(A/N)- WASSUP INTERNET PEEPS?
First off I have to give a shout out to findswoman from tumblr for inspiring this, an ask game we were playing planted the original idea concept and the the Indy Jones/Last crusade-type stuff just kind of fell into place later.
I had a lot of fun writing this one so I won't keep you from it. Enjoy!
A mild warning for some blood and major injury.
Disclaimer: Haaaaaaaaa. As if. If I were in charge Disney never would have run two separate Lucasfilm franchises into the ground.
Relics
They trekked through the thick jungle, their boots making soft crunching on the damp foliage.
Sabine was in front, checking ahead with her scanners, pausing occasionally to consult the holomap. Ezra trailed not that far behind, eyes and senses wary, extending out to feel for danger, but all that could be gleaned from around them were birds and burrowing creatures, bugs and hiding crawlers, skittish of their presence.
Their breaths were hot and heavy in the humid air, but neither of them dared inhale too loudly, for fear of disturbing the natural quiet of the jungle.
Sabine paused, checking their coordinates in her helmet's HUD. "Well," she said, gesturing around, "according to Hera's intel it should be right here." She opened her arms to indicate their surroundings, no more remarkable than the last five miles of alien tropical jungle they'd already passed through. "But I don't see a temple."
Ezra stood still for a moment, a vibration of energy tingling on his skin. "It's here all right. I can feel it," he confirmed.
Sabine watched him in bemused curiosity a moment.
"Can your feelings pinpoint where it is?" she asked him.
Ezra gave a thoughtful hum. "Maybe," he said. "Give me a minute."
He let his eyes drift closed and lifted a hand, reaching out with his mind.
The temple became a blossoming column of light on the back of his eyes, warm and radiant, like a signal beacon in the Force, singing with a sweet musical tone inside his head.
Inhaling slowly, he opened his eyes.
"That way," he determined, lowering his hand and heading off in the direction he'd pinged.
Sabine followed behind him now, carefully treading in his wake as he pushed ferns and branches out of the way for her.
A few more yards and they found it.
The foliage peeled back to reveal a clearing floored by smooth alabaster-brown stone. The temple entrance was set into a shallow vale, steep tree-covered rocky hills rising up on all sides of it. The front facade was carved directly into the face of one of the hills, huge stone frescoes and geometric carvings overlaid with fading paint.
"Woah," she marveled, stepping out into the clearing with Ezra.
Ezra whistled low, impressed.
Both of them approached the wall of carved stone, excitement tingling through them. Ezra lifted his comlink to make a quick report in.
"Chopper, we found it," he told the droid. "Let Hera know we'll try to be in and out as soon as possible."
Chopper's surly warbling came in over the line, grouching at them.
Ezra grinned. "Yes Chopper, we will try to avoid any Imperial patrols while we're out here," he assured the droid indulgently.
The droid grumbled at him and then cut off the line.
Sabine, meanwhile, had stepped up close to the carved fresco, leaning her head up a bit to take it all in.
"Well it definitely looks like a temple but..." She slid her helmet off, tucking it under her arm so she could squint up at the artwork, puzzling. "I can't tell where the door is," she told Ezra, turning to him, slightly helpless.
He nodded once, coming to stand next to her. "Force temples usually have some kind of trick to get in," he explained, studying the wall with her a moment. He reached out to touch the stone surface, feeling the odd series of grooves and bumps that seemed too calculated, disjointed and not connecting to each other as if deliberately scrambled. "What do you make of this?" he asked her.
Her nose and brows pinched a moment. "It looks like... some kind of puzzle?" she guessed.
"That's what I was thinking," he agreed, nodding again.
"Can you solve it?" Her eyes were moving over the disparate pieces, trying to see if she could discern the pattern, guess the correct configuration. If she had more time she'd love to crack it herself, but she wasn't sure it would respond to anyone who wasn't Force Sensitive and they were on a timetable.
"I think so." Ezra shook out his wrist before putting his palm back on the wall's surface. His eyes closed and his face and breathing went serene again.
He cleared his mind. The pattern started to appear in his head, the way the pieces would move, how they would shift position in order to unlock. All he needed to do was exert a little telekinetic force on them...
Sabine watched him concentrate in fascination, thrilling when a component of the puzzle began grinding and sliding on its own.
It dropped suddenly back into place as Ezra's eyes snapped open and he whipped around, searching the trees behind them.
"Someone's coming!" he warned her.
She didn't question how he knew, just scrambled after him as he backtracked, forging up into the dense foliage on the surrounding hills. After a moment she could hear it; the shrill grinding whine of an Imperial skid steer mulcher.
Alarm bells rang through both of them as they dropped to their haunches and dashed, keeping their heads and profiles low as they made it up the ridge.
A loud angry CRUNCH! signified the snap of several tree trunks, and then the mulcher wound down, its drill-like front apparatus pitching lower as the blades slowed in their spinning.
Multiple Imperial voices could be heard now, the inhuman static chatter of Death Trooper commanders, filtered Stormtrooper helmets passing along the orders, a few technicians shouting down the line.
Holding their breaths, the teens listened for a pregnant moment.
"Easy now! Don't tip the mulcher!"
"Bring the scanners over here!"
"Secure the area!"
It sounded like a whole contingent was down there. Their eyes flicked towards each other in growing worry; this was a complication they hadn't planned for. They crouched for a few more uncertain moments, straining their ears.
Ezra flattened first and Sabine followed him, both teens carefully turning around and crawling back to the edge to peek down into the clearing.
Their eyes cleared the ridgeline and they looked down into the vale, to see Stormtroopers milling about, hauling boxes of lights and stands that they were beginning to set up. The mulcher sat idling at the fringe of the stone platform, and a group of Death Troopers were moving past it, escorting a white-clad figure in the center.
"Oh no..." Ezra groaned softly.
Sabine bit back a curse as she recognized the blue skin and poised demeanor of the Chiss Grand Admiral. "What is he doing here?" she hissed, hand tight around the rim of her helmet.
"You'd think this would be below his pay grade," Ezra quipped, slipping a pair of mini-macrobinoculars from his belt. "Think he knows about the artifact?" he asked her, peering through the lenses for a closer view, zooming in.
"More than likley," Sabine grumbled. Glancing worriedly towards the figure in the center of the formation, hands clasped calmly behind his back and observing the temple entrance with stoic appraisal, Sabine felt a nervous twinge moving through her. "What do we do now?" she whispered urgently.
Ezra lowered the macrobinoculars.
"I don't know..." he confessed, timidly. Watching the vale with fixed eyes he said with conviction, "We can't let them get it. It's a priceless treasure of historical value to the Order, it belongs in an Archive!"
Sabine put a hand on his forearm, to restrain his impulses and show him she understood. "You're right," she said. "But we also can't take on that many troopers. Let's just wait and see for now."
He nodded, and the two of them settled in to observe and listen.
Thrawn was still studying the fresco, still as a statue, nothing but his red eyes moving. He only stirred when an aide brought him a datapad. Taking the pad, the Grand Admiral scanned through the text on it, then began glancing back and forth between it and the temple entrance.
Ezra and Sabine leaned out further, trying to see. Ezra turned the zoom all the way up on the macrobinoculars, aiming them at the datapad's surface.
"I can't quite make it out," he said. He squinted through the lenses. "It looks like holoscans of an old parchment."
Sabine hissed through her teeth. "No way!" she exclaimed, snatching the macrobinoculars from Ezra to look for herself. "How did the Empire get ahold of copies of the Eilram Account?" she exclaimed in disbelief, vaguely recognizing the diagram she could see on Thrawn's current page, something Hera had mentioned in her briefing notes about the mission. "I thought the vault on Kashyyk was destroyed years ago in an orbital raid."
Ezra bit his lip. "The Jedi Temple of Coruscant might have had scans. We know the Empire ransacked those archives," he mused.
"Karking Empire," Sabine grumbled. "I hate these guys."
Ezra chuckled but then his grin dropped, white danger tingling on the back of his spine and arms.
