Chapter 3 – Discovery

It was going to take us at least 4 hours to get to tatooine, using the nearest hyperspace lane, so we all head plenty of time to prepare for whatever we were going to come across, good or bad.

Sabine and Zeb were doing various weapons checks in the cargo hold, Hera was prepping the Ghost by making sure that the power and shields were working to their full extent, and Chopper was helping her with any repairs, and he was also recalibrating the Ghosts targeting system, to make sure that any loose TIE fighters would be dealt with as quickly as possible.

This left me and Kanan without jobs, so we decided to do some pre op meditation. I could tell that something was bothering Kanan as soon as we sat down. We have a bond that can only be had between master and student, and this bond allowed us to share certain information, even if we didn't always want to. I asked what was on his mind, and he tried to pass it off as nothing, but even he knew that I knew him better than that. I used this as one of the few opportunities that I got to give him the Kanan glare. That's what I call the look of utter disbelief at the fact that he tried to lie to me about it.

He eventually gave in after 2 minutes of the Kanan glare, and told me that he was worrying about this op, something could go wrong and someone could get hurt. I told him that this was as good as a routine op, because we had the advantage of sensing the force signature of the other Jedi, so we would know if the Jedi were there or not.

We landed on the planet, just beyond the outskirts of a large settlement, and while Hera and Chopper stayed with the Ghost, the rest of us took the two speeder bikes in the cargo hold to the city, apparently called "Mos Eisley". When there, we used our "unique skills" to pick up bits of information. We met up in a shady alleyway after a couple of hours, and we called our ride. While we waited for Hera to come get us, we started to discuss our findings.

There was a lot of chatter of a couple of robed people that lived far from any settlement, but nobody was sure of much else. There was stories of them saving farmers that were being attacked by tuskens, ending barfights that were started by local gangs, they saved children being captured by slavers, and they just disappeared off the map without a trace, never had a chance to be thanked, never had a chance to be appreciated, they just watched over the people.

Of course, being a Loth-rat as everyone else called it, I got more information than the others, I actually got a rough location of where these "robed heroes" were.

Suddenly we heard a rough voice asking us for ID and we all knew what that meant. Bucket-heads.

Lots of them.

We tried to run further into the alley and as we rounded the corner, we realised the alley we had chosen was a dead end, but we could hear the troopers coming closer by the amount of chatter. Zeb and Sabine started climbing onto the roofs as we trained our blasters onto the corner, finding whatever cover we could. The bucket-heads came round blasting, the first few stepping straight into the line of fire as they were shot down. Then they started to get smarter and using the cover of the corner we had turned to fire at us. When we looked up, we saw Zeb and Sabine were in a firefight with some troopers that we couldn't see on an opposite roof. Realising that we were soon going to be trapped, we decided to join them on the roofs of the sandy buildings. Using the force to aid us, we jumped a height that no human or alien should be able to jump.

We had to use make shift cover made from bits of scrap metal and things on the roof of the buildings as the troops started to get smart and try flanking us, we decided that a retreat was probably our best option. We started running, and realising what we were doing, the chase began. I could hear Kanan on my right side informing Hera if the contingency plan and then telling her that we would need a "Delta Pick Up", whatever that was. It felt like we were running for hours, although it was just likely for a few minutes, the blaster fire just skimming us by inches. I thought we were going to run out of rooftop, and that's when I heard it. The familiar roaring that was the engines of the Ghost. I had never been so glad to hear them flying over my head, I heard the vague noise of the loading ramp lowering.

Hera hovered near the end of the row of buildings that we were currently on, and we all started to run towards her, however, the remaining troops had really closed the gap between us, so me and Kanan stopped running to cover the escape of Sabine and Zeb. I think that Chopper was controlling the Ghost at this point, because even Hera had come to the ramp to help us deal with the bucket-heads. We heard a deep yell of pain and to my horror I saw Zeb limping slowly towards the ship, blood pouring from a deep gash in his leg, with the fur surrounding the wound singed by the burn of the laser bolt, one of those troops got a lucky shot, and Zeb was the one that payed for it. It took both Hera and Sabine to hold him up and get him into the ship and out of harms way.

At the same time, me and Kanan turned our heads at the familiar hum of a TIE fighters engines, and we knew we were too far from the ship to get there before the TIEs.

"This is Spectre 1 to Spectre 3, get out of here and deal with those fighters, we'll make our own way out!" Kanan yelled

Seeing the Ghost pull away and return fire towards the now shooting TIEs gave me a warm feeling inside, knowing that my family would probably be safe, however I did not have time to revel in my feelings. Kanan and I were still being shot at, and we were being flanked again, so we had to change places, the trouble is, we were running out of places to run.

To the front and sides were troopers, so we had to go backwards,however, going backwards meant climbing up to about 4 stories high because of how the buildings were designed. We were trapped. We started to climb, taking it in turns to cover each other, and then we saw the Ghost, making another pick up run.

We ran more frantically now, knowing that this was our one and only chance to escape with our lives.

I could see Sabine and Hera, back on the ramp, waiting to see us come running towards them, and I could feel Kanan right next to me, but these troopers were relentless, they were right on us, and as we got to the last rooftop, the Ghost had its ramp touch down but without landing the ship.

We ran, as fast as our legs would let us, and the ship was slowly drifting away from the building. Probably Choppers doing.

We made a running leap with the force behind us, but even that wasn't enough to make it safely onto the ramp. I reached out with my hands just gripping the ledge of the ramp, it sharply cutting into my fingertips, and just as the pain got too much, and my fingers released their grip, Kanan and Hera grabbed one of my arms each and pulled me into the belly of the Ghost as Chopper flew us out of there.

Although my heart was pounding, my family came first, so I asked if Zeb was okay.

"He's a Lasat, he is fine, we patched him up and he is resting." She said lovingly, but I could tell that she was worried too.