Authors Note: As per the request of NightwingNinja17, here is the content of chapter one from Kanan's point of view. Before you continue, please be aware this is a very dark tale. I imagine what Kanan went through in the cells of the Imperial destroyer was much more graphic and horrifying than anything television networks would air. In keeping with the spirit of this being T for teen, I have not used any profanity and excluded the most gruesome details. There should still be enough here to fuel some imaginary terror though. If anyone thinks the rating on this needs to be changed, please let me know.
Master
Kanan tensed as the smell hit him right before the shock, super charged air reminiscent of singed wiring and overheated metal. It was the smell of an electrical discharge building in the cruel machine to his left. A millisecond latter, the bolt arced through the air to the nearest grounding agent, the metal band secured tightly around his midsection. It raced along the metal, conducted by special leads in the table across his extremities from fingers to toes. While the table was designed to cipher all but a certain level of amperes away from vital organs, a "gift" of the Imperial interrogation squads, a groan still escaped past Kanan's clinched teeth.
It lasted a few seconds, the space of a single held breath, before a flipped switch cut the current off at its source.
"Do you know where the other rebels are?"
The words came from Kanan's left and he glared his best glare at the tattooed questioner, "I don't know, and I wouldn't tell you if I did!"
The Inquisitor leaned in and sighed, the sound rasping against Kanan's ear, "Have it your way. You will talk, eventually. They always do."
Once again, the ionic ozone of the electrical charge came a second before the raw energy jumped the gap between machinery and restraints. This time, Kanan screamed.
Visions flowed on the verge of waking, vague images of friends recognizable only in outline through smoke, fire, and pain. Low buildings built from discarded storage crates and mud smoldered, still hot from a recent fire. Where was this place? Perhaps it was an out-lying village on Lothal? Maybe…
Debris fell nearby, drawing Kanan's gaze to a purple furred foot sticking out from underneath a pile of rubble at a gut twisting angle. "Zeb!"
Sprinting the short distance, Kanan dropped to his knees. Plunging his hands into the dirt, he dug furiously at the rubble, earning scratches and losing finger nails in his haste to help the fallen Lasat. However, no matter how quickly or carefully he dug, he never reached farther than Zeb's knee before the rubble shifted to bury his friend once again. In desperation, Kanan reached out through the force, seeking to move the mass of earth by more mystic means and…-.
"Please," Ezra's voice rasped from somewhere to his left, "Please help me."
Kanan spun on his heel and gasped. There stood Ezra, leaning heavily against the wall of a burned out shell. His light saber dangled in a precariously loose grip in one hand, the other hand clutched at his chest, where red slowly blossomed against orange. "The Inquisitor-," Ezra began, staggering with a sharp cry.
"Ezra! I'll be right there, just let me help Zeb."
A painful, rasping sob broke from the wounded teen, "He's dead! They shot him from behind while he defended me."
"No. They might have stunned him, Zeb wouldn't – he couldn't be -." Kanan hesitated, one hand grasping the Lasat's ankle, and seeking out the gap between tendon and bone where the anterior arteries nestled just below the skin. He closed his eyes briefly and prayed, but his prayers went unanswered. The usually warm Lasat was already cold to the touch.
A deep breath centered Kanan, emotions dammed temporarily behind years of discipline. He would mourn later. For now, he needed to tend to Ezra. Kanan opened his eyes and stood.
More debris fell, the wall Ezra leaned against crumbled inward and he fell with a broken gasp. Kanan ran for the second time since coming to in this forsaken place. Reaching Ezra's side he gently tuned the boy onto his back. Ezra's chest heaved at the motion, a length of wood lodged there moved with the breath, which caught in the boy's throat for a terrifying second before shuddering back out. "M-master, the Inquisitor. I couldn't… Wasn't bleeding until…I fell on it… I couldn't find anyone else….but Zeb, he-." Ezra coughed a froth of red rising on his lips.
"Shhh, Ezra. Don't move." Kanan took pressed his fingers to Ezra's neck and let his eyes wander, taking in the sight of his padawan from the dirt crusted boots to his dark tussled hair before letting his eyes lock momentarily on the length of wood protruding so grotesquely from his chest. It rose and fell with every shuddering breath, quivering in time with the faltering pulse beneath Kanan's fingers. Mouth set in a grim line, Kanan took a shuddering breath of his own before meeting eyes of startling blue. "Ezra, I think-," the words caught in Kanan's throat and he swallowed heavily, "It is too close to your heart. If I pulled this out you would…. You'll still…."
