Chapter 3: Fighter flight
A couple of days after, the Ghost had landed a few km outside a village on Lothal, in order to make an inventory and relax for a time.
As promised, Kanan put aside his doubts and started teaching Ezra the basics of the Force. He immediately established that Ezra had indeed a great connection to it, as showed by his ability to use it in combat. Trouble was, that Ezra so far had only used the Force in moments of emergency or immediate danger for him or the people he cared. While the sentiment was admirable, Kanan explained, the real point of being a Jedi was to achieve focus and discipline, to be one with the Force, and not use it as a last resource.
As such, he tasked Ezra to try and lift small objects in a relaxed environment. Jaral, on the other hand, was still taking private flying lessons from Hera, and everyone was amazed at how quickly she mastered the controls of the Phantom without using Jinx as a support.
It was morning. Jaral had just finished another lesson and decided to check up on Ezra in the kitchen. He was trying to lift an empty bowl. The day before, under Kanan guidance, it went quite well, but there was still a lot of work to do.
"How's it going?" she asked gently.
"It's not." he replied a bit worn out.
He was practically squeezing his eyes and his hands were waving in front of the bowl. Jaral sat in the seat in front of him. They were both wearing their civilian clothes.
Jaral stared at him for a bit, then she decided she couldn't resist and started poking the bowl. Hearing the noise, Ezra opened his eyes triumphantly, but noticed the trick immediately.
"Jaral!" he said with an accusatory tone.
"Ok, ok, I'm sorry." she said chuckling and retracting her arm.
Ezra groaned in frustration.
Jaral sat straight and put both her hands on the table, intertwining them.
"You know, I think you're just taking the wrong approach." she said calmly.
Ezra leaned back, folding his arms on his chest.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that you're trying to learn too much too fast. I may not be Force-sensitive but I can tell that this is not something you can rush."
Ezra mumbled, seriously considering his sisters' words.
"You've been doing nothing but training for the last two days, Ezra." she continued, her voice expressing a small hint of concern. "Maybe you should take a break and just reflect on how to proceed. You know, clear your head a bit."
The boy slightly scratched his head, pondering. Then he rose his head up smiling.
"You may be right."
"May? I'm always right." she said jokingly while raising an eyebrow.
"I got this. We still need to go on the supply run. Why don't we do it? Maybe a stroll in the market will help me clear my head."
Jaral smiled eagerly. "That sounds nice. It's been a while since we went for a casual stroll."
They both stood up and left the room, heading for the cockpit where Hera was.
"Hey guys." she greeted them amicably. "Need something?"
"We would like to take on the supply run for today." Ezra explained. "We need the list."
Hera smiled proudly to the two boys. She didn't expect them to volunteer for a task that the rest of the crew always considered tedious.
She gave them her datapad, where the list was. Then, thanks to Jinx, they noticed that their budget far exceeded the cost of everything on the list.
"Hey." Jaral recalled Hera. "Since we still have that handful of credits Vizago gave us before running, how about we try and buy some small commodities for everyone?"
"Sounds like a plan." Ezra concurred. "Hera, is there anything not too fancy that you'd like?"
Hera was surprised by the initiative, but appreciated nonetheless. "Well, I know we're on Lothal, but if you happen to run into some meiloorun fruit I'd really appreciate it."
"Oh, boy." Jaral exclaimed. Meilooruns didn't grow on Lothal and finding an off-world importer under the Empire was a pretty long shot. They accepted the task anyway.
Then they proceeded to ask Kanan, who, after some insistence by the kids, requested a particular vegetable.
As they passed along the cabins, Jaral halted in front of hers.
"Just wait a second." and she opened the door.
It was then that Ezra noticed for the first time the insane amount of drawings inside that cabin and couldn't help but say 'wow'.
"Sabine really likes to draw, uh?" he commented while looking around.
"You can bet the armor on that." joked Jaral while she was checking her drawer.
Ezra's eyes then fell on the portrait of the entire crew on the rooftop. Starting from the right were: Zeb, Sabine, Hera, Kanan. Then there was Jaral with her armor, smiling like all the others
"Is that you?" he asked.
Jaral finished to check on her supplies and joined the brother. "Yeah. Pretty cool, uh?"
"I'm just glad to see you enjoy being here." Ezra concluded with a smile.