"Look out!" he called, already moving, already springing up in response to the Force's warning.
His lightsaber flashed out, clashing with the sparking purple end of a metal polearm descending towards them.
Sabine whipped around in her crouch, wide-eyed, in time to watch Ezra throw off their attacker: a shimmering patch of air wrapped around a lithe form that flickered and resolved into a nightmarish gray face, black lips peeling back over pointed teeth in a feral sneer. Below ridged brows were set vindictive pale eyes that appraised them like a hunter.
Her blasters were in her hands in a blink. She pointed them at the creature, ready to shoot but...
Several clicks sounded around them, Stormtroopers emerging from the jungle on all sides, flanking the gray alien.
They were surrounded.
"Surrender, Jedi!" the creature ordered in a growl, teeth bared triumphantly.
She and Ezra backed up but they could go no further, there was nothing but the ridgeline behind them. Ezra's foot almost slipped a bit on the edge before he righted himself, glancing anxiously towards her.
She waited on his direction, hands tense on her blasters, fully prepared to fight it out if he told her to.
Ezra sized up their chances, his mouth in a thin line. He didn't like their odds, cornered and outflanked like this.
And to add insult to injury a familiar Imperial voice piped up from the vale behind them.
"Commander Bridger," Thrawn called up, calm and cordial as if he was inviting the two out for tea, "won't you and Lieutenant Wren come join us?"
Scowling, Ezra deactivated his saber, signaling to Sabine to relinquish her weapons. Her mouth twisted with equal displeasure as she dropped her blasters and held up her hands.
The creature smirked at them and the Stormtroopers came forward.
The two were taken swiftly into custody and marched back down to the open vale.
-SWR-
Kallus had been cursing inside his head ever since the commotion had erupted at the head of the column, ever since he'd heard the unmistakable sound of the lightsaber.
He hurried forward now, trying not to look like he was rushing, trying to keep cool and collected, intercepting Rukh's squad and their prisoners.
The Noghri paid him no heed, merely grunting in acknowledgement of his presence. Kallus waited until the assassin had passed.
With a silent look of command exchanged between him and the troopers pulling Bridger, Kallus took over the escort, gripping Ezra's arm firmly but not harshly.
"I see Syndulla got my warning," he whispered in the boy's ear, leaning in close so only he could hear.
Ezra's eyes widened in recognition, and the binders on his wrists tinkled as he jerked in surprise.
"Kallus?!" he hissed.
"Keep your voice down," Kallus warned, glancing warily around for listening ears. "Stay calm. I'll try to get you and Wren out of here at the first opportunity."
Ezra gave a small shake of his head. "We can't leave without the Eliramin Astrium," he whispered back.
A muffled groan escaped the ISB agent. "Your lives are far more pressing and important than the Empire getting their hands on yet another ancient Force trinket!" he objected.
Ezra opened his mouth to argue further, but that was when they reached the clearing and Kallus was forced to let go and fade into the group of Stormtroopers, who took their place as escorts again, pushing Ezra and Sabine forward to meet the standing white-clad figure.
"Grand Admiral," Rukh said, presenting the two captives.
Thrawn swiveled his head first, his torso and body following as he turned towards them, datapad held behind him.
"Lieutenant Wren, Commander Bridger," he acknowledged, paying them both a respectful nod. "How fortunate that you are on hand. I could use your knowledge and assistance in accessing the interior chambers of the temple."
"Like we'd help you," Ezra snorted immediately.
"Do you even know what's inside there?" Sabine challenged.
The Grand Admiral brought the datapad out from behind his back, turning it around for them to see the page. "The materials provided to me from the Emperor's resources speak of a device called an astrium. Normally such devices are merely keys to unlocking other vaults. However," he said, "the text seems to describe this particular astrium as an activation switch for a kind of... Force engine." Thrawn mused thoughtfully at his page. "One capable of transmuting large quantities of matter into energy." He straightened a bit. "A fascinating concept if true, and I would very much like to witness the process for myself."
Sabine huffed. "And lemme guess; the Empire wants to weaponize it," she withered with scathing disgust. "That's just typical."
The edges of Thrawn's mouth quirked upwards in amusement. "Surely you of all people, Lieutenent Wren, can appreciate the destructive capability of such a device?" The red eyes flicked towards Ezra. "I did not think the Jedi were capable of such a creation," he said, almost sounding impressed. "But if this account is to be believed, it appears I have underestimated them."
"Zeffo," Ezra corrected.
Thrawn tilted his head with a blink.
"Pardon?"
"It's a Zeffo device. Not a Jedi one." His shoulders rose in as much of a shrug as he could manage with his bound hands. "But, you know, I guess all extinct Force disciplines look alike to the Empire or something."
There was ice in Thrawn's expression now. "Indeed," he said, terse edge in his voice. Regaining his composure, Thrawn straightened. "Regardless of who created it, His Excellency wishes to obtain the device."
"And he sent you?" Ezra needled, incredulous. "Wow, how much did you piss him off that he pulled you away from command over the TIE Defender project to go be errand boy fetching him Force relics?"
There was a barely imperceptible twitch in Thrawn's right eye.
"Despite what you may think of him, the Emperor values my expertise," came the placid defense, words dripping with ire. "I was only too ready to accept his order." The vague flash of anger left his expression, a contemplative, probing quiet taking its place. "However..." he said, "I do find myself a bit perplexed by the riddles and puzzles contained within this account."
"Yeah well, good luck with that," Ezra huffed.
Thrawn smoothly turned his attention to Sabine.
"There is a passage in the text I was provided that I thought you would find especially interesting, Lieutenant Wren, given that it seems to make reference to the mythosaur, of your own people's stories and legends."
"First I've heard of it," Sabine intoned, though she couldn't help the curious pulse that went through her nor the way her spine straightened a fraction.
The Grand Admiral held out the datapad towards her, gesturing calmly at her escort. "Please. Have a look," he invited.
Sabine and Ezra both tensed as they were separated, but the Stormtroopers merely brought Sabine a few steps closer into Thrawn's range. They removed the binders, freeing up her hands, and stepped a fraction back. Sabine looked down warily at the offered datapad for a moment, her mouth pinched.
After a moment of reluctance she accepted the pad, and spent the next few moments quietly reading and scrolling through it, enough to confirm that the scans did indeed belong to the Eilram account, the document Hera had mentioned in their briefing. They had gotten the coordinates for the temple through a friend of a friend in the Alliance's spy network, who still had some saved pages from it, with Hera bemoaning that they didn't have more—apparently the text contained detailed maps of the underground vault, and clues and hints to solving the puzzles for the temple's three levels.
Sabine had to school her features very carefully as she read. She could feel Thrawn's gaze on her like a nervous prickling on her arms. He was watching her face, studying her reactions. Sabine tried to keep the flickers of her eyes disinterested, even as her mind sparked with understanding, racing ahead far out in front of her.
She read on a few more swipes and then raised her head with a look of derision.
"The passage is vague," she declared, handing the datapad off behind her shoulder dismissively, not even turning to look at the aide that scrambled to retrieve it. She crossed her arms, staring back at Thrawn. "Could be referring to anything."
"I believe it is quite clear," Thrawn countered. "The direct translation refers to 'a great lizard of considerable size' that battles two other creatures for dominion over the galaxy, a motif that reoccurs in the manuscript's illustrations." He turned to the wall, eyes caught on one bit of stonework in particular. "As well as, possibly, the sculptures you see here." His hands clasped formally behind him, and Sabine could see a faint glimmer of a smile on his face. "I'm sure you have already realized the artistic resemblance between this figure and the classic curved horn skull emblem that the Mandalorians use," he said, as he raised his hand to point and indicate.
Sabine grimaced, sending a chagrined look back at Ezra. "It does kind of look like a mythosaur," she admitted.
Thrawn dropped his arm.
"Three gates to pass in order to reach the temple's inner chambers," he said thoughtfully, puzzling things out aloud. "The other two gates must also correspond to the creatures described in the manuscript."
