*****Shout out to Sakura245, Silvers Dream100, Rebels-lover, Amelia dragneel15, and BuruPlays 2 for reviewing! I will continue to torture you in this latest installment. If you want to hate on anyone for it hate on Sakura245 who gave me this account!** (sorry anika!)
Ezra turned around, and his heart dropped into his stomach. The first kid that he saw locked eyes with his, and he couldn't stop staring. Brown eyes, wide, bloodshot from crying and lack of sleep. Reflected in them he could see his own distorted form. Blue hair, a jaw that was close to a triangle in the reflection, eyes just as wide in surprise, mouth op-
He quickly shut it, trying to strip all surprise from his face.
He broke eye contact, looking at the boy's hair. It was matted and tangled, and there was a patch that was missing. Ezra didn't even want to think about what from. On looking closer at it he saw that there were still scabs in the area. Whatever had happened was violent enough to produce blood.
The teen swallowed, to find his mouth completely dry. He tore his eyes away from the boy's hair and focused on his face, making sure to avoid his eyes. There wasn't anything that looked injured on his face, no cuts or bruises visible.
Ezra took it as a good sign, but found his attention drawn back to his boy's nose. It took almost a full minute to realize why.
It had just been broken.
On looking closer, he realized it was swollen, the bottom twisted to the right far more than it should have been.
A hand touched his shoulder. "Ezra?"
He turned. It was Sabine.
Anger forgotten, she narrowed her eyes at him. "Are you okay?"
"Me? I, I'm, yeah, I'm okay." He stuttered, looking around him.
Around he and Sabine, there were about 40 kids, all staring at them, some with bruises and cuts on them, others seemingly unharmed. They were young kids, between the ages of five and ten. All looked terrified but curious at the new arrivals. Some inched closer, while others hung back, scuttling against the wall, unsure of who they were. The younger children took up a majority of these, calling to the other kids for comfort, for assurance. Sabine looked at them, unsure of what to do. One of the older kids, maybe eight or nine, walked up to Ezra.
"Are you here to hurt us…?" His voice was hoarse from misuse, barely above a whisper. Ezra could hear the fear under his words, masked by worry for the other children.
Ezra turned to Sabine, a question in his eyes, but she answered with a shrug. Tell them what you want.
"We're here to save you." At that, some of the children began to creep forward from the back, drawn by safety and curiosity.
"Who are you?" One asked.
"I'm Ezra. But if those buckethead guards come in and ask, my name is Logan."
"I want my mommy!" One exclaimed, her voice like the mew of a kitten.
"I know," Ezra said, looking around to see which of them had spoken. "I know, but you're going to see her real soon. We're getting you all out of here."
"How?" An older boy asked. He looked at Ezra, his eyes filled with fear and doubt and hope.
Something in the teen's stomach churned. He swallowed again. "Take out the guards, sneak you guys out, easy job."
"How are we going to get off a ship that's a million miles from anything?!" One of the children from the back wailed.
"There's a ship connected to this one, the one that we've got."
A flurry of questions erupted from the entire mass.
"When are you going to take out the guards?"
"Is someone else coming to help?"
"How long do we have to wait?"
"What if they come to hurt us first?"
"What happens if you get caught?"
Ezra was caught off guard. "Whoa, one at a time."
One of the younger ones spoke up. "Are we gonna die here…?" His voice was a squeak, the the metal the words bouncing off itself and twisting them into something almost unrecognizable. It took Ezra a second understand them.
"Hey, what's your name?"
"Bernie…"
"Bernie, we're getting all of you out alive. I promise. It's what we came to do and we're not going back on that ship until every one of you is safe on it. You're all getting off of here, you're all going to see your parents again. I promise."
The child nodded, tears glistening in his eyes.
"Guys, don't lose hope!" Ezra exclaimed, scanning the crowd. There were a mix of Mandolins and Twi'leks and Togratas. All stared at him, as did Sabine. "We came here for a reason, to save you guys. We're able to. We've fought the Empire before. We can-"
Sabine suddenly clamped a hand over his mouth. "Shut it Logan you don't know what you're talking about!" She hissed.
"Wha-?" Ezra mumbled in confusion.
"Cameras and audio could be anywhere!" she responded in a low voice, taking her hand off his mouth.
"Karabas-"
Her hand clamped right back down. "There are children that are here! What would Hera say!"
Ezra shuddered to think of her response to hear that he had sworn, let alone in front of children.
Sabine's hand lowered from his mouth and she waved the children closer to them.
Most obliged, forming a semicircle in front of them.
When the girl knew that she had their attention, she started again. "The Empire considers us a threat, considers us the bad guy, so they can't know that we're here. They don't know that we're here right now. No one can know who we really are."
There were nods and murmurs of response.
