Just Listen

(Post- Star Wars Rebels scene) Spoilers for both Thrawn book series'.

Darkness. Silence. Cold.

The smell of smoke laced with blood and the acrid fumes of burnt out electronic components.

Those are the first thing Grand Admiral Thrawn remembers upon regaining consciousness.

The surface beneath his back and legs is unyielding and cold... deck plating?

Movement brings pain, but starting with his toes in his boots, he takes a slow inventory of himself.

Broken bones in his left forearm, but none sticking out and not currently bleeding.

The taste of blood is in his mouth.

Pain, a vicious throbbing pain, from a very specific point on his left temple and an acute inability to make his eyes focus enough to see anything except possibly the enhanced infrared and ultraviolet version of double vision.

There was a rustling noise to his immediate left when he shifted and tried to sit up.

"No." A voice states quietly, "Don't move."

His vision refuses to resolve into anything remotely useful, but Thrawn is not afraid. He has suffered injuries before. "My current position is... uncomfortable."

His breath leaves him in a hiss as he feels at the bloody lump on his left temple as best he can with the fingers of his right hand.

"You're hurt," the voice tells him. "Hurt bad."

"Obviously."

"You could be dead. Lots of people are probably dead." The voice was flat, emotionless. And it sounded... young and male.

Ezra Bridger. Of course.

Thrawn considered the last things he remembered. They had been on the Command Deck of the Chimera. Something had pulled them into hyperspace, making equipment explode and throwing him into the crew pit. "Where are we?"

"Don't recognize it? We're in an Imperial escape pod."

"What happened?" Thrawn demanded. Officer command training and years of experience rising to the fore and taking over even while he was barely functional.

The order brought nothing except silence for so long, Thrawn didn't think Bridger intended to answer him. He tried again to sit up, ribs creaking and stabbing agony into his chest, making each breath a dagger.

A small groan of pain escaped him, but he remained in a seated position. Barely.

"A bunch of your ribs are broken. And you have a concussion. Sitting up is probably a bad idea. A medic wrapped your ribs and set your arm before Captain Pellaeon helped her carry you and me into the escape pod." He sighed. "She said not to let you move around too much or you could puncture a lung." There was a steely ice in his tone when Ezra Bridger spoke, again, "It would be pretty easy to just sit back and let you die."

"I'm not dead, yet," Admiral Thrawn assured him.

A huff. "I can fix that."

"The Captain won't be pleased if you kill me."

There was a snap-hiss and blinding green light burned Thrawn's eyes, making them water. Blinking away the tears, an image resolved of Ezra Bridger's face. The left half lit by his ignited green lightsaber blade. "I don't care," Bridger told him in that same cold, dead tone.

"What happened to my ship?"

The corner of his mouth quirked. Amusement, probably. Or annoyance. "The Chimera hit something after the Purrgil dropped us out of hyperspace. The damage must have been bad for all those Imps to decide to abandon ship. The nearest planet is three days by escape pod from where we were. That is where everyone is planning rendezvous and regroup."

When Bridger turned his head slightly, illuminating more of his face in the green light, Thrawn could see dried blood below the Jedi's nose and his right eye was blackened. "Are you injured as well?"

"I'm not in danger of dying of a punctured lung. Or a brain hemorrhage," the young man retorted, dryly. "And I think the whole galaxy would benefit from one less Imperial Grand Admiral." He seemed to ponder out loud, weighing and measuring possible outcomes and his available choices.

"Shall I help you debate the advantages and disadvantages of my death? Or we could debate the Empire's strengths and weaknesses versus those of your Rebels?"

The lightsaber's illumination went out as suddenly as it had begun.

In the darkness, Ezra Bridger said, "I could blow us up. Are you afraid to die, Grand Admiral Thrawn?"

"No." And it was the truth. "Death is the one constant in a Chiss warrior's life. The welcome certainty of rest for when missions are hard and battles are bloody."

"I'll become one with the Force when I die. Like Kanan. I... saw him, and he told me... less than an hour before you woke up."

Thrawn didn't believe him, though he had encountered alien races before his exile who believed in a connection with their ancestors through their version of the mysterious "Force" the Jedi seemed able to call upon at will. Bridger was more likely suffering from a concussion and hallucinating in the quiet dark of the escape pod. "Did Kanan Jarus tell you to kill me?" He asked casually, humoring the young man.

There was a sigh. "No. Kanan wants me to tell you a story."

"Are you going to make up a tale to entertain us on our trip?"

"Kanan lived the story. He was thirteen. Do want to hear his story?"