Sabine said nothing, stone-faced and silent.
"The dragon, the phoenix, and the star-whale... This is reoccurring pattern is it not?" he asked.
"Yeah?" Sabine drolled unhelpfully. "Those are archetypes from ancient mythology older than even the Republic. Every culture has some variation on them."
"Fascinating." Thrawn's eyes were scanning over the puzzle they had identified earlier. "Perhaps these... Zeffo, as you called them, drew upon your common ancestral mythologies to set up their tests to enter the temple."
Sabine glared at the back of his head. "Well, sounds like you've got it all figured out," she said, words dripping sarcasm. "Ezra and I would like to go now, please. Clearly you don't need us," she withered.
There was a long, pregnant pause, and the air in the vale seemed chillier. The Grand Admiral didn't turn around, didn't move, didn't twitch, just looked straight forward in a manner she found... unnerving.
The silence stretched out for a tense moment.
"A pity," Thrawn mused. "I had hoped, in the spirit of mutual curiosity and our shared appreciation for art, that you might be more cooperative, Lieutenant Wren."
There was something vaguely unsettling in his bearing as he spoke, and Sabine felt a twinge of nervous anxiety as the man casually slid his sidearm from his hip holster.
He studied the blaster in his hands a moment, gaze impassive.
"But now I see that you require some... additional incentive," he said, ominously.
He half-turned, leveling his arm perfectly straight and firing a shot.
BANG!
To her left, Ezra stiffened and gave a jerking shudder as the bolt tore through his stomach.
He made a hitched little sound of shock and pain, eyes wide.
"No!" Sabine shrieked in horror and outrage, surging forward.
The troopers held her back, armored arms tight around hers as she scrabbled and scratched and kicked, trying to get to him. Ezra staggered, curling in towards his middle, where Sabine could now see a spot of red growing.
"Bastard!" she screamed at Thrawn.
The Grand Admiral merely withdrew his smoking blaster to an upright position, his stare impassive, devoid of emotion.
Ezra keened, his knees shaking as he found himself unable to keep himself up. Kallus pushed his way forward in time to catch the boy as he buckled, hands coming around Ezra's shoulders, lowering him gently to the ground. The ISB agent couldn't disguise the cauldron of emotions flickering across his face—disgust and concern and shaking anger.
He laid Ezra's head carefully down, furious at how the boy's breaths choked and rasped.
"That was unnecessary, Grand Admiral," he scolded.
Thrawn casually tucked his sidearm back into its holster, and adjusted his sleeve cuff.
"Don't worry Agent Kallus," he said, voice chillingly calm. "My aim was very precise. The shot will not be... immediately fatal."
The red eyes fell on Sabine, still frantically fighting against the troopers who held her. Her eyes were flashing with despair and wrath, features pinched, teeth bared in a silent snarl.
"He will bleed out, eventually, but lasting damage can be prevented... if he is given proper medical intervention in time."
The cold crimson stare was hard on Sabine as he addressed her. Her breath hitched, her struggles slowly ceasing, slowly realizing the bind Thrawn had her in.
"I propose a bargain, Lieutenant Wren," the Grand Admiral said, his voice harsh and severe. "Assist me in accessing the temple's inner chambers and retrieving the astrium..." he trailed, "...and I will allow that intervention to be delivered." The red eyes narrowed. "Refuse, and you will watch him die here. Slowly," he emphasized.
Sabine wilted in the grip of the Stormtroopers, arms dangling. Her next breath shuddered through her, as she blinked her stinging eyes.
She craned her head back to look at Ezra.
His eyes were wide, his fear bald and trembling as locked eyes with her, chest hitching.
"Sabine..." he whimpered, his pain telegraphing straight to her heart like physical stab.
She squeezed her eyes closed, throat locking up, holding back a sob.
Exhaling a shaky breath through her nose she calmed herself with grim resolution.
"All right..." she warbled with choked emotion. Her hands gripped and she got her strength back into her legs, standing resolutely. "I'll do it."
A glimmer of amusement touched Thrawn's face. He nodded, and the Stormtroopers released her.
For a moment Sabine stood there, shuddering, gathering her resolve.
Then she inhaled and slowly walked forward towards the wall.
-SWR-
Sabine was acutely aware of the ticking chrono behind her as she strained her eyes over the faded patterns on the puzzle.
"Okay..." she breathed, shaking her thoughts into order. She reviewed what she already knew. "Three gates, three creatures, the pictographs correspond with a significant legend involving each creature."
She had already noticed it when studying the puzzle earlier with Ezra, how the painted grooves seemed like disjointed square portions, pieces that had to be set in the right positions in order to unseal the door. Thrawn mentioning the mythosaur and the passage excerpt she'd read had confirmed her theory about what the puzzle was depicting, the picture the separate pieces needed to be adjusted to make.
She searched the pieces anxiously, unsure where to start. Her heart wrenched with worry, Ezra's quiet little coughs and chokes behind her a burning distraction on her senses.
Shaking, she looked over the puzzle again, trying to remember which one Ezra had started to move before...
There. That one.
And there was the part of the puzzle that had the painted humanoid figure that would go on the top, and there was the front snout, and one of the horns...
Sabine reached for the first stone piece, curling fingers around the thin edges, and pulled.
It took several tugs and a lot of straining to make it move. Sabine grimaced in frustration as she slowly began sliding the piece down along unseen tracks. Stone ground against stone, low and scraping until she'd moved it far enough to feel and hear a solid click!
Exhaling from the effort, Sabine wasted no time and began pressing on another piece, pushing hard against it to force it to move.
Every single inch she gained seemed painfully hard-won. The ringing alarm bell inside her repeating unhelpfully that Ezra was dying she had to hurry blared in her ears, making her eyes pinch and her thoughts plead with the stubborn stone, willing it to move quicker.
Click! Another fragment slid into place.
Sabine heaved for breath, panting hard, resting a moment even though her limbs screamed to keep moving. Her palms laid flat on the wall, she looked towards the floor in dismay, irritated by her slow progress.
She felt Thrawn's red eyes on her, watching closely, and clenched her teeth inside her head.
"This would've been a lot easier," she grumbled. She shot a furious glare back at him. "Except that you shot Ezra."
The cool red eyes didn't blink. "The narrator of the text makes it clear that one does not have to be Force Sensitive in order to solve the puzzles," the man said calmly. "Therefore, it is not strictly required to have a Force Sensitive completing them, merely additionally helpful. However," he allowed, "since both you and I are short on time..."
With a slight gesture of his fingers a few troopers came forward, putting up their sidearms. They obediently placed hands on different portions of the puzzle, and Sabine stepped back in order to peer at the pictograph and call out adjustments.
"Move that tile three spots over," she ordered. "Now, that one two spots down. Careful," she cautioned. "One place up."
The troopers were remarkably expedient with her directions, moving pieces here and there until they had unscrambled the puzzle. Sabine vibrated with nervous flutters as they completed the pictograph, trying to resist the urge to look back at Ezra.
She didn't quite succeed, and her throat tightened at the dark spot staining his front.
It looked like so much blood...
Throat ashen, Sabine took a step forward to examine her solved puzzle. "Now," she muttered aloud again, "if I'm right the latchkey should be right about..."
She pressed on one of the tiles, leaning onto it heavily.
Krr-CHUNK!
With a heavy thump, the door opened, a wide black crack appearing in the center of the pictograph and widening, swinging open as the stone pieces retracted back into the temple hallway. The long corridor revealed itself, a musty scent wafting to her from its depths.
Sabine felt herself shudder in relief, anxiety bells pinging all up and across her shoulders.
Thrawn came forward, imminently pleased, placing a hand on her shoulder that made her wince inside.
"Excellent work, Lieutenant Wren," he complimented. "I assume this illustration is one significant to your people?"
Trembling, Sabine swallowed hard and managed to unstick her throat. "Mandalore the Great was said to have tamed and ridden a mythosaur," she strained out. "The story mirrors other legends about mortals conquering or befriending a dragon archetype."
