I do not own Star Wars Rebels or any part of the Star Wars Franchise

First of all…wow I did not expect such a positive response to the first chapter but thank you to everyone who read it and reviewed. I only hope to live up to your expectations with this story. It will cover material from both Episode 3 and the Star Wars: Kanan comic series

So onwards!

Chapter 2 – In Custody

In the cockpit of the Ghost the crew were both helpless and confused as the ship was pulled relentlessly towards the ventral hanger bay of the Venator-class star destroyer above them. Even as Chopper worked to try and restore the ship's systems they knew it would be futile. The Ghost did not have the power even when fully functional to break free of a heavy duty tractor beam like the one that was being used on them now. Sabine nervously checked her blasters while Zeb just said trying to hide his own fear.

"We're in a tight spot."

"No kidding." Ezra said as his mind was racing like Sabine's was to try and figure out what the hell was going on? He did not have long to think about it as the Ghost was pulled into the ventral hanger of the ship above. All three of them felt the metaphorical net closing around them, once they were secured inside the larger ship their chances of escape would be virtually none existent and in this condition they couldn't even send a distress call to the rest of the fleet to let them know they were trouble. Out of the cockpit window they could all see the hanger bay of the ship and it was eerily similar to the hanger bay on an Imperial-class Star Destroyer. Around them they could see smaller ships arranged carefully around the bay but with far more colourful markings of crimson and yellow than the nearest Imperial equivalent. But more strange as that around them rather than the Stormtroopers there were soldiers wearing similar armour to the man on the transmission earlier and more disturbingly a few of them did not have helmets which allowed them to see that they all had the same face, the same although younger as Rex did. With a rising sense of dread the trio prepared to disembark knowing that fighting would be useless, Zeb picked up the still unconscious Hera while they and Chopper made their way down to the exit ramp.

"Maybe we can bluff our way out of this?" Ezra suggested, Sabine was doubtful however.

"If they do a standard ID check then we are finished." She said with a note of anxiety in her voice. "But something is not right here, the Empire stopped using clones like that years ago."

"So what is going on?" Zeb said carrying Hera carefully in his arms but the other two had not time to answer him as they reached the now open ramp and saw the man on the message earlier with a blaster rifle in his hands.

"You will surrender any weapons or equipment that you are carrying and follow my directions." Commander Grey told them briskly. Two troopers came up with a box for them to stow their belongings in and with reluctance both Ezra and Sabine put their weapons and equipment into the box. Ezra however carefully kept his multifunction tool concealed up his sleeve hoping to use it later.

"Hera will need medical treatment." Zeb said holding the green skinned Twi'lek in his arms and Grey nodded and said to assured him.

"She will get it I promise." He waved over a medical capsule which Zeb carefully laid Hera down into. The two medical technicians which of course were also clones then attached a breathing mask carefully to her face and pushed the capsule away to the ship's infirmary while the crew followed with their eyes worried about their leader and wondered if this was the last time they were going to see her.

Then Chopper did something stupid.

Seeing Hera being taken away he immediately went to go after her but a clone trooper stepped into his path and told the small droid.

"You are to be detained for questioning." That pushed Chopper over the edge as his worry for Hera's health and safety met with his anger over this trooper obstructing him. His mechanical shocker arm came out and he prodded it into the soldier shocking the man.

"Stun blasts." A Clone Captain called out reacting to the perceived threat and before any of the rebels could say a word they were hit with so many stun blasts that even Sabine probably the most agile of all of the group could not evade them all. Both Ezra and Sabine went down immediately and Chopper was overloaded, Zeb shrugged off a couple of shots and tried to go for his staff but as the hits kept coming and his body began to succumb to the hits that seemed to be coming from every direction and his vision soon darkened and he fell first to his knees as he desperately tried to stave off unconsciousness but moments later he could hold it off no longer and fell to the floor.

"Search them and put them in the brig." Commander Grey ordered and turning to the ship he told a couple of technicians. "Access the ship's computer, I want to know where they came from and what they were doing here."