It was true. One of the reason he also liked being on the Ghost wasn't just because he overall liked the company, but because he couldn't remember a time where Jaral had been so happy as since they joined the Ghost.
"Well, aren't you two just the cutest?"
The siblings turned around to see Sabine leaning on the doorstep, smiling friendly at them.
"Oh, hey, Sabine." Ezra greeted. "Hope you don't mind if a take a look."
"Not at all. What do you think?" she said with her eyes doing a small roll around the room, as to ask his opinion about the overall environment.
Ezra gave a quick look around.
"Well, at least you have always something pretty to look at." he commented sincerely.
However he found Jaral struggling not to laugh at his statement. With a puzzled face he looked at Sabine, who in turn rolled her eyes while smiling wryly. Then he took a moment to repeat in his mind what he just said.
"Oh…" he mumbled in realization. "Wait, did you girls think I was talking about something other than the drawings?"
The girls decided to relent. "Anyway." the boy resumed talking. "We're going to the market. Anything you need?"
Sabine mumbled, thinking. Then Jaral intervened. "Hey wasn't you paint sprayer being a tad defective, yesterday?"
"Huh, yes. But they are pretty costly, guys, I can't ask you that."
"Oh we know a couple of secondhand vendors, and they usually sell functioning stuff." Ezra explained. "We're going to take a look."
The conversation was interrupted by a protracted loud sound coming from the cargo bay. The three rushed to check on that, only to see Zeb and Chopper fighting over something. They realized that Chopper must have pulled out another one of his pretty invasive jokes on the Lasat, who didn't take it lightly. Unfortunately, they ended up causing a ruckus big enough that Hera walked on the gangplank, hands on her hips, looking down on them.
"IT'S HIS FAULT!" Zeb said enraged.
"I don't care whose fault it is." the Twi'lek replied austerely.
She glided down from the ladder and then started walking toward the cargo door, pressing the button to open it.
"All I know is that you two are demolishing my ship, and I want you guys out of it. You're going to assist Jaral and Ezra."
Both Zeb and Chopper tried to protest, but Hera frowned on them and they immediately relented.
The Lasat and the droid obeyed the order and went after the siblings, who had watched the scene snickering from the gangplank.
The group of four spent the morning buying the supplies and the commodities they were asked. Still they couldn't find the meiloorun, so they tried to split up. Then Ezra ran into a familiar face.
"Is that Ezra Bridger?" the gentle voice of an old man called the boy from behind a small stand while Ezra was walking down one of the market's alleys.
"Mr. Sumar?" the boy looked at the man and said the name with happiness and walked toward the old farmer.
"Man, you've grown up." Sumar said with admiration. Then he crouched under the table. "Here, have a jogan." he said, passing the fruit to the boy.
"Thank you, sir."
"Where is your sister?"
"Oh, we're out for groceries. You know, we find some kind of job on a freighter, it's for the crew."
Sumar eyes widened a bit. "That's great, I hope you like it."
Ezra shrugged a little, but keeping a happy smile on his face. Then he remembered what he was looking for.
"Say, Mr. Sumar, you don't happen to know where I can find a meiloorun?"
"A meiloorun?" the man asked with a bit of surprise. He put a finger on his chin, thinking. "Well, there is a rodian merchant at the end of this alley. You may try your luck there."
"I see, thank you Mr. Sumar." the boy decided to left him some spare change. "For the jogan." and walked away before Sumar said anything else.
While he was walking, Ezra saw an imperial officer, followed by two stormtroopers heading his way. He wasn't wearing his armor, so he thought he might slip past them unnoticed, but in the end Ezra decided to hide behind a couple of crates and let them pass, just for good measure.
He noticed that the imperials halted right in front of Sumar's stand. Ezra was too far away to hear what was happening, but it seemed like Mr. Sumar was putting on a tough face and refusing whatever the officer was asking him.
The boy walked away, only to come across his other companions a few meters more down the road.
"We found everything but the meilooruns. You got any luck?" asked Zeb while holding two massive crates under his arms.
Chopper was dragging a repulsor-lifted crate while Jaral was holding a smaller one under her right arm and she was also carrying a backpack.
"Maybe. A friend told me to try over there." he pointed at the stand with a rodian merchant reading a datapad.
The four went over there and they almost immediately ran into an entire crate of meilooruns.