"I see," he said with approval.
He finally took his hand off her shoulder and Sabine still felt the stain of his touch, wanted desperately to rip her armor and jumpsuit off to scrub the spot thoroughly.
Thrawn inclined his head back towards the vale. "Lieutenant Wren and I will proceed forward," he told Rukh. He made a vague nod towards the prone Ezra. "Agent Kallus, please ensure that Commander Bridger does not bleed out too quickly."
The flippant statement made both his and Sabine's teeth clench, but neither could comment, as the Grand Admiral struck out boldly into the dim, dank, hallway of the temple.
Sabine paid once last glance at Ezra, who managed a smile for her bravely, before steeling herself and facing forward, forging ahead into the dark.
-SWR-
The ground had started feeling sticky and damp underneath him, and nearly the whole left side of his jacket was soaked through. Ezra felt like it was getting harder and harder to breathe with each inhale.
Kallus had stripped off the outer coat of his uniform and balled it, pressing down hard to try and staunch the wound.
Ezra hissed sharply at the pain that flared up from that, chin and head jerking upright, knees curling in and twitching.
"Hold still," Kallus chided. "I have to keep a firm pressure on it or else—"
"I get it," Ezra rasped. His face pinched and screwed from the pain but he obediently put his head back down and tried to lay flat. His already numbing hands felt crushed underneath him. With stinging eyes he asked, "Can I at least get the cuffs off? Not like I'll be going anywhere..."
Kallus weighed the risks of letting him move, even briefly, against the miserable tremble in Ezra's voice. Getting a couple troopers' attentions he ordered, "Help me remove his binders."
To their credit they didn't object, seeming to understand that Ezra wouldn't remotely be trying to fight or escape in his condition, and knelt down in order to help Kallus lean him up.
With a click the binders were unlatched and tossed aside, the metal slick with blood. Ezra was eased back down and Kallus reapplied the pressure.
"Mmgh—!" Ezra moaned shortly, biting his lip.
It was slightly better now, with his hands free, resting by his sides instead of squashed under his back, but his fingers still didn't quite feel all there, cold at the tips, none of the normal pins and tingling from blood rushing back into them.
Because of course it was all coming out of the wound in his stomach.
Kallus was worrying his own lip as he pressed down. The two troopers meanwhile had stood back up, one of them looking significantly more annoyed in his body posture than the other one, who was staring stock still down at Ezra.
"Stars, he's just a kid," the trooper breathed in shock. "What's the Rebel Alliance thinking sending him out into the field?"
His companion snorted at the display of sympathy. "They're all scum. Don't see why we don't just kill him now and get it overwith," he huffed.
"Because then Thrawn will have lost his best bargaining chip," Kallus growled up at him, turning his head with a stern glare, before Ezra could even start to feel nervous about the threat. "If you want to cross the Grand Admiral, be my guest. Wren will cease cooperating and force the guard to kill her too, if he dies."
That trooper just shrugged. "Probably going to die anyway," he grunted.
Kallus frowned, and just tried to press harder. "I hope for your sake the Mandalorian hurries," he said, hiding his concern behind a whispered hiss.
Ezra's mouth twitched faintly with a grin at that. "Sabine's the smartest person I know," he said with quiet conviction. It was getting a little harder to think now, but one thing was certain. "She'll figure it out. She always does."
Kallus just hoped the boy's faith in her was enough to somehow conjure a miracle.
-SWR-
The second pictograph was easier to untangle than the first, especially now that both of them knew the key.
"Ah," Thrawn noted as they came up to the second door. "This is the one that corresponds with the phoenix."
Sabine gave a tiny stiff nod, throat tight and anxious. "Yeah..." The carved stone figure next to the door was unmistakably avian, though less stylized and elegant than Sabine's usual take on the creature.
"This puzzle should be simple then." Thrawn cast a side glance at her from the corner of his eye. "Unless I am mistaken, there is only one universally common legend about the phoenix."
She strained to see the groves and painted lines in the dim light. "It rises again out of its own ashes, after bursting into flame," she confirmed.
"I can appreciate why you are so fond of using it in your own work," Thrawn complimented. "There is a certain beauty in the metaphor. Rebirth after death, through death." There was a pensive look in his eyes now that prickled something in Sabine's gut. "I wonder if there is a... personal connection you feel to the mythology."
Sabine shivered momentarily, feeling exposed and probed by the crimson stare. "We're not here to talk about me," she snapped, deliberately moving forward and turning her head to break eye contact.
"Of course. Your pardon," he said, bowing slightly with a conciliatory hand raised. Sliding smoothly into business mode he took a quick scan over the scrambled pictograph, before barking out orders to his men. "Troopers, move that center middle tile first, to the right about two spaces."
They hastened to obey, and Sabine piped up with the next instruction:
"The bit with the curls there, those are the claws. Move that down."
While the normal Stormtroopers worked like a well-oiled machine to shift and adjust the heavy stone puzzle pieces, the Death Troopers standing to either side stayed still and silent, keeping the flashlights of their sidearms trained on the wall. The occasional static buzz from their vocoders didn't even sound human; their sharp-edged helmets looked almost skeletal, outlined by the pale white of their flashlights.
Sabine felt distinctly like she was trapped in the tunnel with mechanized zombies, and subtly tried to scoot away from them as she focused on giving her instructions.
The pictograph was completed quickly, within mere moments. Sabine searched the completed puzzle for the same kind of trigger mechanism as the outer door, but found herself perplexed.
C'mon where is it? she thought, peering closer, trying to squint through the low flashlight beams. Her hand felt along the painted edges of the picture, looking for anything unusual or different.
"Is there a problem?" Thrawn asked, after several pregnant moments.
Sabine exhaled, trying to restart her thoughts. "'From the second gate forward you must prove true...'" she quoted from the passage. "'The guardians demand appropriate tribute...''"
A new texture blossomed beneath her fingers suddenly. Sabine drew her hand away and rubbed the tips together, observing the black smears left there.
"Cinder..." she realized quietly.
She stepped back, speaking louder.
"We have to burn something," she announced.
The Death Trooper nearest her gave a garbled bark that startled her, a command the other troopers somehow understood, moving off to either side of the tunnel and feeling around for stray flammables.
One of them found a large splinter of wood, debris from a pile on the floor, holding it up for Thrawn's appraisal.
"Will this suffice?" he checked with her.
She nodded.
The makeshift torch was sparked aflame by a very short, quick shot from a Death Trooper's E-11D blaster carbine, passed into her hands.
Sabine took a deep breath, approaching the wall.
She held the open flame close to the painted heart of the phoenix, where she'd felt the soot.
Leaning in, she blew on the flames, angling their flickering tips back to curl against the wall.
She hoped she was right about this.
After a long sustained breath, something popped and ignited. Something inside the wall fizzled, and the paint lines lit up like firecracker sparklers.
Startled shouts rang in her ears as she flinched back, watching the trailing flames coil all around the outlines of the pictograph, for a moment making the illustrated phoenix seem alive, gloriously stretching its wings.
The flames sputtered out and a satisfying krr-CHUNK! sounded as the door unlatched and swung open.
Sabine grinned a bit in triumph, a faint fleeting smile that vanished again as Thrawn spoke.
"The next gate will be much further inside and further down," he said. "And the puzzles will only grow more complicated. Let us not tary, Lieutenant Wren."
She scowled at the reminder and at the Grand Admiral's impatience and didn't have to be prodded along by the blastertip of one of the Death Troopers to start following along obediently.
But she got jabbed anyway.
She shot a glare back at the offending black helmet as she stumbled forward, and made note of his command pauldron.
You're getting it first, once we get out of this, she vowed to herself.
-SWR-
They descended into the depths of the temple, and the thin beams of the flashlights seemed to grow weaker and sparser as the tunnels and the chambers widened. Additional glowrods were broken, their yellow and green glows splashing eerily across the walls, making faint halos around the hands that held them.
The air was dry, and utterly still. Motes of dust floated in the light. The atmosphere smelled... sterile. Like a well-preserved and maintained mausoleum.
