**Shout out to Rebels-lover, the two Guests, and Sakura245 for reviewing! I'm glad you're enjoying! Sorry for all the cliffes!**
Kanan felt a jolt of fear through the Force, aimed right at him, the same second that Hera gave a gasp. He jerked his head to the holomap, sitting open in front of her. It took him a second to find Ezra and Sabine. Two red dots, standing before three blue ones.
Imperialists.
Hera's eyes widened. "Ezra! Sabine!"
"They're okay. They aren't hurt. It's part of the mission, they were supposed to get caught." Kanan's voice was carefully clipped. A chair was pressing into his stomach where he was leaning over it, his white knuckles the only giveaway to his anxiety.
Hera took a breath, pushing her own worry away. They were responsible. They were strong. They were resilient.
They were children.
"Kanan, is Ezra okay?" She demanded, looking intently at the holomap.
Kanan entered into the Force, searching out the life source that was his padawan. He followed the tendrils of fear, of surprise, excitement, anger towards the Empire and-himself?
Kanan pushed forgiveness toward his padawan. Forgiveness and safety and assurance that, even though he wasn't there, he wasn't going to leave him, no matter how hard Ezra fought against it. He wouldn't leave his padawan to deal with his fear, with his mission, alone. He wouldn't leave him to fight and di-What am I saying! Kanan yelled at himself.
Ezra was not going to die.
He took a breath, pushing all emotion back. "No flickering lights. They're okay."
"Sabine is, what about Ezra?"
"He's, unharmed. But jeez, the kid, he…" Kanan trailed off and shook his head. "Whoever is getting to him through the Force they're doing a good job."
"Then you have to do a better job. I know you can." Hera gave him a nod.
He nodded back in response. "Thanks Hera."
"You're welcome."
"Tell me you've sorted through the transmissions."
"What?" She asked.
Kanan face palmed. "The transmissions to the Empire from that ship. No one kidnaps that many kids and doesn't contact anyone."
"Do you think the children were from Tatooine?"
"I don't know, hack into their ship's landings."
Hera did nothing more to respond than nod tersely, giving another glance back at the holomap. Her fingers flew over the computer. She took another breath. "Chopper!" She shouted.
There was no response.
"Karabast!" She muttered, pulling her comm out and flipping to Chopper's station. "Chopper get to the pilot's wing, I need you over here!"
Chopper chirped back that he was on the lookout for rodents in the kitchen. Space mice! Here! Saw one! Can't let them eat food! He warbled. It was an excuse he had used twice before, and the second time he really had been looking for one when it turned out to be just a dust mote he'd seen.
Kanan saw Hera's face darken. "Chopp-err! If you don't get your rusty legs over to the piloting chamber in the next two minutes I'll turn you into scrap metal!"
It was rare that Hera showed her temper to such a degree, but when the lives of her crew were riding on how fast they could accomplish the mission, every second weighed on her. She took a breath again as she heard Chopper coming down the hall, crashing into things every couple of seconds in his haste.
Kanan, trying to calm her down, quipped, "It looks like he'll turn himself into scrap metal before you at this rate."
Hera barely gave a smile, focusing on the screen full of code.
"You'll get it done in barely an hour at this rate."
Hera didn't respond at all this time, heavily focused on the task at hand.
Kanan squeezed her shoulder. "Don't worry, we're going to figure this out. The kids are going to come onto this ship, safe, and Ezra will be back here in no time, arguing with Zeb, Sabine painting her room. Or the kitchen again." He wrapped his arms around her in an awkward hug.
Hera cracked a painful smile. "Or Ezra's room."
"She sure has a temper."
Chopper careened into the room at that moment, knowing better than to test Hera's temper further.
It was a testament to how serious he thought she was when he didn't chitter on about how much Kanan and she looked like a couple.
Hera turned her head, brushing Kanan off. "Chopper, I'm working on transmissions from the ship itself. You work on reports of this thing, see who the children are."
Chopper warbled his agreement. When done? He asked.
"I'll put this way, stop talking and get a move on!" She snapped at him, not caring whether or not she sounded mean.
"Hera, you work on that, I'll keep an eye on the holomap."
"Thanks love." She replied absently, her focusing turning to the lines of code in front of her.
"Don't worry about it." He responded, turning his head to the holomap and taking a seat before it.
The two red dots began to move down the hallway, backed by the three blue ones. Kanan could tell that the one on the right was Ezra, without having to guess. His padawan opened his mind to the Force again, and Kanan entered.
It had begun.
"Karabast…" Ezra felt rather than heard the word fall from his mouth.
"Who are you!" The bucket head on the left shouted, jabbing his gun forward. There was a rattle of plastic.
"Jav-" Ezra began sarcastically.
Sabine kicked the lower side of his back.
"Ow!" He exclaimed.
The girl stared at the troopers. "My name is Jelissa. We're two of the people you kidnapped."
"Why did you get out!" The middle one yelled. He walked forward and jabbed Sabine in the chest.
"Jessila!"
"What did you just call her?" The one of the left demanded.
Sabine answered for him. "He's my idiot little brother. It was a nickname he'd given me when we were little because he couldn't say Jelissa. He still uses it when he's terrified."
The trooper on the right shook his head.
Not only am I her little brother I'm terrified?! Ezra shook his head in anger, the surprise quickly falling off him. He stood. "I'm not afraid!"
"Yeah, yeah. You just keep talking, I know you're terrified, blueberry."
Ezra felt his face go pink. "I'm not ter-"
The middle stormtrooper interrupted him. "Jelissa!"