"How much for the entire crate?" asked Zeb in a hurry.
The rodian had a sorry face. "I'm sorry. I've already sold them."
"Well, maybe we can buy one from…" started Jaral, but a loud sound behind them stopped.
They saw an imperial regular closing the crate with very little regard, thus the loud thud, and taking the fairly heavy crate away with both hands.
"From the Empire? Yeah, good luck." the rodian couldn't help but find the scene a bit ironic and chuckled.
Zeb, Jaral and Chopper were frustrated, but Ezra actually smirked: this was an opportunity to cut the costs of their shopping run.
He motioned the others to follow him until they got near two K79 transports, getting loaded with many sorts of food by the imperial military.
The group hid behind some old canisters laying just a few meters away. It was pretty clear to everyone what Ezra was planning.
"Kid…" Zeb called him as quietly as he managed. "Don't even think about it. There is no way you'll slip past them undetected."
"Trust me, Zeb. We're going to get that fruit."
"Right." Zeb rolled his eyes and then mockingly said. "And what would your brilliant plan be? You gonna use the Fo'ce?" he said while waving his fingers in a mocking representation of magic.
"That's exactly what I'm gonna do." Ezra said confidently. Jaral and Zeb were stunned, and Chopper grunted in frustration as if to say that they were doomed.
"Ezra, let's just go. We'll give Hera her meiloorun another time." Jaral tried to persuade him, but her brother looked her in the eye with a confident gaze, and expressing an incredible will to get this through.
The girl relented and allowed her brother to go ahead.
Ezra closed his eyes and stretched his left arm toward the crate of fruit. Unlike that morning, he felt way more focused. He could feel the Force guiding him just as he asked.
Jaral and Zeb watched in awe as the top of the meiloorun's crate slightly opened, one of the fruits started floating and then came back right into Ezra's palm in a quick and swift motion. No imperials were looking that way. When one of them noticed the top was poorly placed, he simply placed it back, without suspecting a thing.
Ezra immediately put the meiloorun into Jaral's backpack and the group went away with a satisfied smile on their faces, even Chopper bopped amused.
"That was actually good, kid." Zeb said with admiration.
"Looks like you cleared your head, after all." said Jaral, jokingly brushing Ezra's hairs.
"All right, enough with the talks. Let's get back to the Ghost, it's almost time for lunch." Ezra replied.
As they walked back, laughing and joking, something caught Ezra's eye and ear.
From a back-alley the painful groaning of a man and the pleading of a woman.
He looked into it, only to see two soldiers with the armor of the military police, beating down a young human male who was already on the floor, trying to protect his head. Next to them, another soldier was holding back a woman, probably the man's mother, begging them to stop.
"Ezra, no." Jaral said, looking at the angry stare of her brother. Her voice betrayed her real intentions though.
"You guys get back to the Ghost." Ezra said calmly. "I'll be right back.". He turned on his armor and carefully approached the scene.
"Count me in." Zeb said. He left his two crates and followed the boy.
Jaral watched in agony. She couldn't join them, because someone had to bring the supplies back, as they had also some fuel and food that the crew desperately needed to keep the Ghost operating.
She turned around and grabbed one of Zeb's crates, put it onto the other one and lifted them with both her arms, her strength really showing off this time.
By the time she turned again to watch his friends, they had already put down the policemen and rescued the young man, convincing him and the mother to flee.
"You there, stop!" the voice of another officer broke all of their chances to leave the place peacefully.
Luckily, Jaral and Chopper were ignored, while the cop called for reinforcements to chase a male human in armor and a Lasat. The girl decided to go back to the Ghost and alert the rest of the crew before trying anything else, plus they needed to get those supplies on board.
Ezra and Zeb started running across the alleys. It wouldn't take too long before imperial reinforcements would show up.
They ended up into the village main square, where they noticed a TIE fighter parked right in the middle. Ezra realized that the pilot was in a nearby tavern, catching a drink, and turned to Zeb.
"That's our way out."
"What?! Are you crazy? We don't know how to pilot it." said Zeb.
"Jinx can do it." Ezra explained steadfastly. "And either we steal it and we use it to get away, or they'll use it to chase us back to the Ghost."
Zeb groaned, understanding that the kid was right. "Let's do this, then." he screamed.
