"I couldn't do it, Sabine," Ezra confessed, his anguished voice upsetting her.
"What couldn't you do?"
They were outside of the Ghost, doing what Hera had asked of them, troubleshooting. It was tedious, time-consuming work. The ship was holding up fairly well despite all of the hits it had sustained lately. Too many for Hera's liking. The shields really needed a complete overhaul, but getting that done had been put on hold too many times. Mission after mission took top priority.
"Kanan felt it too. I tried planting the suggestion in Thrawn's mind that he shouldn't pick Sumar for the demonstration, to see how quickly that sabotaged speeder bike could be brought up to speed. Choosing Sumar meant death for him." Ezra's unwavering gaze held Sabine's. "I couldn't prevent what happened to Sumar." Sullenly, he grumbled, "I tried to save him. I wasn't powerful enough." What was holding him back? Nagging doubts filled his head. Worry and confusion clogged his mind. Why wasn't he growing stronger, more commanding? Could it be he wasn't tapping into the side of the Force that could make that difference? The side that beckoned to him, calling his name in his dreams, tantalizing him with seductive promises of limitless might. The side he was always being warned about to resist.
"Ezra, blaming yourself isn't what he'd want you to do. At least you tried preventing his untimely death." Sabine sniffed, flipping her head back to stop her hair from interfering with her vision. "Is Kanan giving you a hard time? I already know the answer to that. Of course not! You don't hear him blaming himself. Jedi can do lots of things, but they can't do everything."
Heatedly, he bit off, "Trying isn't good enough. Trying couldn't save Sumar! Yeah, I'm growing in the Force, but by now I should be better! Stronger! Be-"
Ezra and his hearing problem, Sabine thought, getting worse every day.
"What?" she cried, slicing his shouted rant in two. "All-powerful?" His mood swings had never been like this. Increasingly, she was noticing disturbing trends with him. His selective hearing was one of many of his ailments. "You're scaring me if you think you should be that. You'd better not mean that."
The way she'd thrown that at him made Ezra think twice before saying that was exactly what he should be. Was that what he wanted, to become a supreme Jedi? Was there even such a thing? Ezra thrilled. There should be; he should be. A small, often nagging voice in his head would remind him that Kanan had been a Jedi far longer than he. Not once had the older and wiser man ever mentioned that as being his goal. Ezra paused, considering what was behind his always thinking this way. What would it be like, being the mightiest Jedi in the galaxy. Bringing down the Empire would be child's play. Ever since the interaction with Maul, ideas bordering obsession like this consumed him.
Beware the dark side, the tender, little voice whispered.
Ezra stared at Sabine, not seeing her.
As if he were back where the grisly scene had taken place, again, he watched an anxious Sumar seated upon the vehicle. The test speeder began accelerating on the spot, until the engine visibly, inexorably heated up. He shouted that something was wrong and desperately tried slowing down, in vain, while Thrawn used a datapad to diabolically increase the speed until poor Sumar was blown to bits.
The unspeakably abominable tableau shocked Ezra to the core.
He squeezed his eyes shut, wincing. As though outside of his body, he saw himself gawping, speechless, looking on in horror. Kallus, too. Pryce smirked and the apathetic, irritatingly-blue Grand Admiral announced that, going forward, all workers would personally test everything they had built, no exceptions.
"Ez, Ezra!"
"Uh-huh?"
Sabine, still calling his name as she frowned, stopped jiggling him. Looking affectionately perturbed, she asked, "Where did you go?"
"Nowhere good," he replied, shaking his head while sighing. His stare went cold, and his wife shook him some more. "I know, I know. You hate it when I do that, but, Sabine, I can't help it. There's so much I'm missing, and I should know what's going on before it happens. What good is being a Jedi if I can't stop really bad things from even happening? And when they happen, I feel like this. Miserable, worthless, a failure. What am I doing here?"
Sabine just let him talk, and she asked herself internally for the millionth time, 'How can I help?'
"I'm beginning to think sometimes Chopper is more of a Jedi than I am."
"Chopper is a hardheaded, astromech droid. That's where any similarity between you two ends. You used to think you know everything. That droid knows he does," she chided, linking an arm with his. "Stop beating yourself up, okay? Please. Hopefully, you'll last longer. You're doing great! We all are because we have to. We've got great people behind us, and we're doing what's right. What more of an incentive do you need, sweet-face? Now, c'mon, we've got a lot more ship to cover. You know Hera. She'll triple-check what we say we've done."
Normally, her rousing, spitfire pep talks did the trick, but this time, as he watched her get back to work, he wasn't so sure hearing her spout fight-talk was going to be enough. In fact, it was by and large, all beginning to sound the same. He needed more than pleasing, spirited rhetoric. He needed more, much bigger and better from himself.
Sabine looked away from what she was doing to give him a nod. He smiled back, putting up a front. When she busied herself with what she was doing again, the expression on his face soured.
Thinking how Kallus was Fulcrum brought on even more discouragement. How had he not known that? Well, at least a small consolation was Kallus' giving them some information about the secret new project that they had downloaded design data on. Shaking his head, and making sure he hid his scowling face from Sabine's alert eyes, that were inspecting a loose repulsor flap, Ezra rammed his fist into the Ghost's hull. Glowering, he muttered, "Trust him? Yeah, about as much as I trust a gundark that hasn't eaten in two days. I can't even trust myself. If I'm going to advance, I'll have to further my training on my own."