A Call for Help

~Part Five~

Ezra’s stomach dropped. Emperor Palpatine? Alive? How? Luke had assured them that he was dead. Killed in front of his own eyes. He gritted his teeth. Why did the Sith have to be so resilient?

“From your lack of response I assume you’re shocked to the core and are coming with us.” Lando said grimly. “We have a few more systems to stop at before we regroup. We’re gonna need every able fighter we can find. Is there anyone else on the surface with a ship who might be willing to join us?”

Sabine was the first one to recover from the news. “Yes,” she said, “There are a few new republic soldiers who’ll come along, and if we put out a message I’m sure there’ll be others too.”

“Alright,” Lando replied, “Make it quick.”

Sooner than expected, 4 ships emerged from the planets surface, and they all jumped away. Jacen had added a few more systems to Lando’s list, and their first stop was Ryloth. He hoped Numa and her rebels were still alive and putting up a fight.

As they jumped from system to system, Lando explained everything to them, and they explained why they couldn’t make it to Crait, and how terribly sorry they were about it. The situation was far worse than they’d feared and they finally understood Lando’s urgency.

By the time they were ready to jump to Exegol they had acquired pretty much the biggest fleet ever. It wasn’t a Navy, it wasn’t even a coordinated group of fighters. It was just…people. All of them fed up tyranny and oppression. All of them ready to die to be free.

They’d had no word from Exegol for far too long and knew the situation must have been dire. Lando signalled to all the ships to set their navi-computers, prime their hyperdrives, and make the jump on his mark.

3…2…1…

And just like that they were hovering over the most devastating battleground they had ever seen. Jacen’s eyes were wide. Ezra swore. Over the comm they heard Poe say, “I’m sorry…I thought we had a shot. There’s just too many of them…”

He sounded so dejected it broke Jacen’s heart. He wanted to scream “We’re here!” But Lando beat him to it.

“But there are more of us Poe,” He said. “There are more of us.”

That’s when Poe spotted them. The Falcon, and the Ghost right beside them, leading their new-found forces into the fray.

“Hey! Spectre 8!”Jacen shouted over the comm. Giddy with glee. “You miss me?”

Poe’s face lit up like a summers day, and then he just started to laugh. “Let’s show these guys how real rebels fly,” he replied. “Hit those underbelly cannons,” he announced to the whole fleet. “Every one we knock out is a world saved.”

And that was all it took. Soon, Star destroyers were going down in flames all around them. They heard cheers as well as painful cries over the comm, but the battle raged on.

On and on and on. Until they won.

~The End~

A Call For Help

~Part One ~

Soon after the destruction of the Republic in the Hosnian System, reports of First Oder fleets occupying worlds in the outer rim had come flooding in. The crew of The Ghost were the first to see them in action. They had been on Ryloth, scouting an old rebel base for supplies, and giving Jacen a chance to visit his family home, when an enormous star destroyer dropped out of hyperspace right above them.

“Woah”, Ezra said as he saw it in full view from his perch in the turret gun. “What is that thing?”

“It’s huge,” Jacen muttered.

“We have to get out of here,” finished Sabine.

“Did we get everything we need?”, Ezra inquired.

“Doesn’t matter”

“Of course it does!”

“Not if we don’t make it off the planet!”

“Will you two knock it of!” Jacen interjected.

Chopper grumbled in agreement.

“Honestly Chop, how did you deal with them for so many years?”

“Please,” Ezra scoffed, “Your parents were way worse. Let’s get going.”

“Chop, Scramble the Ghosts signature” Sabine ordered as they pulled away. And just in time too. Moments after they’d cleared the surface, that monstrosity of a ship had opened fire on the planet and destroyed the entire city that they had just left behind.

“No!” Jacen yelled, “We have to help them! I’m turning the ship around.”

“We help them by surviving Jacen” Sabine said kindly. “If we go back now we’ll die for nothing.”

Jacen looked close to tears. He’d grown up on space stations and rebel bases but Ryloth was his home. He couldn’t stand to see it helpless like this. His family had fought too hard for their freedom to lose it all over again.

“Let’s head back to Lothal” Ezra suggested. “We can lay low for a little while and figure out what we’re up against. Then we’ll be back. I promise.”

