with a relieved sigh. She lightly touched the little carved squares, her fingers running over the intricate carvings that her family had so carefully added to the piece, her gaze lingering particularly long on two in particular as she reverently touched the smoothed wood. One for her mother, the carvings detailed and intricate and beautiful, representing all she had been, and a smaller one, this one more simple and stark for the younger brother their family had lost when he was still a child, representing all that he never had the chance to be.

Having her family's Kalikori back in her possession felt more important, more significant than she believed it would when she undertook this very personal mission, like she had somehow reclaimed the souls of her mother, her brother, and all the family that came before them from the ruinous hands of the Empire. They might be able to take her planet, but the living memory of her people, her culture, her family was a thing that Hera couldn't allow them to touch.

"Well, that was easy," Ezra said flippantly, and tightly wrapping her hand around the Kalikori, Hera rose to her feet and pushed down the swell of emotions rising in her chest.

"We're not out of this yet. Come on, let's go."

Pressing her hand to the door controls, the fierce boldness that the reclaimed Kalikori gave Hera swiftly deflated when she almost ran into the Imperial Captain they had seen earlier, not a tall or intimidating man, but his face was red with fury at the sight of the Twi'lek within his office. Hera's eyes widened with momentary panic, the sight of two armed Stormtroopers behind him enough to extinguish the immediate urge to deal with the officer herself. Bowing her head and slumping her shoulders, Hera grasped the Kalikori tightly to her chest, both in an attempt to hide it and in an effort to make herself appear as small and meek as possible. She shuffled backwards slightly and with a startled gasp flinched when Ezra's hard hand grasped her shoulder.

"What are you doing in my office, slave?" Captain Slavin spat, his eyes narrowing as he glared at Hera in furious disgust.

"I saw her come in here and I followed her, sir," Ezra quickly responded for her as he shoved her forward. "She said she came up here to clean."

"I've told you people a thousand times!" the Captain snapped, raising his hand as if he'd strike her, and Hera backed away, her eyes fixed upon the ground and wincing when Ezra once again clasped a hard hand around her arm. "You are not permitted on these floors! You're to restrict your movements to the kitchens!"

"Yes sir, sorry sir..." Hera meekly muttered in a thick accent, and she shuffled forward when Ezra took a step toward the Captain.

"What would you like me to do with her, sir?" Ezra asked with a swift salute, and the Captain scoffed and rolled his eyes.

"Take her from my sight!"

"Just a moment..." a voice said from the hallway in a cold, flat tone, an eerie thing that sent a shiver up Hera's spine as her eyes shot up to look past the Captain at the doorway just in time to see the Stormtroopers part to let another man into the office. Hera felt a heavy pit drop in her stomach, her chest aching as her heart seemed to quiver as if afraid to continue beating as she looked at the non-human Imperial, a high officer in a crisp, white uniform, his skin royal blue, and his eyes a glowing red that she had looked upon a thousand times but were so much more terrifying in person.

Thrawn.

Hera swiftly averted her eyes and backed up against Ezra, trying to seem as meek and afraid as she had been before while her swift mind worked through all she knew about this dangerous man and tried to weigh her increasingly limited options. Judging by the feel of Ezra behind her, his body tense and rigid and his hand laid over the blaster in the holster at his hip, it seemed as if he was doing the same. The slightest wrong move, the slightest misstep, and it would be over for them, and judging by the twitch in Ezra's hand, it seemed as though his choice was made, his hand sliding off his blaster in favor of caution instead of risking taking a shot at this dangerous Imperial, a thing that only a year ago, the impulsive, reckless teen never would have dreamed of doing. Ezra was growing up, making smarter, wiser decisions in the face of true danger, and Hera felt a powerful, fierce protection well up inside her. She owed it to Ezra to see him to safety. There was still so much he could be.

Of course, they would need to escape here first, and while they would have had no chance of escape at all had Ezra revealed his hand and taken a shot at Thrawn, that didn't mean they had a chance now. Everything hinged on what Thrawn knew, and chancing a nervous glance up at the Admiral, Hera couldn't discern from that blank, unreadable face how much he knew. Ezra was hidden safely within Imperial armor, so the question was, could Thrawn recognize her on sight? She suspected he might, though it was difficult for many species to differentiate between Twi'leks, one often looking so like another to foreign eyes, and with the right body language, with the right accent, there was a chance she could pass beneath Thrawn's detection.

And even if she couldn't...well, Ezra could get away, and so long as he was free, not all was lost. She felt herself curl protectively around the Kalikori, and those strange, glowing eyes, almost seeming to be drawn to movement, swiftly snapped to stare at her.

Hera quickly realized that she unconsciously had made a terrible mistake.

"May I see that?" Thrawn asked quietly, extending his hand out toward Hera, and swallowing a lump in her throat and a vile, impulsive retort, Hera obediently handed Thrawn the Kalikori. "I'm a visitor to your world," he said almost absently as he carefully studied the carvings upon the wooden totem. "It occurs to me it might be beneficial to hear what you have to say about our Imperial occupation."

"I don't think I could be of any help to you..." Hera muttered in the thick, native accent of Ryloth, keeping her eyes averted and her shoulders hunched as she listened to the soft jingle of wood as the Chiss ran his fingers over the smoothed wood pieces.

"Oh, I disagree," Thrawn said in the same unaffected cold tone as he held the Kalikori out toward Slavin, the man standing tense and angry at his side. "Captain, do you recognize this?" Thrawn asked, and Slavin leaned over, his eyes narrowing as looked at the art in the Admiral's hand.

"Y-yes..." Slavin stammered uncertainly for a moment before his face flushed and he turned his furious gaze onto Hera. "It was here! In my office!"

"I thought I could sell it for food..." Hera explained in a trembling voice, her wide green eyes turning up to look pleadingly at the Captain. "My family is starving, we-"

"No excuse!" Slavin snapped, taking an imposing step closer, and flinching away from the Imperial, Hera turned her face away and backed up as much as she could with Ezra standing behind her. "You shall make a valuable example to others of your kind who think to steal from the Empire!" Slavin motioned for his guards with a quick, abrasive gesture, and just as the Stormtroopers began to march into the room, Thrawn raised his hand and silently called them off, the troopers in the doorway slowly and uncertainly backing out. The fury on Slavin's face at having his authority challenged quickly turned to confusion when Thrawn laid a hand upon his shoulder and made him take a step back from the Twi'lek.

"She's far more valuable than you know..." Thrawn said quietly as he gestured to the seat behind the desk, and Hera felt Ezra's hand tense around her arm, the briefest moment of hesitation before he silently complied with the Admiral's unspoken command and led Hera to the seat. She sat quickly, her hands wringing as she looked between Thrawn and Slavin, her eyes as wide and fearful and innocent as she could make them. It was an act that served her well many times in the past, though she had always been more calm and collected in the past when she had manipulated men, her heart never quite beating this quickly.

"...h-how do you mean?" Slavin stammered, and Hera could have sworn that when the Admiral looked at him, those glowing red eyes were filled with disdain.

"To defeat an enemy, you must know them," Thrawn said thoughtfully as he walked toward the desk, and then past it, ignoring Hera entirely in favor of studying the Kalikori gripped gently in his hand. "Not simply their battle tactics, but their history, philosophy. Art." He stopped, silent for a moment as he observed the mosaic upon the wall before he turned, his fingers lightly brushing the back of the chair Hera sat in as he turned his attention once again to Slavin. "So I will ask you again, Captain," Thrawn said, soft and menacing as he held up the Kalikori. "Do you know what this is?"

"Some...primitive, native trinket," Slavin said hesitantly, his lips curling into a dismissive frown, and Thrawn's hand slid off the seat as he walked back around the desk and into Hera's view, the Chiss' eyes fixed upon the wooden totem in his hand.

"It's a Kalikori," Thrawn said slowly, almost reverently, and Hera felt the uncomfortable knot in her stomach grow tighter, the fearful, pleading mask she wore slipping from her face, her eyebrows raised in dreadful shock as cold realization filled her. He knows. "A revered Twi'lek heirloom, passed from parent to child through generations," Thrawn continued. "Worthless to outsiders, priceless to family."

"Yes, well, she stole it!" Slavin stubbornly insisted, earning him a swift, dismissive glance from the Admiral.