They came down a long, slowly ambling staircase to the last door, and Sabine began to feel flickers of panic.
The stone figure was a purrgil. Sabine was certain.
The trouble was Sabine knew next to nothing about purrgil, except what Hera had told her on their one misadventure at the Mining Guild station.
She tried to guess what the legend in the pictograph could be. She could tell there were at least two of the creatures, from the fragments of their bodies she could pick out on the painted pieces. But what configuration they belonged in, where they were in relation to each other, and the wider picture they illustrated she couldn't immediately tell and it was making her stomach clench.
Worse, Thrawn seemed to pick up on her distress.
His stare was silent, unreadable as she looked back at him desperately for assistance. She was ashamed of the way she could feel her expression pleading with him for help.
After a long moment he finally spoke.
"I am unfamiliar with the star-whale legend," he said. "But perhaps if we focus on assembling the pictograph, the answer will become clearer."
The suggestion wasn't a bad one, she had to admit to herself begrudgingly, so Sabine faced forward and tried to work together with him to unscramble the tiles.
It took... longer than she liked. The illustration was more complicated and detailed than the other two, and the long-faded paint made it harder to tell what was supposed to be on an individual tile. Several times Thrawn had to stop their progress, his keen Chiss eyes picking out something she'd missed, some detail or embellish that didn't match up exactly with the other tiles, and made them backtrack and undo a move or several.
Frustration mounted inside Sabine, gurgling in the pit of her stomach. Her eyes stung—from the dust, she told herself—her voice and body posture growing ever more agitated.
"'Through waves and currents, the creatures travel the orb, to and fro, here and there,'" Thrawn quoted from the relevant text portion. "There is a clue somewhere in that passage."
"Travel the orb doesn't make any sense!" Sabine complained, tight notes in her voice. "Purrgil move between systems, through open space!"
"We must take the passage in its full context," Thrawn said, irritatingly placid. "Over-obessessing over a specific portion will be unproductive."
"Well then you figure it out since you're so clever!" Sabine snapped.
His gaze was as cool as ever. "Calm yourself Lieutenant Wren. Your agitation is not helpful. Focus. Think. The answer will reveal itself if we but apply some careful consideration."
Sabine could feel her heart trying to wrench itself out of her chest, pounding loud and heavy, and cast a helpless look at the wall. "I..." she stammered. She couldn't make the alarm bells in her head stop. "I don't know..." The panic was clawing up her windpipe, making her throat tight and her breaths pinched.
The Stormtroopers around them watched her, held in tension, the oppressive silence of the tunnel a solid block in her ears. Sabine was... intensely aware of their presence and it did nothing to calm her down.
Thrawn observed her for an interminable amount of time, waiting to see if she could shake it off.
Sabine trembled as she stared at the wall, swallowing thickly.
Without a word, Thrawn stirred and fished around for his comlink. Lifting it to his mouth he opened a channel.
"Agent Kallus," he called, voice even. "How is Commander Bridger doing?"
Kallus's heavy exhale on the other end said everything, even before he responded. "Not good," he said. "If the medics don't attend to him soon..."
Thrawn let the trailed off statement hang pointedly for a moment, red eyes looking calmly into Sabine's pinched expression.
Clarity pierced through the alarms in her head, though outwardly she still shook from stress.
"Thank you for that update, Agent Kallus," Thrawn said, clicking the comlink off and stowing it.
He clasped his hands behind his back again and waited.
Sabine's hands came up, fingertips smacking her temples as she inhaled deeply.
"Okay..." she breathed, wire tension shuddering out of her. "Okay..."
Thrawn launched into his dissection of the relevant passage from the Eilram account. "Waves and currents suggest the movements of an ocean." His face was slightly animated, as if he'd known that reminding Sabine of the danger to Ezra would immediately unscramble her thoughts and help her regain focus. "The currents could be equivalent to hyperspace routes. Perhaps then the 'orb' the text is referring to is the galaxy itself."
Sabine frowned. It made sense but... "The translation was odd."
"I agree." Thrawn nodded. "Elsewhere in the text that word 'etaa-ve'erun' is translated as 'round', and the 'il' prefix is an augmentative, making the literal translation 'great-round' or 'large-round', or even 'long-round' based on other examples. While understandable that the Imperial linguist chose to take that to mean 'orb' it is perhaps inaccurate."
"Great-round... great-round..." Sabine repeated to herself, facing the wall again and trying to puzzle it out. "Through waves and currents they travel to and fro, here and there. Or..." Her eyebrows scrunched. "Back and forth? In a repeating fashion?"
Thrawn's features keened in interest at that. "Returning to the start and rebirthing? Like the phoenix legend?" He made a thoughtful glance over some etchings on the wall next to him. "It does appear that the Zeffo and the Jedi use many literal and metaphorical circles in their architecture and designs."
Sabine studied the pictograph, muttering to herself. "Circle... circle... a great circle..." She was almost on top of it she could feel it.
"A migration cycle," Thrawn determined, his realization immediate. "A journey that ends where it begins and repeats continuously."
"Yes!" Sabine gasped, lighting up with a snap and scanning the pictograph with fresh eyes. "So that portion must be the top of the circle," she said, pointing to a cluster of tiles that had been particularly tricky to figure out.
"And those three tiles..." Thrawn picked up. "The star-whale figure must curl around the edges of the circle and then mold into the base."
Relief pinged through her and Sabine grew more confident as she called out instructions. The pictograph was assembled much more quickly this time, only a couple corrections from Thrawn required.
Sabine was eager to proceed forward through the door, but Thrawn stopped the trooper with the canteen—having already determined from the passage clues the next offering would be water—with a gesture before he could begin to pour.
The trooper hesitated, holding obediently in place, and Sabine turned around to gape at Thrawn in confusion.
"Before we continue," the Grand Admiral said pleasantly, "I would like your analysis on how to retrieve the astrium, once we have gained the chamber where it is housed."
Sabine bit down a scream of frustration. They didn't have time for this, Ezra didn't have time for this!
She frantically combed her memory for what the next part of the Eilram Account had said.
"Uh... the..." She pictured the datapage scan in her head. "There's a hallway junction where you have to choose the center-left path. The chamber is right behind that." Thrawn was still looking at her so she kept babbling. "The door into the chamber is pretty heavy—"
"That won't be an issue," Thrawn dismissed. "Go on."
Sabine inhaled slowly. "And there's one final test and puzzle that I think needs the Force to pass," she said.
Thrawn didn't ask if she was certain, but Sabine felt pressured to offer her justification anyway.
"There was something in that section of the text... 'Unholy hands may not approach the treasure nor touch the pedestal, lest the wrath of the Makers fall upon you.'" Sabine gestured with soft hand motions as she tried to explain. "It was sparse on details but to me that does suggest you have to have someone who can remove the astrium without touching it. The diagram on that page looked like it had some technical specs drawn in the interior of the pedestal and holders too, maybe pressure triggers?" she suggested. "Or... tactile sensors?"
Still no response. Sabine resisted the nervous urge to fidget.
"So... it probably has to be lifted out of the holders with the Force," Sabine added redundantly, flutters in her stomach.
"And was that the entirety of your examination?" Thrawn asked at last.
There was a note in his voice that sounded like a subtle warning, like the Grand Admiral was trying to sus out any deception from her.
"Yes," Sabine said quickly, nodding her head. "That's everything. I swear," she insisted, heart beating anxiously. She didn't know what else Thrawn wanted, but she couldn't remember anything of note beyond a vague caution about some kind of destructive trap. Thrawn had obviously already read about that part. What other answer did he need?
He studied her for a long, horrible moment.
The faintest smile quirked his lips.
Raising his comlink again he spoke into it with authoritative command.
"Rukh," he said, "please have the medics see to Commander Bridger. Have them give him a coagulant and a bacta injection before wrapping his injury. Then, once he is ambulatory, have him escorted down here. We will be waiting for you in the temple's innermost chamber."
