A/N: Okay new chapter up pretty quick, due in part to the fact that is really the second half of the last chapter rather than a totally separate chapter.
Also I'm going to be do my reference game again.
There is a reference to popular TV show hidden near the end of the chapter, if anyone can guess it, I'll update within 24 hours of a correct guess, if not I still plan on having the next chapter up within two weeks of this one.
Additionally, I will be doing an OC contest as well, if you guess correctly, I will included an OC you submit in one of the upcoming chapters, as I will be needing some character for certain events. I already have character made, but if you can get the reference, I will replace one of them with your character. If interested in lude the following data.
Name:
Age:
Race:
Occupation:
Skills:
Weapons:
Personality:
Short character history:
Also unlike my last contests, I'm giving a hint. The clue is in the last section of the story and you may have to use A Star Wars translator to find the answer.
Good Luck!
Also a shout out to Classic Cowboy, who without fail always leaves a review. Thanks, it is truly appreciated.
Disclaimer: Star Wars belongs to Disney and Lucas Film
Chapter 11
Ezra had never considered Zeb to be an overly cool personality. He was hot tempered and easy to irritate, but fairly laid back. But Ezra could see now the Honor Guard he had once been. The sternest look Ezra had ever seen on his face was glowering at him, and it made him more uncomfortable than the thought this encounter would have been.
He hadn't even gone into detail yet, he had just told Zeb he need to tell him the truth about Kamino. Apparently Zeb did not take kindly to being left in the dark.
"Go on, tell me the truth, what did you do." It was a statement, not a request, and Ezra knew he could back off now.
"The story I told you guys, with Zann and JV-Fr13, that wasn't really the truth." He paused here, trying to figure out the best way to explain it, before ultimately deciding that there wasn't any way to spin this any way other than the truth. "We didn't get separated or I just bolted. He was trapped under a collapsed beam, and that thing was knocking down the door. I probably could have saved him, but I didn't even try, I just left him to that thing." Ezra's voice trailed off as he
Zeb didn't blink, and Ezra felt his heart rate increase and himself start to warm up. Ezra continued "I just kept thinking about what he did to Sabine, and what he put us through, and I just could let him go Zeb!" his voice was getting louder without his realizing it. "He deserved it Zeb!"
Zeb still didn't respond, but leaned back against the wall and just stared at Ezra. What was probably only few seconds felt like hours to Ezra as he looked at Zeb.
"Ya screwed up Ezra."
Well, Ezra was expecting that, at least Zeb hadn't exploded him.
"You should have killed him yourself."
Ezra's mouth dropped open and his eye's bugged out. Were the conversation not so serious, it would have been funny.
"Zeb…"
"I'm not saying I approve of murder Ezra, but you decided that we would be better off if he was dead, and I can't argue that was wrong, but you made it clear to him you didn't intend for him to leave that facility, but then you left it to an animal to kill him."
"I don't…." Ezra stuttered out.
"Ezra you don't tell someone you want them dead, plan to let them die, then don't make sure they end up in the ground, especially if they are a known sociopath. Now look where we are, look where you are, and Sabine, and even Dral, if you can being yourself to care about him."
Zeb didn't sound overtly anger, in fact he sounded pretty even handed, but Ezra could tell there was disappointment edging into voice.
"I'm guessing, Kanan already knows?"
Ezra just nodded, he couldn't bring himself to talk at the moment and didn't really want to.
"Anyone else know?"
"Sabine is the only one who doesn't know yet." He muttered out.
"Well." Zeb said standing "You're gonna have to tell her, she has a right to know what happened, and if I was you, I'd do it sooner, rather than later."
Without another word, Zeb left the room, leaving Ezra to his own thoughts.
Dral and Sabine looked at the door as they heard Ezra's voice call through "Sabine, can I come in? I need to talk to you about something."
Dral looked back to Sabine, and gave her a playful hit on the shoulder "I'll leave you and wonder boy to your talk."
Opening the door, Dral walked past a befuddled looking Ezra, and even ruffled his hair as he past.
With his one good eye, he saw Ezra run his hand through his hair trying to fix it and give him a scowl. Dral smirked to himself, this kid was so easy to get going.
Ezra really didn't care for Dral, he was abrasive and he thought he was too close to Sabine. But the only reason he didn't go off on him for the stunt with his hair was he knew he was in no small way responsible for his condition.
Shifting this to the back of his mind, he had to get on task and get it over with. Turning to Sabine, the first thing he noticed was she looked exhausted, like she had just received a hug blow and was still reeling from it.
"Sabine…are you okay….did Dral!"
"No, Ezra, he didn't do anything, I've just been…. Never mind for now, what did you need to talk to me about."
Ezra wanted to press her to find out what was wrong, but he'd put off the whole ordeal to long, he needed to do it now.
"It's about Zann, and that night on Kamino we thought he died."
Sabine's eye's seemed to focus more, they still looked exhausted, but he knew he had her attentions.