"Yes..." Thrawn whispered. "But why." Glowing red eyes finally fell on Hera, and despite the danger, despite the fear, she found herself glaring defiantly at Thrawn, knowing very well that her enemy knew her better than she had realized. Sabine had said that Thrawn had used her own art against her, and with the Kalikori in his hand, Hera was beginning to understand how true that was.

"War..." Thrawn said in his flat, even voice as he stood before the desk and looked down at proud, defiant Hera. "It is all you've ever known. You were so young when you survived the Clone Wars. No wonder you are as equipt in spirit to fight as well as you do." Thrawn's eyes slowly drifted from Hera to look behind her, though she didn't take her eyes from the intimidating Admiral, knowing without needing to look that his attention was on the mosaic that hung upon the wall. Thrawn slowly made his way around the desk once again, passing so closely by Hera that she could have touched him if she wished it, and she resisted the urge to crane her neck to look behind her to keep him in her sights, instead keeping her gaze fixed stubbornly before her.

"War is in your blood," Thrawn quietly continued. "I study the art of war, work to perfect it. But you..." he said, breathless, almost reverent, and Hera jumped despite herself when his hand once again laid on the back of the chair as he leaned down, his head mere inches from hers as he examined her, so close that Hera could feel cold radiating off his blue skin. "You were forged by it."

"Sir, she's just a peasant!" Slavin said tightly, his voice hesitating with confusion and desperation, and Thrawn drew up, though remained at Hera's side, and the Twi'lek found her voice, the obviously lost situation making her defiant and bold in the face of the enemy.

"It doesn't matter where we come from, Admiral," Hera said coldly, the accent that had stained her voice before now gone entirely, her eyes narrowed in defiance as she looked up at the Admiral that stood so calmly at her side. "Our will to be free is what's going to beat you."

"You!" Slavin sputtered, pointing an accusing finger at Hera, and she looked disdainfully at the other officer, his rage and anger rendered utterly pointless in the presence of the much greater threat the Admiral represented. "You dare!"

"Slavin, please, you embarrass me in front of our host," Thrawn said calmly, and despite the strange flat monotone, Hera thought she detected genuine offense in the Chiss' voice.

"Host?!" Slavin scoffed, his brow drawing together in further confusion as he looked between Hera and the Admiral that stood directly behind her. "What?"

"May I introduce Hera Syndulla..." Thrawn said as he gestured to the mosaic upon the wall. "Rebel pilot, freedom fighter and military leader. Daughter of your nemesis, Cham Syndulla." Hera caught movement out of the corner of her eye, her gaze swiftly shooting over to look at Ezra as he pulled the blaster from his holster, finally deciding that escaping this situation was no longer possible without violence. Before he even managed to aim the weapon, Ezra's body went rigid, a sharp cry of pain heard over the sound of a high pitched electric pulse as blue sparks skipped along the white sheen of his armor, the blaster dropping from limp fingers as he collapsed unconscious to the ground.

Eyes widening in fear, Hera swiftly looked behind her to see Thrawn, a blaster held in his hand, poised and relaxed, the slightest, smug smirk upon his lips as red eyes looked down at Hera. Ezra had drawn his weapon so quickly, so suddenly, that Thrawn must have expected it, must have known that the Scout Trooper was a rebel, must have been ready for the attack to interrupt it so exactly. Looking down at Ezra laying upon the ground, Hera slowly came to the horrid realization that, like Sabine, she had lost this fight a very, very long time ago.

---

Kanan didn't just feel the Force. He saw it.

Reality melted in and out of his vision, Ryloth's ravines, the night sky, the rebels and pursuing Imperials alike becoming smears in a storm of color, the canyons filling with waters of blue and green and purple in endless shades and hues, the sky itself splashed with pastel reds that shifted and twisted to become brilliant oranges and stunning yellow, an entire spectrum that danced across his vision like the flames of a nova star. And then reality returned in the dark shadows of night, a disorienting shift from the colorful burst of before, remaining for random intervals, some long and some extremely short, before Kanan would be plunged back into the fractured kaleidoscope of the Force.

Though it all, the Force blazed with life, each breath of his companions adding new colors to the ever-changing spectrum, each changing emotion rippling across iridescent waters, his friends violet with resolve and green with determination, the Imperials chasing after them red with wrath and black with murderous intent, a thousand, thousand other emotions, similar and different all swirling together in a whirl of brilliant colors. Through ripples in the spectrum, Kanan could see each shot they fired like an even slash across a painting, sluggish and slow moving as if they struggled against time that refused to move, while other things appeared to move unspeakably fast.

It was as incomprehensible as it was beautiful, a place that sang of burning, radiant life, ever changing and glorious for it.

It was also a terrible inconvenience at the moment, Kanan realized, as reality shifted around him, and he found himself plummeting off the edge of the ravine they had been running upon.

"Kanan, you big idiot, what are you doing?!" Zeb shouted, his voice echoing through the ravine as the Jedi struck the dusty ground. With a groan, Kanan squinted up through a whirlpool of blues to look up at Zeb, the Lasat painted in vibrant pastels of worried teal and protective maroon.

"I don't know!" Kanan shouted as he leapt to his feet and began running, his friends following him high above on the canyon's crest. "I'm having a real weird time, Zeb!"

"I think we're all having a weird time, Kanan, but you're the only one of us running off cliffs!" Sabine shouted down at him, lobbing two explosives down into the ravine at the sight of their Imperial pursuers, the bombs exploding in a splash of vibrant green and purple, and Kanan couldn't tell if Sabine had designed them that way, or if it was just another effect of the colors that stained the Force.

"You drunk, Kanan?" Zeb shouted down at the Jedi with a laugh, and Kanan grit his teeth as he looked down upon the ground he was running upon, the blues and greens broken by splashes of reds and oranges and yellows every time his feet struck the dusty earth.

"I'm not, but I wish I was!" Kanan growled through grit teeth as he jumped, flipping around in the air and spinning his lightsaber to deflect the barrage of blaster fire that crawled toward him. He rolled as he hit the ground and was back on his feet again without a moment lost, and he groaned in irritation as the colors bubbled around him and popped to reveal dark, dusty reality. Taking a deep breath and driving himself to run faster, Kanan jumped against the canyon wall and kicked off to vault high up behind him, his body twisting in the air as he flipped and kicked off once again on the opposite wall of the narrow canyon to land gracefully at the top among the rest of the rebels.

The second his feet touched the ground, Kanan's world once again exploded in a dazzling burst of color.

"You alright?" Zeb asked as the group skid to a halt, his large hand laying upon Kanan's shoulder as the pale Jedi took a knee, his eyes shut tight and his breath uneven.

"I honestly don't know," Kanan said, colors dancing behind his eyelids just as they had been before, and with a groan of irritation, he opened his eyes, the haphazard spectrum exactly as it had been when his eyes had been closed. "I'm seeing colors..."

"Colors?" Zeb asked, scratching his eyes in confusion as he looked over his shoulder at Cham, shouting and directing his men into place as they readied a rocket launcher to trap the Imperials in the ravine below. "Uh, Kanan, there's nothing weird about that."

"No, I mean colors," Kanan insisted as he rose to his feet, his eyes drifting across what he believed to be the horizon, a swirl of warm shades and hues that flowed beautifully into one another, and far in the distance, the smeared pastels sliced by a sharp spear of pale ice blue, foreboding and ominous that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

"We've already got a crazy artist in the group, Kanan," Zeb growled with a roll of his eyes as he jabbed his thumb toward Sabine. "We don't need another one."

"I'm seeing sound, Zeb!" Kanan said, louder than he intended. "Everything has a color, every emotion, every feeling, every smell and every sound, and all of it is in constant motion!" Kanan couldn't see it, but he felt it, every eye of every rebel among them staring at him, and feeling his ears burn with the realization of how truly insane he sounded, Kanan looked down at the roiling lilac of the ground at his feet. "It's a Force thing..." he sheepishly explained. "You wouldn't understand."

"Are you high?" Cham scoffed disdainfully.

"I think I might be," Kanan grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest and looking back to the strange blue the pierced the horizon. "Either that, or I got hit in the head one too many times."

With a wry smirk, Cham turned his attention back to his men, his hand held in the air in a silent command to hold, the silence around them punctuated by the shouted commands of the Imperials and the rhythmic, mechanical pounding of the AT-ST Walkers. At the first sight of blinding white armor that came tearing around the sharp bend, Cham dropped his hand and his men opened fire, a single shot from the rocket launcher slamming into the canyon wall and blasting a large hole into the rock, sending boulders and debris sliding into the ravine below, crushing the lead Imperials and trapping the rest behind a wall of stone.

