Chapter 36

Sabine POV

"I look like an idiot," Ezra said through the door to his room, unwilling to come outside.

The Ghost crew were all wearing disguises for their latest mission, one to Lothal to check out the Empire's latest prototype TIE Defender, for which they had all dressed up like random civilians as to not draw attention to themselves.

Although Thrawn had not resurfaced since Atollon, his old project had not stopped. Considering how many resources they had already spent on it, the Empire had chosen to continue production of their new elite fighters, and they needed to know what new developments had been made.

"We all do, Ezra," Zeb called back through the door, trying to comfort him.

"That's not strictly true," Kanan said. "Personally, I think that Hera looks beautiful."

Hera placed a hand on his chest and said, "I appreciate the sentiment, love, but you're…"

"Blind?" Kanan finished for her. "Doesn't matter. Whatever you look like, I'm sure it's amazing, and I'm missing out. But even what I can see of you is beautiful in its own way."

Hera placed a hand over her heart, clearly touched by what he had said, and Sabine pounded on Ezra's door once more and said, "Ezra, will you come out here? Kanan's sprouting poetry again, and you're supposed to be learning how to talk like that!"

"I look like an idiot," Ezra's voice repeated.

"Just get out here!" Zeb said angrily, finally losing all patience. "I don't even know what I'm dressed as! We're all stuck wearing these outfits for even longer until you get out here so we can get this mission going!"

There was a short silence, and then the door finally opened, revealing Ezra standing there, dressed as a simple Lothalian farmer, wearing a white tunic with a matching wide-brimmed hat and brown pants.

Sabine personally thought that he looked fine, but he grimaced and lowered his head as though trying to hide beneath his hat and said, "I feel ridiculous dressed like this. Why can't I wear my own civilian clothing?"

"It looks too similar to the colors of your armor," Kanan explained.

"So what?" Ezra asked. "The Empire doesn't even know who I am! I haven't been caught, unmasked, recognized, or even identified as a Force-user by a single living Imperial! And even if they were on the lookout for someone in my armor, who cares? What's wrong with a little fighting?"

"Because this is Lothal, and even you have your limits against a blockade like this," Kanan responded sternly.

Scowling, Ezra just angrily said, "Fine. Let's just get this over with."

Seeing his distress and understanding what no one else here could, the true reasoning behind Ezra's hesitancy to wear this outfit for this mission, Sabine stepped up to his side and grabbed his arm before whispering to him, "I won't have my armor with me either. We'll get it back soon enough."

Ezra nodded hesitantly and turned to look at her, then froze and said, "Sabine… did you- Is this for me?"

Sabine smiled as he recognized the symbolism behind her new look. Though she had loved her most recent hairstyle of platinum blonde with purple tips and blue highlights, she now had to get rid of it. In order to blend in more than she had since she had been a child, she had removed all of her hair dye, going back to her natural dark brown/almost black hair.

However, after looking at the result in the mirror, she had found herself unwilling to go without any dye, so she had decided to dye the tips again. She had considered doing a dark purple, but had instead chosen to use Ezra's blue once again. If there was any part of her hairstyle that she was unwilling to give up, it was the part that represented Ezra. But in addition to her new hairstyle, she was also wearing a Lothalite tunic in colors of orange and yellow, much like Ezra's armor.

Turning around to show off her new look, Sabine asked her boyfriend, "How do I look?"

"Better than perfect, as always," Ezra responded, making Sabine smile affectionately at him. "But why do you get to wear my colors? Don't get me wrong, I'm flattered, but why can you wear them and I can't?"

"If the Empire knows one thing for sure about the Mandalorian in orange, it's that he's a guy," Zeb explained, then grumbled, "Also, Sabine insisted on dressing like this, and she's more convincing than you are."

Ezra just sighed with sad acceptance, and Sabin smiled proudly at Zeb's claim.

