"On no fewer than four occasions I told the Emperor that I would not waste his troops and ships attacking an enemy which I was not yet prepared to defeat." -Grand Admiral Thrawn
The Felucia system...
The light freighter zoomed past the apparently deserted system... No Imperial ship was in sight... But there was a strange satellite in the space between gravity wells.
"Opening comm channel..." Hera tapped at the buttons, the noise faintly echoing throughout the room... The room was then cloaked in the bright light of the holoprojector.
"General Syndulla, what is your report?" General Dodonna said, looking at them sternly...
"We've located a satellite in the Felucia system... It seems to be the long range scanners that are preventing stealth missions..." Hera replied, weary of any Imperial ships that may be on their way...
"Do your best to destroy it, it might free the sector for safe passage." Dodonna was strict in his wording, but his tone had an air of desperation... They needed to destroy the satellites scattered throughout this oversector if Base One's location is to remain a secret.
"Understood..." Hera said as the hologram before her dissapeared... The next moment, she turned to Kanan...
"Well, get ready love... We might have a lot of Imperials on our tail..." Hera remarked, trying to mask any fear in her voice...
"Oh this'll be fun..." Kanan snarkily replied, still retaining a sense of humor...
The Ghost zoomed towards the satellite in a direct trajectory... Hera took aim at the satellite, and fired...
The satellite blew up spectacularly, but not before it set up a state of alarm... The signal was sent directly to the fleet of origin...
"We have company!" Hera said as an Imperial I-class Star Destroyer left hyperspace...
"Hail the Rebel ship!" Commander Faro barked to the command crew. More Rebels have fallen into the trap. Thrawn and Lord Vader would be pleased...
"This is Commander Varyn Faro of the Star Destroyer Death's Head... Surrender or be destroyed..." The voice of Faro barked into the Ghost's speakers.
Hera's reply is quick, and obviously defiant... "Never..."
Faro turned to the Captain, barking an immediate order... "Deploy the Gunboats..."
The Ghost's sensors immediately detected the heavy fighter/bombers. Hera remarked, "This can't be good..."
Hera sent the Ghost towards the edge of Felucia's gravity well, at full speed. The ions roaring out of the thrusters at max power...
The Gunboats were slower than basic TIE/LN Starfighters, and despite their heavy armaments were unable to catch up... Faro stared at the transparisteel viewport as the Ghost entered hyperspace...
"Take us to the rendezvous point, we will meet with Grand Admiral Thrawn..." Faro said as she walked down the central pathway of the bridge...
On the Ghost, Hera turned on the holoprojector, which showed an image of General Dodonna and Lieutenant Kallus...
"General Syndulla, what do you need?" Dodonna asked sincerely... Briefly glancing at a worried Kallus.
"General, we've destroyed the sensors... But we encountered some sort of new Imperial fighter... Not a TIE... It looked like a small Imperial shuttle armed with missile launchers..."
"Alpha-class Xg1 Star Wings..." Kallus replied, getting the immediate attention of the two Generals... "Fighter bombers armed with ion cannons, warhead launchers, and a built-in tractor beam. They're heavily shielded..."
"The ship launching them was the Star Destroyer Death's Head..." Hera said, "The same one reported to be in the system when Ezra dissapeared..."
Kallus replied, worriedly... "Then these 'Gunboats' might be what disabled or destroyed Bridger's Y-Wing longprobe... Thrawn must be using them in as strike craft to guard the sensors..."
"Whatever they are, we need to find a way to defeat them... And locate Commander Bridger..." Dodonna replied, now in a worried and slightly desperate tone. Thrawn's toys continue to pose bigger and bigger threats to the survival of the Rebellion.
Imperial II-class Star Destroyer Chimaera, the Mustafar System.
"Go and make peace in the Empire..." Palpatine said, ending the transmission.
"Thank you, your majesty..." Thrawn replied politely.
Thrawn pressed a set of buttons, opening the door to the elite comm chamber. His report was complete, and he stood up from his kneeling position... Vader would be arriving soon...
"T-573, report on the status of our special guest..." Thrawn said into his comlink...
"He is still alive, and has not tried anything to escape..." The restored T-series Tactical Droid replied... Thrawn had caught on to Bridger's Jedi Devilry. The use of Separatist Droids was far more efficient than Stormtroopers, due to their insusceptibility to mind tricks. And they weren't alive, so he couldn't choke them...
"Inform him that Lord Vader will be arriving shortly... Lord Vader has recommended that he be in a state of crippling fear or panic. It would increase the effectiveness of Vader's powers..."
"Roger roger..." The droid replied...
Ezra heard the droid's obedient phrase, still wondering who "Roger" was... But his face stiffened when the droid and its B2 Super Battle Droid escort walked towards the shield...
"Lord Vader will be arriving shortly, prisoner..."
The words immediately cleared his mind of all distractions, and made it focus on his experiences with the Dark Lord... When he killed Ahsoka, when he destroyed his old lightsaber, and when he destroyed the original Phoenix Home... There was no escaping now, and the droid knew it.
"Ha ha... haha..." The droid laughed in his humorless tone, adding insult to injury.