Frantic shouts echoed throughout the canyon, streaks of red blaster fire shooting up from behind the stone blockade toward the rebels on the ledge above, and they quickly dropped low to the ground, shooting grappling lines into the ground as they swiftly repelled down the cliff walls. Out of sight and back down into the winding ravines, the rebels followed Cham as they sprinted through the canyons, and the second time Kanan ran headlong into the wall, Zeb scooped him up and carried the dazed Jedi the rest of the way.

"I miss Kenobi..." Kanan muttered when they finally stopped, ducking into a small alcove carved into the canyon wall to shield them from sight. "That asshole is never around when you need him, it's so like him to be taking a nap while we're getting shot at."

"You think he'd be able to help you with, uh..." Zeb grumbled as he carefully put Kanan back on his feet. "With whatever it is you've got going on?"

"I don't know, he seemed to notice that something was off before..." Kanan muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose and looking out into the ravine, squinting when the colors rippled and shimmered as something passed through it, a ghostly wisp that gracefully danced through the changing colors like it knew it's every flow, every turn, every change in the rainbow current, a steady green blade of light in its spectral hand.

"Hey, Kanan..." Zeb said quietly, waving his hand in front of Kanan's face, and when the Jedi didn't seem to notice, he grabbed hold of his shoulder, swiftly jolting the man out of his thoughts. "You don't look so good," Zeb said, leaning closer to Kanan and squinting as he looked at the Jedi's eyes and found that his bright teal irises had turned a pale gray. "Uh, Sabine?" Zeb called over his shoulder at the Mandalorian. "You better come have a look at this."

Taking off her helmet, Sabine frown and quickly strode over, her eyes widening as she looked up into pale, unfamiliar eyes. "Kanan, are you blind?!" Sabine asked just a little too loudly, the near panic in her voice barely restrained, and the Jedi scoffed as he rolled his eyes.

"I'm not blind, Sabine!" Kanan said with an exasperated sigh. "If anything, I'm seeing too much!"

"You stepped off a cliff and ran into a wall," Sabine said flatly. "Twice."

"I can see just fine!" He bit down on his lower lip, his eyebrows drawing together as he looked out of the alcove and into the ravine, the current of color rushing past like a river and teeming with the vague shadow of a thousand lives that once, long ago, had touched this place. "Things are just a little...weird," Kanan stammered. "It's a Force thing, I told you!" Frowning, unsatisfied with the answer, Sabine held up her hand and extended three long fingers, and Kanan couldn't help but heave a tired sigh. "Three," he said quietly, and Sabine's frown deepened.

"I don't like any of this..." Sabine muttered, her eyebrows knitting together in distaste when the gray of Kanan's eyes lit up with bright, familiar teal, the Jedi's shoulders slumping in relief. "You better have a talk with Fulcrum about this when we get back to base. Maybe she knows what sort of weird Jedi disease you've contracted." A sly smirk spread across Sabine's lips when Kanan rolled his eyes, and she lightly punched his shoulder. "That's what happens when you keep screwing around with Kenobi without protection..."

"Keep talking like that, kid, and I'll ground you for the next month," Kanan drawled lazily, the hilt of his deactivated saber spinning on his palm before he clipped it back on his belt next to the second saber, the mysterious green blade he had somehow acquired in Lothal's hidden Jedi Temple that he had been almost too afraid to use. Frowning, Kanan leaned to look out of the alcove past the two scouts Cham had posted to survey the area. There was nothing, no sound save for the distant sound of the wind through the ravine, no sign of the Imperials that pursued them, no rogue colors that bubbled and popped into existence out of the shadows of the night. There was just calm, and with it came lingering uncertainty as his thoughts began to race.

"Cham," Kanan asked quietly. "Have you heard from Hera?"

"No, I haven't," the Twi'lek said as he shook his head, frowning as his lekku slowly began to squirm with his unease, a feeling that Kanan shared.

"Something must have gone wrong," Kanan said quietly, willing his heart to beat slower, but he couldn't stop the fearful pounding within his chest. "We need to go after her."

"Well, I think we lost the Imperials," Sabine said as she put her helmet back on her head. "We might have a straight shot to get to their base of operations."

"I told you," Cham said proudly, his chest swelling with pride. "Nobody knows this land so well as we do." The stone wall Cham stood against suddenly erupted in a spray of dust and debris as a small hole was carved by a bolt of red plasma, and their attention quickly snapped to the squadron of Stormtroopers that had just turned a sharp corner of the ravine.

"Looks like they're learning fast," Zeb growled as he swiftly pushed Sabine and Kanan out of the alcove, urging them to begin sprinting away from the Imperials, once again led by Cham as he guided them through the winding canyons in another effort to lose their pursuers. It didn't take them long to lose them, the Twi'lek rebellion leader once again proving his mastery of the terrain as he rapidly took tight turns through the branching ravines to lose the Imperials in a confounding maze of canyons, and before long, they managed to dive into the dusty mouth of a tunnel, the frustrated shouts of the Imperial commanders echoing around them.

When they sat huddled in the darkness of the tunnel, the colors returned to Kanan's vision, bright and vibrant and clear as the canyon walls melted away and he found himself in a field of red grass beneath a bright purple sun, the frantic, wrathful Imperials clear as day around him as they blazed winding paths through the field in search of them. They cut trails of black and red and green and indigo, murder and fury and caution and fear, though not a one of them drew close, even though he could clearly hear their shouts and whispers, could see the sound of their boots upon the ground in clouds of chromatic dust and in the rippling vibrations through the air. In the distance, the blazing horizon was still torn through with that cold spike of blue, and though he couldn't understand why, Kanan knew that's where Hera and Ezra were.

"Cham Syndulla!" a voice echoed through the ravines over a crackling loudhailer, the very air vibrating in cresting waves of crimson and orange and deep purple, rage and frustration and disdain. The emotions of a desperate man, not one that stood on the edge of victory.

"Captain Slavin..." Cham growled, the Twi'lek beginning to rise to his feet until Kanan shot his hand out and grabbed hold of his arm.

"They don't know where we are, Cham," Kanan whispered. "They can't find us."

"We have captured your daughter, Hera Syndulla, and her rebel conspirator, the Jedi Ezra Bridger," the voice over the loudhailer snapped, and Kanan turned his eyes to the blue split in the horizon and immediately knew it was true. "They will both face my firing squad unless you surrender to me. You have until sunrise, Syndulla." And then there was silence, the echo of the loudhailer dying as it wound through the canyon, the marching of retreating Stormtroopers fading beneath the soft whistle of wind, the splashing waves of their presence becoming ripples and than stillness within the landscape of the Force.

Even after they knew they were alone, the rebels stayed still and silent within the cave.

"Could the trap be more obvious..." Sabine said with a scoff, the tense, terrible silence breaking and jolting the rebels into action as they gathered their gear and rose to their feet.

"Perhaps..." Cham said quietly as he walked to the mouth of the cave, sticking his head out to look out into the ravine for good measure. "But there is little time, and he leaves me no choice."

"You can't!" one of his Twi'lek rebels said, tense and frantic as she reached out and tightly grabbed hold of his arm. "You're too important!"

"And my daughter isn't?!" Cham snapped, wrenching his arm away. "Too long have we been apart, too long I have failed her as a father. I will not fail her now, and I will not hesitate to trade my life for hers!"

"Sabine's right, this is likely a trap," Kanan said as he crossed his arms over his chest. "You obviously can't trust this guy. You turn yourself over and he's just going to kill them anyway."

"I know that!" Cham hissed, his eyes narrowing in a flash of anger before he sighed, his lekku hanging limp behind him as his shoulders slumped. "I know," he said again, calm and even with determination. "And I am counting on all of you to use my sacrifice to save Hera and the boy.

"There has to be another way," Zeb quietly growled. "You don't need-"

"The Imperial complex will be on high alert, and he did not give us much time," Cham said sternly. "Perhaps there is a better way, but we don't have the time to find it."

"We'll see if we can't find a way to save you too, Cham," Kanan said as he clasped the Twi'lek on the shoulder. "We don't leave people behind. Come on, we'll figure something out on the way there."