Ezra then shook his head and asked, "So, how are we getting to Lothal? The Ghost would be spotted in a second. Not to brag, but I should know. I adjusted their scanners to locate the Ghost myself."

"Well, thanks for that," Hera said sarcastically, folding her arms in annoyance.

Ezra raised his hands and defended, "Hey, this was a long time ago, back when I needed to find you guys, and this ship isn't exactly easy to pin down."

Before Hera could get any more upset at him, Kanan began to walk away down the hall towards the airlock, and they followed after him, and he said, "Rex and Kallus are taking the Ghost back to base. Meanwhile, we're getting smuggled down by an old contact of ours. We're currently docked with his ship: the Broken Horn."

Ezra stopped abruptly in front of the airlock door, causing Sabine to look back at him in concern, and she saw his eyes widen as he said, "Oh, no."

As soon as they were all in front of the door, it opened to reveal a green-skinned Devaronian with one horn partially cut off, one that they knew well from several… uncomfortable dealings.

"Hello, hello, my old friends!" Cikatro Vizago greeted them. "You were in need of help, and you came to the right place. First things first, you have my payment, yes?"

Hera nodded and said, "It's right this way," then began to lead the way deeper into their own ship, followed by all of the Spectres and Vizago.

As they walked, Sabine noticed that Ezra kept his head lowered and his face covered beneath the wide brim of his hat, but she didn't question it at the moment.

Hera led Vizago back into the hold of the Ghost, and Hera stopped them all in front of a pile of small boxes stacked on top of one another, each one holding a puffer pig inside. Puffer pigs were small creatures from a planet known as Kyryll's World. The Ghost crew had first encountered them when they brought one to Lothal for a smuggler named Lando Calrissian. Apparently, they were valuable because they had a nose that was extremely sensitive to rare minerals and could be used for mining, as well as being able to get through Imperial scanners without being identified as illegal mining machinery as they were organic.

Unfortunately, they also had a tendency to greatly inflate themselves with air when they were distressed, hence the name. As such, Zeb was careful to stay far away from the crates. In the past, he had proven to be quite frightening to the little creatures.

Vizago leaned down to examine the crates and exclaimed, "I can't believe you found some!"

"Smuggle us through the Empire's blockade, and they're all yours," Hera told him.

Rubbing his hands together with excitement, Vizago said, "Oh, you have a deal! Calrissian made a fortune with these beauties! The Mining Guild pays a very… inflated price for them."

Sabine saw Ezra next to her bite his tongue to avoid commenting on Vizago's little pun, and she wondered why he was being so quiet.

They all stepped forward to grab one of the crates to help bring them onto Vizago's ship, and after they were done, they stood outside the airlock as Vizago dramatically gestured for them to board his vessel. "Everyone, get on board and make yourselves at home!" he told them graciously.

They stood in a line and began to enter the ship one by one, and Vizago counted them off, "Kanan, my Jedi friend, yes. The lovely Captain Syndulla, yes. The… droid. Fine. Lasat, yes. Mandalorian, you look different without your armor, don't you? Very well. And last… who might you be? A new face?"

After she had boarded, Sabine turned around at Vizago's next words to see him leaning around Ezra, trying to look at his face, but Ezra had pulled down his wide-brimmed hat to hide his face from view.

Finally, Vizago got fed up with the act and simply pulled the hat off, and Ezra just looked up and smiled at him, saying, "Hey, you must be Vizago, right? Nice to meet you!"

Vizago looked down on concentration and said, "Your voice… it sounds familiar. Where do I-"

"Vizago, this is Ezra, or Spectre-6, the newest member of our crew," Sabine said as she stepped up to Ezra's side and put an arm around his shoulders. She'd noticed that Ezra looked somewhat uncomfortable and had rushed to his aid. She could tell that there was something between him and Vizago, and she could guess what it was, but she would let him tell the story later.

Still, Vizago scowled and poked a finger into Ezra's chest before saying dangerously, "I know you. Don't I?"