"It will be done, sir," came the guttural growl of the Noghri.
Sabine almost sagged in place from relief, as the Stormtrooper at the wall also resumed tilting the canteen over the stone in the central tile of the pictograph.
A gurgling sounded as the water was collected by a mechanism unseen. Once more, the door opened with a loud krr-CHUNK! and the stone halves swung out into darkness.
"You make quite a knowledgeable and effective operative, Lieutenant Wren," Thrawn complimented her cordially. "It is truly a shame you've committed yourself to the Rebellion. The Empire could put your talents and skills to far better use," he said, shaking his head in disappointment, as the group resumed walking, footsteps echoing in the long hall.
Sabine shuddered. "No thanks," she denied. "I've seen what kind of uses the Empire has for my talents."
"You speak of the Duchess."
Cold shivers ran through her, her blood stopping; she clutched her elbows trying to make herself smaller and looked firmly at the ground.
"A truly breathtaking weapon concept," he was saying, and his admiration made her grate. "The artistry in taking your people's sacred beskar and using it against them..."
"It was an abomination," she interrupted bitterly.
"You disavow your own work so readily?" Thrawn asked, surprised. "Do your accomplishments mean nothing to you?"
"My accomplishment—" Sabine corrected, sneer in her words, "—was used to threaten and cow my people into submission. So no." She shook her head. "I'm not exactly counting it as something that I'm proud of." She fixed him with a glare, burning defiance. "And I'm not going to let the Empire get its hands on another weapon it can use to oppress us," she declared.
He made a sound almost like a short chuckle. "Your stubborn resistance in the face of defeat is admirable but, ultimately, futile," he told her. "You hold no cards here, my dear girl. I have both you and your Jedi companion, and the Eilram Account. Taking possession of the astrium will be a simple matter from here." His head tilted slightly to the left. "And I would not expect any heroic rescue. I have troopers combing for your shuttle craft as we speak, with orders to destroy both it and your droid once they have located it."
She could feel the self-satisfaction and assured confidence dripping off him, and prickled with hostility.
Thrawn's gaze was as calm as ever. "By time your prolonged absence is noticed, we will either be long gone or too entrenched in our position here for Hera Syndulla to reach you," he declared.
Sabine's glare didn't abate, her mouth puckering with a scowl.
"We'll see," she just said.
"We shall indeed," came the calm response, and then Thrawn turned forward again and paid her no more heed.
Sabine glared at the side of his face a few more moments before dropping her eyes, tightening her arms around herself. She didn't want to admit it, but she couldn't see an easy way out of this.
She hoped either Ezra had come up with a plan or the Force was willing to show mercy on them and give them some kind of unexpected help.
She walked further into the depths of the tunnel along with Thrawn and his entourage.
-SWR-
"BD, are you sure this is the last corridor?" Cal asked wearily, holding on tight to the power cable in his hands.
The BD unit beeped cheerfully from its perch on his shoulder, reassuring him this was the last task to complete and warbling encouragement into his ear, urging him to go ahead and complete the circuit to power up the lift that would descend into the temple's main chamber.
"Force, it'd better be," the Jedi grumbled a bit to himself, finding the correct plug for the power cable he held and deftly shoving it in.
Mechanisms clunked and whirred inside the walls as the rattling lift descended to their level.
-SWR-
When they came to the heavy door Sabine was nervous for a moment, worried the stone slab would be an impediment that would test Thrawn's patience. But, fortunately or unfortunately, the Stormtroopers' combined strength proved enough to lift the slab, enough to shove it up high enough that it caught on its lock and stayed raised.
They proceeded on through the door into the final chamber.
The innermost center of the temple was magnificent, the walls covered with carved designs, the dragon, the phoenix, and the star-whale repeating over and over. Metal plates grafted to the stone, like shields hung up proudly. The chamber ceiling rose high above their heads and, past an odd pedestal, dropped into the depths below. The ledge they were on was wide enough to fit the whole company, but stopped far short of the prize.
On a stone column in the center of the pit, held up by delicate strands of deceptively innocent stone, was the astrium.
It was smaller than she expected. Just a little metal orb with rings around it, shiny and bronze-colored. Was it really the key to some kind of great Force engine?
She tried to stand apart from Thrawn and the troopers and make surreptitious observations.
The pedestal on the edge of the ledge was probably the trick. It probably had some mechanism to extend a bridge out to the floating column. She wasn't sure how that fit with the note about unholy hands not being allowed to approach.
Thrawn was examining it now, running a finger over the surface.
Sabine crossed her arms tighter and tried not to stamp her feet as she waited.
Finally, the echo of footsteps sounded down the corridor. Sabine bit her lip, watching with anxious eyes as the footsteps came closer, and closer.
Rukh arrived at last with his company, a handful of Stormtroopers, Kallus, and Ezra.
Ezra was pale and anemic-looking, hanging off Kallus's shoulder as the ISB agent supported him. His steps were weak, and lethargic. His arm was clutched against his side and he winced with pain with every movement. But the bloodstains in his clothes had dried and stopped spreading, and she could tell from the slight bulge under his shirt that the wound had been bandaged.
Sabine exhaled in relief that Thrawn had kept his word.
Ezra still looked awful.
Before anyone could stop her she rushed to him, placing hands on his shoulders and face. "You okay?" she asked, voice warbling.
"I'm not dead yet," he managed to quip. "At least."
"Don't push your luck," Kallus muttered. Sabine almost had to chuckle from how... consternated he sounded. Their new Fulcrum was probably having one of the most stressful days of his life.
She didn't envy him.
She felt her own flush of stress as Thrawn straightened up from his examination of the pedestal. Her back tingled as she went on alert.
The Grand Admiral addressed his assassin. "Rukh," he said, "what do you make of this discoloration?"
The Noghri shuffled forward, luminous eyes peering closely at the rust-colored spots Sabine could glimpse on the stone and metal. Rukh put his face right over the pedestal and sniffed, expression serious and analyzing.
"Old... dried blood," he concluded.
Thrawn nodded. "Thank you for confirming that." He pointed to a particular knob on the pedestal. "Please, press down on that protrusion there."
Rukh did so. The knob sank into the body of the column and there was a familiar CHUNK! sound that startled nearly all the gathered company save for Thrawn, as inner mechanisms unlocked and moved.
A panel scraped open from the side, some kind of... compartment or collection receptacle, cracking from the top to reveal shiny, metal-lined interior sides.
The grinding stopped. Sabine stared in confusion at the open tray, sharing a bewildered look with Ezra.
"As I suspected," Thrawn said. Half-turning to explain to his two captives he continued. "Surmised from the evidence on the control panel and clues in the passage, the next offering must be a blood sample."
Understanding rang in Sabine's head. "Star-flecks..." she murmured, repeating from the Eilram Account.
"I'm afraid our Imperial linguist may have stumbled again with an imperfect translation," Thrawn apologized. "The word transcribed there as 'star' is not the same word elsewhere used to indicate the 'star-whales', as in, pertaining to space and celestial bodies. Instead, I believe it should read closer to 'life-flecks' or 'biological-flecks'." The red eyes flicked towards the waiting tray. "Given our confirmation that the bridge control is indeed some kind of blood analyzing device, the conclusion is obvious."
His gaze angled back towards them. Sabine shivered at how the man's red eyes seemed to glow a bit in the dark, eerie with satisfaction.
"The blood sample must contain a certain threshold of midichlorians."
There was a faint, cold smile pulling at his lips.
"How fortunate that we have a Jedi on hand for just such a purpose," he said.
Ezra frowned and Sabine outright scowled, shifting closer to him protectively, hands clutching tighter to his clothes. She wondered furiously if Thrawn had known about the blood offering the whole time, had endangered Ezra's life for exactly that reason.
The Grand Admiral gave no outward indication of her suspicion at least, casually extending a palm back towards them. "Agent Kallus. Your jacket please," he ordered.
Kallus had it balled up under his other arm, and reluctantly passed it forward, holding it out for Rukh to grab in a spindly hand.