Thrawn supposed it was better than dying. "Yes, tell me the dead Jedi's story."

Ezra Bridger flinched. "Shut up and... just listen."

"As you wish."

The interior lighting came up suddenly without either of them touching the control panel, and just enough to allow Thrawn to see he was sitting on the floor in the center of an Imperial issue escape pod, just as Ezra Bridger claimed.

Thrawn did recognize the design. In fact, he noted it was one of the specially equipped pods that ringed the Chimera's command level. Those had longer range, better controls and more advanced medical and survival gear.

This made him feel somewhat better about their situation. Using his good arm, Thrawn dragged himself back to rest his back against the seats at the far side of the pod opposite the seats where Bridger was lying on his side facing Thrawn.

Once the strain of holding himself in a sitting position unassisted was eased, and his ribs stopped screaming, Thrawn gestured with a hand for the young Jedi to begin his tale.

"Kanan isn't his real name. It was Caleb Dume and he was taken from his family to the Jedi Temple creche on Coruscant as a baby. This is how most Jedi start their training. Kanan trained with other younglings of all different species until the Clone Wars started. Then, he was assigned a Jedi as his master and he went with her on missions to hone his skills and to learn the place of the Jedi in the Galaxy. The Jedi started as mediators and peacekeepers, and then they were Generals and liaisons to the Clone Troopers."

Thrawn nodded, encouraging Bridger to continue.

"When Caleb Dume was thirteen, the Clone War ended. In one day. He and his Master were with a group of clones when a message came over the radio. It was the voice of Senator Palpatine and he said, "Execute Order 66."

The Jedi met his gaze across the dimly lit space separating them. "The clones had been implanted with the chip, something they didn't even realize was in their heads. It contained certain commands they could not disobey, like Order 66.

"Kanan didn't know this until after he died and became one with the Force and the other fallen Jedi. He never understood what really happened. Why had the Clones heard a single, short radio order and turned on him and his Master and with their blasters? His Master sacrificed her life to give her Padawan the chance to escape.

"On every world where the Jedi were side by side with the Clone troops, Jedi from the youngest padawans and Knights to the highest Masters, were hunted down, overwhelmed and slaughtered."

He paused to take a short break and sipped from a water flask Thrawn hadn't seen beside him. It made Thrawn's own throat raw and scratchy with thirst.

"That was the end of most of the Jedi, but not those on Coruscant in the Jedi Temple. A Jedi General named Anakin Skywalker turned Sith and marched on the Jedi Temple with an army of Clone Troopers and killed the remaining Jedi from the oldest elders to the babies in the creche and the younglings hiding in their schoolroom. Then, he burned the Temple."

"As a youngling Kanan had a conversation with a Jedi named Obi-Wan Kenobi about the use of the Jedi emergency communication system. It is designed to be used to call all Jedi in the Galaxy back to the Temple on Coruscant in the event of an emergency. Caleb wanted to know if could also be used to warn all Jedi to stay way from the Temple. It turns out that is exactly what Kenobi used it for after Order 66. He told the Jedi to go into hiding... and never come out. Caleb Dume became Kanan. And probably many other names before that."

"I met General Anakin Skywalker. I worked with him and Senator Padme Amidala in the Outer Rim. Years ago. It must have been just before your Master's tale."

"Senator Palpatine became Emperor Palpatine, but he was also secretly Darth Sideous. Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader."

"The Skywalker I knew was a good man. Reckless and arrogant, but honorable. What would have caused the Jedi General to become one of these Sith Lords?"

"I don't know what Sideous promised him, but he became the Emperor's enforcer. Maybe he just wanted a quick end to the war and "order" like all the monsters serving the Empire and Palpatine."

"You think I am a monster." It wasn't a question.

Ezra Bridger barked a bitter laugh. "You killed women and children on Lothal to get me to surrender to you. How can you not be called a monster?"

"I do not know if I believe your tale, but it has given me something to think about."

"Good. I have honored my Master's request and we both have things to occupy our minds, now. Since we have another day stuck with each other in this escape pod."

"Would you be willing to share your water?"

"The bottles are inside the bench you are leaning back on. Get it yourself."

"Very well."

"One more thing you should think about... if we ever get back to known space, what makes you think Palpatine won't turn on you? The Jedi trusted him. He had them completely fooled into thinking he was helpless old man."

Thrawn thought back to his time working closely with Vader. "I do not doubt Darth Vader was formerly General Anakin Skywalker. He as much as confirmed it when he threatened me should I ever mention Skywalker, again." He paused, thinking aloud. "As I said, I have much to think about."