Ever since the vivid, unsettling communion with Maul, and the dynamic, revelatory Sith and Jedi holocron interaction while on the hangar, Ezra had no trouble embracing this emotional, carefully treasured link with his past. A fragile moment in time, lived not so long ago...
"Hey, Ezra! Ezra Bridger—I'm sure glad to see you! I didn't think I would!"
Turning, he saw a red-haired girl, his own age, standing in a long line with other downtrodden souls, waiting to board a medium-sized passenger ship that rested on a landing platform. The teenage girl smiled at him, waving him over.
Instantly recognizable, she was Moreena Krai, standing with her parents and younger sister, Sunana. Her pleasure evident, Moreena stepped out of line, rushing over to Ezra, and he asked, "What's going on? You're going somewhere?"
Chewing on her lower lip, the pretty girl, neatly-dressed in an opal-azure skylark suit, looked and sounded the way she felt when she replied, "My family and I…we're going away."
That caught Ezra's attention. With both eyebrows raised, he blustered, "Leaving? Why? For how long?"
Moreena hung her head. "We're going to live with my grandmother."
"Permanently?" he imposed, his query blunt, not wanting to believe it was true.
"Uh huh." Regret edged her tremulous voice. "I tried getting a message to you, but…" Once her words trailed, she quickly fed Ezra, "I'm sorry. Everything happened way too fast. I still can't believe we're leaving like this. Everything my family's worked so hard for—gone! Just like that." She snapped her fingers. "I guess the Empire hates jogan fruit."
Ezra shook his head in disbelief. "What happened to your farm?"
"They," she bit off, "seized it." Moreena's bitter gaze wafted over to the Stormtroopers, who were bent on controlling the crowd, their blasters at the ready, at the security installation. "The Empire stole our land to extend their mining operations."
Ezra's entrenched scowl ate up his face and he howled, "Didn't they pay your parents anything?"
Moreena scoffed. "Define what 'stole' means, Ezra."
"That's a 'no,' then." Anger churned within him.
"The Imperials condemned our perfectly good property because they can! Like they always do. They do what they want, any time they want to because the Empire is disgusting!"
While shaking his head, livid, Ezra barked, "They do stuff like this all the time. You're right. Who's going to stop them?"
"Yeah, who?" Moreena snapped too. "We're nobodies."
"Thinking that means they've already won." Ezra spat out, "Wish I could take them down. I'd love to wipe them out for good!" Then, he added practicality to his protest. "Farmers here have found other ways to make a living. How come your folks are determined to leave?"
"My mom and dad aren't like us," Moreena candidly brought up. "They know what Lothal was like before the Empire showed up. Owning their own farm, raising my sister and me on it, cultivating a delicious, nutritious crop like jogan is their idea of what happiness is. But since poopy Palpatine became Emperor, and his evil Empire took over Lothal… Too much has changed. Too much for them to take. They hate what this world has become. They don't want Sunana and me, and themselves, living here anymore. They're done!"
Ezra, sighed heavily, seeing Moreena's tears well up in her eyes. Unable to contain his grimacing, he cried out in despair, "I'm so sorry, Mo." He stepped in closer to her and patted her shoulder.
Brushing her tears from her suntanned cheeks, she sighed too. "I'm going to miss you so much. You're my best friend. The best I've ever had," she unburdened, sniffling.
"I know," Ezra confessed, not sounding even a tad cocky. "You're mine." Strengthening his voice, he boasted, "I'd like to drive out every last one of these half-witted Stormtroopers from Lothal."
"Yeah, me too. Kick 'em right out of here. We'd get our farm back, and everybody wouldn't be so gloomy, like they are a lot, now. Way too many faces are wearing permanent frowns these days." She raised a fist in protest. "Down with the Empire!"
Ezra advised her to lower her voice, and he placed his hand over his right knee, and touted, "I'm already wearing my shin guard. We could find an armor plate to go over your head to protect vital organs, and swipe a few blasters, then we're good to go."
Moreena laughed. "Nice try, hero, but I think I'll try staying alive." She changed the direction of their conversation, intending to drag it out for as long as possible. This goodbye was tougher than she thought it would be. "So, what brings you to the spaceport?"
