Teal eyes snapped open as he stared at the bunk over him before he threw himself out of the bed, pulling on his clothes quicker then he had done anything else in the world.
His steps took him out of the Ghost in almost a sprint, the Jedi moving through the command ship catching the attention of those around , his hurried moves to the command central causing whispers to rise and travel the ship to where the rest of the Ghost crew were, bringing them away from their activities.
Kanan burst into the central, eyes catching Hera the moment she looked up, the Twi'lek replaying Commander Sato's last message.
"This is Commander Sato, we have been ambushed and Ezra is already down. I repeat, we are caught in a pincer move, the relief mission was nothing but a charade and Ezra is down. Ezra is down and we are caught. There is a Star Destroyer above us."
Teal eyes hardened and Hera nodded to him.
"...Rex, we're going to need your help." Kanan twirled on his heel, storming back to the Ghost, the rest of the crew and Rex falling into step behind him. Ahsoka remained behind to be the leader the Rebellion needed in case...in case of the worst scenario.
She could however send other fighters with them as backup.
"Is he..."
"Alive, but fading, fast. He...I don't know what's going on. He's in pain, he's screaming but he doesn't feel hurt at the same time. It feels like he's sick." Kanan frowned hard, trying to reach out only to encounter shield upon shield on Ezra's side. Yet they didn't feel natural in the same way his student usually did.
It felt like he was trying to keep something out. Yet wasn't managing it and was just throwing up one shield after the other in a desperate attempt to block it out.
"He's fighting something but I can't...he won't let me IN. He can't understand its me, whatever is happening he's not in his right state of mind." Kanan growled as Hera threw herself into her pilot chair, the Ghost disengaging from the command ship.
She noted that several ships were following them, inwardly grateful for the backup.
"Karabast...kid knows how to get himself into a pickle." Zeb growled quietly.
"He is a Jedi. Jedi's usually knew how to get themselves into trouble." Rex said lightly, but his tone didn't reflect the seriousness of his face. "Padawan's more then any of them. Usually had a Master there though, if not their own then another to help them..." He sighed.
"Yeah well, there aren't that many of left anymore." Kanan growled before looking at Hera. "They should still be in orbit around the fake mission planet. Or so the Force tells me. Ezra is still there at least, I can tell that much but I don't know if Commander Sato and the rest are there."
"Guess we can only hope." Hera started transmitting to their backup where they were going before launching into hyperdrive. "Hopefully...we'll get there in time."
()()()()()
Ezra was getting worse. The pulses no longer came when he twitched and he was no longer spitting up blood but sweat was rolling of his body in waves and his skin had taken a distinct yellow tone to it along with the whites of his eyes. His breath rasped as he tried to breath and his eyes were far gone to his fever that had leveled out but remained high. Occasionally he'd mumble, a word or two familiar before it was lost as he lost himself back to the fever that was raging his body.
Yet worst of all was a slight rise to the teens stomach. Sato hadn't noticed it the first hour but after the second he could tell a slight difference in the skinny teen's frame and after the third it had been obvious enough for all of them.
'A thing. It moves, its not organic but it moves...get it out of me...' Sato's mind repeated for him, swallowing heavily as he carefully wiped Ezra's to hot forehead again with the coat sleeve. "Ezra, can you still hear us?" He murmured, absently noting the quiet of the rest of his group.
"...Kanan?" Ezra rasped.
"...No lad."
"...Hera?"
"...No. I'm sorry Ezra, they aren't here yet." Sato squeezed a thin shoulder.
Ezra's eyes flickered to stare at him, blinking slowly. "Kanan." There was a moment's silence and then Ezra spoke up again. "Dad?" He rasped and Sato lost any words he could get out as blue eyes closed again. The silence in the small cell felt almost ominous.
"...Sir, I'm not sure how much longer he can hold on. Not with that...thing inside of him, growing." Sato looked up at his Lieutenant and nodded. "I know. We have to be patient though. We can do nothing inside this cell unless one of you have developed powers or tools out of nothing?" The rest traded looks before resignedly settling.