Luckily for Ezra, or perhaps for Vizago, Hera chose that moment to interfere by calling out, "Hey, we have a schedule to keep! Can we get going? You can work out who he is later."

Spinning around and seeming to forget Ezra completely, Vizago spread his arms and said, "Of course, of course! Vizago is nothing if not prompt!"

As the others walked away after the Devaronian smuggler, Sabine stayed behind for a moment with Ezra, who sighed and said, "I really need my pistols back."

"You couldn't have shot him," Sabine warned. "We need his help."

Ezra nodded and responded, "Yeah, I know. But I would've felt better having them on me to convince myself that I could."

Sabine just smiled and took his hand before leading him to the cockpit.

Line Break

A short time later, the Broken Horn arrived over Lothal, and Sabine looked out the window in shock at the planet she hadn't seen in over a year. Since they'd left, the planet now looked much worse than when they'd last been here. The sky was blackened by dark, swirling clouds that covered large parts of the planet. Where there had once been enormous green grassy fields, much of the land had now been burned and was visibly devoid of any signs of life, even from all the way up here.

"By the Manda," Sabine said with horror.

"The planet looks like it's dying," Hera commented worriedly.

Ezra looked down and said, "I forgot you guys haven't been here in a while. Well, brace yourselves. Lothal isn't exactly the same planet you left behind."

Sabine tried to do as he said and prepare herself to see the terrible sight of a dying Lothal from even closer up, but it wasn't an easy task. This planet had once been like home to them.

Just as Vizago had promised, his ship was quickly granted clearance to land, but shortly after they entered the atmosphere and began to fly over the fields, two TIE Fighters flew past them over their heads.

"What are those TIEs doing?" Hera asked. She then turned to Vizago and said, "You said you had Imperial permits!"

Looking nervous, Vizago responded, "The permits are good! It's standard procedure to have a TIE Fighter escort. Sometimes."

Scowling, Zeb asked, "How can it be standard procedure sometimes?"

"It's not," Ezra said as he leaned forward in his seat. "Their flight pattern is designed to keep us on a certain path, and they can't do that with privately owned ships. They didn't give us an exact place to land. They're onto us. This is a trap."

Glaring back at him, Vizago said, "You sure seem to know a lot about the Empire, Ezra. And are you trying to ruin my payday?"

Ezra suddenly lunged towards the Devaronian and spun his chair around before holding his shirt up with one tightly-clenched hand and grabbing a pistol from Chopper's basket disguise with his other hand before pressing it against Vizago's head.

Quickly reacting despite her shock, Hera called out, "Ezra!"

"Ezra, let him go!" Kanan ordered, but Ezra ignored both of them and pushed his pistol even more firmly against Vizago's head.

He then spoke in a low, dangerous voice, and asked, "Did you sell us out, Vizago? DID YOU?!"

Vizago just glared at him and spat in his face, prompting Ezra to spin around and toss Vizago across the room with a yell of anger. The smuggler crashed into the wall and fell to the floor on his hands and knees, and Ezra directed his pistol at his head.

Kanan once again ordered Ezra, "Spectre-6! Stand down!"

Again Ezra ignored him, and Sabine quickly stepped up next to her boyfriend and placed a hand on his outstretched arm. He looked over into her eyes, and she gave him a pleading look. After a few seconds, he sighed and lowered his pistol, then turned and placed it back within Chopper's disguise.

Vizago looked up at them and angrily said, "This is your new crew member?! I refuse to cooperate with any of you under these conditions!"

Sabine glared at Vizago and said, "Even if he acted… rashly, Ezra's concerns are valid, Vizago. The only thing we know we can trust about you is that you follow the money. Did you sell us out to the Empire?"

"No!" Vizago answered adamantly. "I don't know how they knew, but you know that I have no love for them!"

There was a short silence, and then Kanan said, "He's telling the truth. He wasn't part of this."