---

The room slowly, slowly came into focus as Hera opened her bleary eyes, the touch of the light stinging and making her squint against it. She didn't remember being rendered unconscious, had no recollection of a stunning shot from a blaster or a blow to the head or a drug slipped into her veins, but something must have happened. Her thoughts sluggish, her vision hazy, her eyes slowly adjusted to the light, her gaze drifting almost aimlessly throughout the room that even through her dulled senses she recognized as her Father's office. She groaned softly as she shifted in her seat, her shoulders aching and the feel of her arms locked securely behind her by binders that chaffed her wrists, and tugging at her restraints, it took her a moment to realize that she was trapped.

The danger of the situation jolted her into awareness, her eyes wide and ver vision sharp as the memories of the current mission raced through her mind so quickly she felt disoriented, her sharp gaze immovably locked upon her family's Kalikori that sat far out of reach upon a shelf by the door. Such a small thing, but one that bore such importance to her culture, to her family, to her, a thing so pricelessly valuable to her own mother that she felt like she was with her again when she held the wooden totem in her hands. It was a thing of beauty, a piece of her and all her family that came before her crafted into a single, simple piece of art, and now, it would be used to destroy them.

She felt so stupid for having embarked upon this personal mission to begin with.

A soft, unsteady groan pulled her from her thoughts, and she looked down to see an unconscious Ezra, stripped of his armor and bound to her Father's desk, and Hera felt guilt grip her. They had all been so eager to help her, so willing to put themselves at risk for her because they were family, and she would have done the same for them. But not one of them seemed to remember that someone needed to take Hera's place and be the voice of reason, someone needed to be the one to tell her that a personal mission this dangerous wasn't worth the risk. It's what she would have done.

It's what she should have done before it came to this, herself and Ezra captured by Thrawn, and the others that would soon be blindly walking into a trap to save them.

"Ezra!" Hera said urgently, keeping ver voice down in the event that someone was standing just outside the room. "Ezra!" she said again when the boy's nose winkled and another groan passed through slightly parted lips. "Ezra, wake up!" Ezra groaned again, his chest rising and falling rapidly for a moment before his forehead wrinkled, his eyes screwing tightly shut before his breathing evened, and beginning to squint, he quickly changed his mind and shut his eyes again, his body lazily squirming against his restraints.

"You need to get up, Ezra," Hera said firmly, and the boy on the table responded to the sternness in her tone, this time biting down on his lip and slowly opening one eye, a vacant, dazed look in the once bright blue that now appeared dull and clouded.

"Hera..." Ezra muttered, his voice dry and cracked, a faint smile on his face at the look of relief on the Twi'lek's face. Slowly opening his other eyes, he looked around the room, tried to sit up, and frowned when he couldn't, pulling uselessly at the restraints across his arms, his chest and his legs that bound him to the table. "Aw, damn it..."

"We need to get out of here before my Father and Kanan attempt a rescue and get stuck in the same trap," Hera said urgently. "Can you use the Force to free us?"

"I...y-yeah..." Ezra stammered, his lips pressing into a thin line in concentration as he closed his eyes, his breathing slow and even as he reached to touch the Force, waited to feel the familiar rush of warmth and felt...nothing. His brow furrowing in confusion, he shut his eyes tighter and reached again, his breath held in his focus, but like before, he felt nothing before. The Force itself was gone, as if he never had it at all, the void where it used to aching as he looked within it.

"Ezra, what's wrong?" Hera asked, concern upon her face as she looked at the obviously struggling teenager.

"I don't know," Ezra gasped, again feeling for the Force and his heart beginning to beat in panic when he failed to find the ever-present connection he always felt so keenly. "I can't feel the Force, Hera, it's gone. They must...have a containment field active, o-or something."

"It's well known that you're a Jedi..." Hera groaned. "I supposed we should have expected Thrawn to be prepared to deal with a Force sensitive."

"What's he even doing here, Hera?" Ezra grumbled. "I thought he was hunting us around Lothal, we came out this way to get out of his reach for a while!"

"Honestly, that isn't something I want to think about..." Hera muttered with a frown, but Ezra persisted, struggling against his restraints as he tried again to sit up.

"Do you think he's in charge of handling Ryloth too?"

"No," Hera swiftly dismissed. "The distance between Ryloth and Lothal is far too great. If he were somehow covering both, he'd be spread much too thin to react to us as quickly as he has. He wouldn't be nearly as effective."

"But he's here, Hera..." Ezra quietly insisted, the slightest tremor of fear in his voice that he just couldn't seem to repress.

"I know," Hera said, slow and measured. "Which really only leaves one explanation. He knew we'd be here. Father said the Captain's tactics had changed, which was why he called us for help, but his tactics hadn't changed, he brought help in. Thrawn was here before we were called in."

"...h-how is that possible?" Ezra stammered, a tight, nervous laugh in his throat. "We didn't know we'd be here."

"Sabine already told us how..." Hera said absently as her gaze slowly drifted to stare at her family's Kalikori.

A moment later, the office door slid open with a soft hiss, and Thrawn stepped into the room.

For a long moment, Thrawn stood still and silent in front of the door as it sealed shut behind him, carefully observing his two captives, the twitch upon Ezra's lips that betrayed the fear he attempted to conceal, the stubborn defiance in the way Hera's eyes narrowed. He reached out and took the Kalikori off the shelf by the door, his eyes never leaving Hera's face and watching closely as hard resolve flashed with anger and offense, a deep nerve struck that she made little effort to conceal.

Taking a few slow, measured steps forward, Thrawn watched carefully as Ezra struggled against his restraints, the muscles in his arms bunching together and one of his legs twitching in his vain attempts to free himself, though the bindings held fast, and he barely managed to move at all. Hera remained still and composed, every bit the leader Thrawn knew her to be, and he stopped before the desk, his fingers running gently over the smoothed wooden charms that hung from the Twi'lek art in his hands.

"I wanted to ask you about your Kalikori," Thrawn said calmly, his voice eminently even, just as Sabine had described, chilling and inhuman, and Hera felt determined anger coiling tightly in her gut.

"I'll die before I tell you anything!" Hera snapped. "If I knew you'd take it, I would have smashed it when I had the chance."

"Your history is not worth so little to you," Thrawn said flatly, a statement, not a question, and one that felt as though he were correcting her. "If that were so, you would not have returned for it. And while it is likely true that you will die before you voluntarily give up any information you possess, you have already told me everything I need to know."

"Then why ask at all?" Hera sneered, and Thrawn simply shrugged, his fingers lingering upon a single wooden bead that made the breath catch in Hera's throat.

"I had believed we might be civil," Thrawn said as he casually brushed his fingers over his impressive rank plaque. "Your defeat here today does not diminish my respect for you. I have a great interest in learning the deeper meanings of the works of art I collect, and I would like to hear your understanding of your family's Kalikori."

"We aren't defeated yet, Admiral!" Ezra snapped, renewing his struggle against his bindings, and Thrawn's red eyes flicked down to look at the teenager strapped to the table, the slightest smirk upon his lips as he ran his fingers over the Kalikori's carved wooden beads.

"Yes, because you have friends that will be rushing to the rescue, yes?" Thrawn said slowly, the slightest hint of amusement in his smooth, flat tone that made a chill run up Hera's spine. The Admiral shrugged indifferently. "Perhaps they will successfully extract you from detainment. I am greatly looking forward to observing how they will choose to proceed."

"This wasn't a trap..."Hera said with slowly realized horror. "This is an experiment. A test!"

"All traps are tests, Captain Syndulla," Thrawn said as he turned his attention back to the Twi'lek.

"Tests to see if we can figure out how to escape," Hera said bitterly. "And as the observer, you capture us or learn how we work. You win either way."

"Just so," Thrawn muttered, his face passive and indifferent as he once again held up the wooden Twi'lek totem. "If you would, Captain, I would like to hear what you have to say about your Kalikori."

"You don't need to know what it means," Hera scoffed, "since I'll be taking it back!"

"I've no doubt you shall make the attempt," Thrawn said as his back straightened, his fingers once again running along the strand of beads. "From my own analysis, I have determined that these shapes represent individuals important to your family legacy. Here," he said as he drew his fingers over the main body of the piece. "The founding members of your clan and those who elevated your family to the position of honor they hold in Twi'lek society."