This was much harder than telling Zeb, for more reason than one. But at his current situation, she was going to find out sooner or later, and it would just be better to get it over with now.
"When I said that thing separated me and Zann on Kamino" at this he thought he saw something in her eyes, but keep on moving forward he needed to keep going " that wasn't true, he got caught under some deris and I left him for that thing to finish off." He said the last word with more conviction in his voice than he actually felt. Following this, he could of sworn he saw tears in her eyes, and sudden urge to explain his actions overcame him "I know what's happened is my fault Sabine, but after what he did."
Sabine raised one hand to silence him "Ezra, pleases leave, I need to be alone." He voice was a whisper, but everything in its tone told Ezra he should listen to it.
Instead of doing so however, he tried to get her to understand and started talking again. "Sabine I."
"GET OUT!" she screamed at the top of her voice, and Ezra actually jumped back at the sudden tone change.
Ezra didn't need to be told twice as he beat a hasty retreat out of her cabin.
It was too much, too much information, her little brother, her father, Ezra's actions, no matter how indirectly were possibly to to get her killed, on top of Dral's own problems. She had learned too many dark secrets in to short a period of time, how was she supposed to cope with this? She knew she had in a way gone looking for the information with Dral and brother, but that didn't change the stress, and now Ezra had heap his own guilt onto her.
Without thinking, she punched the steel wall of her cabin, doing nothing other than making a loud "THUNG" and feeling several bones break in her hand.
Gritting her teeth together to keep herself from screaming, she went to the first aid kit she kept under her bunk.
It came as no surprise to Dral that the screaming from Sabine's cabin drew the attention of everyone on the ship. By the time he arrived back at the cabin, every member of the Ghost, minus Sabine, was surrounding Ezra, whole looked wholly confused.
Dral could hear the boy sputtering out some sort of explanation. "I knew she'd be upset but."
Dral didn't need to hear the rest or even have the context of the conversation Ezra had with Sabine. Dral didn't considered himself exactly a ball of fire in the brain's department, but it would of taken an extraordinarily stupid man to not understand Ezra had just unloaded an unpleasant piece of information on Sabine.
On any other day, whatever Ezra told her probably would have resulted in the hell razing shout he'd heard, but her own information on her brother and father, and Dral's own problems unloaded on her, plus the stress she was under from what Zann had done, Dral was willing to beat his remaining eye Sabine had just passed the breaking strain.
"You picked a real bad time to unload anything on her kid, she's got problems of her own." Dral said in the closest thing he had to calm collected voice.
Ezra's face went from the distressed confusion he had been showing to an ugly grimace. "Yeah Dral, we get that she's in trouble, but you and me are in the same boat."
"Not what I'm talkin' about shorty." Dral said crossing his arm. "She just found out a bad piece of information, that thing you had me huntin', the experiment. She just read his files, that thing is..or was may, her little brother. Her father sold him to the Empire." Dral said a cool voice that faked an indifference he really didn't feel.
The rest of the crew of the Ghost went pale.
Kanan spoke first "You're not."
"As the grave , it's all on the datapad she has, have look, and if I was you, I'd give her a few hours to cool down before any of you try to talk to her." And with that Dral turned and left them to process the news.
Dral didn't normally like to tell other people's business, but Sabine would have told them anyway and frankly he was certain they'd leave her alone for a little while, if for nothing else to process the information and figure out how to talk to her.
Hera was still processing Dral's proclamation. Without saying a word to anyone else, she made break for the cockpit, to access the data she had saved there. She hardly noticed Zeb, Kanan and Ezra on her heels.
At the console she pulled out the file on JV-Fr13 and scrolled back to the earliest logs. Without a doubt the boy's name was listed, as was his father's Atin Wren.
She felt like throwing up. That thing was just a child, no older than nine, brutally turned into a tool of death and destruction. That was horrifying enough, but the fact it was Sabine younger brother, and he father had sold him. That cut deep, the fact the Empire had done this at all was horrible, but to child, that was the vilest thing Hera had ever heard of.
"By the Force." Kanan muttered just behind her.
That was apparently all anyone could say, they were all at a loss for words, because none of them knew how to bring this to Sabine, how to comfort her or console her.
Sabine hand bound her hand as best she could, but frankly her mind wasn't on her work. She wanted to just go to sleep and let everything slip away in sleep, but her thought were filled with too many grim thought, thoughts that had the power to murder sleep with a thousand nightmares. She knew she'd have to sleep soon, they'd be at Dathomir fairly soon, and she needed to be well rested.
Pressing the heel of her one unbroken hand into her eye, she rubbed her right eye then the left, and found them wet with tears. She couldn't believe it, she hadn't cried it years, but her she was holed up in her room, by herself crying, like some stupid teenager. She realized with a start that was exactly what she was, a teenager, and she had been burdened with far more information than she really ever should be given, and now she was in horrible spot for it.
Pulling her knees up to her chest and crossing her arms over them, she put her head down and let the tears flow.