"If he dies, what's the Jedi going to do?" One of them asked suddenly.
"...A good question. One I do not have a answer for. But the Empire was the ones who did this. My best guess? He would do something terribly heroic and terribly foolish." Sato sighed. He knew, while powerful, the Jedi's were not infallible, their demise had proven that.
He carefully wiped away another bead of sweat, absently wondering how the child was even producing anymore fluids while making sure the fever had not risen anymore. He jerked however as there was noises of gunfire in the hall outside their cells, staring at it. "...Ezra, they're here." He called, squeezing the thin shoulder but getting no response except for the irregular shallow breaths that escaped the padawn.
That was not good. If there was any time they needed to be rescued it was NOW.
As if his prayers were answered, the door hissed open to reveal the large Lasat, the man grinning at them with his bo-rifle in hand.
But the grin faded as he got a good look at them all. "Oh karabast." He hissed, luminous green eyes focused on the human on the ground.
"They took him away hours ago and returned him again, he was like this then and he's been getting worse." Sato said as Zeb stepped in, picking up the teen with care. "He said they put something inside him."
Zeb looked up sharply at that and then nodded. "Chopper has weapons for some of you. We need to move, there are several cells lose on the Star Destroyer Commander but we don't know how long we can handle keeping the Stormtroopers at bay." He spoke even as he felt the heat of Ezra's body through the clothes, he hurriedly got rid of the handcuffs and threw them away, settling Ezra against him in a all to horribly familiar unconscious state.
Karabast! He knew that wasn't good, Ezra didn't look, smell or feel right at all.
"We need to go then." Sato got a blaster from the droid, hurrying after the Lasat to meet another team further down the hall. No Jedi yet but he may be doing something to sabotage the Star Destroyer for all Sato knew.
Perhaps it was just as well that Kanan Jarrus had yet to see his padawan.
"Sabine! We need some of your work down this hall!" Zeb growled as a stormtrooper team cut them of from the main group.
There wasn't a verbal answer but the hallway started smoking colorfully after a few seconds of continuous blasts, the Mandolarian laughing happily on the other side as they took out the stormtroopers. Her laugh stopped abruptly when she saw the state of Ezra. "What did they do to him?" She hissed, her vocoder picking up on her agitation.
"Don't know. Said they placed something inside him." Zeb continued moving with the group, holding Ezra to him as they ran. "Signal Kanan that we found them and for Hera and the rest of the fleet to be ready." He grumbled.
They arrived at a war zone of a hanger bay, but with the weapons that had been picked up along the way in their scramble to get to the hanger, the troopers there were caught in the crossfire. Zeb kept his arms around the boy in his arms, for once letting others do the fighting for him, to worried to let him down.
And then Kanan came bounding into the hanger bay, teal eyes swirling around to see a blue eyed bright boy in orange only to find him tucked in Commander Sato's coat in Zeb's arms. Long legs brought him over faster then Zeb had ever seen the Jedi move.
"He's not good Kanan, I don't know..." He trailed off, watching the man kneel down to touch Ezra, the teen barely reacting to the touch, his yellowish hot skin soaked with sweat and dried blood on his lips.
"..." Something dark passed through those teal eyes and Zeb swore the air around them went colder as Kanan slowly stood. "We're getting to the Ghost." He said calmly, before moving around the crate, flickering his lightsaber.
The Force thrummed through him as Kanan let himself be immersed in it, tilting his body and head as the blasters focused on him. He barely registered them, doing only what the Force was telling him to do, moving with purpose that could have scared Siths of old out of his path.
What does a Master do for a padawan?
They nurtured and prepared. Protected and guided. Taught and educated.
What does a father do for a son?
Anything the world demanded and then some.
Kanan moved with purpose, guided through the Force as he moved between the ranks of the Imperials, not letting himself second guess or despair, he didn't have the time for it. He avoided friendly and unfriendly fire, his lightsaber swishing through the air, blocking shots and cutting blasters, taking out each and every target until no enemy stood between them and the ships.