Tears welled in those blue eyes and Kanan felt his own heart lurch in his chest. "Not stupid, Master… I know… Just need you to find the others…. Find them…before…the Inquisitor. Please Master, save them!"
The words were broken by rending gasps, the broken stave practically vibrating as the failing heart sped its pace in a desperate bid to circulate enough blood to sustain life. Kanan lowered his head to rest a cheek on Ezra's head, and might have cried then, but something nagged at his mind and gave him pause. Even as he hugged his padawan close, he thought, "Since when do you call me Master?"
"Your mother on Coruscant will miss you, Ezra Hasenpfeffer," Kanan whispered into the boy's hair, "You would have made a fine Jedi."
In his arms, the trembling form relaxed briefly, "You think… She will? And dad?"
Kanan went cold as doused steel, extricating his arm from the thing that dared take his Padawan's form. "He died in the war, didn't he?" Kanan said, looking the imposter straight in the eye.
"Of course he did! M-must have slipped…m-my mind, what with… this thing… in … my … chest."
A deep, bone weary sigh escaped Kanan, and he pinched the bridge of his nose as he slowly bottled away his emotions. "Nothing to be done about that now, kid save meet a just end." With a deliberate care, so as not to tip his tormentor that the game was up, Kanan gathered Not-Ezra in his arms for a final embrace. He reached with the Force as he did so, a nearly imperceptible sounding meant to resonate like to like. Nothing returned.
No pulsing light of flesh and bone, or steadying presence of earth and stone. Either this was a dreadfully vivid dream, or a horrific form of interrogation Kanan had only heard about in cloistered rooms whispered in hushed tones to terrify youngllings.
The imposter's breath whispered in his ear, a rasping, guttural rake, "Master, I am afraid."
"There it is again. Master! Ha! I am master of nothing and to no one." Kanan lowered the form to the ground, once more pressing his fingers to its neck. He closed his eyes, a frown creasing his features and a tear trailing down his cheek despite the deception. Whatever this was, the thing still wore Ezra's features. "I know, youngling. It will be over soon."
Tenderly, Kanan gripped the length of wood in his hand, flinching as the boy – thing – gasped and the vibration stuttered violently. "Kalabast! I swear I am going to end that lousy, bantha spitting coward!" Bracing his other hand against the boy's shoulder, he met the terrified blue eyes for the last time. "May the Force be with you, always."
With a quick jerk, Kanan pulled the broken shaft free with a sickening, sucking sound and – he woke up to feet screaming numb agony from bearing his weight for untold hours. The restrains kept him upright, but did little to alleviate the strain of constant standing. Letting out a frustrated cry, Kanan rested his head against the hard surface behind him and yelled, "You'll have to do better than that, you bastard!"
A short time later, electricity arced again, sending him to another, darker nightmare.
The days wore on, fading from one terrifying, anguish inducing experience to another. As time wore on, Kanan came to realize the Empire did not have a firm description of his friends, save Ezra whom they held in their cells once upon a time. They had the boy down fairly well, save they never quite pegged the way he talked, and they almost always made some mistake or referred to false information fed to them in previous sessions.
While one might think one of the few remaining Lasats memoriable, Zeb never made a full appearance. His face remained hidden or appeared scared, maimed, or otherwise mutilated. Often, Zeb lingered in the dreams as a disembodied voice or, on disturbing occasions, strewn about in bloody pieces. As to the other members of the crew, Sabine's armor popped up in random places, spattered in gore instead of paint. She often made her appearances sporting a figure with entirely wrong curves or with an attitude unbefitting the Mandalorian. Kanan almost laughed on a few occasions, wondering if the Storm Troopers got out much. Either way, Sabine's copy-cat was always summarily dismissed.
The tormentors quickly quit using those two as a base as Kanan began systematically feeding them conflicting stories, easily debunked with known facts.