"So, um," Ezra began awkwardly. "Just pretend we're normal, like we were here when you got on here."
"Go back to what you were doing before." Sabine added.
Without a word the kids went back to mingling.
Ezra sat down with a sigh, Sabine sitting down next to him. She turned to look at him. "Don't think I'm not still mad at you."
"I'm sorry, I was playing a role."
"And taking your chance to insult me."
"You were doing the same thing."
Sabine snorted in laughter. "Yeah, because you were taking the first shots!"
"You elbowed me on the skull!"
"It didn't hurt. You're still conscious. You're lucky I didn't do it hard."
"That was hard!" Ezra couldn't help but grin.
"What?" Sabine asked.
"Here we are, smack in the belly of the beast, and we're bickering and joking like we're real siblings."
"Well what else can we do but wait for now."
"Nothing I guess."
As they were talking one of the younger kids, a Twi'lek, had walked over to them. He pointed at Sabine. "Who are you…?"
"Don't point, it's rude." she said, before pausing. "The less you know the better. Just call me Jelissa."
He nodded, before sitting down next to Ezra.
"What's your name, kid?"
He craned his neck up to look at the blue haired boy. "Reddon."
"I'm fifteen, how old are you?"
"I'm seven. What are you?"
"I'm, I'm just me. I come from Lothal."
"I'm from Tatooine."
"Oh, do you like it there?"
"Mm, yes and no. It's really hot and there's not a lot of people. Just dragons and stuff."
"Dragons? I thought those were a myth."
"No! My uncle saw one once!" exclaimed the kid, his fear turning to momentary excitement. "He was out one night where he wasn't supposed to be and a dragon saw him and it almost bit his head off!"
Some of the eavesdroppers gasped.
"Whoa!" Ezra said.
Sabine turned to Reddon. "So, where do you kids go to the bathroom?"
Reddon pointed to the corner, where a solitary toilet sat against the wall.
She pulled a face. "Ehh."
"I know." Reddon sighed. "At least they feed us!"
Ezra looked down at him. "Oh yeah? How often do they do that?"
"Once a day. They give us yucky pasty stuff but at least we're not hungry!"
Appetite curbs when you take nutrient paste. Ezra thought to himself as he nodded. "When does that come?"
"Um, I don't know. After we all wake up."
"Oh," was all he said, looking around at the structure of the room.
Light seeped down from the ceiling, covered by metal casings, the familiar white reflection of it visible on the grey sheet metal that made the room. No good trying to use glass as a weapon. Ezra thought in disappointment. He didn't mind too much, knowing he still had his slingshot tucked safely away in his pocket.
He found himself resting his hand on it.
It felt weird not having it secured on his wrist, but it relieved some of his anxiety just to know he had it. He also had his lockpick kit on him, buttoned into his back pocket. His lightsaber and blaster had been too big to fit into them without suspicion, but he didn't mind. He didn't need it so long as he had his other two necessities on him.
Ezra continued to look around them. There was only one shaft, which he immediately ruled as out. It was at the top of the ceiling, fourteen feet above his head. Even if he could have taken the grill off of it with the Force without arousing suspicion, and jumped up to it, he wouldn't have been able to fit even his head into it, being only five inches wide.
The teen realized with a sinking heart that this room was going to be impossible to escape from without overpowering the guards. He took a breath, pushing doubt from his mind and letting hope enter. If there was one thing he had learned from Kanan, it was that he needed a clear mind whenever fighting, and having self doubts and fears only muddled it.
"We can do this." He said to no one.
Sabine answered anyway. "We can."
He turned to her and nodded. "I just didn't expect it to be so hard."
"It'll end and it'll be better, sooner than it feels like."
"Yeah, I know. I'm going to take a nap. The guards won't come until morning anyway and I'm getting tired."
Sabine rolled her eyes. "I'll keep watch then. I'll wake you up if anything happens."
Ezra nodded, laying down and curling up on something that was far from soft or warm, the cool of the metal making gooseflesh break out over his skin. He shuddered.
The teen felt a small bundle press against his chest, and he opened his eyes in surprise, to stare into the hair of Reddon. The little boy was huddled against his chest, awkwardly and in the fetal position. Just as awkwardly, Ezra wrapped a protective arm around his torso. Reddon relaxed into him a little, and mumbled something.
"What was that, kid?"
He spoke up. "I knew that someone was coming to save us. I finally feel safe now."
Ezra didn't react more than to close his glistening eyes. He took a breath. "Go to sleep, Red. You're safe now. You can sleep knowing you're going to wake up now."
He felt Reddon relax more against him, and started to drift off himself, falling asleep to muted conversations and the occasional whimper, a symphony of just what the Empire could cause.
Kanan's head began to nod. "No!" He snapped at himself, rubbing his face fervently in an attempt to regain some sense of alertness.