"You aren't worthy of holding that," Hera sad quietly, her eyes narrowing in anger as she stared at her family heirloom in the Imperial's hands. "You certainly aren't worthy of understanding it!"

"Of course not, forgive me," Thrawn said so absently it sounded like a dismissal, his fingers once again returning to the beaded strands that hung from the top of the Kalikori. "This design I found most interesting..." the Admiral said slowly as he delicately brushed a small bead at the top of the strand, different from the rest, a smaller, simpler thing. "It seems to suggest a...brother. One who died while you were very young," Thrawn said slowly, carefully watching Hera's face, the emotions flitting through her bright green eyes betraying just how accurate he was.

"What are you doing here, Thrawn?!" Hera snapped angrily, her temper flaring to hide the rising terror she felt. "We're a long way from Lothal, it can't be a coincidence that you're here when we are. Did you follow us? Or did you lure us here?"

"I am certainly not here to be interrogated by you, Captain," Thrawn said casually, his eyebrow raising slightly in what Hera could only assume was smugness, the Admiral delicately placing the Kalikori upon the nearest shelf before he turned back to his prisoners.

"Then why are you here!" Hera tried again. "What is it you want?"

"From you? Nothing," Thrawn said with a dismissive wave of his hand, his glowing red eyes drifting to the Jedi restrained upon the desk. "I have what I want from you, Captain Syndulla. Your interrogation is over."

"You didn't get anything!" Hera snapped, her voice tight with desperation as she tried to get the Admiral's attention once again when he drew closer to Ezra. "He doesn't know anything I don't, he can't give you anything you could possibly want!"

"Oh, I disagree..." Thrawn whispered, slowly circling the desk and carefully watching as Ezra began to struggle and thrash against his restraints once again.

"I'm not going to tell you anything!" Ezra said as strongly as he could, though his voice wavered and cracked ever so slightly, just enough that the teen could see the red eyes light up with delight and a knowing smirk cross blue lips.

"You do not need to speak to tell me what I need, Bridger," Thrawn drawled, stopping at the end of the desk by Ezra's feet, still and silent for a moment as his gaze flitted between Hera and the restrained teen. "I have spent a great deal of time unofficially observing your Phoenix Squadron. I believe that in order to defeat an enemy, you must know them, understand them, and I take great pride in knowing you all very, very well. But this..." he whispered, his long fingered hand laying upon the boot on Ezra's right boot. "I did not know about this. This is new."

"It's the newest in Imperial design," Ezra said mockingly in a bad, fake clipped accent. "I'm surprised you didn't know about it. You are an Admiral, aren't you? What sort of commander doesn't know what kind of shoes his men are wearing?"

"This..." Thrawn said quietly, the slightest smile upon his lips as he undid the straps on Ezra's boot and carefully removed it, revealing the dark metal of Ezra's cybernetic foot. "You lost your leg..."

"Whaaaaat?!" Ezra asked in a thin, shaking voice, his eyes wide in shock as he lifted his head to look at the Admiral. "Well, how bad is it?!" Thrawn didn't respond to Ezra's attempts to goad him, simply tugged at the cuff of the tight black bodysuit the teen wore as part of his Scout Trooper uniform, panic finally making his heart pound so hard in his chest that he swore everyone in the room could hear it. "L-look, what does it matter if I lost my leg, huh?!" Ezra asked in a voice tight with fear, and this time, the Chiss' glowing eyes snapped up from his work, bright and filled with the unmistakable amusement of triumph.

"It matters, Bridger," Thrawn began, "because I am missing the pieces to solve the puzzle laid before me. Something has happened, something significant to my current mission, and that information is being withheld from me."

"...what does that have to do with my leg?" Ezra asked, and the thoughtful, pensive expression on the Chiss' face slowly shifted to bemusement.

"Because," Thrawn drawled, "you are close friends with Sabine Wren, and she cannot help herself." Slowly, Thrawn rolled up the leg of Ezra's pants, the flexible, elastic of the bodysuit easily sliding over the smooth metal casing of his leg, exposing the splash of color of Sabine's handiwork. Ezra once again began thrashing in the attempt to wrest away from the Admiral's grasp, desperation suddenly flooding him as he remembered too late that this Imperial alien wasn't just a connoisseur of the arts, but a fanatic that was somehow able to take a painting and transform it into weaponized knowledge.

Ezra didn't understand it, but he had remembered Sabine's confused, wounded account of her time with Thrawn at Skystrike Academy, how the Admiral had used her own art to lay her soul bare, the creative expression of the freedom she so deeply cherished turned against her, her own passions violated and used to expose her, and almost worst of all was that the Mandalorian didn't understand how he did it. The painting that Sabine had so carefully drawn upon his leg was deeply personal, the culmination of everything he was and the path that he had walked to get there, and though he didn't know how the colorful splash of symbols could mean anything to someone outside his closest circle, the way those glowing red eyes lit up with delighted recognition and dreadful familiarity made a sickening knot churn and tighten in Ezra's stomach.

Thrawn wasn't looking for a way to infiltrate their close-knit family. He was already silently walking beside them.

Ezra whimpered softly in nervous desperation, his teeth grinding together against a sharp, sudden bite of pain when his skin pinched as his leg was twisted, a rough, jarring motion that quickly became a smooth glide accompanied by the soft hiss of disengaging mechanics as his cybernetic leg was detached. He felt the restraints upon his remaining leg loosen for a split second before they snapped uncomfortably tight once again, and he renewed his struggle only a moment too late, the stub of his right leg banging against the desk and sending a jolt of pain right up his spine.

Grimacing and holding still, the Jedi bit down on his lip, a sudden flash of anger rushing through him as he looked at Thrawn, the Chiss reverently holding the beautifully painted cybernetic, his fingers slowly, delicately tracing over each individual design, each splash of color, each brush stroke. For all the unease Ezra felt, for as foreboding as he knew this was, he didn't need the Force to see that Thrawn's delight was real, the red eyes wide with excitement, his focus intense, the breathless appreciation for the work of art he held so carefully in his hands palpable in the air around them.

It took a moment for Ezra to remember that it was his leg, and he should be feeling both offended and violated for having it torn from him.

"That's mine!" Ezra snarled, his muscled straining as he pulled against his restraints. "Give it back!"

"Look at it..." Thrawn said breathlessly, ignoring the wrathful teenager as he delicately turned the cybernetic leg over in his hands, his fingers affectionately tracing the symbols and drawings upon it. "The precision of the lines, the wildness of the color..." Thrawn muttered to himself. "It look chaotic and random, but everything is precise and calculated, not even a hint of hesitation or second thought." He delicately laid the leg upon the desk beside Ezra, so frustratingly close and still out of the teens reach, and he instinctively reached for the Force and grimaced in pain when he only felt its absence.

"There is certainty and passion here that many of her other works lack," Thrawn continued quietly. "Truly this is her greatest work yet."

"I'm sure she'll be thrilled you think so," Ezra growled through clenched teeth. "I'll be sure to tell her when we get back!"

"I am certain you will..." Thrawn said dismissively, his eyes never leaving the leg as he turned it over, his fingers tracing along the smaller images drawn upon the knee's joint plates. "There is so much meaning here. Everything that encompasses who you are is contained within this work. Sabine Wren is truly gifted to have captured it so very well."

"Don't flatter yourself..." Ezra said slowly. "You might have studied us, Thrawn, but you don't know us. Sabine's more than her paintings, Hera's more than her Kalikori. So, so much more. You don't understand that, and that's why we'll beat you."

For a long moment, Thrawn was silent, his hard, calculating gaze staring unmoving at Ezra, and emboldened Ezra stared right back, an unspoken challenge to the unshakable Admiral. It was Thrawn who looked away first, his eyes flicking to look at silent, steady Hera for a moment before his gaze fell to the cybernetic leg and slowly drifted along it's length, a thoughtful look upon his face as he studied it once again. This time, however, Ezra saw the admiration and the delight was gone, replaced instead with sharp focus, the ridged forehead drawing together as he analyzed what lay before him, and Ezra's defiant confidence began to slip. He had been so bold, so certain before, but now he realized that Thrawn had been handed a weapon, and Ezra had dared hm to use it. It was the same weapon he had used to trap Sabine, the same weapon he had supposedly used to draw Hera here. And now that he faced Thrawn himself, he didn't know what the Admiral would find.