"There's a gladiatorial event tonight. It's gonna be an epic battle. Sporting matches like this attract people who have gambling in their blood. You know what people like that attract."
"Yeah—you!"
"True. Keep it down, though. No need to alert the public." Suddenly, he couldn't keep his eyes off of an unsuspecting Balosar tourist. Hungrily, his eyes followed the female's every move. She was wearing an expensive coruscating lavender silk scarf wrapped delicately around her two antennapalps that extended from the top of her head. Too bad he wasn't a Jedi. Balosars were readily known for their susceptibility to that caste's mind tricks. Ezra brazenly muttered, "That scarf's got to be worth at least a solid thousand. Even more, maybe."
Just then, Moreena's father's voice rang out, "Let's go, Mo! Come back in line, please. We're about to board!"
"I'll be right there, Dad. Give me another moment," she hollered in reply. To Ezra, she addressed, "I've been meaning to ask you something."
"Ask away," he said haphazardly, grudging her his full attention. He dragged his gaze from the wealthy mark's scarf. His eyes met Moreena's. "Shoot."
"Would you ever leave Lothal?" She made it sound like a wish. "Ever thought about that?"
"Leave here?" Ezra exclaimed, chuckling like she was pulling his leg. "And leave these tempting targets from all over the galaxy, just begging for their expensive trinkets to be taken, behind? Are you kidding? I'd miss out on all this fun."
"You call that fun?"
His eyes drifted back to the willowy, golden-eyed Balosar. He was able to hear the exotic-looker, talking. Her voice was mellifluous; its timbre haunting.
Moreena didn't see it his way. Sighing, she criticized, "I don't get it. Petty theft, scamming and filching can't be keeping you here."
"I'm making out like a bandit. I'm so good at being one. You've said so yourself. They'll never catch me. Never gonna happen."
"Well, it saddens me. I'll be thinking about you; your parents gone. You'll be all alone. I wish—" She stopped talking, catching him looking at her funny. "What?"
Her mention of Ezra's parents had ushered a grim expression to his youthful, unblemished face. He made it sound like a plea, "Don't, Moreena." Though his big, blue eyes watered, he sucked it up, and patiently told her, "I don't want you feeling sad, or sorry for me. I'm doing great on my own; I always will. I have a knack for it. I don't even have to try very hard. Surviving is what I do."
She wore her resignation like Stormtrooper armor. With her heart breaking, she said undaunted, "Okay, then… Guess there's nothing left to say, other than goodbye. Be safe, anyway, Ezra, even though being safe comes easy for you. Oh, and remember—I'll always be your friend." Making her exit good, she turned on her heel, and started walking away.
Mere moments from flying off, out of his life. She hoped not for good.
Her family had begun boarding the carbon-scored transport. Her little sister surveyed big sis with questioning eyes. Mom and Pop Krai waited for their oldest child; their facial expressions matched their bearings, taciturn. They might have passed for stone statues in a gallery.
"Mo! Wait!" Ezra cried, practically vaulting to catch up with her. These words flew out of his mouth: "Where does your grandmother live?"
A little smile crept over Moreena's anticipative face as she glanced over her shoulder. "Alderaan." Nodding, she continued on her way.
'A Core world,' he thought. 'She deserves being someplace nice.' He waved. "'Bye, Mo. I'll try to visit you there, one day…maybe…if I can afford passage. Don't forget me…" What more could he say? He'd run out of time.
He watched her, along with her family, one of many families displaced by the tyrannical power that ruled the galaxy with cruel vulgarity, take their places aboard ship. As a group of chatty travelers, sporting gaudy Imperial paraphernalia strolled by, Ezra dismissed his missing out on plenty of opportunities to rip them off. Faithfully, he monitored the ship, thinking about Moreena's liking her first starship ride. Would she, or wouldn't she?
The repulsorlift engines fired, and then the transport lifted up from the landing platform, ascending splendidly into the sky.
Through the years, for as long as he could remember, he'd seen many starships of all shapes and sizes, come and go. Touched by what felt like finality, Ezra stood transfixed, watching the passenger ship vanish as fleecy, thick clouds absorbed the craft, the higher it rose. He couldn't shake the uncomfortable feeling that he wouldn't be seeing Moreena, Sunana, her mother and father ever again...