He turned, eyes focusing on where Zeb and Sabine was hurrying after him, the Lasat carrying his precious burden as carefully as possible despite running.
"The Ghost." Kanan said shortly, adrenalin and the Force pumping through him.
Thanks to the sabotage of the drivers, they escaped into hyperdrive.
But Kanan's focus was on Ezra, the way he felt.
"What did they do to him?" Hera stared at them before coming down into the cargo, Chopper in charge of piloting.
"Commander said they put something inside him."
Kanan glanced at Zeb then removed the coat, staring at the cut up flightsuit, the cauterized wound on Ezra's swollen stomach.
"...Karabast..."
"Oh by the First Light..."
Kanan stared. "...Sabine and Hera, get bacta gel, a viroscalpel and gauze from the medbay. Zeb, Rex...you two need to hold him down. Hera, I need boiled water and towels after you get what I need from the medbay. Sabine, I need you to inform the rest of the ships that the detonations inside the Star Destroyer have been set and are ready to be exploded."
"...Kanan wha-."
"It needs to come out." Kanan said shortly.
"...You're going to..."
"That or he dies." Kanan was working on autopilot. That thing, whatever it was, needed to get out of Ezra or they lost Ezra. And he needed everyone to do their part even if it was just to keep them busy.
"Zeb, Rex, hold him and hold him tightly." The Lasat and clone moved into position, looking at Kanan. "...You're sure mate?"
"Yes." Kanan looked at him then lightly brushed his fingers against Ezra's sweat soaked hair. "Or we lose him for good." He accepted the scalpel from Sabine, absently noting Hera was putting down the rest of the supplies he had asked for before moving to the rest of their tasks.
His focus however was on the cauterized wound. "...Hold him down, if he moves..."
Kanan leaned in and started cutting along the line of the cauterized wound, mentally apologizing to his padawan as he groaned and twitched against the cargo floor. Blood oozed around his hands but he focused on carefully opening Ezra, noting Zeb twitch as a smell of infection hit them, noting Rex's hissing breath, noting Sabine cursing, noted Hera small gasp when she returned but his focus was on that gray thing inside of Ezra's insides, burrowed inside his padawan.
It felt wrong. It felt like Ezra yet it felt wrong and as Kanan reached in, grabbing around the middle of it and pulling, it struggled to remain where it was before it was out and into the air. It was the size of Kanan's fist, four inches long and looked like a angry gray worm covered in blood but looking closer he could tell parts of it was pink.
It had been using Ezra's flesh to grow.
He threw it into the box Hera was holding ready for the thing before focusing sharply back on his shallowly breathing padawan, pulling his lightsaber. "Kana-"
He adjusted the length and carefully sealed the wound shut with the lightsaber before grabbing the bacta gel and spraying it onto the wound, ignoring them talking to him. Kanan glanced at Ezra's face to see it smoothing out, no longer scrunched up in pain. He was still breathing, still there and he could FEEL the Force inside him.
He quickly rubbed his hands on his own pants before he took the bandages, Zeb carefully propping Ezra to sit up and get the top half of the flightsuit of him. Kanan slowly rolled the white gauze around the teens tender stomach. He absently noted that sitting up like that, Ezra's breathing got a bit deeper or that could be his imagination.
And then he sat back, staring at Ezra, still alive, skin still tinged with yellow, still warm but there, alive.
And then he promptly turned to the side to throw up in the cargo hold of the Ghost which was why he had not gone to the medbay to do this. Absently he noted the blood on his hands, Ezra's blood as his stomach emptied everything he'd ever consumed in what felt like the span of forever.
He felt a careful hand rub his back, shaking hard until the revulsion had finally stopped. "He...he needs a...Iv and...and..."
"Shh Kanan, we got it. We got it." Hera whispered softly, glancing to see Rex pick up Ezra and nod before turning back to the Jedi. "Its alright Kanan, we got him."
Author note: (snug as a bug in her hotel room) tada XD