"Yes sir." The clones said as they went about their orders. Above them on the gantry a hidden figure that been watching the proceeding with interest. Normally she would have just let the clones deal with this apparently simple matter by themselves but something in the force had made her come down here and observe. Her curiosity about the mysterious newcomers growing she made her way down to the hanger deck and arrived just as the troops had finished their search of the captives and as she looked at the pile of equipment she had to acknowledge that if they were smugglers then they were very well armed smugglers not to mention the sheer mismatch of people drew her attention. One teenage boy with enough lock picks to crack half the safes in the galaxy, a slightly older teenage girl with Mandalorian armour that was more personalised with a wild and distinctive colour scheme that screamed not only teenage rebellion but a genuine love of art. Then there was the Lasat that they had with them, she recognised the staff as being an honour guard staff that was only issued to the highest and most skilled soldiers in the planet's military. So he stood out in his own way more given that to have one of those staffs he would have to have served for years with distinction. They were not given to anyone else and it was a highly punished crime to use it if you were not honour guard. The astromech droid looked very rickety like it had been put together from many different spare parts but that was not unknown in smugglers or indeed anyone who lived on a ship moving from place to place over a long period of time. The Twi'lek that they had aboard was not dressed like many of her species either wearing more simple utilitarian clothes that were neither tight fitting or showy in anyway so whoever she was she was more practically minded than most of her species, not caring to show herself off.

They were a very mixed bunch she had to admit and it niggled at her to figure them out. She knew that she had other duties to perform that were far more important including the upcoming invasion of Kaller but for some reason she just could not escape the feeling that this was very important. She was about to go and attend to the rest of the business that was mounting up on her desk when suddenly she saw something in the box of confiscated items from the crew of the ship they had just captured. She came up to the box and the soldiers holding it put it down and saluted dutifully and she nodded in response before picking the item that had caught her eye. Her trained eye knew what it was immediately as she activated the device and a blue blade of energy emerged from it. It was a strange lightsaber with a stun blaster attached if she guessed what the other part of it was for. Thinking back she had felt the force coming strongly from the boy and if he had managed to make such a unique lightsaber design then it would mean that he had received training in the Jedi arts from somewhere.

So she thought to herself, the mystery deepens.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

A short while later Ezra, Sabine and Zeb regained consciousness in separate cells in the ship's brig. Unlike normal imperial brigs that used solid metal doors to seal the cells this ship used orange force fields to seal them in. Ezra waking slowly with a pounding headache from the stun blast. When he checked his hidden pockets looking for the tools that he had concealed just before being stunned he groaned as he felt them missing. These troops were obviously smarter than the bucket heads he was used to dealing with but judging by what he had seen with Rex that shouldn't have been so surprising.

He saw Sabine in the cell opposite was now awake too and like him looking over every inch of the cell to try and find a way to escape but it seemed that whoever had designed this cell was smarter than them and they came up blank.

"I'm open to ideas." Sabine said as she looked over to her friend on the other side of the corridor. "I mean the clones were replaced years ago with people the Empire drafted, this type of ship was replaced with the Imperial-class and decommissioned and they are wearing republic uniforms instead of imperial ones. I'm…I'm just lost here." Sabine admitted, the only reason she could think of was that this long had been isolated for fifteen years and didn't know that the Republic had been replaced by the Empire but given the age of the clones that did not make any sense, unless someone else had been making them.

"Well maybe this is some sort of Imperial trick." Zeb said from his cell further down the corridor, neither of the humans could see him but they could hear him just fine.

"Pretty elaborate and unnecessary if it is." Sabine said shaking her head. "Why would they bother with an illusion this large and complex when it isn't necessary?"

Ezra meanwhile had another suggestion in mind, he could scarcely believe that he was even going to suggest this to his two friends but he could not find any other possibility.

"What if it is all real?" Ezra said to the two of them who instantly. "The Empire would not need to do all of this. So what if it is all real?"

"I don't get how a bunch of clones could stay isolated all this time and not age." Zeb said and Ezra then put forward his own insane idea.

"But what they weren't isolated, what if." He paused for a moment taking a deep breath to steady himself. "What if we went backwards in time?"

The silence that followed was tense with shock at the seemingly impossible idea. Zeb said with a dismissive tone.

"Kid this is no time for jokes."

"I'm serious." Ezra said wondering if these two were even going to hear his suggestion out. Sabine was speechless at Ezra's suggestion and would have shot it down but she had to admit that it fit far better than any other answer she could come up with. She remembered that during her academy days when the Empire had been looking for ways to pull ships out of hyperspace they had discovered how little they actually knew about the higher dimension that they all used to travel across the galaxy. Many things about it were unexplained and there had been stories passed around about people being carried forwards in time by accident while travelling in hyperspace, so why a ship couldn't be carried backwards in time as well? It went against all the most advanced scientific theory, but then again a few hundred years ago so would a lot of things that they took for granted today.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

In the Ghost meanwhile the woman that was still carrying Ezra's lightsaber was checking through the computer database now that the technicians had repaired several short circuits and discovered apart from regular star charts it was pretty bland…until she had come across the date the ship's computers listed, a date that was over fifteen years from now.