Ezra sat in his cell, waiting for the right moment to escape. The heat shield filled the otherwise dark cell with a faint green light. The metal was cold, and so was the Force... But the reasoning behind it wasn't very clear...
The tactical droid broke the silence as it entered the dark isolation block, "The Admiral has informed me that Lord Vader's shuttle is arriving from his castle on Mustafar..."
Ezra finally knew the truth in the sayings about Mustafar... Mustafar was where Jedi went to die... Because the ultimate Jedi killer, Darth Vader, lives there... And the glimpses of huge lava seas from the Rebellion's rescue mission to save Kanan showed how dark and evil the place was...
The Tactical Droid left the room as Ezra began to stir. The time was now... Ezra began to reach out with the Force...
The B1 and B2 Battle Droids reacted too late as Ezra shut off the shield.
"Oh no!"
"He's getting out!"
"Stun him!" They said randomly as they took aim.
But Ezra, desperate to escape, pulled his lightsaber to his hand, the bright green blade extending and tearing the heads off several B1s.
The droids started firing, and Ezra's view of time slowed to a point in which he can deflect each shot directly at the droids...
The droids, like always, never stood a chance against Jedi in such small numbers... And those that remained were crushed by Ezra, with the sheer power of his Force grip... The Force Crush power...
Ezra glanced at them briefly, before running to the locked blast doors... He felt so cold, like the Darkness was smothering him in a tight embrace...
He creeped towards the door... Silently listening for any Imperial troops nearby... He'd finally escaped...
But a crimson blade began to cut a huge hole through the doors!
"KARABAST!" Ezra yelled, he was so close to actually escaping... But Vader was here...
The cold metal suddenly became excruciatingly hot, and melted before Vader's blade of doom... When he was complete, Vader pushed the sliced metal to the back wall, where Ezra's cell was...
The terrifying sound of Vader's breathing forced itself into the giant room... And soon Vader himself arrived, followed by a shocked Thrawn and Faro... Thrawn had again faced another Force ability he was not prepared for, or Jedi Devilry, as he calls it.
"The Force is strong with you, Ezra Bridger... But you will never become a true Knight of the Jedi..." Vader said threateningly... He stood rigid, his lightsaber melting a part of the durasteel floor...
"I'll never join you!" Ezra yelled loudly, seething with fear, anger, and hate...
"Then you will suffer!" Vader coldly replied...
Ezra leaped at Vader with the acrobatic abilities of Form IV, Ataru, and moved his lightsaber to hit Vader's arm... He was attempting to battle Vader tactically, but he was being too aggressive... A detail Thrawn easily saw as he and Faro observed the battle... Perhaps he can be useful with such a mind... if his attitude was somehow altered to reduce sheer aggression...
Vader swiftly outmaneuvered Ezra, hitting the green saber with such a brute force that the boy was knocked into a wall... From that, Thrawn correctly deduced that Vader knew every trick the Jedi had with their set forms and styles through sheer experience. The Emperor himself had said that Vader had singlehandedly killed all of the strongest Jedi... And it showed.
Vader did not immediately disarm the child, intending to convey the lack of hope he had in the situation... The child tried several more strikes, this time less aggressive... All of his attempts failed...
Ezra's sheer anger turned into crippling fear in a matter of seconds... He thought he became strong enough to beat Vader... He had learned so much, but nothing was enough... Even Maul said on Malachor that he was no match for the Emperor's personal enforcer... But he knew that he would die if he surrendered, or so he thought.
"You have known the power of the Dark Side from the holocron... However, you are afraid to use it... That will soon change..." The cold, deep, mechanical voice boomed...
Vader had enough fun... He extended his arm, placing his signature death grip on the boy... And flinging him onto a wall.
He released Ezra when the boy fell unconcious... His escape attempt had failed...
"The Force is something that cannot be prepared for..." Vader said to Thrawn, turning to face him.
"The power of the individual Jedi gives them an unpredictable set of abilities... However, I am impressived by your ability to take several of them into account..."
"Yes, my Lord... I developed countermeasures to the ones he used on the Stormtroopers by making use of these now destroyed droids..."
"Most impressive... The boy is volatile... It may be possible to convert him to our cause... Therefore, we must take him to Coruscant..." The Dark Lord said...
"Very well..." The Chiss replied, walking back to the bridge.
Vader looked upon the boy, as several Stormtroopers from his castle dragged the unconscious child into his cell... And placed a set of newly developed KX-series Imperial Enforcer Droids to replace the destroyed Separatist Battle Droids... And the Tactical Droid returned to its post.
Notes:
- My headcanon is that the Death's Head is the Imperial Star Destroyer that showed up at the end of Iron Squadron.
- Thrawn hates the Force, because it's unbelievably hard to predict.
- The Mon Calamari are still remaking their cruisers into warships, so all the Rebellion has is a few Nebulon B's, a bunch of corvettes, and fighters.
- Pryce will stay on Lothal, because the events of this fanfic take place outside of her jurisdiction.
-Commander Varyn Faro is a character from the new Thrawn novel.