Ezra sighed again and went over to Vizago before offering him a hand and saying, "Then I guess I owe you an apology."

Vizago looked up at him with surprise, then accepted Ezra's hand. As he was pulled back to his feet, Vizago smiled and said, "Very well. I'll let it slide this time. But you owe me a favor. You seem to be much stronger than you look, young Ezra."

"You have no idea," Ezra said quietly. "Now then, Captain, if you'll retake your seat. The Empire will be locking down the ship when we land, but when they try to inspect it, we'll make sure to stay out of sight. If they don't find us, they'll have nothing. Well, except for the puffer pigs, which they'll arrest you for. Hmm…"

Having an idea, Sabine said, "We'll scare the pigs to make them inflate, then sneak away while the Imps are distracted."

Ezra nodded in agreement and ordered, "Alright, we have our plan. Vizago, stall them. The rest of us will get those pigs."

The Spectres all ran down the halls of Vizago's ship towards the hold, where they began to open the puffer pigs' cages, and Sabine called back to Zeb, "You ready, big guy?"

"Yeah," he responded from around the corner. "Let me put on my useful face."

As the puffer pigs began to walk out of the room, Zeb suddenly jumped out from around the corner and snarled at them, causing them to panic and make loud squealing sounds before they all quickly inflated to great size until they were each round balls of rubbery flesh that could barely fit down the hallways.

Sabine and Ezra began pushing them down the halls in groups, moving them towards the cockpit. When the Imperials questioning Vizago saw them, their confidence quickly erupted into confusion and panic as they tried to avoid being hit by them. The pigs' bodies hid the rebels from view and allowed them to run out of the ship, and Vizago began to follow behind them, but after they were outside, they looked back to see that Vizago was no longer with them.

"Where's Vizago?" Ezra questioned.

"Probably went back for the pigs," Hera answered with annoyance.

"He'll be fine," Kanan said. "If anyone can weasel his way out of trouble, it's him. But we need to find Ryder."

The Rebellion's contact on Lothal that had told them about the new Defender was the old governor of the planet, Ryder Azadi. Unfortunately, they hadn't been able to receive his full message, so they needed to find him to hear the rest of the information he had on the new Imperial fighter.

"We should split up to cover more ground, see if we can find anyone here in the city that might know where Ryder is," Hera said.

At the same time, both Sabine and Ezra raised their hands, but Hera just said, "Yes, Ezra and Sabine can be together." They both slowly lowered their hands.

Hera added, "Take Chopper as well. Zeb, you attract the most attention, so you can go alone to stick to the shadows. Me and Kanan will be the last team."

Hera grabbed Kanan's arm and began to pull him away in one direction, and Ezra called after them, "You two better behave yourselves!"

Hera looked back at him and raised an eyebrow, then warned, "You know I can still change the search teams, right?"

Ezra put up a finger and responded, "On that note, we had better get searching. Azadi's not gonna find himself!"

He, Sabine, and Chopper turned and began to walk in the opposite direction of Kanan and Hera, and Zeb took to one of the side streets.

As they walked, Sabine and her group passed a large Imperial holoscreen which showed an image of Sabine's face, though she couldn't help but notice that the image of her was old, from when she was only sixteen or seventeen. Combined with the image was a voiceover that said, "Serve your purpose. Serve the Empire. Protect Lothal and yourself. Report rebel activity. Loyalty is obedience."

The voice continued speaking, but Sabine stopped listening as a thought occurred to her. "If the Empire has images of me without my helmet on, how did you not know what my face looked like until Skystrike?" she asked Ezra.

He winced as he walked and said, "I… don't like humanizing my targets. I chose not to look at the images of your real face because I didn't want to see you as a person, just a mission."

"But you probably could've caught me much more easily if you knew who you were looking for," Sabine questioned further.