If he could see how the Chiss turned art into a weapon, if he could understand-

"Would you like to hear my analysis?" Thrawn asked quietly, his eyes snapping up to look at Ezra once again, a confident smirk upon his lips. "After, you may tell me if my assessment was correct." Ezra said nothing, only glared at the man, which only seemed to further amuse the Admiral as he turned the leg on to it's side.

"Let us start simple, shall we?" Thrawn drawled, a finger dragging along the blocky number six painted upon the knee joint. "Your call sign, Spectre Six, a similar design to the one that Sabine Wren painted upon her own armor. It is little surprise that she would include one for you as well." The slightest smirk touched the Admiral's lips. "A tactical error that renders a call sign purposeless."

"It doesn't mean anything to anyone but us, nobody knows them!" Ezra said bitterly, and the glowing red eyes nearly rolled at the petulant teen.

"I know them," Thrawn said calmly. "Therefore, the Empire knows them. You may as well wear your name upon your clothing as put your call sign upon your person. All it does is serve as a means of identifying you." He turned the leg over, his fingers tracing over the deep red symbol upon the front of the thigh, and Ezra felt himself tense. "The Starbird," Thrawn whispered. "The symbol that has come to represent your rebel cell, rather aptly, I would say. There have been few challenges your rebels have been unable to rise above."

"There's no challenge we haven't risen above!" Ezra snapped. "We beat Tarkin over Lothal, we beat the Inquisitors, and we'll beat you too."

"The Inquisitors are gone, then?" Thrawn swiftly asked, his eyes narrowing as his gaze sharpened, and Ezra winced as he realized his mistake and swiftly clamped his mouth shut, pointedly looking away from the Admiral's prying gaze. "I was aware that Kenobi was hunting the members of the Inquisitorious. I did not know he managed to destroy the last before his...untimely disappearance." Ezra's jaw clenched tight, his chest beginning to burn with the breath he held, and he remained silent despite the Admiral's scrutiny, though silence didn't seem to be enough.

Drawing back slightly, his hand upon the cybernetic leg, Thrawn's expression became thoughtful, a questioning, curious glint in those strange eyes that made Ezra feel as though the clever alien was reevaluating his information, looking at it from a new perspective because of what Ezra did and most notably didn't give him.

"The Lothcat," Thrawn continued in his quiet, even tone, once again turning the leg over to touch at the other side of the knee joint. "A native of Lothal, not unlike yourself. You...identify with these creatures. You see yourself in their general traits and mannerisms and have come to feel they represent your spirit." Ezra kept his gave forward and unmoving, his jaw clenched tightly, his expression blank, though he could feel his heart beating faster. Thrawn was right, and though Ezra kept his emotions in check and gave nothing away, somehow, the Admiral saw something, that infuriating smirk curling his lips once again.

"But it is more than mere symbolism, is it not?" Thrawn whispered as he leaned closer to the teenager. "Your connection to these creatures and the world they inhabit is real. Tangible. Visceral. And it has entirely to do with this," he said as he slowly turned the cybernetic limb over once again, the brilliant light blue of the ancient symbol of the Jedi order upon a black and white starburst facing upwards. "Your connection to the Force..."

"You know nothing of the Force!" Ezra growled, the panic he felt swiftly transforming into a flash of defensive anger which Thrawn reacted to with his usual contemplative calm, drawing up again and folding his hands behind his back as he let Ezra's words hang in cold, thoughtful silence.

"It is true that my understanding of the Force is quite different from yours," Thrawn conceded with a slight, respectful nod of his head. "Knowledge of the Force is rare these days, but I have had the opportunity to study it in rather great detail thanks to Obi-Wan Kenobi, Kanan Jarrus, and yourself, among others."

"Can't imagine that's been very helpful," Ezra scoffed, and earned himself a sharp hiss of warning from Hera, the woman quietly mouthing for him to shut up.

"On the contrary..." Thrawn said. "I have learned a great deal from my observations. While most Force sensitives share certain skills and abilities, each individual possesses unique inclinations and talents that shape the manner and method in which they interact with the Force." Thrawn leaned in again, and Ezra squirmed, feeling like an experiment upon the table that the Chiss was meticulously studying. "Your talent, Ezra Bridger, manifests in a deep, instinctive ability to connect with animals. Furthermore, the inclusion of the symbol of the Jedi on this piece is...quite interesting."

"Why?" Ezra scoffed with a roll of his eyes. "It's not really a secret that I'm a Jedi."

"Because..." Thrawn whispered. "Kanan Jarrus is not your only teacher." When the teenager didn't answer, only tensed and glared hatefully back at him, Thrawn calmly turned the leg over once again, his fingers drifting down to trace the white symbol on the back of the calf. "Obi-Wan Kenobi has had a hand in training you as well. The inclusion of the Jedi's symbol is a commitment to the Jedi way and a rejection of the darker side of the Force that Kenobi is dedicated to. You may be instructed in its use, but your spirit is Jedi."

"You-"

"I would like to move on," Thrawn said dismissively, interrupting Ezra before he had a chance to speak. "The symbols here on the lower leg are far more interesting..." Running his hand over the orange and white symbol, Thrawn's gaze flicked up to look at Hera when he heard the Twi'lek take a sharp intake of breath, her body heat rising as her heart began to pound. "We have come to understand this to be the symbol of a network of rebel spies, code named Fulcrum agents. I have little reason to believe that either of you are one of these agents, which lends itself to the question of why you would wear such a marking."

"Maybe I think it's pretty," Ezra drawled sarcastically. "You're not the only one who appreciates art, Admiral Art Collector."

"Perhaps..." Thrawn whispered, a small, genuine smile upon his thin lips. "But upon your own cybernetic leg? I think not. No, this has meaning beyond simple aesthetic, like the rest of the designs you have selected to include. Which makes me believe that this symbol does not represent an organization, but a singular being." Ezra's jaw tightened, his eyes widening slightly and his body heat dramatically increasing, and Thrawn flicked his gaze to Hera to find the Twi'lek similarly effected. He had hit the truth of the matter, a bold, confident expression on his face as he drew up once again and pulled his datapad out of the pouch on his belt, his finger swiftly dragging over the screen.

"I have not personally handled any information bearing this symbol," Thrawn continued. "But I have seen it once before. Not upon a document or transmission, but upon a living being." Taking a moment to study his datapad, his head tilted slightly as he examined the image he had pulled up, Thrawn silently turned the datapad around, his eyes fixed upon Hera's face as he watched the woman pale, her eyes widening and her breath held in fearful anticipation. On the table, Ezra crained his neck up to look at the image as well, and after a moment of struggling against his bonds, he finally managed to catch a glimpse at the screen, the same dread in his eyes as his Captain.

"This," Thrawn whispered solemnly, "is the former Jedi Padawan Ahsoka Tano, a confirmed survivor of the Jedi Purge." He turned the datapad back around and flicked his fingers across the screen to minimize the image, and with a few swift taps he opened the file, his eyes swiftly darting over the information scrolling before him. "Many years ago, she killed an Inquisitor on a moon in the Outer Rim, and she has not been sighted since."

"The galaxy's a dangerous place," Hera said, her voice calm and even, matching the commanding Chiss. "The Inquisitors aren't the only way for a Jedi to die. She could have been killed by marauders or a crime syndicate or any one of the billions of desperate people in the galaxy for sticking her nose where it didn't belong, as Jedi do, and the Empire would be none the wiser."

"Very true," Thrawn muttered thoughtfully, his hand once again returning to delicately stroke the orange and white symbol upon the cybernetic leg after he slipped the datapad back into its pouch. "But I think not. There is too much evidence that suggests otherwise."

"And that's your evidence?" Ezra scoffed, looking pointedly at the cybernetic. "Your basing your entire conclusion on a drawing on a leg?"

"Not at all..." Thrawn said, his back straightening with confident authority as he looked between the two captive rebels. "I have spent a great deal of time studying the Clone Wars. Everything about that time in your history is of great interest to me. Ahsoka Tano was trained by the late Jedi Master Quinlan Vos and fought for the Republic by his side during the war until he defected and joined the Separatist cause to fight beside his former friend." A knowing half smile touched Thrawn's lips. "Obi-Wan Kenobi."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Ezra asked in a strained, irritated voice, and for the slightest moment, he saw the slightest hint of emotion break through the Chiss' impassive features, a hard edge in those strange red eyes that made him feel that beneath all that calm and composure, Thrawn was much more dangerous than he let on.

