Flight of the Force (Star Wars Rebels)

Flightless

Kanan's POV

Hera and I stared in horror at the communicator as we listened to what was unfolding.

"Fire!" shouted the voice of Vizago. That backstabbing smuggler! I was going to murder him the next time I saw him.

"The rebels are on their way!" Ezra's voice declared. My heart jolted. He still believed in us. Even though the situation was probably extremely desperate. We heard blasters fire and Hera grabbed my arm.

"Ezra!" Sabine's voice shouted. The blasters stopped firing and we could hear something moving around.

"His wings . . ." Sabine's voice said softly. We could barely hear her.

"Kid . . . come on kid . . . you can't be dead . . ." Zeb's voice growled. Hera let out a small gasp. I closed my eyes. This was all my fault. I had let Ezra go. Even with the new danger of his wings, I had let him go. What kind of master was I?

"Onto the ship! Both of you!" Vizago's voice commanded. "Six-nine-two! Grab the body!"

The transmission abruptly ended. They must have destroyed the communicator, or accidentally deactivated it.

"I'll start up the ship," Hera said. She sat at the Ghost's controls and steered it towards Vizago's camp as I fingered my lightsaber. Someone was going to pay.

We reached Vizago's camp. His ship was gone. So were all of his security droids. The Phantom was still there, looking lonely. Hera and I set about searching the area. We could see several stray bolts on the ground, as well as marks where blaster bolts had hit the ground. The only true sign that Ezra and the others had ever been here was that on the ground the dirt was mixed with blood and a few stray black feathers.

"They're gone," Hera said softly.

"We can still find them," I declared.

"How, Kanan?" she asked. "Vizago is sure to have given them to the Empire by now."

"Then we'll just have to get them back," I told her. "There's always a chance that they could reactivate the communicator. In the meantime, we can try to track Vizago."

Sabine's POV

Vizago put us in a holding cell on his ship. He had taken Zeb's borifle, my blasters, and Ezra's lightsabers. Zeb and I were in the same cell. The security droids had left Ezra on the ground a short distance away. They must have decided he wasn't a threat, because they hadn't even bothered putting any restraints on him.

He looked awful. I could still remember the horror I felt barely fifteen minutes earlier.

I had felt Ezra's wings wrap around us as the blasters fired. I had seen a single tear slide down his cheek as his wings slackened. I had heard myself shouting his name, heard Vizago give the order to cease fire. Ezra's wings had slumped to the ground and he started falling backwards as I stretched out my arms to catch him. His eyes had been closed. I had no idea if he had been breathing.

That's when I had discovered that Ezra's communicator had been activated the whole time.

He had known that Kanan and Hera could hear us. For how long, I had no idea. That meant that they knew what had happened to us. They would come looking for us.

Then Vizago's security droids had dragged us inside and thrown us into this holding cell. And that's where we had been ever since.

"We've got to get out of here," Zeb said, rattling the bars. I glanced around. I didn't see how we could do that. If we could get to Ezra's communicator, we might be able to do something. But Vizago had taken our communicators. And since he had left Ezra's, that was further evidence that Vizago thought Ezra was dead.

"We need to get out of here before Vizago gets us to the Empire," Zeb repeated.

"If I could activate Ezra's communicator, we might be able to get Kanan to trace the signal right to us," us suggested. Zeb peered through the bars at Ezra. It was hard to read what he was thinking.

"How do we activate it?" he asked. I knew he already knew the answer, but I told him anyway.

"We've got to hit it with something," I said.

"So we've got to throw things at Ezra?" Zeb asked. I sighed and nodded. I didn't like it either, but it had to be done.

It took several tries to be able to hit the communicator, mainly because both of us felt awful about throwing things at Ezra. I had managed to keep a dozen or so bits and bolts from the security droids I had deactivated. I was the one who finally managed to hit the communicator.

"Kanan, Hera," I called softly. "This is Sabine. Zeb is with me. We're on board Vizago's ship. Trace this signal to find us. Please hurry."

I could only hope that they had their communicator, and that they would be able to find us.