When they arrived in Capital City on Lothal, they headed for Ezra’s house(well, it was all of theirs now but it used to belong to his parents). Lothal was one of the few safe planets that hadn’t fallen under oppressive rule in decades. It was the only place they had left where no one was trying to kill them…most of the time.

Sabine went to research about the new murder ship with chopper and Ezra went to take a nap, or maybe he was meditating. Jacen didn’t know or care. He stayed on the ship and pulled up a bunch of old holos of his parents. He had collected a small stash of them over the years. There were pictures of them together from long before he was born, recordings his father had made for Ezra’s Jedi training, a few that his mother had made when she was training Phoenix Squadron. He’d even found a birthday message from his second or third birthday with the whole crew that he’d watch over and over again. His grandfather had been in that one too. As he skimmed through the holos he thought about his mother. How she’d spent her whole life trying to make the galaxy a better place for him to live in. Seeing her home planet get destroyed, he felt like he’d failed her, and everyone who’d come before her. His whole family had spent their lives fighting, Hera had only hoped that Jacen wouldn’t have to. He would never forget the look on her face when they new war began. She was more heartbroken than anyone.

Jacen slept on the ship that night. It was the last piece of his family he had left. Whenever he was on The Ghost he felt like he was surrounded by his mother and father’s warm embrace. He felt like a child, safe in his mothers arms, and he loved it.

The next morning they gathered in the house so Sabine could brief them about the First Order’s new ships. They were Dreadnaught class, but far more dangerous than the old separatist frigates that shared the same name. These ships were equipped with what was essentially miniaturised death star tech. They couldn’t blow up a planet, but a city, a few ships, definitely. This was bad. They had no real way to combat these things without fighters or bombers. They were alone, their best plan right now was just to avoid them.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, contemplating their new adversary, when Ezra’s head suddenly jerked up. Jacen hated when he did that, he always knew something was about to happen.

Sure enough Ezra said, “Something’s coming,” right before a First Order fleet dropped out of Hyperspace right above them.

To be continued…

Is Ezra Bridger the greatest Jedi in Star Wars canon?

Photo Credits: Star Wars Rebels

Before a Battle

Alarms blared throughout the Rebel command ship as soldiers and pilots raced around screaming orders at one another. A message had just come in for Mon Mothma and she had ordered everyone to their stations and all ranking officers to the command centre.

On the Ghost, Hera was busy with Jacen, who was throwing a fit, so she had to send Rex to the briefing instead. Perhaps it was the alarms that had scared her little boy, or maybe he’d just sensed the coming conflict. Hera sighed, a warship was no place to raise a child, but there was nowhere safe left to leave him. Sabine had offered to take care of him on Lothal but she had her own problems to deal with there, and caring for a child was no easy task. Fortunately, Jacen was a joy to everyone around him. Everyone in the alliance loved him and were always ready to babysit when they had time off. He was a light in the darkness, and a constant reminder of what they were all fighting for.

Hera had just managed to calm him down when Rex burst onto the ship looking harrowed, followed by Kallus and Zeb. They hadn’t been at the briefing but Rex must have picked them up on his way back. Before Hera could say anything Rex said, “You’d all better sit down…I’ve got bad news…”

They sat in complete silence, with their eyes wide as Rex told them about the briefing and the coming attack on the new Death Star. Hera couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“Another Death Star?”, Zeb muttered in disbelief, voicing Hera’s exact thoughts.

“How did they build another one so quickly?”, Kallus asked, “The first one took over 20 years.”

“Apparently it was easier the second time because they knew what they were doing…can’t believe this is happening all over again…We’re gonna have to contact everyone we’ve ever met for this one…”, rex replied, shaking his head. Hera understood how he felt. He’d been fighting longer than any of them, and he was getting tired of this. Every time they one, the Empire just kept coming back, it was getting easier by the day to lose hope.

Rex shook her out of her thoughts, “There’s more”, he said, “It’s not all bad. This could potentially be a great opportunity for us. The weapon’s not fully finished, and according to our intel the Emperor himself is overseeing the final stages of its construction. We also have the plans to the station and the analysts have found a weakness so if we can blow this thing up then…”

He didn’t dare finish, they didn’t dare hope for too much, but they all knew what he meant. “Karabast”, Zeb said, “This could be it.”