"Sabine—now don't get sore." He lifted his hand to touch her lovely cheek as she searched his careworn, face. Sincerity flooded it.
"Me? Sore? About what?" she murmured, luxuriating in the pleasurableness of the day.
Content, and off by themselves, they were sitting underneath a glimmering, short-boughed Bindai tree, close to a minty-blue babbling brook on Elox, a moon of Zipouer. The clandestine moon was peppered with some of the tallest trees the Ghost crew had ever seen. Zipouer was a planet in the sketchy, little-explored region of the galaxy designated as 'Unknown.' You traveled in and around this expanse of unchartered space at your own risk. As any knowledgeable rebel knew, this lay of space was the ideal place to go to avoid Imperial entanglements.
The day was sunny, warm, a captivating setting for letting go of anxiety and salving burnt nerves. Balmy breezes tickled noses every chance they got. Edginess, coupled with apprehension, was banished from this realm of peace and tranquility. The brook water was so limpid, seeing clear down to the bottom was not a problem. Its water temperature was neither too hot, nor too cold. Just right for swimming and staying in for as long as one wanted.
They reveled in having this delightful spot all to themselves. Up for anything, clad in festive swimming attire that did their strong, trim bodies justice, the couple were enjoying a proper honeymoon at last. Ezra's rust-colored trunks, and Sabine's silver [lamey] two-piece suit were flatteringly fashionable, bought at a sprawling, lively bazaar on Ithor. Rest and relaxation was long overdue, and had never felt this good.
Ezra's damp head lolled in Sabine's petite lap, her pale legs having taken on a toasty color during the past few days from more sun exposure than they'd had in awhile. She stroked his hair he was letting grow, to please her. "I know why I've been crying Mo's name out so much. Why I've been so agitated ever since the two holocrons did all the weird stuff in front of me and Maul, sitting there staring at them. Those flaming pyramids turned our perceptions upside down."
"Why? What's the reason?"
She'd promised Ezra that she wouldn't be the jealous type. Ezra promised her unending loyalty and fidelity. Something he claimed he had no idea where he'd picked it up from, but couldn't stop repeating, entered his mind.
"Do, or do not. There is no try…"
With that thought under their marital belt, they would stick with each other, regardless, come what may. They wouldn't be throwing in any towels. Quitting was for cowards, not for this Jedi and his Mandolorian wife.
"I have a bad feeling about her, Sabine."
"This feeling you have… Any idea why you're feeling like that about her?" Sabine gently nudged, while twirling his silky hair about her slender fingers with freshly-painted purple nails to match the ends of her glossy hair.
"Through the opening of the holocrons, I believe whatever I saw in all that blinding brightness, that was as bright as half the suns in this galaxy, was a warning. A dire warning. She and her family—they could be in grave danger on Alderaan. That's where they went to live after the Empire ripped away their farm out from under them on Lothal. They went to Alderaan, to the grandmother's."
Her hand rooted itself in his hair, fingers clenching against his scalp, Sabine supported, "You know this for sure?"
"I feel, more than I know as fact. But, the feeling is strong. It won't leave me alone. Won't go away." He relived what he'd felt the day she and her family had departed for the idyllic planet, the 'shining star of the Core Worlds,' Alderaan. He didn't know how she and her family were doing, only hoped everything was all right with them. He should have kept in touch. The hope he clung to that they were all right wasn't allaying his preoccupation with their continued safety. "I'd like to go to them, Sabine." He jerked himself up suddenly, sitting. He gripped her by her upper arms, but never shook her. He'd never bully his beloved, despite how anxious he felt, acutely worried. "I want to see how they are. Maybe danger awaits Alderaan."
"Are you sure? What kind of danger?"
"I'm not sure, but I feel something bad could happen," Ezra avowed. "I feel it like I feel your arms in my hands." He stuttered, dazed, engulfed by a powerful reverie. All at one, his mind filled with foreboding. These words thrashed against the walls of his mind:
"I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced."
"Ezra, Ezra—Ezra!" Sabine clamored, the calmness of her tone fading. The faraway, frozen look her husband's eyes held frightened her. "Ezra, can you hear me?"
When he fainted dead away, and her efforts to rouse him were in vain, she yelled at the top of her lungs for Kanan.