Dral couldn't help but feel sorry for Sabine, and bit responsible for her emotional break. He shouldn't have told her about his own problems, it went against his better instincts, but he had held it inside for so long, it just felt good to get it off his chest.
He also couldn't help but wonder what would of happened if he had arrived after Ezra. He got a fairly good beat down when she was much more stable, and didn't have the history with her Ezra did. She might have shot him if he had set her off, if that loud bang was any indication of her current hair trigger temper.
Shaking his lead, he tried to hunker down in the cargo hold and get some sleep, it wouldn't be restful, but he needed do something to set his mind off all the drama of the day/
He just couldn't do anything right it seemed, was all Ezra thought as he slumped to his bunk. Every one of his actions lately was blowing up in his face. Leaving Zann to JV-Fr13, or Jaden he supposed now, had back fired in a colossal manner, and coming clean on it to Sabine had put her over the edge.
He just wished he could convey to her how he felt, but right now he was a complete failure in her eyes, he was sure of it. And he was paranoid that she was attracted to Dral, which he knew on an intellectual level was ridiculous, the man was a wreck emotionally and physically. But he was a Manadolrian like her, and older than Ezra, which he just felt worked in his favor.
Flopping down on his bunk, he covered his eyes and let out a grown of frustration.
Tyber Zann's Flagship
Tyber didn't know what happened on the Shadow of Intent, but from his own guesses, the fight had gone largely as he as supposed it would, granted the Inquisitors had lived, but only because the thing they were fighting had apparently disappeared. The most reasonable explanation was that it had somehow been ejected, but that not was the chatter from the fight indicated. It was like the thing had just vanished in a cloud of mist.
Now he didn't claim to be an expert of the force, Urai was more informed on that aspect of the galaxy, but he knew that some force users could develop incredibly strange powers, but the ability to vanish into nothing was not one he was familiar with.
The Inquisitors had sent a request for back up, something they were going to use to hunt down JV-Fr13. From what he could understand it was some type of hardware rather than more troops or Inquisitors, which he was grateful for, he didn't want more of them on his ship if he could help it.
He had a meeting with the Grand Inquisitor and his two subordinates in a few minutes, and planned on very much telling them he told them so. IT was childish, but he loved watching the high and mighty get knocked on their rear, so long as it wasn't him.
"Zann." A cool voice came from behind him. His heart nearly jumped into his throat, they had entered the room to without him noticing, not something he wanted to occur with a grunt, let alone a triad of highly skilled killers.
"Grand Inquisitor." He said turning to great them "Welcome back from Safari, I'm sorry the game got the better of you." He said smirking
The Fiith Brother and Seventh sister both started at him, but the Grand Inquisitor stopped them. "Zann, Orders from Lord Vader are for you to escort us to Dathomir."
'What?' Tyber thought to himself that was odd, they want him to bring them half-wat across the galaxy to do what? What more, that was where he sent the rebels, did they know? No, they couldn't, but he needed to know.
"Why? Dathomir is a back water world, why there?"
"We have data saying the experiment is heading to Dathomir, we have a new tool for the job and we believe we can capture it this time."
"Oh, I was aware that thing could work a ship's hyper drive, I suppose odder things have happened."
"Yes, they have." The Grand Inquisitor said and simply left and very suspicious Zann alone in the room.
The Seventh Sister spoke first as they made their way to hanger. "Grand Inquisitor, what is type of reinforcements are we to receive? It's not another inquisitor is it?" her voice traced with some concern, worried over another competitor for Lord Vader's praise.
"No, he is something….else." The Grand Inquisitor, said as they approached the shuttle that was landing in the hanger.
And down the ramp walked one of the most imposing figure the Sister had ever seen. This man, if he was a man, was over 8 feet tall, clad in black armor that looked like it was made of metal of the mask if the thing they had fought. It had a helmet that looked vaguely mandolin, but much less streaming and it looked like it should be a shambling uncoordinated mess, but when he walked he was much quicker and graceful than you would think a man of this size would be. It had dual wrist mounted blasted and a huge vibroblade strapped to his back.
"What is that?" The firth brother muttered more a little uneasy.
The Grand Inquisitor spoke "A near perfect prototype of the thing we fought. The same armor they developed on Kamino completely encasing him, along dozen of cybernetic enhancements, which is why he can be controlled. He's only missing the JV-Fr13's biology to keep him fighting indefinitely. With Sith sorcery, he was all but perfect by Lord Vader while that thing was being finalized on Kamino. We just need to capture that thing to make him the first of a new legion of perfect soldiers."
The Sister looked this man, if still was one, up and down, and would be lying if she said he wasn't impressive, but she'd wait to see how he fought before she got behind these as the new soldiers of the Empire.
"What do we call him?" she finally said
"We've taken to calling him 'Tave Kruva Anas Aleja'." The Grand Inquisitor said, with a cool and collected voice.
A/N: Okay Please leave a review and remember, if you want an earlier release for the next chapter, try and have guess at what the reference is.
Also remember, if you're interested, submit an OC.