"I'm not getting that back, am I?" he droned in a very flat, withering voice.
Again, that short, faint huff. "A small sacrifice," Thrawn assured him, as Rukh stepped up to the bridge control and tore a large swatch of the most blood-soaked part of the fabric from the rest of the jacket. "To ensure we complete our task and obtain our goal."
Rukh placed the bloody cloth in the open tray and pushed it back closed with a flat palm.
There was a click. A whir.
Light lines suddenly lit up the metal and stone, a tinny whine pitching shrill as the device activated. Stone shifted inside stone all around the chamber, all around them, and the Stormtroopers glanced around nervously. A couple gripped their blasters tighter.
Ezra and Sabine shared a look of apprehension while Kallus pretended very hard not to be shielding Ezra with the arm around the boy's shoulders.
After a moment the device finished doing whatever it was doing, the light lines turning bright green.
The grinding and clunking intensified, the chamber filling with the cacophonous noise of moving stone. From the depths of the pit a circular platform was rising up to surround the floating column with the astrium; once it locked into place the bridge finally made itself known, metal plates extending from their side of the ledge in segments, forming a narrow path, about three feet wide, across the chasm.
Thrawn was a placid pillar in the middle of the chaos, standing calmly with his hands clasped behind him.
The bridge lengthened until it joined the edge of the circular platform, the solid locking sound a loud CRACK! that echoed up into the high ceiling far above.
-SWR-
The lift suddenly came to an abrupt halt, jostling Cal as it stopped moving.
"Oh what now?" he groaned, dreading the thought that he might have to do yet more rewiring of the ancient circuitry in order to restore power again.
BD-1 skittered down his arm to perch on the lift railing, rapidly scanning several of the shaft walls, and below the lift floor.
"Bwee-doo, beep beep!"
"A security lockout?" Cal repeated, confusing scrunching his brows. He straightened up to pay better attention. "What for?"
BD-1 finished his analysis and then relayed his grave conclusion—that someone had already accessed the main central chamber and there were multiple lifeforms down there.
Cal bit his lip. The Mantis hadn't given any proximity alerts about ships dropping from hyperspace, but then his connection was pretty wonky and unreliable down here. It was highly possible the Empire had responded to the same rumors and reports that he had and sent an expedition to check things out.
"Well... that's going to complicate things," he sighed. Having to fight his way past a bunch of Stormtroopers would definitely not make retrieving the astrium easier, and it had already been way more of an ordeal than he'd preferred it to be.
What was it with Zeffo temples and tedious complicated puzzles?
Considering for a moment, Cal looked over one of the rails and peered down the rest of the shaft. He could see where it bottomed out, opening to a little hollow where he could just barely make out some light.
He might still be able to climb down and reach it...
"Looks like we're going to have to find another way down, BD," he said, rummaging under his poncho for his climbing claws.
The droid hummed in consideration but obediently scrabbled back up to take his perch.
Cal blew out a breath in preparation, then balanced his feet on the edge of the rail.
-SWR-
There was a pregnant moment of silence once everything stopped moving, dust motes silting down in trails from the ceiling above.
Even though his posture and expression was seemingly indifferent, Thrawn oozed satisfaction. Ezra watched him appraise the bridge carefully, the man standing back from the ledge and letting his eyes scan every visible inch. Ezra sorely wished he would stand closer to the precipice so that one good Force Push could take him out, take care of him for good.
Not that he had the strength to do that right now anyway...
Ezra's knees were begging him to sit down but he stiffened them stubbornly, refusing to let himself collapse in front of the Grand Admiral again. Thrawn had apparently finished his analysis, his mouth in a flat, firm line.
"Rukh," he called to his assassin. "Please take one step out onto the bridge. But be careful," he cautioned.
The Noghri approached the bridge warily, shoulders held tense. One clawed foot raised over the first bridge segment. The rest of them watched, transfixed.
As soon as flesh met metal the light lines inside the bridge control flashed red with an ominous buzz, and the metal plate fell away under Rukh's feet, dropping into the chasm below.
Rukh's eyes widened and he flailed a moment as he fell, but recovered quickly, twisting around and digging claws into the side of the cliff to stop his descent.
Ezra realized his breath had caught; he exhaled shakily, hearing murmurs whisper around the room from the Stormtroopers.
"Unfortunate," Thrawn tutted, red gaze severe on the missing bridge segment. "But unsurprising." As Rukh sourly dragged himself out of the pit, Thrawn's attention turned to rest firmly on Ezra. "It seems that only the individual whose blood sample was submitted may cross the bridge," he said.
Ezra's pulse ticked up nervously and he heard Sabine hitch quietly in his ear.
The cold red eyes stared back at him impassively.
"I believe it is your turn to assist me, Commander Bridger."
The declaration was followed up with a curt nod to one of the Death Troopers.
Stalking forward, the sleek black armor yanked Sabine back, away from him, then gripped him firmly by the arm and pulled him away from Kallus's support.
Alarm and fear rang in his head and Ezra stumbled, got his feet under him, felt his body protest and scream as he was dragged forward. He bit his tongue inside his mouth to keep from crying out, as the Death Trooper moved behind him for better control, armored forearms under Ezra's armpits to keep him up, his arms gripped tight.
His empty stomach turned over queasily as he was manhandled to stand in front of the bridge, the missing section looking even larger, the other edge further away, up close. The pit dropped down to dizzying unseen depths and Ezra swallowed looking down into it.
Thrawn observed him stiffly. "As there is only one of you, Bridger, please take care to keep your balance," came the casual order. "Though I prefer not to lose potential assets, I cannot guarantee Lieutenant Wren's continued safety should you fall from the bridge."
With that, the Death Trooper released him, and Ezra wobbled for a terrifying second before locking his legs up, and slowly straightening.
Fighting through the vertigo that pounded through his head looking down into the chasm, Ezra breathed slowly and turned his head over his shoulder, looking back at Sabine.
She was biting her lip, her eyes wide and fearful and angry, and Kallus was having to hold her back with both arms around her midsection.
You'd better not slip, was the silent admonition he could see in her expression.
He faced forward again with trepidation. Every part of him just wanted to collapse and go limp; even though the medics had tended his wound he had still lost so much blood, so much, too much.
But he couldn't afford to pass out.
He looked towards the remaining portion of the bridge with anxious skepticism. He would have to step much further out than Rukh had. If the bridge dropped, there was no way he could grab the side. Could he trust it?
...Did he have a choice?
Ezra closed his eyes, breathing in slowly, focusing.
It was a leap of faith. He'd just have to believe the Force would catch him. He'd just have to rely on the bridge to hold.
He could see it in his mind, clear, solid.
The muscles of his legs coiled.
He leaned out over the gap...
...and jumped.
-SWR-
Cal reached the hollow at the bottom of the lift shaft and detached his climbing claws from the wall carefully.
The light he'd seen from above wasn't much brighter, but now he could identify the source. The hollow he was in faced and opened out into a larger chamber—the main central chamber of the temple, in fact—and the illumination was a mixture of flashlights and glowrods.
Cautiously, he crept up to the edge of the hollow and looked out into the main chamber.
The hollow was still pretty high up but Cal had a relatively clear view down. The Empire was there all right, a mix of regular Stormtroopers and black-armored Death Trooper officers, and one high-ranking commander in a white uniform. Blue-skinned?
Aliens in the ranks of the Empire were uncommon, so Cal filed that information away for investigation later.
There were also two non-Imperials, their bright colored clothes and armor standing out from the whites and blacks of the others. One was a girl, held back by another officer, though she wasn't offering much resistance, her attention transfixed on her companion—the boy in orange creeping carefully across a narrow metal bridge to the platform that displayed the astrium.
The kid looked dead on his feet, like a stiff breeze could knock him over. Cal watched with concern as he made he way over the chasm to the platform, the boy's nerves and anxiety broadcasting to Cal through the Force.
"This is like Malachor all over again," he heard the kid mutter once he reached the relative safety of the circular platform.