He just shrugged and said, "Well, Mandalorians stand out pretty well anyway. A little extra challenge in my mission was worth it to help me sleep better at night. Considering that I started loving you the second I saw your face, I'd say I made a pretty good decision."

Sabine smiled shyly and took his hand, saying, "Aw. I started loving you at the same time, my Ez'ika."

Ezra smiled back, but suddenly their hands were forcefully separated by Chopper rolling between them, whirring something about annoying sappy organics. The two Mandalorians just sighed at him.

Suddenly, from around the street corner came a speeder with Kanan and Hera on board and Zeb at the wheel. "The Imperials are onto us! Get in!" Hera yelled out at them, and as if by way of demonstration, several red bolts of energy quickly flew past their heads, forcing them to duck, but they were unable to return fire while Chopper had all of their weapons.

"Did you guys steal a speeder?" Ezra asked, though Sabine thought that the answer was pretty obvious. "What happened to laying low?"

"It seemed like the fastest way we could search for Ryder!" Zeb yelled as a blast hit the speeders hull next to his hand.

Kanan dodged another blast and said, "Are you guys just gonna stand there? Get in!"

Sabine and Ezra both quickly ran forward to vault into the speeder, and Chopper used his rocket to fly inside. As soon as they were all inside, Zeb floored the accelerator and the speeder launched forward, still closely pursued by many red energy blasts.

Ezra POV

They were managing to outrun the Imperials for a short time, slowly losing them as they weaved through the streets at speeds the stormtroopers couldn't hope to keep up with, but they soon ran into a problem. Directly ahead of them, at the far end of the road they were on, was an AT-DP, its cannon directly right at their approaching speeder, and they didn't have time to turn out of the way.

Ezra immediately flicked his left wrist to ready his grappling line, but the lack of response reminded him too late that he was no longer wearing his vambraces.

Suddenly, he heard Kanan's voice in his head say, get Sabine and Chopper. A second later, the Imperial walker fired on them, and Ezra unquestioningly used the Force to throw both Sabine and Chopper out of the speeder before jumping out himself, feeling Kanan do the same behind him with Hera and Zeb.

After he'd jumped, Ezra was thrown by the explosion as the walker's cannon blast destroyed their speeder. He rolled upon hitting the ground and landed on his front, quickly determining that he had slightly bruised his ribs upon hitting the ground, but he could still use them, and he sensed no serious injury from his other friends. Even Kanan had managed to use the Force to cushion his own landing with short notice, which was something that Ezra would normally have been able to do for himself, but most of his concentration had gone into cushioning Sabine' landing (no offense to Chopper).

A thin layer of smoke from the destroyed speeder hung in the air, obscuring Ezra's view, but he still sensed the approaching Imperial troops before he saw them. Shining through the fog, he saw three flashlights searching around, and he could hear the guns that the flashlights were attached to, as well as the shuffling of plastoid armor.

When one light landed on Ezra, the stormtrooper holding it announced, "Here! I've got-"

Ezra didn't let him finish his statement, cutting him off by rolling quickly to the side where Chopper lay and landing in a kneeling position on one knee while drawing a blaster out of Chopper's carrier disguise and shooting the stormtrooper in the face.

As the man collapsed without even a yell, as his lungs had been destroyed by the blast hitting him in the throat, another stormtrooper said, "Hey! You there! Freeze!"

Ezra made to aim his pistol at this soldier as well, but Sabine beat him to the punch. He hadn't even seen her get up from where she had landed, but she suddenly appeared out of the smoke behind the third stormtrooper and kicked him in the back of the leg, causing him to go down with a grunt of pain that drew the attention of the second one.

As Sabine ran towards the second stormtrooper to attack him, the soldier thrust out his hand not holding his blaster towards her, and she just barely managed to dodge by doing a backwards handspring that landed her next to the third stormtrooper, who was still kneeling on the ground. The third soldier grabbed Sabine's leg when she landed, so she used her free leg to kick him in the face, knocking him unconscious on the ground, where Ezra shot him in the chest.