“This is going to be the riskiest, most dangerous operation we have ever attempted.”, Kallus replied.

Finally, Hera spoke, “This is our chance. Our last chance. We give it everything we’ve got, and when this is all over, we’ll either be free or our children will. Rex, are we prepped to fly?”

“Yes sir”

“Alright. Kallus, start the pre flight check while the rest of you contact everyone we know who could possibly help.”

“Sabine?”, Zeb asked.

“She’s too far away, this whole op will be over before she can even get here.”, Hera replied sullenly. “Send her a coded transmission and let her know what’s going on. If this goes sideways she can bring backup.” She paused for a minute, thinking. “Rex, I have a feeling we’re gonna need some more crew on this one. Bring Wolf, and see if anyone’s volunteering to be my co-pilot.”

“Sure thing General…um, also, I volunteered to go with General Solo’s strike team. I’m better at ground assault.”

Hera nodded, “Try to stay on comms and keep us updated. I’m going to talk to Lando…” She rolled her eyes and walked off the ship, unable to believe that he’d not only joined up with the rebellion, but had also been made a general…the smooth talking sleemo.

She and Lando talked over their attack plan and decided that the Falcon would enter the death star and take out the reactor while the Ghost covered the cruisers. The Death Star may not have been operational but they were sure the Empire would have left a fleet of ships to protect it.

When Hera returned to the Ghost, everyone was ready and Jacen was crying again. She hated the idea of taking him with them but they didn’t have a base anymore so the safest place for him to be was definitely with her. Zeb didn’t seem to like the idea, but he didn’t see a better option either.

As soon as Hera managed to calm Jacen down again, they were on their way. She smiled, hoping that tomorrow would be a better day for her son.

Do Kanan and Hera Have A Child & How Was He Conceived?

Photo Credits: Star Wars Rebels

Change

Nobody Likes change, do they?, Sabine thought to herself as she sat in her room aboard the ghost for the last time…

Ezra had said he was counting on her, and for the past week she’d been going crazy trying to figure out what for. But then it hit her, he wanted her to protect Lothal, the planet and people he cared for so much. And so she’d packed her things and told the crew she was moving out, and into Ezra’s old abandoned comm tower outside Capital City. She thought she was ready, but being on this ship, with these people, it had been the first time she’d felt at home in years…it was harder to say goodbye than she’d imagined.

For the past 2 days she’d been walking around the ship constantly: Drinking in every detail, holding onto every memory. Chopper thought she was going mad. He probably didn’t understand that she was leaving pretty much for good.

Every moment she wasn’t roaming the ship or hanging out with her friends she spent in her cabin. Spattered with every colour of paint she’d every owned, it was her greatest work of art. Her favourite canvas to paint over and over and over again. Sometimes she wished she could peel back the layers and see all her old works underneath. The best moments of her life had been immortalised on these walls, and they were the only things she wished she could take with her but couldn’t…and maybe also the nose gun turret…she and Ezra had both loved that spot.

Every hour she second guessed her decision. Was she not abandoning her crew? They’d already lost Kannen and Ezra, how could they lose her too? If she stayed she felt like she was betraying Ezra and if she left she felt like she was betraying the rest of them. Why did this always happen to her, everywhere she went? When she first left Mandalore, when she left the Imperial Academy, and now this. Her life was marked by constant change.

As a child she’d hated change and always tried to avoid it. She kept her routine the same, had the same friends, lived in the same place. Until she left for the academy. That had been the first real change, and from then on the change just hadn’t stopped. Only now did she realise that it was inevitable. She was leaving the Ghost, and that was it.

Lives change, times change, people change, opinions change, goals change, dreams change, or the whole galaxy changes. You just have to pick up and move on. What’s past is passed. She would hold on to the memories, learn from her experiences, and carry them forward with her. Who knew what awaited her in her new life on Lothal? She didn’t know, and she didn’t want to know, and that was ok.

“Change is the only constant”, she muttered to herself before bursting out laughing. She was starting to sound like a Jedi, that was never good

TV Time - Star Wars Rebels S04E16 - Family Reunion – and Farewell (2) (TVShow Time)

Photo Credits: Star Wars Rebels