Cal's eyebrows raised. He filed that in his head for later too.
The boy calmed himself before closing his eyes, and Cal realized what he was doing even before he lifted his hand.
The energy in the room shifted, gathering under the little bronze sphere that was the astrium and raising it off its sensitive holders, levitating it above the display.
Force Sensitive. The kid was Force Sensitive.
That immediately decided Cal's next action.
He looked back at the lift shaft, identifying the cables that held the rattling metal platform up, and unhooked his lightsaber from under his poncho.
-SWR-
Ezra shuddered as he carefully released the astrium into his waiting open palms, curling his fingers around it. The warm pulse of the Force glowed from the device in his hands, reassuring and calm. His aches and fatigue faded just a little.
His moment of comfort ended abruptly, as a loud buzz and slicing metal sound came from somewhere above, followed by a screeching rattle.
Ezra jumped out of his skin. Panicked, he whipped around to face towards Thrawn.
"I didn't trigger anything!" he cried, holding his hands up.
Thrawn was frowning severely and Ezra probably should have recognized the sound of a lightsaber igniting but in the immediate moment all he could think about was what Thrawn had threatened to do to Sabine if he—
"Nope!" came an interruption from above. "That was me!"
All eyes turned up, startled.
There was a man standing just inside a carved out hollow, high above their heads. His hands were raised like he was lifting something but Ezra couldn't see what it was until—
The flash of a smile. A cheerful, "Heads up!"
And then a wide metal lift casket was hurtling down towards them.
-SWR-
Thrawn's eyes widened in alarm as the scaffolding came down, perfectly aimed, to fall on top of him.
The metal edge caught him breathlessly in the stomach, taking him to the ground and pinning him there.
Dazed, he lay there a moment, hearing everything fall to chaos around him.
-SWR-
Kallus released her almost as soon as everyone else started shooting up at the stranger.
Troopers dropped their glowrods, aiming their blasters, firing. The stranger produced a brilliantly glowing blue lightsaber—bright cerulean, brighter than Kanan's—and effortlessly deflected shots back at them, ricocheting bolts off armor and the decorative metal shields on the walls with flurries of sparks.
Amidst the confusion, she acted.
Sabine found the Death Trooper with the command pauldron first, flung herself on him, wrestled with him a moment for his sidearm, managed after a tense moment of struggling to wrest it from him, and shot him dead.
Breathing out, she located the trooper who'd been put in charge of carrying their weapons and her helmet next.
He had already fallen, taken out by a reflected bolt from the stranger—the Jedi, her bewildered mind corrected—and Sabine quickly retrieved her WESTARs and clipped Ezra's saber to one of her belt loops.
Sliding on her helmet, Sabine stood and took quick stock of the situation.
Thrawn was still pinned under the lift. Rukh was climbing the walls of the chamber, scrambling up to get at their new Jedi friend. Kallus was...somewhere. She didn't worry about him. Ezra had crouched next to the astrium's display column and was busy shielding himself from reflected bolts.
She fixed her eyes on the bridge and took several steps back. She didn't have her jetpack—hadn't packed it for this trip—so she would just have to be fast.
She dashed forward.
Ezra caught sight of her as she was running.
"Sabine, don't!" he warned her.
Too late. A long leap put her on the bridge. The light lines flashed red and segments dropped rapidly, but she managed to make it to the platform.
She collapsed onto her knees next to him as the last bridge segment fell away, stranding them in the middle of the chasm.
"Sabine..." he groaned in annoyance.
"What?" she defended.
He just sighed. "Get behind me, there's more cover over here."
-SWR-
Thrawn had finally manged to extricate an arm from under the lift. His personal sidearm was clutched in it, and he craned his head over the scaffolding pinning him, searching furiously for his target.
The Jedi was still blocking shots from his troopers, but now he was leaping down to join Bridger and Wren on the platform. Thrawn narrowed his eyes and took careful aim.
His shot would not make a glancing nick to the artery this time.
Just as he chose the moment to pull the trigger, there was a metal clang behind him and pain exploded once more into his head.
He fell senseless.
-SWR-
"Oops," Kallus said dismissively, dropping the metal shield he had taken off the cavern wall.
Ignoring whatever was going on in the center of the chamber—because like hell was he messing with or having anything to do with Cal freaking Kestis, one of ISB's most wanted—he barked at a nearby cowering Stormtrooper.
"What are you doing?" he berated, grabbing the rail of the lift. "Help me pull this lift off the Grand Admiral!"
The chastened trooper scrambled to comply.
-SWR-
Cal landed heavily next to the two kids, but whatever quippy reassuring greeting he was planning was interrupted by a loud screech from BD-1, warning him of something behind.
He whirled around in time to see a lunging gray shape with a snarling visage plummeting towards him with outstretched claws.
"Kark!" he cursed, throwing a hand up in panicked instinct.
The creature jerked to a stop in the air and Cal flung him away hard, hurling him back to the other side of the chamber.
He faceplanted on the far ledge.
Heart pounding, Cal puffed out a breath. "Okay, well, hopefully that slows him down." Crouching next to the boy, he noticed now the dried bloodstains on his shirt. "You don't look so good, kid."
"Got shot through the stomach," the boy told him, breath wheezing through his teeth. "Not a fan," he rasped.
Crawling to Cal's right shoulder, BD-1's scanner lit up, scrolling over the boy.
"Boo dee beedoop!"
Cal listened to BD-1's concerned diagnosis with a frown. "BD says your blood pressure is still dropping." He deflected one last shot and then put up his saber, turning it off and stowing it away. "Let's get you both out of here and get you some real medical attention."
Turning to the girl he pointed to the column and asked, "You have any idea what kind of trap this triggers?"
She paused in laying down cover fire, already reaching out her hand.
"Nope," she said.
She touched the tactile sensors in the holders.
The whole chamber rumbled underneath them. Loud booms echoed from below, from above, from inside the walls.
And then pieces of the ceiling began dropping.
The few troopers that remained scrambled for the exit, the limp white figure of the alien commander dragged with them.
"Take Sabine first!" the boy yelled over the rising din.
"No, take Ezra!" she argued.
Cal hissed slightly through his teeth as the platform below them wobbled. "I don't think I have time to pick and choose," he told them with chagrin. "Here."
He scooped up the wounded boy, one arm under his legs, the other supporting his torso, knelt down and hunched.
"Grab on!" he told the girl.
The young Mandalorian wrapped arms around his neck and clung tight.
Cal got to his feet with some effort—though the kids were both thin their combined weight was heavy—and looked up through pinched eyes towards the hollow above them.
After a moment he shook off his doubts, focusing himself and letting the Force fill him.
"BD, stim!" he called.
The little droid popped out a thin green canister and injected it into his carotid.
Adrenaline and warmth rushed through him. His mind sharpened, given him even great clarity in the Force.
He was almost completely serene in its depths as he bent his knees and leapt.
They were suspended in the air a moment, as the chamber caved in behind them.
Then Cal was landing rockily and stumbling, the impact rattling his teeth, and the girl—Sabine—was swinging off him, almost falling over, doubling over breathless, panting with her hands on her knees.
"That was... slick!" she marveled.
"Yeah..." Cal wheezed, finally managing to get his balance back and not drop Ezra. "Just don't ask me to do it again." He cocked his head and listened to BD-1's long string of beeps for a moment. "BD found another way out," he said. "Let's go!"
She ran alongside him as he carried the still-weakening Ezra.
"Well," she said between pants, "I'd say the mission was more or less a success."
Ezra gave a keening laugh, the astrium held against his chest as he was carried. "Thrawn's gonna be soooooo pissed when he wakes up," he said. He drooped a bit, tired. "Thanks for dropping in to save us."
Cal gave a little smile. "Just hang in there kid," he said, rubbing Ezra's shoulder as he ran. "You're gonna be fine."
They gained the safety of the jungle even as their auxiliary exit started to bury itself beneath piles of rubble and underbrush.
(A/N)- Thank you for reading dears, it was my pleasure!