Thinking it a malfunction she went to reset it to the correct date when something stopped her. She decided to check out the various crew cabins to look for answers. The first cabin she visited obviously belonged to the Mandalorian girl if the wild art work that covered nearly every square millimetre of the room was any indication but she found little in the way of personal effects other than clothes and more equipment as well as art supplies. The next cabin probably belong to the Lasat and the boy since she found tools similar to the ones confiscated from the boy earlier and a few Lasat objects plus clothes similar to what they had been wearing earlier. The Twi'lek pilot's room revealed little as well until she came to the last cabin which was clearly occupied by the clothes she found in the locker, an adult male judging by the size and style but whoever had lived here was not around at the moment. She was about to leave when she suddenly felt a small tremor in the force, turning around as the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end she moved towards the source of the tremor. Her hands reached out to what looked like a normal panel under the bottom bunk and gently pressed against it and sure enough it clicked open revealing a small hidden shelf. There were three long empty slots but in one of the smaller compartments at the bottom she saw something that made her gasp in surprise. It was a holocron, a cube shaped one like the Jedi generally used rather than the pyramid shaped sith versions. Feeling a cold sensation run up her spine she reached into her robes and pulled out an identical holocron to the one that she had just discovered. No two holocrons were ever identical, the process was always slightly different every time. Putting her own holocron back inside her robes, she placed the holocron she had just discovered on the floor in front of her. Clearing her mind she concentrated her own power in the force into the device in front of her which lifted off the floor and started to shift in shape like a puzzle she was solving. It did not take her long to open the device given her own considerable experience and she started looking through the data it contained. It was even more disconcerting that virtually all the data inside was the same as the holocron that was inside her robe except for a single recorded message which she accessed.

The image was of Obi-Wan Kenobi just as she had last seen him except his expression was haunted and weary. He delivered a message that seemed authentic but what it said was chilling.

"This is Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. I regret to report that both our Jedi Order and the Republic have fallen, with the dark shadow of the Empire rising to take their place. This message is a warning and a reminder for any surviving Jedi. Trust in the force. Do not return to the Temple. That time has passed. And our future is uncertain. We will each be challenged. Our trust, our faith, our friendships but we must persevere. And in time, a new hope with emerge, May the force be with you always."

The message ended leaving her with many unanswered questions and a growing sense of unease, it was time to question the prisoners.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

A short while later the clone troopers came to the cells and all three members of the Ghost's crew watched as they opened the force field that was closing Ezra's cell. The teenage boy looked expectantly at the clones, unsure of what was going to happen next. The other two rebels looked on concerned as the clones just stood there making no room for Ezra to leave the cell but not entering either. Then suddenly the clones on the left side parted allowing a robed figure to walk almost silently to the opening of Ezra's cell. The brown robe was loose and covered the figure completely so he could not tell if it was a man or woman or something else entirely. Then two human hands emerged from the folds of the robe and went to the hood which was obscuring the face of the person and pulled it down. Having seen some truly nasty looking figures in their time fighting the Empire the rebels were surprised to see the face of a woman in her later thirties to early forties. Her hair was styled in two hoops behind her head and she had a marker on the top of her nose and another on her forehead that Sabine recognises as being Chalactan, a near human species that came from a mid rim planet. She had heard that the marks were a symbol of spiritual enlightenment but her education had not been focused much in that particular area. The woman's eyes focused on Ezra who suddenly felt very self-conscious as if her probing eyes could see straight through him. But what he felt through the force was really confusing him.

His experience with other force users ran from Kanan and Ahsoka to the Inquisitors and that brief but terrifying fight with that sith lord on Lothal. From the Inquisitors and the Sith Lord he had felt this cold and oppressing aura that seemed to chill everyone it touched the sith lord's especially. From Kanan and Ahsoka he had felt a warm and comforting aura that made him feel better when he was around them and nothing in particular was dominating his thoughts. But this woman was something else entirely.

Her aura was warm and light not unlike that of his own master but it was just so much more. It was brighter than Kanan's or Ahsoka's. Slightly cooler and more focused as if the woman was far more in control of herself than the other two but was still full of great compassion and wisdom that Ezra had never felt the likes of before. But more importantly the strength of her aura was far greater than that of his master or Ahsoka and only the cold and angry sith lord might be greater than what he was feeling now.

Her face neutral as she made her way into the cell she asked Ezra in a calm but firm voice.

"What is your name?"

"Ezra Bridger." He answered without thinking normally he would have tried a fake name in these situations but for some reason he could not lie to this woman and wondered if she was using the force on him.

"Well Mr Bridger I have questions that you might be able to answer. But first let me introduce myself." She said taking a slight pause before continuing to speak. "I' am Jedi Master Depa Billaba and I thought we might have a talk."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX