Kanan had prepared himself for the screaming. Even before the first reports of Ezra's capture reached Atollon, Kanan sensed the fear surrounding his padawan like a heavy blanket cast over his essence. Abject agony had permeated their bond, Ezra's pain a constant reminder of Kanan's impotence as he searched for where they had taken him. Kanan had quickly steeled his resolve, using the pain to drive himself to search harder.
It was the silence that he hadn't been ready for.
Like match snuffed out, the bond had suddenly went quiet. The shift in the Force had been so swift that it physically destabilized him; had it not been for Hera's quick reaction, he would have completely collapsed. Initially, Kanan thought that Ezra had perished, but on further inspection found him still there, but muted. In Kanan's mind, deafening silence now filled the void left by Ezra's torment.
Kanan forced his mind into the present. The silence in his connection with Ezra mirrored the quiet aboard the darkened shuttle. Reaching out to each of their signatures, Kanan could infer the grim look on each of their faces. While he had listened in real time to Ezra's treatment, the rest of them had been forced to grip with the taunting recording of his torture that the Empire had left on an empty server for them to find.
Anger burned in all of them, tinting their signatures crimson. Kanan had thought to warn them to guard themselves against allowing their emotions to dominate them. The mission was almost certainly a trap, the video goading them into a rash and desperate attack. Normally, he would have tried to reign in Zeb and Sabine's fiery attitudes, drawing strength from Hera's collected demeanor to help balance his own rash inclinations. This time, lust for vengeance consumed all of them - the same dark, furious anger that burned within Kanan now. As he stood, Kanan drew the long, tapered barrel of the DL-18 from its holster. He had left his lightsaber on Atollon, refusing to sully its blade with his actions tonight.
Forgive me, Master Billaba Kanan thought as the boarding ramp began to lower.
A Stormtrooper collapsed to the muddy ground, the shattered plastoid of his chest plate still glowing amber from the power of the mortal blast. Water splashed up from each stride Sabine took as rain danced in front of her visor. Reaching the blast door, she stuck three bricks against the cold metal. She laced a small ribbon through the pegs that protruded from each brick, and pressed her body against the adjacent wall.
"Charge set," she announced, looking to the other side of the door. A flash of lightning highlighted two dark visors staring back at her, both adorned with blue accents. Rex raised his blasters towards the door, as Fenn Rau grasped his shoulder guard, carbine tucked into his shoulder. A third hulking form gathered behind them, another lightning flash revealing the stony look in Zeb's green eyes. "Breacher up," Sabine declared.
"Send it."
The door rent apart as if it was made of paper. The three figures across from Sabine flowed into the opening. Immediately, the pitchy staccato of the carbine echoed through the corridor beyond, punctuated by the low baritone of bo-rifle and the alto of twin pistols. Kanan strode in behind them, stepping over the victims of the deadly chorus.
"Start down this block, Hera and I have the command room," Kanan ordered. The others complied silently, moving down a darkened corridor to the right. Kanan continued down the main hall, aware of Hera's light footfalls directly to by his side. Ahead, he could tell the hallway was ending from the way his own footsteps' echo began to shorten. The pair reached the heavy blast doors of the command center, but before either of them had time to activate the controls the doors began to part.
Immediately, he could sense three signatures in the room before him. The one on the far right of the room, obviously startled by his presence, began to rise. Not bothering to wonder if the person was armed, Kanan raised his blaster and fired twice, snuffing the signature out. The signature on the left blinked out simultaneously as Hera's blaster sounded in Kanan's ears. Pistol still raised, Kanan advanced on the third figure. A sense of cold calm seemed to radiate from them. An equally cold, feminine voice spoke.
"Finally," Governor Pryce called out. "How predicta…"
The thud of the handgrip of Kanan's blaster colliding with her temple finished her observation. The blow sent the Imperial spinning backwards, collapsing in a heap on the ground. Kanan kept the blaster leveled at her collapsed figure.