The two jumped out of the cover and headed straight for the TIE.
In the square there was only a patrol of four guards, who immediately drew out their blaster pistols but they were on the opposite side of the square and by the time they found themselves in range, Ezra had already used the Force to jump on top of the spherical hatch, waiting for Zeb.
Once the Lasat was on top as well, the boy drew out his E-11 from the Omni-tool.
"Open it. I cover you." he declared.
He intentionally fired close enough to the guardsmen to scare them and convince them to run for a cover, but he didn't want to kill anybody in order not to fuel the Imperials' resentment.
Zeb forced the hatch's door open and jumped into the pilot's seat.
"Kid!" he screamed.
Ezra jumped into the hatch with a smooth movement and the first thing he did was to connect Jinx to the TIE's mainframe.
As Zeb struggled to make the ship take off, suddenly the controls seemed like they were possessed.
The TIE now moved like it was being driven by a very skilled pilot and in no time it was flying out of the village.
Zeb breathed a huge sigh of relief. "I can't believe it actually worked." he said slumping on the chair.
"Stay sharp, purple guy. It's not over." Ezra reminded him. "Jinx, is there a tracking device on this TIE?"
"Of course there is." the AI replied. "And of course I have already disabled it. But it wouldn't hurt us to cut it physically."
"Tell me what to do."
"The locating beacon's power cables are under that panel on the right side of the hatch."
Using his connection to Ezra's armor, Jinx marked the panel by highlighting it on Ezra's visor. The boy knelt in front of it and removed the panel.
"Cut both the blue and the red wires." the AI instructed.
Ezra activated his omni-tool. A small and very precise jet of oxyhydrogen came out of it. Patiently, he passed the flame over the red wire. Then the blue wire with a smooth movement of its wrist.
"There. Now the Empire can't find us so easily." Jinx said.
Ezra breathed a sigh of relief as well. Though it immediately dawned on him that they still needed to warn the Ghost about their actual predicament.
"Specter-1 to Specter-4 and 7, come in." The voice of Kanan crackled through their comlinks just as Ezra was finishing that thought.
The boy put a hand on Zeb's shoulder, preparing for the hit.
"This is Specter-7, reporting in."
"Specter-6 just told us what happened. Where are you?"
"Calm down, Specter-1." Zeb intervened. "We already left the village. The Empire is not following us."
Right there and then, Jinx had to tilt left in order to avoid a tall rock. In order to avoid scanners from orbit, the AI was keeping the fighter at a low altitude, which meant he had to watch out for obstacles on the ground. The TIE made its iconic scream when rotating, revealing its existence.
"Guys, what was that?" it was Hera's voice.
"Yeah…" Ezra hesitated to speak. "See...we took out the bad guys first…"
"And that was fine...what happened next?" this time it was Jaral to press the issue.
Ezra mumbled before stating. "You know, one thing leads to another...and so we stole a TIE fighter." he said the last part as if it was supposed to be funny.
"YOU WHAT?!" the three persons on the other side of the comlink shouted.
"They're taking it better than I thought." Zeb mumbled to Ezra, who just nodded.
"Get rid of it!" Kanan ordered firmly.
"Do we have to?" Ezra and Zeb asked in disappointment.
There was a brief silence, though the two hijackers could hear Kanan groaning in frustration.
"At least tell me you disabled the locator beacon." the Jedi said.
"Calm down." Ezra intervened immediately. "Jinx shut it down immediately and I have cut the wires already."
"Thank the Force…" Kanan breathed. Then he got back to the scolding. "Guys, stealing a TIE fighter draws a lot of unwanted attention. Meet at Shadow Point 2, fly straight there and don't...do...anything!" then closed the transmission.
Ezra took a moment to breath. "Jinx, do you have the coordinates for Shadow Point 2?"
"We're already going there." the AI stated. "We should be there in around...two hours."
"Bet you didn't expect this, when Hera ordered you to help us with groceries." Ezra said jokingly to Zeb.
"Yeah, hehehe." answered the Lasat, who was slumping on the pilot's seat as Jinx was taking care of the flight. "Seems like you and your sister manage to turn any situation in an interesting way."
"Right." intervened Jinx. "Though next time you bring me on a walk, I hope it's awfully boring."
"I'll keep that in mind, Jinx." Ezra chuckled.