The rare nightmares where Hera appeared were, for Kanan, even more obvious even though his tormentors did a fair job impersonating her appearance. Either she spoke with the wrong nuance, cocked her head the wrong way, or plain failed to show enough of her characteristic wit. Either way, he always knew at a glance when they played her card…but he played along anyway. She became his secret oasis in an otherwise abysmal desert of torture. Yet, if Hera was his saving grace, Ezra was his undoing.
As the days wore on, session after gut rending session, the ways they came up with to kill his padawan became more and more sinister. A blaster bolt to the head once, ran through with a light saber another time, trampled by in Imperial walker, drowned in the polluted seas of Coruscant, and poisoned by unknown means on an unnamed moon. Each time, Kanan ended the session as quickly as he could stomach. Twice, Kanan threw himself into harm's way instead of further harming the shadow that wore Ezra's face. Most times he awoke to silent tears; bearing anguish so deep he expected lasting scars to his psyche.
On rare occasions, Kanan's wardens deemed him dangerously exhausted or otherwise too far gone to offer any useful information. In one of these precious moments, Kanan bowed his head in silent meditation. While he was uncertain why the Empire did not deaden his Force sense through drugs or another means (his theory involved the selfsame nightmares that plagued him), he reveled in the relative freedom offered in meditation. On this rare occasion, he managed to maintain the trance even when the electricity set his nerves ablaze.
So it was, in the throes of pain and seeking release the only way he could, Kanan stumbled upon something familiar…a force signature that pulsed with a familiar light. Once, he might have smiled. Now, he pulled away, instinctively hiding from more emotional trauma. The signature could not be his. It simply could not. The padawan was newly trained and undisciplined. No matter how Kanan wrapped he head around it, the signature he felt must be another mental trap. Yet, even as he pulled away, the signature latched on like kitten tackling a string.
"Kanan! Kanan, I'm here!" His padawan's voice. Those bastards finally got the inflection just right.
Electricity arced again and Kanan screamed his throat raw, his chest tight. "Not real," Kanan muttered, "None of this is real. Leave me alone. Just leave me alone!"
The signature did not fade, though the presence behind it wavered as though unsure. The ethereal voice came again, filled with a quiet determination, "Kannan, if you can hear me, please….. Please remember: 'There is no chaos. There is only harmony.' Don't let him break you, Kannan! We are coming. I promise you. We will rescue you!"
Kanan's breath faltered as he found his heart suddenly in his throat, "Master. He didn't call me Master." Tears welled unbidden as the Jedi sagged against his restraints. The arching power stopped for a few blessed minutes. "They never quoted Jedi teaching to me either. Not once. Not even in false training sessions. It must be-."
"Ezra," Kanan sobbed, not caring what Imperial toady saw his tears.
For a short few moments of bliss, the tenuous connection held: Master and Padawan straining to reach across the vast emptiness between the stars. Just before the ever thinning thread of the connection snapped, the electrical torment started again. Clinging to the thread like a drowning man to a life line, Kannan mentally yelled across the distance, "'There is no death. There is only the Force.' Be quick Padawan. May the Force be with you."
When the connection snapped with all the voracious power of a tension cable under pressure, Kanan grounded as much of a whiplash of power as his battered body could manage. Through a stroke of mercy, it sent him into a sleep so deep that for the next few days, Kanan slept peacefully.
The medics said it was a comma and suggested less liberal use of "electro therapy" in future sessions. Only one person suspected anything different, and he spent that night watching the Jedi from a chair placed strategically in the shadows of Kanan's cell. Tapping dark gloved fingers before eyes of molten gold, the Inquisitor smiled his crocodile smile, "Come quickly padawan. Come die beside your beloved master."
Author's Postscript: If anyone has any other ideas they want to see done, let me know and I will see what I can do. No promises though. Life is going to be very busy for the next month and the only time I will have to write will be rather late at night, or in moments stolen during lunch at work. I do admit it is fun to take the proverbial pen to paper again after so many years. I feel like I have wandered a desert for an age and just stumbled upon a lush oasis which I do not wish to leave again.
Here's to a few happier stories in the future though. While these scenes are intriguing to write, it turns my stomach on occasion. Maybe I will tackle some happier adventures on the Ghost next. ... Let's see what hits the page, shall we?