The last stormtrooper turned to face Ezra at the sight of his blast and raised his own blaster towards the young Mandalorian man, but Sabine ran up behind him and heave-kicked him in the back, pushing him forward roughly, and Ezra stuck out his arm to caught the swiftly-moving stormtrooper in the neck, knocking him to the ground.

Dusting off their hands after a job well done, Ezra and Sabine looked down at the three fallen Imperials and idly fist-bumped one another. Ezra then looked down at the pistol in his hand and recognized it as one of Sabine's, so he reached over into Chopper's disguise to grab her second one before tossing them both to their owner, then drew his own pair.

Sabine kept hers out, but Ezra holstered his own pistols and drew both his and Kanan's lightsabers out of Chopper's box disguise before lifting the astromech up onto his feet. Chopper had the Darksaber hidden within his outfit as well, but Ezra opted to leave that for now as Sabine couldn't deflect blaster bolts with her lightsaber the way that he and Kanan could, lacking their Force-enhanced reaction times. She was good, of course, but not nearly as good as they were.

At that moment, Kanan, Hera, and Zeb all emerged from the smoke as well, moving quickly and casting wary looks over their shoulders. Ezra tossed Kanan his lightsaber, and the Jedi caught it before saying, "Ezra, we're supposed to be laying low."

"I kinda think that that plan fell apart a while ago, Kanan," Sabine mentioned.

Just then, the smoke cleared enough for the AT-DP to see them, standing together and unbound by the stormtroopers, and fired a second blast at them. Kanan quickly shoved Zeb backwards to avoid it, then they all covered their ears as the blast hit the ground behind them, and Kanan admitted, "All right, good point."

Zeb ran to Chopper and pulled Hera's pistol and his own Bo-rifle from inside the box, then tossed Hera her weapon, which she caught. The AT-DP fired on them again, and they dodged once more before they all began to run away down one of the streets.

Ezra tried to break away from the group to go after the walker, but Kanan stopped him by grabbing his arm and saying, "No."

"But-" Ezra began to protest, but Kanan firmly repeated, "No. You can hijack their vehicles later. Right now, we need to go!"

He then took off after the rest of the Ghost crew, forcing Ezra to follow him unhappily. "We need somewhere to hide before they send reinforcements after us!" Hera ordered as they ran.

Chopper did a short scan and beeped something out. "He says that there are secret tunnels under the city that Ryder supposedly uses to get around, and he's scanning an entrance just ahead!" Sabine translated.

Frowning, Ezra said, "What? If there were secret tunnels, I think I would know about them! The only tunnels under Capital City are… Oh, no."

He broke off unhappily as they stopped in front of one of the city's large sewer maintenance hatches, which Chopper plugged into and opened for them.

Shaking his head, Ezra said, "Nope! No way! I spent a whole week down there looking at evidence last time you guys went in one of these, and I vowed never again!"

Suddenly, Imperial sirens sounded loudly behind them, and Hera told him helpfully, "Well, you can always ask them."

She began to climb in first, followed by Kanan, then Zeb. Zeb gave Ezra a sympathetic pat on the shoulder as he went by, but didn't even hesitate to climb into the hatch.

Chopper began to follow after him, and Ezra cast a look backwards over his shoulder, pondering what his odds were for fighting the entire Imperial presence on Lothal were. Not great, he decided, but maybe still better than climbing down into these disgusting sewers again.

As if knowing what he was thinking, Sabine placed a hand on his shoulder and encouraged, "It won't be long. And the sooner we find Ryder, the sooner we can get back in our armor."

She then followed after their other friends, and Ezra sighed to himself. "So, this is what it's like to be a Rebel, huh?" he asked himself. "Got to say, not impressed."

He then stepped forward and climbed onto the ladder before descending into the sewer, the hatch closing behind him.