Halfway to Martyrdom
Chapter Eleven
The time had come. Ezra's last chance to complete his mission was today. If he waited any longer, the Chimaera would escape her prison among the asteroids and enter hyperspace. Ezra had no idea where Thrawn was planning to go with his battered ship, but surely none of the options were good news for the rebellion.
Ezra knew what he had to do. He just needed to make sure he had the strength to do it. After trying and failing several times at sabotage, Ezra had settled on a plan for true devastation.
Before the Chimaera could enter hyperspace, her crew had to retrieve whatever hidden reserve of coaxium existed aboard the ship and place it inside the hyperdrive. All Ezra had to do was wait near the hyperdrive, catch the transport party off guard, steal the coaxium, and cause the biggest explosion he could.
Everyone aboard was destined to die one of two ways: immediately in the explosion, or gradually inside a doomed vessel with no way back to civilization. Ezra knew his death would come immediately. For the sake of his conscience, he hoped most people died quickly.
The worst part about Ezra's plan was that he couldn't open himself up to the Force to accomplish it. The Force flowed through every living thing, and for once in Ezra's life, that was a detriment to him. Tuning into the Force while aboard the Chimaera made him intimately aware of his enemies as people. They were the only living things Ezra could latch onto out here. Yet the second Ezra allowed himself to bond with the enemy, his mission would be doomed. It had taken all of Ezra's resolve not to let his discovery of Rodney dissuade him from doing the right thing. All his self-restraint not to seek him out in the days since he'd learned the technician's name.
Thrawn had bombarded a city full of civilians to engineer the capture of one man. He wasn't redeemable. No one who served Thrawn willingly was redeemable in Ezra's eyes.
So Ezra spent hours hiding next to the hyperdrive. He hadn't eaten in two days. He hadn't slept all night. He smelled worse than he had before sneaking into Thrawn's quarters for a shower. He still wore Wilkes' old uniform, but he had given up hope of ever blending in among the crew. All he could do to avoid discovery was keep his distance for as long as possible.
Ezra's ears stayed pricked for an approaching party. Without the Force in play, his senses felt oddly muffled. Ezra was relying on the element of surprise to make his plan work. He'd been a thief before becoming a Jedi. Surely he could steal a container of fuel without supernatural powers.
He didn't have to kill the transport party when he stole the coaxium. They would die soon enough. He just needed to take the fuel and run. Run to the bridge so he could kill as many senior officers as possible in the initial explosion.
A plan so simple, Thrawn couldn't possibly be expecting it. Ezra's last plan had relied on complication. External unknown connections. Thrawn would be on guard for something akin to the purrgil plot. Not a good old fashioned suicide bombing.
He was ready. Ezra was one with the Force. The Force was with him. Ezra would be entering the cosmic Force the same way Kanan had. Kanan was on the other side waiting for his padawan to complete his mission. To fulfill his purpose.
Hera would keep Phoenix Squadron running. She'd survived losing Kanan, and he was the love of her life. Sabine would miss Ezra, sure, but she would understand. Love had never been in the cards for them. Zeb would outwardly celebrate having a room to himself, even if he kept his eyes off the top bunk for a while. And Chopper… Chopper would carry on like nothing happened. He was an old model. There was no space for grief in the droid's programming.
As far as Ezra's old crew was concerned, they probably already thought he was dead. He wouldn't disappoint them by waiting until now.
…Ezra was ready. He was! His trembling came from the cold of the room. Who knew hyperdrive rooms stayed refrigerated while not in use?
His hiding place was cold. His sleeping place was cold. And after the initial heat of the coaxium explosion faded, Ezra's vacuous mass grave would also be cold. He had been born in the Empire's shadow. He would die in the dark if it meant lightening the shadow tyranny cast on the galaxy.
Ezra's reverie was broken by the sound of footsteps. A rhythmic lockstep building to crescendo. The sound took over Ezra's perception until only his heart beat louder.
The lock to the hyperdrive room turned. The door slid open with a hiss. Ezra climbed into position, careful to stay out of sight.
His shadow passed over a stormtrooper's helmet. Neither the trooper nor his three buddies reacted. They stood in formation around a short female technician. Her cap obscured her face.
Not that Ezra cared what she looked like. He was far more interested in the case she held. A long, cylindrical container with a handle on its top. Of all the ship's crew, this woman had the honored job of feeding hyperspace fuel back into the ship. She held the key to the Chimaera's freedom in her hand.