"Your game is up. Where is Ezra?" Hera demanded, her lekkus' twitching betraying her unbridled rage. Pryce coughed, then rotated to face the two, a cool grin pulling at the corner of her lips.
"You surprise me. Ezra showed such talent in being able to manage his emotions. Though, not everything learned is necessarily taught, is it?" Pryce slowly rose to one knee, the gash in her forehead beginning to send trails of blood down the side of her face. "I'm sure spending your childhood being used as someone's soldier makes emotions more of a liability than an asset." The accusation made Kanan's blood boil further. He planted his heel into Pryce's side, sending her sprawling once more. As she tried again to rise, he grabbed the back of the collar of her tunic, forcing Pryce to face away from them. As Kanan pressed the barrel of the blaster into Pryce's skull, he could feel a sadistic satisfaction welling up within her.
"Where is he?" Kanan bellowed, pressing the gun harder against Pryce's head.
"What does it matter? We both know that he is broken. You are far too late to do anything to fix that." The grin on Pryce's face grew to a sinister smile, her mocking words echoing through the room. Hera could stand the display no longer, raising her blaster as well.
"Answer him!"
"So you can continue to use him to fight your little war? Perhaps to convince yourself that what you are doing is right? What little innocence that is left in him cannot possibly absolve your sins."
Fury was now blinding Kanan. Ezra's signature seemed to grow even more distant, as Pryce's mocking presence engulfed Kanan's senses. He tightened his hold around the grip, bringing his finger taut to the trigger.
"Stop!"
Kanan froze. Zeb and Sabine were at the door, the anger in their signatures now colored with shock and confusion. They flanked a third, which seemed intensely familiar. The new presence caught the attention of Hera, who lowered her blaster in shock.
"Kill her, and you make her a martyr," Kallus said, staring directly at Kanan. Hera, stunned by the man's words, looked to the corner of the room. A small camera peered down into the room, its red indicator light glowing ominously as it recorded the exchange below. "You discredit everything you fight for if you pull that trigger. She dies the hero, and your rebellion is remembered as the villain." Kanan lowered the blaster, turning to face Kallus completely.
"Why should I listen to you?" Kanan demanded.
"Because you know I'm right," Kallus stated bluntly. "And I know where Ezra is."
An explosion rocked the facility. The grin on Pryce's face grew. Kallus took another step forward.
"You haven't got much time." Kanan hesitated, then set his jaw.
"Lead the way."
Sprinting through the corridors, Kanan realized that he was marveling at Kallus's sense of direction. Even with Kanan's advantage of not need light to navigate, Kallus remained a stride ahead of him, navigating the halls with only the assistance of the crimson strobe of the emergency lighting. Kanan could tell from his signature that the agent was battered and tired, more so than he had sensed previously. Suddenly, it dawned on Kanan that Kallus was moving not on instinct, but memory.
He was being held here.
Kallus came to an abrupt stop, turning towards an unmarked metal door. Sabine and Rau soon arrived behind Kanan, and seeing Kallus's direction, moved to force open the door. Kallus stopped them, producing a code cylinder that coaxed the door open with a quiet hiss.
A dark form lay in the center of room, unresponsive to the arrival of the visitors. As the emergency lights pulsed, the red lighting revealed Ezra's swollen, unconscious face. Sabine stepped into the room, noting the floors felt abnormally slick as if covered in liquid. Putting the sensation out of her mind, she knelt beside Ezra's broken body, pushing two fingers into his neck.
"Pulse is weak, but stable," she stated in a shaky voice. Another pulse of red light poured into the room, displaying the dismal state of Ezra's attire. What once had been a flightsuit was now little more than rags covering his body, caked in a mixture of blood and sweat. Looking at Kanan's expression, Sabine decided to spare him the description of the myriad of contusions and what appeared to be chemical burns that marred Ezra's frame.