Then the boy looked outside the cockpit. On their right, far in the prairie, he saw a tall column of black smoke. Ezra leaned forward to take a better look. Zeb noticed it.
"Is that smoke?"
"Yes…" Ezra murmured. "And I'm afraid I know where it's coming from. Jinx, take us there."
The TIE turned gently in that direction. In the back of his head, Ezra couldn't help but being grateful for that AI, as it could master the commands of any vehicle in a matter of seconds. They wouldn't have gone this far without him, that day.
The TIE finally reached the source of the smoke. As he feared, Ezra recognized it. Zeb could see it in his eyes.
"Friends of yours?"
"Yes. That's Mr. Sumar's farm." Ezra murmured discouraged. He pondered for a moment. Who could have done that? Then he remembered the scene he had seen not long ago.
"Jinx. Scan the area for Imperial vehicles."
After a couple of seconds, the AI responded.
"I detect three K79-class Troop Transports, 2.3 kliks at 0.7." he stated.
"Good. Let's get'em." Ezra said with a fire in his eyes.
"Hold on, kid!" Zeb interrupted. "Kanan gave us a direct order."
"Oh, come on Zeb, what's the worst that could happen?"
"We both end up dead?"
"Besides that?" Ezra smiled as if challenging death itself.
Zeb groaned and then smiled in concordance with the boy. They were going on an unauthorized rescue mission.
Jinx brought the TIE toward the direction of the transports and it didn't take long before they reached them.
The three repulsor-lifted vehicles were faring in a triangle formation. Using the scanner and the binocular integrated in his helmet, Ezra found Mr. Sumar, his wife and their aqualish servant, held into the three exposed racks on the right side of the vehicle.
"Jinx." he said sternly. "Get me over the vehicle on the right."
Without answering, Jinx obliged the request of his master. The fighter slowly caught up to the transport, flying just above it. Since both the fighter and the ITT made loud sounds, the drivers didn't suspect anything. It also helped that the ITT was basically in the back of the formation and the crews on the other vehicles couldn't alert their comrades.
Ezra climbed up the hatch and went outside, waiting.
When the TIE has surpassed the back of the ITT, the boy jumped, landing with the agility of a cat, but he heard a loud thud nonetheless. He didn't even hope that his landing would go unnoticed inside the transport, so he decided to act immediately.
As he drew out his heavy repeater and moved on top of the cabin and put a finger on the comlink on his helmet.
"Jinx, Zeb, engage the left vehicle." he commanded, then aimed down his weapon and opened fire.
The pilots had no chance to react. Ezra moved his repeater left and right, never letting the trigger go. The bolts of highly concentrated, fast plasma tore holes in the cabin and shredded both the pilots and the console commands. Before long, the transport slowed down and stopped.
The racks holding Mr. Sumar and the others opened as well.
Ezra heard the sound of the TIE cannons firing. Looking on his left, he saw his organic and his holographic friends targeting the other transport, which quickly exploded in a ball of fire, leaving a charred wreckage.
Despite being able to fly the machine, Jinx couldn't actually manipulate the cannons: those still required the manual input from the levers of the pilot, so Zeb took up the task of aiming and firing.
After witnessing the explosion of the other transport, Ezra turned around and jumped down, reaching the prisoners.
"Are you alright?" Ezra asked nicely. He made his visor spring up, allowing Sumar to identify the face of the boy.
"E-Ezra?" Mr. Sumar asked in dismay.
"I know, but there's no time to explain." Ezra helped the three people to stand up. "You need to run. Run and hide."
Sumar still couldn't believe that the guy in full armor in front of him was the same boy he met just a few hours before. Yet he saw the determination in his eyes. The old man nodded and motioned the other two prisoners to flee with him.
Ezra watched them go away and then turned around, looking at the prairie, he noticed that the third transport had fled. Not that it would be a problem: that one wasn't armed as it was an only-cargo version. It was loaded with a lot of crates but didn't have the dorsal cannon, unlike the two he and his friends just took out.
The TIE fighter made another turn and slowly ran in front of Ezra. Jinx let the fighter hovering Ezra's head, allowing the boy to charge and jump right into the open door of the hatch.
"See? Simple and clean." Ezra smugly affirmed to an amused Zeb.