Ezra would have one chance to take his prize. His position and timing needed to be perfect. He hung from a metal support beam, several meters above his enemies' heads.
The party of five stopped in the middle of the room. The female tech held the coaxium container up to the light, as if in awe. As she did, Ezra activated his lightsaber for the last time. He severed his support beam's connection with the ceiling. The metal moaned in distress as it swung forward.
The troopers dove out of the way on instinct. The tech froze in place, eyes wide. She stood a meter left of the beam's path.
During the fall, Ezra strapped his lightsaber to his hip. He kept one hand on the support beam and reached out with his other hand to grab the coaxium. He reached, reached, reached–
–and missed. His hand flew past the coaxium container and collided with the tech's shoulder. She fell to the floor with a yell.
The container leapt out of her hands. It soared through the air in a fluid arc. Time slowed to a crawl as Ezra watched his prize flee.
He jumped off the support beam, feet landing on the floor with an echoing thud. The support beam rammed into the wall, a resounding clang. Ezra lurched forward to grab the coaxium container, nearly losing his balance. The container landed in his hand upside down.
Success! See, that wasn't so hard. Ezra didn't need the Force for this mission.
The tech and troopers scrambled to recover their wits. In their disarray, Ezra ran out of the hyperdrive room. He raced up the ship towards the bridge in a mad dash.
Time blurred. Corridor lights gave way to red alarms as the emergency sound blared over the intercom. The sirens resonated in Ezra's chest, driving his adrenaline into a frenzy.
Ezra didn't see anyone on his run to the bridge. No troopers, no officers, no techs. No one. It was as if everyone on the ship had already died, and he was running through the halls of a graveyard.
The Force crept back into the edges of his consciousness. Ezra hadn't invited it, for all it brought him was doubt. Ezra had no room for doubts in his mind. Not today.
Ezra was panting when he reached the doors to the bridge. The door was closed. No one stood in the hallway to witness his final act.
He considered detonating the coaxium then and there. Open the container, drive his lightsaber into the fuel, and end this game forever.
Ezra nearly did just that. He had the container in one hand and his lightsaber in the other. He ignited the green blade, but in the flashing red lights, it too looked red to Ezra.
As he was preparing to make the stab, the bridge door opened from the inside. Beyond the red and the noise was a placid white room. Why wasn't the alarm running in there?
Ezra stumbled inside. His breaths came to him in gasps. The room spun in his warped vision.
Inside sat Thrawn. All his senior officers were in the room with him. Engineer Boss Man, Hammer Lady, Drunk Cripple… all present to watch Ezra make his final stand.
A few specially marked stormtroopers ran forward. Ezra stopped them by holding his lightsaber up to the coaxium container. His blade rested on the metal container like it was a human throat. If his enemies got any closer to him, he would slit that throat of every enemy at once.
"Stop… stop." Ezra couldn't catch his breath.
The Force swirled all around him, screaming in his ear. Ezra couldn't hear what it said. His ears had gone deaf from the sirens sounding behind him.
Thrawn stood. He did not advance toward Ezra. Instead, he tilted his head, considering the sight before him. His eyes landed on the coaxium container, and a small grin turned the corners of his lips. "You won't stop us. You don't have the strength or the cunning to keep us incapacitated. Every time you have tried to end this crew, you have failed. No matter the damage you have inflicted on my men, the Chimaera is a persistent soul. Her roar will be heard again in battles of the future."
"Yeah? Your crew's about to die. All of it."
"Is it, now?"
No more waiting. No more banter. Their story ended here.
Ezra ripped the lid off the container. Out came a blinding blue-white light. But not the one he expected.
There was no coaxium inside the container Ezra stole. Its only contents were stun grenades. At the push of a button, an electric current consumed Ezra.
Green, red, white light flashed through his eyes as Ezra fell to the ground. He landed in a crumpled heap on the floor. The container collapsed to his left, his lightsaber to his right.
Ezra's last sight was Thrawn hovering over his head.
A/N's: This chapter is short. I am sorry, but it doesn't make sense for me to lengthen it. I almost took a piece of chapter 12 and stuck it on the end, but I didn't like the way it looked. I think this should be the only scene in the chapter. It's pretty important, it just doesn't take up much wordspace.
Hope you enjoyed! Thank you to everyone for your continued support.