"Everything..." Thrawn whispered, his eyes fixed upon the painted symbol beneath his fingertips. "The link between Ahsoka Tano and Obi-Wan Kenobi is coincidental on its own, but with this, it takes on a whole new meaning, one that allows recent rebel activities to be seen from a new, enlightening perspective. There is little doubt in my mind," Thrawn said as he once again turned over the cybernetic leg. "Ahsoka Tano is Fulcrum. Not an agent, but the center of the entire network."

"Do you want to tell him how insane he sounds, Hera, or should I?" Ezra flippantly drawled. "Now, if you're finally done talking, you can give me back my leg and we'll be on our way..."

"We are not yet finished..." Thrawn said absently, his head tilted slightly as his gaze raked over the final painting drawn upon the metallic shin. "I confess I am especially intrigued by this one..." he said as he dragged his fingers over the sharp lines of the black and red pyramid. "Seemingly a contradiction to your dedication to the Jedi, but..." Ezra felt his face flush as the red eyes snapped up from their study to seemingly peer right through him, the Chiss' thin lips pressed tightly together in his focus.

"No, this piece serves another purpose..." Thrawn mused, his attention returning to the cybernetic when he got what he wished from Ezra's expression. "It is Sith in design, a holocron or a temple, perhaps..." His head tilted, his eyes narrowing as he observed the line, the shape, the color, and drew back with a soft gasp of understanding. "No, a temple. This is a location," the Admiral said with hushed excitement, his gaze once again falling back on Ezra. "A place of great significance to you...but why?"

Ezra held his breath as Thrawn began slowly circling the desk, those red eyes upon him like a predator sizing up its prey, silent for a moment before he began muttering to himself in a language he couldn't understand as he absently counted off on his fingers. When the Admiral walked out of Ezra's view, he swallowed hard and braved a glance toward Hera and found the woman calm and still, her eyes slowly following the Chiss as he paced out of the teen's sight. Taking a deep breath and trying to mimic the Twi'lek's calm, Ezra quickly looked back at Thrawn when he came back into his field of view, a strange expression on the Admiral's face that shook the little calm the teen had managed to grasp.

"This is a reminder," Thrawn whispered. "A warning. This is the place where your leg was lost." Thrawn frowned despite the way Ezra's eyes widened is shock. "And...and something else..." There was the slightest twitch, the smallest flash of emotion that tore through Ezra's eyes, the same one Thrawn saw pass through Hera when he looked up at her, though not so intense. The very same one that he saw when he interrogated Sabine Wren. Things quickly fell into place, his red eyes lighting up with understanding as the puzzle was assembled.

"This..." Thrawn said as he tapped the painted temple upon the cybernetic leg. "This is where you lost Kenobi..." Kenobi was alive, wounded, perhaps, but not gone, as Sabine's grief and his absence seemed to suggest, the events at the temple the very same one that hung over the Emperor when Thrawn saw him last. It accounted for everything. Kenobi's sudden disappearance, the Emperor's mysterious illness, his very specific directive to hunt Kenobi when he had been forbidden from it before. The Emperor had believed he had the Shadow King menace under control, perhaps went himself to this Sith Temple and failed, returning with nothing to show for his efforts but weakness.

And Kenobi...

He was alive, and he would return, and when he did, Thrawn would be ready.

"Alright, so you're creepy..." Ezra said in a voice that shook, despite his best efforts. "That's it, right? You're done, and we've stayed here long enough."

"...who crafted the leg?" Thrawn asked after a long, uncomfortable pause as he stood and silently pondered. "It looks to be a custom build, the craftsmanship is a masterful. So very unlike anything I have seen the Phoenix Squadron utilize to this date." He was answered with resolute silence, as Thrawn knew he would be, but it was no matter. The knowledge he had gained already was more than he could have hoped for.

As for the rest, he would learn soon enough. He knew these rebels better than they believed, could predict their movements, their actions, could lead them where he wanted as he had led them here to Ryloth. There were elements still he did not know, factors he had yet to observe that he needed to understand before he moved into position and destroyed them. He could capture the crew of the Ghost any time he wished, but with some patience, they would lead him directly to the heart of a larger rebellion.

And Thrawn very, very much wished to see that.

"It would seem," Thrawn said slowly as he stepped away from the desk, "that you will live to fight another day, Captain Syndulla."

"You're...letting us go?" Hera asked suspiciously, her eyes narrowing as she watched the retreating Admiral nod his head.

"I am," Thrawn said quietly, his hands folding behind his back. "The Empire had arranged something of an exchange with your father."

"A trap, then," Hera said bitterly.

"Not at all," Thrawn said in a smooth, even voice. "You are little use to me dead." He carefully took the Kalikori from the shelf as he headed to the door, entered the code to open it, and turned to give Hera a respectful nod. "It was a pleasure to finally meet you face to face. Until we meet again, Captain Syndulla."

---

As far as rescue attempts went, it was one of their better plans.

Cham knew Captain Slavin well, had fought against him long enough to know the measure of his enemy, and with the Imperial's nature in mind, they began crafting a plan that would not only see Hera and Ezra freed, but would also liberate the people of the Tann Provence. While the Spectres flew the Ghost in with Cham to make the exchange, Cham's best operatives would sneak inside the Syndulla ancestral home and free the Twi'leks that had been enslaved. Knowing Slavin, the Captain's full attention and wrath would be on Cham, his pride allowing for nothing else but his undivided attention on his longtime rival, and with Imperial attention focused on him, there would be a wide opening for his people to move right under the Imperial's noses.

As soon as the captive Twi'lek's were handed off to the rebels that would bring them to safety, Cham's elite soldiers would move into position and signal Cham, and when all was ready, when the exchange had been made, they would assault the Imperials within the compound, sabotaging their operations and destroying what they could while they still maintained the element of surprise. It would be chaotic, a distraction large enough to divert even Captain Slavin's attentions, giving Cham a window of opportunity to escape from the Imperial's clutches and to fly away to safety aboard the Ghost while his infiltration team pulled out.

The timing was critical, but they had pulled off missions bigger than this before, and if all went according to plan, not only would Hera and Ezra be safe, but Cham and his Free Ryloth movement would be in position to retake the entire Tann Provence with the Imperial operation destabilized. They knew Slavin was planning some kind of a trap. It seemed fitting to counter his trap with one of their own.

So when Kanan settled the Ghost down upon the landing field and saw the entire Imperial compliment present, every Walker manned, every Stormtrooper armed and ready to shoot, he couldn't help feeling a sense of satisfaction as their singular freighter faced down an entire army. It was exactly what they had hoped for.

"Sir, we're in position to extract the captives," a soft, feminine voice said over Cham's com, and his eyes fixed out the viewport at the Imperials gathered in the yard and the all too familiar green Twi'lek prisoner they tightly held, he slowly took the com off his belt.

"Excellent work, Numa," Cham said quietly, his chest tightening as he looked at his daughter in the grasp of his enemy. "Com silence from now on, emergency use only. Give us the signal when the captives are safe." With a swift affirmative, the com fell silent, and Cham stood with his hands upon the backs of the pilot and copilot seats, taking deep, calming breaths and never taking his gaze from Hera.

"Ready to make a mess?" Kanan asked, looking over his seat at the Mandalorian in the hallway behind him, and she swiftly raised up a brightly colored orb, a small electronic band around its center blinking with red and green lights.

"As soon as I get the signal," Sabine said. "The Imperials won't know what hit them."

"Great," Kanan said as he stood from his seat, his hand briefly running over the lightsabers on his hip and the blaster on his thigh. "You don't need to worry about a thing, Cham. We'll get you out of this."

"I'm not worried about myself," Cham softly growled as he pointed out the viewport. "Only her. Don't put her life at risk to save me."

"Cham, we-"

"I mean it," the Twi'lek said harshly, finally tearing his eyes away from the viewport to look at the Jedi. "If this goes wrong, you leave me behind. I'm not ready to lose my daughter too. Promise me, Jedi. Promise me you'll save Hera, no matter the cost."

"We'll bring her home, Cham," Kanan said quietly, his hand gently laying upon the Twi'lek's tense shoulder. "Stay focused and we'll all go home."

"This isn't the first time I've been captured," Cham said with a soft chuckle. "It will not be the last. Come. Let's finish this."