"His binders are designed to detect tampering and are proximity-linked to the cell. Trying to move him with them on will kill him," Kallus stated, a detectable note of empathy in his voice. "I don't have the key." Kanan's frustration flared again, and he focused his attention to Sabine.
"Can you disarm them?" he asked, urgency painting his voice. Sabine gently picked up Ezra's wrists, examining the blood-stained metal. The sinister device, secured just above the bone of Ezra's wrists, had no openings or obvious keyholes.
"I… I don't know…" Sabine choked out.
The sound of blaster fire turned the group's attention down the hall. Kanan's comlink sparked to life.
"We've got Imp reinforcements storming the entrance!" Zeb's voice called out. "They've overrun the command center and taken back Pryce. We're trying to hold them, but you gotta hurry!"
"There's another landing pad near here, but we are running out of time," Kallus implored. Kanan realized that in his anger, he had forsaken the one tool that would save Ezra: his lightsaber.
Fenn Rau pushed past Kanan, his hands a flurry of motion. "Tourniquets, on his forearms," he said flatly, fixing a band to Ezra's arm and twisting the tension bar. Sabine complied, applying another band to the opposite arm. Rau extended a hand towards Sabine.
"Detcord." Sabine hesitated, then produced a line of the explosive and handed it to the older Mandalorian. Wrapping the cord just underneath the binders, he pulled Ezra's arms so they were extend as far away from his body as his arms would reach. Rau took the control from Sabine, looking directly at her. "Look away." Kanan realized what was happening, too late to object.
A wet thud. A clatter of metal. A spray that added crimson to Sabine's paint-spattered boots. A pregnant silence filled the room. Then, as the renewed blaster fire began to draw closer, Kallus broke the pause.
"It's time to go."
Rocketing into the upper atmosphere, the Phantom II shook violently as Hera dodged the torrent of fire directed at them. Ignoring the danger, Hera pointed the shuttle towards open space and pulled the hyperdrive throttle. Space and time warped around them as they made their escape.
In the safety of hyperspace, Kanan breathed out a sigh of relief. He turned to Hera, who gave him a relieved smile. Kanan felt her fingers interlocking with his, and gave her hand a gentle squeeze. The two turned to face the rest of the crew. Immediately behind them, Kallus and Zeb sat opposite each other. Zeb nodded to the former agent, eyes full of sincerity. Kallus returned the nod. Beyond them sat Rex and Rau. Rex continued to manage the two IV bags suspended from the ceiling, one clear and one deep crimson.
Rau was turned away from the rest of the crew, speaking in a low voice. Kanan realized that the words were distinctly Mando'a, completely unintelligible for him. Sitting next to Rau, Sabine was completely unresponsive to the older Mandalorian speaking to her, instead focused completely on the stretcher that filled the center of the craft. Even without sight, Kanan knew that her eyes were transfixed on Ezra's arms, now hidden from sight under the blanket that covered the litter. Despite their best efforts, red stains were beginning to show through the cloth where Ezra's hands should have been.
Kanan reached out in the Force, surrounding Ezra with his own presence. When he had lifted the boy from the floor of the cell, the faded signature had flickered slightly brighter. Now, surrounded by family and receiving basic sustenance, the familiar bond was beginning to return. Despite this, a nagging sense of dread tugged at Kanan's thoughts. He felt something in not only Ezra's signature, but the signature of each of the six other people on the craft. Something off. Something dark. Something wrong. Their mission was complete; once again they had snatched victory from the grasp of the Empire.
A victory that had come at a cost.
Author's note: I was positively overwhelmed by all of the support "Fear" received, thank you so much for such a strong outpouring of support. While I thought that it would be a one-off piece, the phenomenal pictures that medly-arts followed up Are You Afraid? with really inspired me to continue this story line. All three images can be found on her Tumblr page, and I highly reccomend viewing them. As always, thank you for your time, feel free to send me your commentary, critique, and suggestions!
All the best,
JA