"What!" She snapped.
"How did you escape!"
"Well I didn't escape. I'm still here! I was sick of the little ones screaming!"
"That's too bad, so are we! How did you get out of the room!"
"One of you bucketheads left the door unlocked!" She snapped.
The one on the right stomped closer to her. "What did you just call me!"
Ezra stepped in front of her. "She called you a buckethead, you plastic wearing rodent." His fists tightened, and he expected electricity to bolt through him.
Instead he got a blow to the back of his head.
"Ow!" He yowled, turning around.
Sabine smacked him across the face, glaring at him.
"Hey!" He protested.
"You keep your mouth shut Logan, you got it! Or I'll hurt you worse than just a tap on the head!"
This is bordering on abusive! Ezra thought in complaint.
"Quit your bickering you two! Get a move on!" The trooper on the right snapped. He walked around behind them as the left one did so, the middle buckethead following in his wake. "Start walking!" He snapped.
Sabine let out a grunt of irritation.
"You got a problem with that!" the middle one demanded.
"Well, no, I guess not, buckethea-Omph! Hey!"
Ezra looked over at her to see that the trooper behind her had rammed the blaster into her back again.
"Jelissa shut up already!" Ezra snapped. If he was going to play the role of annoying little brother, he might as well do it right. "What, the paint fumes starting to get to you? You always abuse me, I hate you! I wish you weren't my sister! I wish mom had killed you instead of dad!" He risked a glance at her, and on her face was murder. Her eyes seemed to say, I'm going to kill you when we get out of this.
She shot back, "Well it's too bad you were adopted. Maybe this is the reason your parents tried to kill you and threw you on the streets. What, you think they wanted keep you around?"
Ezra turned around. "Aren't you going to stop her?"
The trooper on the right responded. "We would, but this is too much fun. As long as you're not killing each other we don't have to intervene."
Sabine growled at her 'brother'. "You're lucky I don't kill you!"
The middle trooper spoke up. "Oh, death will come to you both soon enough."
Ezra snorted. "Everyone's gonna die sooner or later. Especially this freak if she doesn't quit dying her hair. Those fumes have already made her messed up enough."
Sabine responded by landing an elbow to Ezra's temple. His mind opened on reflex.
"Ow!" He yelled.
The stormtroopers chuckled. "You deserved it." one of them said.
Ezra the mission is killing the stormtroopers, not your sister!
She's gonna kill me!
Kanan chuckled. And who's fault is that?
The other voice decided to answer. Yours.
A wave of worry rippled through the Force. Ezra? I felt a disturbance. Don't close me off, hear me out. I just felt something dark. Are you alright?
I'm fine…
But?
Ezra played dumb. But?
You're fine but what?
He smacked into a wall again.
Ow!
Kanan chuckled despite his worry. You really need to watch where you're going kid.
Oh shut up. He muttered, sending out a wave of irritation at his master.
Hey, I'm kidding. But really, whoever's been trying to manipulate you, they're on the Dark side. You have to ignore them, kid, just like you did with the Seventh sister.
I know, I know! I'm trying!
You're doing great at it. Just keep it up. I'm going to keep sending you calm waves… and now that I think about it, focus ones too.
...Next time I'm going to purposely run into a wall.
Chin up, kid. This mission is going to be over before you know it. Kanan, knowing that Ezra needed as much spare focus as he could get, stopped talking to him, and his padawan didn't respond.
He didn't close his mind, either, which relieved his master.
The kid looked around him.
He and Sabine were being lead through another metal hallway, with the same amount of doors on their side with the same handprint locks affixed to the doors. He turned to look at Sabine, who met his eyes with a poisonous glare.
He apologized with his own, but the only reaction he got was a sharper glare.
She is going to kill me. Kanan if I don't survive her temper don't let her paint my old room!
You're the one who got on her bad side. Was all he said.
Ezra shook his head, looking in front of him again.
"Turn left." The middle buckethead said. He jammed Sabine in the back with the butt of his blaster. What the voice had said earlier came tumbling back. You won't be able to save them.
He felt along the bumps in his pants for his slingshot. It would be so easy just to-
I can sense your thoughts getting dark. Don't even think about it. You're still undercover, kid. Kanan said as he pushed waves of calm towards him.
Ezra sighed. He had forgotten his mind was open to the Force.
They turned the corner to see 4 stormtroopers gathered outside of a door.
The one in the middle said, "These two escaped under your watch! You left the door unlocked, again! Command is going to hear about this!"
He was apparently talking to the trooper to the far right, who shook his head. "I didn't! I double checked!"
"Well then you should have triple checked." The comrade to his left said.
"I was sure!" He protested, before pausing to listen to something coming over his comm. Wordlessly he walked out into another hallway, to get reprimanded by his superiors, whoever they were.
Ezra made a mental note of the direction he had gone as they drew closer to the room. He wondered just how incompetent their security was, and just how easy they would be to manipulate. When they were no more than five paces from the door, one of the stormtrooper's opened it, placing his hand on it.
The door wheezed open, slowly at first, before getting halfway and jerking into the wall.
"Make sure it doesn't happen again." Said the buckethead behind Ezra. He pushed him forward, Sabine's guard pushing her into the room.
They both turned to face the troopers before getting a good look around them.
One of the guards of the room pointed his blaster at her. "If it happens again you'll see just what happens when we find an escapee."
The door slid shut as he was talking, and the two were sealed in.
Ezra turned around, and his heart dropped into his stomach.
**Okay so just a wondering, I'm going to be writing more fan fics. What do you want me to write ABOUT?**