Giving Chopper's flat topped dome a pat as he left the cockpit, Kanan followed the Twi'lek down into the hold, stopping before the ramp controls for a moment to take a few deep, calming breaths before they pressed the switch and the door began to open. His vision had thankfully corrected itself as the night had wore on, and now with dawn beginning to lighten the sky, the Force was as clear to him as it had ever been, calm and still and peaceful, a lake without so much as a ripple tarnishing the mirror sheen of its surface.

And Kanan didn't like it one bit.

It was too still, too quiet, and with emotions running as high and hot as they were, with tension so thick it could be felt in the air, the Force had no business being so unnaturally unmoving. For just a moment, Kanan closed his eyes and willed the chaos of the colors to return, to once again be plunged into the erratic, churning spectrum, a vastly different perspective he knew would show him exactly what lay beneath the still waters or exactly what manner of monster surrounded this eye in a storm, but it didn't come to him. No bubbling of reds and blues from the ground, no haze of green and orange wind blowing across violet fields, just cold, clear reality prickling at the back of his neck with dreaded apprehension.

When the ramp lowered and he saw Hera and Ezra in the grasp of the Imperials, he pushed away the fear and stepped out of the Ghost. No matter the danger that awaited, he had to save them.

"Cham Syndulla..." Captain Slavin said as he moved to stand before his hostages, a look of disdain upon his face as he eyed the rebel Twi'lek that had caused him such trouble. "We meet at last..."

"My daughter, Captain," Cham cut in with a harsh snap. "And the boy. Hand them over." There was a brief flash of anger in Slavin's eyes, his hand tightening at his side and the Stormtroopers behind him priming their weapons and pointing them at Hera and Ezra's heads. Then, the anger faded, his lip twitching uneasily as he raised his hand to call the soldiers off, and while the weapons weren't lowered, they were no longer so aggressively trained on the hostages.

"You will turn yourself over," Slavin bit out slowly. "Or my men will kill them both."

"Not until my daughter is safe!" Cham insisted, and Kanan laid his hand over his blaster, ready to draw it at a moment's notice, the warmth of the Force flowing around him as he reached out and prepared to throw the Imperials back, if need be. There was silence, Slavin's jaw clenched tightly as he eyed Cham bitterly, neither party daring to move, neither willing to back down or surrender.

"A simultaneous exchange..." Slavin finally said, his voice quiet and uncertain as if questioning his decision, though the hesitation did not last long before he drew up and motioned for the Stormtroopers holding his hostages to step forward, and Kanan swiftly made his way down the ramp with Cham when he saw Ezra leaning on Hera, one of the Imperials carrying the teen's cybernetic leg. "Start walking!" Slavin growled stiffly as he shoved Hera forward, the woman and Ezra both stumbling before their guard caught them and marched them forward, and with a quick look back at Sabine and Zeb inside the Ghost, Kanan and Cham walked forward to meet them.

The Stormtroopers grabbed Cham the moment he was in reach, roughly turning him around and binding his wrists together behind his back as Kanan grabbed hold of Hera and Ezra, shooting a quick glare at the Stormtrooper holding the cybernetic leg as he pulled his lover and his student close. The tight, protective embrace didn't last long, was broken the moment the still restrained Hera began squirming in his grasp, and keeping a hold on Ezra to support the one-legged boy, he released Hera and found her looking at him with wide, frightened eyes.

"Kanan, this is a trap!" she said in a hushed, frantic whisper, and the Jedi reached out and grabbed her arm to pull her back toward the Ghost as he motioned for Zeb to come take the cybernetic from the Imperial.

"We know, Hera, it was obvious," Kanan replied, handing Ezra off to Zeb so the Lasat could quickly bring the teenager to safety. "We prepared for-"

"It's Thrawn, Kanan!" Hera hissed, and a cold pit dropped in the Jedi's stomach as he suddenly understood the meaning of the spear of cold blue piercing the colorful spectrum of the Force. "Slavin hasn't learned how to fight my Father, he's been playing the game that Thrawn devised!"

Before Kanan had a chance to respond, before another word was said, a sharp burst of static from the com on Cham's belt filled the air, almost deafening in the tense silence of the exchange, and despite the pushing of the Imperial soldiers, swelling fear froze Cham to the spot.

"Sir, we're under attack!" a tight, panicked voice came through the static of the com and the background sound of screams and chaos and blaster fire. "...knew we'd be here!" the voice said louder as the audio began to cut out. "...cut off our escape...all our forces and the captives...trapped in here!"

With an enraged cry, Cham tore away from the Stormtroopers that held him and charged toward Captain Slavin, the air filling with the high whine of priming blasters and the roar of the Ghost's engines as the ship came to life, the forward cannons swiveling and locking into place on the Imperials. Zeb shoved Ezra into the ship's hold and threw his leg in after him, the teenager grunting as he struck the ground, and Sabine rushed past him to stand beside Zeb as he took his bo-rifle in his hands, every Walker present turning their cannons upon the rebel ship.

Cham didn't get far in his rush for the Captain, a Stormtrooper catching him and slamming his blaster against the back of his head, sending the Twi'lek to the ground, and he quickly scrambled back up to his knees, only to freeze when he found himself looking down the barrels of a dozen blasters.

In the space of a second, the explosive, wrathful outburst had escalated into a tense, dangerous deadlock, the threat of the slightest movement enough to plunge them all into violent, fatal bloodshed, the silence thick and oppressive around them. Imperials and rebels alike jumped when a sharp, sudden thrum reverberated through the air, the deep, resonant, unmistakable sound of a ship snapping out of hyperspace, and miraculously, nobody fired a shot, though the sound was startling enough to tear attention away from the enemy and up to the sky and see an Imperial Vigil-class corvette hanging menacingly above them.

To get so close meant that the ship had executed a low altitude micro-jump, a tricky maneuver that required the pinpoint accuracy of a precise and perfect calculation. It was a risky move, even for skilled pilots, one that Sabine had seen once before at Skystrike Academy.

Thrawn was aboard that ship.

Cold dread dropped into the pit of Sabine's stomach, her eyes fixed upon the warship above them as she tightly grabbed hold of Zeb's arm, the weapon in her hand all but forgotten. They had a chance before, the situation tense, but survivable, as they had come through so much worse, but now, they were hopelessly outgunned and would be pinned with no hope for escape the moment those turbo lasers locked on. They needed to leave, but the standoff persisted, none of them moving lest that be the catalyst for the Imperials to open fire, none of them moving because Cham still needed to be saved, just like they had planned.

The first person to move was an Imperial officer, a thin, young woman that pushed her way through the line of Stormtroopers to meekly hand Slavin a holocom, the Captain not even looking at her as he took it from her hands and keyed it on, the smug, superior expression on his face faltering when the blue image of the Grand Admiral was projected before him.

"Well done, Captain," Thrawn said calmly, the monotonous even tone sending a cold shiver through the rebels. "I believe your Free Ryloth movement is at an end."

"Thank you, Grand Admiral," Slavin said stiffly, an arrogant smirk on his face as he looked back at Cham kneeling on the ground before him. "I'm going to use this Twi'lek filth as an example to others that would-"

"No," Thrawn interrupted. "So long as Cham Syndulla lives, there will be those that will rally to his cause." The cold red eyes of the Admiral briefly looked down at Cham, examining him for a moment before he turned his attention back to Slavin. "Execute him, Captain," Thrawn said quietly. "Immediately."

The hologram flickered off as the call was ended, and Slavin raised his hand, the line of Stormtroopers all taking aim as the air filled with the high whine of priming weapons. With a sharp, desperate cry, Hera struggled against Kanan's grasp, but the Jedi held her tight, his jaw clenching as he felt tears drip on to his arm. His back straightening in defiance, Cham looked behind him at Kanan and Hera, his expression calm and resolved, his eyes meeting Kanan's and holding his gaze for only a moment before Kanan nodded and picked up desperate, grief-stricken Hera and sprinted up the ramp and into the Ghost, Zeb and Sabine following close behind them.

As the Ghost lifted off the ground and the ramp began to close, the deafening sound of blaster fire filled the air, the red flash of plasma rounds illuminating the walls of the cargo hold as they watched Cham Syndulla fall lifeless to the ground. The hatch closed, the ship rocking slightly as they accelerated, the heavy silence broken by Hera's occasional stifled sobs as Thrawn let them go.