"Yup. Guess this day wasn't so bad, after all. Are we heading to the meeting point?"
Ezra mumbled for a couple of second, stroking his chin.
"Actually, I have a plan." he finished with the expression of someone having the greatest idea of his life.
The Ghost had moved to the established meeting point right after Zeb and Ezra cut the transmission. Since the freighter was faster than any TIE fighter, they landed and prepared for what seemed to be a fairly long wait. Jaral was impatient. Pacing outside the cargo bay, asking her fraction of Jinx if there was any way to contact them, but since Ezra wanted to avoid to be detected by the Empire, she knew he wouldn't answer any other call and that he had disabled his transponder for the time being.
"They were supposed to be here an hour ago." after nearly three hours waiting in the middle of nowhere, even Kanan was losing patience.
It was already sunset and even Hera was beginning to worry. Then the two escapees finally showed up on the horizon, the Twi'lek being the first to spot them. They were greeted back nicely. Even Chopper seemed happy to see them as he didn't it Zeb on the knee too harshly as he usually did.
Jaral threw herself onto her brother's neck and hugged him. Then she separated from him and vigorously pinched his ear.
"Aw, aw, aw...Seriously, Jaral?" he said loudly, managing to escape after a second
"I warned you not to make me worry so much!" she said with a hand on her hips and the other one pointing a finger as a reprimand.
"Oh come on, may I remind you that all of this happened because I tried to stop an abuse by those imperial vermin?"
Jaral sighed. It was true, after all.
Hera decided to step in and try to bring peace.
"And we're proud of that. You guys stood up for the helpless and, in the end, you came back all in one piece. You did good." she said with what could only be called a motherly smile.
"Speaking of which, what happened to the stolen TIE?" Kanan asked.
"Oh, we destroyed it. I had Jinx override his core engine before leaving. We thought we may as well send another 'blow up your exhaust vents' to the Empire."
"Uh-uh." said Kanan.
"Hey, I hope you didn't waste all the supplies already." Zeb intervened, cutting the discussion short. "Because I'm starving here."
Jaral shook her head amused. "Go clean yourself up, you two. I'll be waiting for you in the kitchen."
Zeb and Ezra started to walk back to their cabin. Slowly they started to playfully poke at each other, then it escalated in friendly punches as the two of them smiled, then laughed openly. The experience having definitely brought them much closer.
Then they arrived at the cabin, when the door opened, they were surprised to see Sabine, shooting paint on the wall.
"What are you doing?" Zeb asked.
"Oh, you guys are right on cue!" she exclaimed with a satisfied smile on her face. Then she stepped back, letting herself and the other two admiring her work.
It was a painting about their adventure on the TIE Fighter. The tone was definitely humorous, as the proportions were hilariously wrong. The TIE's wings were strongly made smaller, and from the top of the hatch it was Zeb, mostly showing his head and his right hand with a big thumb up. His face was having a grumpy smile, with his sharp teeth showing. Behind him, sitting like a rider on a mount, stood Ezra, waving his helmet with one hand high up, and his face showing that he was enjoying the thrill of that all.
"I finished it right now." Sabine said proudly.
Ezra and Zeb stared at it for a while, then the boy turned around, his helmet still under his arm.
"So let me get this straight…" he started, massaging his forehead. "So we were out there, risking our necks…" Sabine nodded. "And in the meantime, you thought it was appropriate to make a caricatural representation of us risking our necks." he said while waving his hand at the painting.
Sabine couldn't hold a chuckle. She was honestly amazed that Ezra, who usually didn't react well to jokes, could keep his composure and even try to find an explanation to one of those jokes. Even more amusing was the technicality that he showed.
"Hey, look at it this way: you managed to get me inspired." she said jovially. Ezra answered with a distrustful gaze and a raised eyebrow.
"Besides, I wanted to try the new paint-sprayer you guys got for me." she showed the device in her right hand. "Thanks, by the way. Now I think I know how you'll fit in the family picture." she finished looking toward her cabin.
"You are...an intriguing figure, Lady Sabine." Ezra said feinting seriousness. Then he left his helmet on his bunk bed, retracted his armor and started to get out. Sabine looked at him with amusement.
"What is that supposed to mean?" she asked.
"Nothing. Come on, now, I'm hungry." concluded the boy, and the others followed him out, smiling and poking at each other.