"Love, you've been awake for almost twenty hours now. You need to get rest."
"I'll rest, just like I know you will, when Ezra and Sabine and those children are safe. How far have you and Chopper come on the transmissions?"
"We've decoded the messages and found that the Empire wants the children for stormtrooper training. Any kids they could find that were young enough to be 'reformed'." Hera put the word in quotes and pulled a face. "This is the first mass kidnapping that the Empire has constructed. They're planning on more."
"So we'll stop them before they can do this again." Kanan's voice was tight as he spoke.
"We will, love, we will."
"How long have they been missing for?"
"Most of them are street kids, so there's no reportings of anyone missing. We think it happened sometime around the morning three days ago."
"Well we'll stop them before they can!" Kanan snapped.
Hera ignored his mood before sighing. "We can and we will, Kanan. We've done it before and we can do it again."
"I hate this. I hate the Empire I hate what they do. I hate that we don't make a dent in any of this!" Kanan threw his hands up.
"I know, love. We're doing what we can and we are striking back. We're saving people's lives. We're thwarting their plans. We're doing more than it feels."
Kanan took a breath. "I know. What has the ship said to the way-station?"
"That they're going to be coming in in the next couple of days to refuel and whatnot. They don't seem to be involved on this but only Imperialists use it."
The Jedi nodded.
Both their heads turned as Chopper bleeped urgently.
"What's the matter?" The Jedi asked.
Hera looked at her screen as Chopper sent information to her. It automatically read the names. "Albert Throe, six years. Derrek Manning, nine years. Sherry Mcain, nine years." The computer droned on.
"Karabast, they're children. They're the children who were taken."
"The Empire's list of incoming trooper potentials." Hera said soberly. "Recorded when the children entered the ship."
"Karabast." Kanan shook his head.
"Say it once more and you'll start to slip up in front of the kids." Hera warned. "You don't usually cuss this much." She added.
"I'm sorry, I know. It's just… I'm so worried about them."
"I know, love. We'll get through this though."
Chopper whirled something indistinguishable while Hera listened. "Chop did you say what I think you just said?"
The droid beeped in acknowledgment and repeated itself. List will be checked again. Need 42 now not 40. Suspicions! They check! Ezra! Sabine! Get caught!
"Not if we work fast." Hera set her jaw determinedly, her fingers moving over the keys, code appearing on the screen like it had always been there. "All we have to do is send this to the ship, and there won't be any more problems."
"Good." Kanan breathed a sigh of relief. "Thanks for catching that, Chopper."
Chopper warbled a question. Do I get a reward for this?
Kanan opened his mouth to fire back, but Hera beat him to it. Without pulling her eyes away from the screen, she said absently, "I won't turn you into spare parts."
The Jedi allowed himself a smile as he settled back to watch the holomap. It was going to be a long night.
It was almost another hour before the Jedi heard Chopper's panicked jabbering.
Ezra woke to a hand shaking his shoulder. It was a tiny one, and couldn't tell for a moment if it belonged to Sabine or Reddon.
"Ezra! Wake up!" the hissed voice muttered.
Yup, definitely Sabine. He thought.
"Nn, ten more minutes. Your shift isn't over yet." He grumbled.
"Ezra I'm going to be taken."
The teen flopped back over, almost crushing the little body beneath him. "You're joking."
"I will launch a grenade at you personally if you don't listen to what I'm saying! I'm being taken!"
"'Ow c'n 'ou know." Ezra slurred.
"Chopper hacked into their security footage and they know something's not right. He heard them say 'Sabine', and 'questioning', and 'should be 40 not 42.' Ezra, I was caught. You've gotta go this alone. These are the codes to get back on the ship." She stuffed something into his hand.
He bolted upright. "Tell me you're joking…!"
She glared at him. "I don't pull pranks. Not on missions." Under her glare, Ezra saw something else. Uncertainty. Fear.
"I'm coming for you, don't worry."
"Me, worried?" Sabine gave a dismissive snort. "Put that in your pocket before they come in. Get the kids out first. Whenever you feel is a good time. I trust you. Don't do something stupid."
"I-" It was all Ezra had time to say before the door whooshed open. He shoved the codes in his pocket before it opened fully.
A second later, three stormtroopers walked in. "Jelissa." One of them boomed.
She stood in response and took a shaky breath. "Why do you need me?"
"We have orders to relocate you." The one on the left said, grabbing her arm and hauling her out of the room.
She gave no protest or resistance, knowing it was best for everyone involved.
Before the door hissed shut, the stormtrooper who had been silent the entire time looked directly at the teen before walking out.
As the door hissed shut, Ezra felt a knot of dread gather in his stomach.
He was on his own.
He lacked an escape plan.
He was responsible for the lives of 40 children.
They were miles away from anything.
They were compromised.